USA > California > Los Angeles County > Los Angeles > A history of California and an extended history of Los Angeles and environs : also containing biographies of well-known citizens of the past and present, Volume I > Part 13
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48 | Part 49 | Part 50 | Part 51 | Part 52 | Part 53 | Part 54 | Part 55 | Part 56 | Part 57 | Part 58 | Part 59 | Part 60 | Part 61 | Part 62 | Part 63 | Part 64 | Part 65 | Part 66 | Part 67 | Part 68 | Part 69 | Part 70 | Part 71 | Part 72 | Part 73 | Part 74 | Part 75 | Part 76
The national government in 1827 had issued a decree for the expulsion of Spaniards from Mexican territory. There were certain classes of those born in Spain who were exempt from banishment, but the friars were not among the exempts. The decree of expulsion reached Cal- ifornia in 1828; but it was not enforced for the reason that all of the mission padres except three were Spaniards. To have sent these out of the country would have demoralized the mis- sions. The Spanish friars were expelled from Mexico; but those in California, although some of them had boldly proclaimed their willingness to die for their king and their religion and de- manded their passports to leave the country, were allowed to remain in the country. Their passports were not given them for reasons above stated. Padres Ripoll and Altimira made their escape without passports. They secretly took passage on an American brig lying at Santa Barbara. Orders were issued to seize the vessel should she put into any other harbor on the coast, but the captain, who no doubt had been liberally paid, took no chance of capture and the padres eventually reached Spain in safety. There was a suspicion that the two friars had taken with them a large amount of money from the mission funds, but nothing was proved. It was certain that they carried away something more than the bag and staff, the only property allowed them by the rules of their order.
The most bitter opponent of the new govern- ment was Father Luis Antonio Martinez of San Luis Obispo. Before the clandestine departure of Ripoll and Altimira there were rumors that he meditated a secret departure from the coun- try. The mysterious shipment of $6,000 in gold belonging to the mission on a vessel called the Santa Apolonia gave credence to the report of his intended flight. He had been given a pass- port but still remained in the territory. His
88
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
outspoken disloyalty and his well known suc- cess in evading the revenue laws and smuggling goods into the country had made him particu- larly obnoxious to the authorities. Governor Echeandia determined to make an example of him. He was arrested in February, 1830, and confined in a room at Santa Barbara. In his trial before a council of war an attempt was made to connect him with complicity in the Solis revolution, but the evidence against him was weak. By a vote of five to one it was decided to send him out of the country. He was put on board an English vessel bound for Callao and there transferred to a vessel bound for Europe; he finally arrived safely at Madrid.
Under the empire a diputacion or provincial legislature had been established in California. Arguello in 1825 had suppressed this while he was governor. Echeandia, shortly after his ar- rival, ordered an election for a new diputacion. The diputacion made the general laws of the territory. It consisted of seven members called vocals. These were chosen by an electoral junta, the members of which were elected by the people. The diputacion chose a diputado or delegate to the Mexican Congress. As it was a long distance for some of the members to travel to the territorial capital a suplente or substitute was chosen for each member, so as to assure a quorum. The diputacion called by Echeandia met at Monterey, June 14, 1828. The sessions, of which there were two each week, were held in the governor's palacio. This diputacion passed a rather peculiar revenue law. It taxed domestic aguardiente (grape brandy) $5 a barrel and wine half that amount in the jurisdictions of Monterey and San Francisco; but in the juris- dictions of Santa Barbara and San Diego the rates were doubled, brandy was taxed $10 a barrel and wine $5. San Diego, Los An- geles and Santa Barbara were wine producing districts, while Monterey and San Francisco were not. As there was a larger consumption of the product in the wine producing districts than in the others the law was enacted for revenue and not for prevention of drinking.
Another peculiar freak of legislation perpe- trated by this diputacion was the attempt to change the name of the territory. The supreme
government was memorialized to change the name of Alta California to that of Montezuma and also that of the Pueblo de Nuestra Señora de los Angeles to that of Villa Victoria de la Reyna de los Angeles and make it the capital of the territory. A coat of arms was adopted for the territory. It consisted of an oval with the figure of an oak tree on one side, an olive tree on the other and a plumed Indian in the center with his bow and quiver, just in the act of stepping across the mythical straits of Anian. The memorial was sent to Mexico, but the supreme government paid no attention to it.
The political upheavals, revolutions and coun- ter revolutions that followed the inauguration of a republican form of government in Mexico demoralized the people and produced a prolific crop of criminals. The jails were always full and it became a serious question what to do with them. It was proposed to make California a penal colony, similar to England's Botany Bay. Orders were issued to send criminals to California as a means of reforming their mor- als. The Californians protested against the sending of these undesirable immigrants, but in vain. In February, 1830, the brig Maria Ester brought eighty convicts from Acapulco to San Diego. They were not allowed to land there and were taken to Santa Barbara. What to do with them was a serious question with the Santa Barbara authorities. The jail would not hold a tenth part of the shipment and to turn them loose in the sparsely settled country was dangerous to the peace of the community. Fin- ally, about thirty or forty of the worst of the bad lot were shipped over to the island of Santa Cruz. They were given a supply of cattle, some fishhooks and a few tools and turned loose on the island to shift for themselves. They staid on the island until they had slaughtered and eaten the cattle, then they built a raft and drifted back to Santa Barbara, where they quartered themselves on the padres of the mis- sion. Fifty more were sent from Mexico a few months later. These shipments of prison exiles were distributed around among the settlements. Some served out their time and returned to their native land, a few escaped over the border,
89
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
others remained in the territory after their time was up and became fairly good citizens.
The colonization law passed by the Mexican Congress August 18, 1824, was the first break in the proscriptive regulations that had pre- vailed in Spanish-American countries since their settlement. Any foreigner of good character who should locate in the country and become a Roman Catholic could obtain a grant of public land, not exceeding eleven leagues; but no for- eigner was allowed to obtain a grant within twenty leagues of the boundary of a foreign country nor within ten leagues of the sea coast. The law of April 14, 1828, allowed foreigners to become naturalized citizens. The applicant was required to have resided at least two years in the country, to be or to become a Roman Catholic, to renounce allegiance to his former country and to swear to support the constitution and laws of the Mexican republic. Quite a number of foreigners who had been residing a number of years in California took advantage of this law and became Mexican citizens by nat- uralization. The colonization law of Novem- ber 18, 1828, prescribed a series of rules and regulations for the making of grants of land. Colonists were required to settle on and culti- vate the land granted within a specified time or forfeit their grants. Any one residing outside of the republic could not retain possession of his land. The minimum size of a grant as de- fined by this law was two hundred varas square of irrigable land, eight hundred varas square of arable land (depending on the seasons) and twelve hundred varas square grazing land. The size of a house lot was one hundred varas square.
The Californians had grown accustomed to foreigners coming to the country by sea, but they were not prepared to have them come over- land. The mountains and deserts that inter- vened between the United States and California were supposed to be an insurmountable barrier to foreign immigration by land. It was no doubt with feelings of dismay, mingled with anger, that Governor Echeandia received the advance guard of maldito estranjeros, who came across the continent. Echeandia hated foreigners and particularly Americans. The pioneer of over-
land travel from the United States to California was Capt. Jedediah S. Smith. Smith was born in Connecticut and when quite young came with his father to Ohio and located in Ashtabula county, where he grew to manhood amid the rude surroundings of pioneer life in the west. By some means he obtained a fairly good educa- tion. We have no record of when he began the life of a trapper. We first hear of him as an employe of General Ashley in 1822. He had command of a band of trappers on the waters of the Snake river in 1824. Afterwards he became a partner of Ashley under the firm name of Ashley & Smith and subsequently one of the members of the Rocky Mountain Fur Company. The latter company had about 1825 established a post and fort near Great Salt Lake. From this, August 22, 1826, Captain Smith with a band of fifteen hunters and trappers started on his first expedition to California. His object was to find some new country that had not been occupied by a fur company. Traveling in a south- westerly direction he discovered a river which he named Adams (after President John Quincy Adams) now known as the Rio Virgin. This stream he followed down to its junction with the Colorado. Traveling down the latter river he arrived at the Mojave villages, where he rested fifteen days. Here he found two wander- ing neophytes, who guided his party across the desert to the San Gabriel mission, where he and his men arrived safely early in December, 1826.
The arrival of a party of armed Americans from across the mountains and deserts alarmed the padres and couriers were hastily dispatched to Governor Echeandia at San Diego. The Americans were placed under arrest and com- pelled to give up their arms. Smith was taken to San Diego to give an account of himself. He claimed that he had been compelled to enter the territory on account of the loss of horses and a scarcity of provisions. He was finally re- leased from prison upon the endorsement of several American ship captains and supercar- goes who were then at San Diego. He was al- lowed to return to San Gabriel, where he pur- chased horses and supplies. He moved his camp to San Bernardino, where he remained until February. The authorities had grown uneasy
90
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
at his continued presence in the country and orders were sent to arrest him, but before this could be done he left for the Tulare country by way of Cajon Pass. He trapped on the tribu- taries of the San Joaquin. By the Ist of May he and his party had reached a fork of the Sac- ramento (near where the town of Folsom now stands). Here he established a summer camp and the river ever since has been known as the American fork from that circumstance.
Here again the presence of the Americans worried the Mexican authorities. Smith wrote a conciliatory letter to Padre Duran, president of the missions, informing him that he had "made several efforts to pass over the moun- tains, but the srow being so deep I could not succeed in get' ig over. I returned to this place, it being he only point to kill meat, to wait a few weeks until the snow melts so that I can go on." "On May 20, 1827," Smith writes, "with two men, seven horses and two mules, I started from the valley. In eight days we crossed Mount Joseph, losing two horses and one mule. After a march of twenty days east- ward from Mount Joseph (the Sierra Nevadas) I reached the southwesterly corner of the Great Salt Lake. The country separating it from the mountains is arid and without game. Often we had no water for two days at a time. When we reached Salt Lake we had left only one horse and one mule, so exhausted that they could hardly carry our slight baggage. We had been forced to eat the horses that had succumbed."
Smith's route over the Sierras to Salt Lake was substantially the same as that followed by the overland emigration of later years. He discov- ered the Humboldt, which he named the Mary river, a name it bore until changed by Fremont in 1845. He was the first white man to cross the Sierra Nevadas. Smith left his party of trappers except the two who accompanied him in the Sacramento valley. He returned next year with reinforcements and was ordered out of the country by the governor. He traveled up the coast towards Oregon. On the Umpqua river he was attacked by the Indians. All his party except himself and two others were mas- sacred. He lost all of his horses and furs. He reached Fort Vancouver, his clothing torn to
rags and almost starved to death. In 1831 he started with a train of wagons to Santa Fe on a trading expedition. While alone searching for water near the Cimarron river he was set upon by a party of Indians and killed. Thus perished by the hands of cowardly savages in the wilds of New Mexico a man who, through almost in- credible dangers and sufferings, had explored an unknown region as vast in extent as that which gave fame and immortality to the African ' explorer, Stanley; and who marked out trails over mountains and across deserts that Fre- mont following years afterwards won the title of "Pathfinder of the Great West." Smith led the advance guard of the fur trappers to Cali- fornia. Notwithstanding the fact that they were unwelcome visitors these adventurers continued to come at intervals up to 1845. They trapped on the tributaries of the San Joaquin, Sacramento and the rivers in the northern part of the terri- tory. A few of them remained in the country and became permanent residents, but most of them sooner or later met death by the savages.
Capt. Jedediah S. Smith marked out two of the great immigrant trails by which the overland travel, after the discovery of gold, entered Cal- ifornia, one by way of the Humboldt river over the Sierra Nevadas, the other southerly from Salt Lake, Utah Lake, the Rio Virgin, across the Colorado desert, through the Cajon Pass to Los Angeles. A third immigrant route was blazed by the Pattie party. This route led from Santa Fe, across New Mexico, down the Gila to the Colorado and from thence across the desert through the San Gorgonio Pass to Los Angeles.
This party consisted of Sylvester Pattie, James Ohio Pattie, his son, Nathaniel M. Pryor, Richard Laughlin, Jesse Furguson, Isaac Slover, William Pope and James Puter. The Patties left Kentucky in 1824 and followed trap- ping in New Mexico and Arizona until 1827; the elder Pattie for a time managing the cop- per mines of Santa Rita. In May, 1827, Pattie the elder, in command of a party of thirty trap- pers and hunters, set out to trap the tributaries of the Colorado. Losses by Indian hostilities, by dissensions and desertions reduced the party to eight persons. December 1st, 1827, while
91
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
these were encamped on the Colorado near the mouth of the Gila, the Yuma Indians stole all their horses. They constructed rafts and floated down the Colorado, expecting to find Spanish settlements on its banks, where they hoped to procure horses to take them back to Santa Fe. They floated down the river until they encoun- tered the flood tide from the gulf. Finding it impossible to go ahead on account of the tide or back on account of the river current, they landed, cached their furs and traps and with two days' supply of beaver meat struck out westerly across the desert. After traveling for twenty-four days and suffering almost incredible hardships they reached the old Mission of Santa Catalina near the head of the Gulf of California. Here they were detained until news of their ar- rival could be sent to Governor Echeandia at San Diego. A guard of sixteen soldiers was sent for them and they were conducted to San Diego, where they arrived February 27, 1828. Their arms were taken from them and they were put in prison. The elder Pattie died during their imprisonment. In September all the party ex- cept young Pattie, who was retained as a host- age, were released and permitted to go after their buried furs. They found their furs had been ruined by the overflow of the river. Two of the party, Slover and Pope, made their way back to Santa Fe; the others returned, bringing with them their beaver traps. They were again im- prisoned by Governor Echeandia, but were fin- ally released.
Three of the party, Nathaniel M. Pryor, Richard Laughlin and Jesse Furguson, became permanent residents of California. Young Pat- tie returned to the United States by way of Mexico. After his return, with the assistance of the Rev. Timothy Flint, he wrote an account of his adventures, which was published in Cin- cinnati in 1833, under the title of "Pattie's Nar- rative." Young Pattie was inclined to exaggera- tion. In his narrative he claims that with vac- cine matter brought by his father from the Santa Rita mines he vaccinated twenty-two thousand people in California. In Los Angeles alone, he vaccinated twenty-five hundred, which was more than double the population of the town in 1828. He took a contract from the
president of the missions to vaccinate all the neophytes in the territory. When his job was finished the president offered him in pay five hundred cattle and five hundred mules with land to pasture his stock on condition he would become a Roman Catholic and a citizen of Mexico. Pattie scorned the of- fer and roundly upbraided the padre for taking advantage of him. He had previously given Governor Eacheandia a tongue lashing and had threatened to shoot him on sight. From his narrative he seems to have put in most of his time in California blustering and threatening to shoot somebody.
Another famous trapper of this period was "Peg Leg" Smith. His real name was Thomas L. Smith. It is said that in a fight with the Indians his leg below the knee was shattered by a bullet. He coolly amputated his leg at the knee with no other instrument than his hunting knife. He wore a wooden leg and from this came his nickname. He first came to California in 1829. He was ordered out of the country. He and his party took their departure, but with them went three or four hundred California horses. He died in a San Francisco hospital in I866.
Ewing Young, a famous captain of trappers, made several visits to California from 1830 to 1837. In 1831 he led a party of thirty hunters and trappers, among those of his party who remained in California was Col. J. J. Warner, who became prominent in the territory and state. In 1837 Ewing Young with a party of sixteen men came down from Oregon, where he finally located, to purchase cattle for the new settlements on the Willamette river. They bought seven hundred cattle at $3 per head from the government and drove them overland to Oregon, reaching there after a toilsome journey of four months with six hundred. Young died in Oregon in 1841.
From the downfall of Spanish domination in 1822, to the close of that decade there had been but few political disturbances in California. The only one of any consequence was Solis' and Herrera's attempt to revolutionize the territory and seize the government. José Maria Herrera had come to California as a commissioner of
92
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
the commissary department, but after a short term of service had been removed from office for fraud. Joaquin Solis was a convict who was serving a ten years sentence of banishment from Mexico. The ex-official and the exile with oth- ers of damaged character combined to overturn the government.
On the night of November 12, 1829, Solis, with a band of soldiers that he had induced to join his standard, seized the principal govern- ment officials at Monterey and put them in prison. At Solis' solicitation Herrera drew up a pronunciamento. It followed the usual line of such documents. It began by deploring the evils that had come upon the territory through Echeandia's misgovernment and closed with promises of reformation if the revolutionists should obtain control of the government. To obtain the sinews of war the rebels seized $3,000 of the public funds. This was dis- tributed among the soldiers and proved a great attraction to the rebel cause. Solis with twen- ty men went to San Francisco and the sol- diers there joined his standard. Next he marched against Santa Barbara with an army of one hundred and fifty men. Echeandia on hearing of the revolt had marched northward with all the soldiers he could enlist. The two armies met at Santa Ynez. Solis opened fire on the governor's army. The fire was returned. Solis' men began to break away and soon the army and its valiant leader were in rapid flight. Pacheco's cavalry captured the leaders of the revolt. Herrara, Solis and thirteen others were shipped to Mexico under arrest to be tried for their crimes. The Mexican authorities, always lenient to California revolutionists, probably from a fellow feeling, turned them all loose and Herrera was sent back to fill his former office.
Near the close of his term Governor Echeandia formulated a plan for converting the mission into pueblos. To ascertain the fitness of the neophytes for citizenship he made an in- vestigation to find out how many could read and write. He found so very few that he ordered schools opened at the missions. A pretense was made of establishing schools, but very little was accomplished. The padres were opposed to edu-
cating the natives for the same reason that the southern slave-holders were opposed to educat- ing the negro, namely, that an ignorant people were more easily kept in subjection. Echeandia's plan of secularization was quite elaborate and dealt fairly with the neophytes. It received the sanction of the diputacion when that body met in July, 1830, but before anything could be done towards enforcing it another governor was ap- pointed. Echeandia was thoroughly hated by the mission friars and their adherents. Robin- son in his "Life in California" calls him a man of vice and makes a number of damaging asser- tions about his character and conduct, which are not in accordance with the facts. It was dur- ing Echeandia's term as governor that the motto of Mexico, Dios y Libertad (God and Liberty), was adopted. It became immensely popular and was used on all public documents and often in private correspondence.
A romantic episode that has furnished a theme for fiction writers occurred in the last year of Echeandia's rule. It was the elopement of Henry D. Fitch with Doña Josefa, daughter of Joaquin Carrillo of San Diego. Fitch was a native of New Bedford, Mass. He came to Cal- ifornia in 1826 as master of the Maria Ester. He fell in love with Doña Josefa. There were legal obstructions to their marriage. Fitch was a foreigner and a Protestant. The latter objec- tion was easily removed by Fitch becoming a Catholic. The Dominican friar who was to per- form the marriage service, fearful that he might incur the wrath of the authorities, civil and cler- ical, refused to perform the ceremony, but sug- gested that there were other countries where the laws were less strict andoffered to go beyond the limits of California and marry them. It is said that at this point Doña Josefa said: "Why don't you carry me off, Don Enrique?" The suggestion was quickly acted upon. The next night the lady, mounted on a steed with her cousin, Pio Pico, as an escort, was secretly taken to a point on the bay shore where a boat was waiting for her. The boat put off to the Vulture, where Captain Fitch received her on board and the vessel sailed for Valparaiso, where the couple were married. A year later Captain Fitch returned to California with his
93
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
wife and infant son. At Monterey Fitch was arrested on an order of Padre Sanchez of San Gabriel and put in prison. His wife was also placed under arrest at the house of Captain Cooper. Fitch was taken to San Gabriel for trial, "his offenses being most heinous." At her in- tercession, Governor Echeandia released Mrs. Fitch and allowed her to go to San Gabriel, where her husband was imprisoned in one of the rooms of the mission. This act of clemency greatly enraged the friar and his fiscal, Pa- lomares, and they seriously considered the ques- tion of arresting the governor. The trial dragged along for nearly a month. Many wit- nesses were examined and many learned points of clerical law discussed. Vicar Sanchez finally gave his decision that the marriage at Val- paraiso, though not legitimate, was not null and void, but valid. The couple were condemned
to do penance by "presenting themselves in church with lighted candles in their hands to hear high mass for three feast days and recite together for thirty days one-third of the rosary of the holy virgin."* In addition to these joint penances the vicar inflicted an additional pen- alty on Fitch in these words: "Yet considering the great scandal which Don Enrique has caused in this province I condemn him to give as penance and reparation a bell of at least fifty pounds in weight for the church at Los An- geles, which barely has a borrowed one." Fitch and his wife no doubt performed the joint pen- ance imposed upon them, but the church at Los Angeles had to get along with its borrowed bell. Don Enrique never gave it one of fifty pounds or any other weight.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.