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 51
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The ship Sachem was the pioneer hide drogher. She arrived at Monterey in 1822. In her came William Alden Gale. He had been engaged in the fur trade on the coast in earlier years. He had seen the opening for a profit- able trade in hides and had induced some Bos- ton merchants to make the venture. He found on his arrival a rival in the business in the Eng- lish firm of Begg & Co., of Lima, Peru. The firm was represented by Hugh McCulloch and William E. P. Hartnell or Macala and Arnel, as the Californians called them. They entered into a contract with the friars of the missions by which Begg & Co. were to send one ship each year to touch at the different ports along the coast and take all the hides offered and at least twenty-five thousand arrobas of tallow equal to 625,000 pounds. The price fixed for hides large and small was $1 each and for tallow $2 per arroba or eight cents per pound. Those contracting with the English firm were prohibited from selling to other traders. Begg & Co. had a monopoly of the hide and tallow trade and Gale found it difficult to secure a cargo, although he offered $1.50 for hides and $4 per hundred for horns. The pueblos and rancheros had the privilege of disposing of
their produce at the same price the mission padres were receiving.
Mexico after gaining her independence re- moved some of the most burdensome restric- tions that had hampered commerce under Span- ish rule, but tariff rates were still high and smuggling continued. The ports along the coast had been opened to trade, but in 1826 an order was issued by the home government that no vessel be allowed to load or unload in any other port than Monterey. A duty of forty- two and one-half per cent on goods, an anchor- age tax of $10 and a tonnage rate of $2.50 per ton was levied on vessels. Relief was sought from these excessive rates in smuggling and both the people and the padres were not averse in aiding the captains of the vessels in escaping the high charges.
In January, 1828, Governor Echandia or- dered that all way ports except San Pedro be closed. In July of that year San Pedro was also closed by an order which declared that all coasting trade must be done in Mexican bot- toms. The increasing restrictions on commerce were burdensome on both the people and the traders and both redoubled their efforts at smuggling.
San Pedro and Santa Catalina continued to figure in illicit trade. Captain Cunningham with other masters of American trading ves- sels formulated a scheme of erecting build- ings for a trading station on Catalina island, but Governor Echandia ordered the building removed. One Yankee captain named Lawler, sometimes appropriately written Lawless, was accustomed on coming to the coast to deposit a large portion of his cargo on some island, usually Santa Catalina, and with what was left enter some port and pay duty on the re- mainder on board. When these goods were sold he replenished his stock from the island cache. At one time he sailed out of San Pedro owing duty to the amount of $1,000. He was finally compelled to break up his Santa Cata- lina establishment, pay up his back duties and quit the coast.
As the hide and tallow trade developed, the American traders gradually got control of the commerce in hides and the Peruvians in tallow. The horns, which were a considerable item, were shipped to the United States for the manu- facture of combs, one vessel from San Pedro
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taking 40,000 pairs. Although large quantities of country produce were shipped from San Pedro and few trading vessels coming to the coast failed to visit it, in the earlier years of Mexican rule there were no local authorities or other residents at the port. There was a sub alcalde resident at the Dominguez rancho about fifteen miles from the port. He had a limited author- ity over the shipping interests at the harbor.
In 1833 Antonio M. Osio held the office of receptor of customs and resided at Los An- geles. He had charge also of the inland trade with New Mexico. In 1834, the year of the secularization of the missions, over 100,000 hides and 25,000 quintals of tallow were shipped from the port of San Pedro. The most com- plete and satisfactory description of hide droghing in California is contained in Dana's "Two Years Before the Mast," first published in 1840. Richard H. Dana, Jr., an undergrad- uate of Harvard College, with the hope of curing a weakness of his eyes by long absence from books and an open air life, shipped as a common sailor on the brig Pilgrim which sailed from Boston, August 14, 1834, on a voy- age round Cape Horn to the western coast of North America. Besides his description of the country and the hide droghing commerce he gives us an insight into the customs, character and domestic life of the California people of eighty years ago. He is sometimes severe ir. his criticisms and inclined to view the customs of the people from a New England standpoint, but on the whole his story of the California of the cattle barons is one of the most readable and reliable that we have.
I quote his description of San Pedro, the method of landing goods and the process of loading hides on shipboard :
"Leaving Santa Barbara, we coasted along down, the country appearing level or moder- ately uneven, and, for the most part, sandy and treeless ; until, doubling a high sandy point, we let go our anchor at a distance of three or three and a half miles from shore. It was like a vessel bound to St. Johns, Newfoundland, coming to anchor on the Grand Banks; for the shore, being low, appeared to be a greater dis- tance than it actually was, and we thought we might as well have stayed at Santa Bar- bara and sent our boat down for hides. The land was of a clayey quality, and, as far as the
eye could reach, entirely bare of trees and even shrubs; and there was no sign of a town,- not even a house to be seen. What brought us into such a place we could not conceive. No sooner had we come to anchor, than the slip- rope, and the other preparations for southeast- ers, were got ready ; and there was reason enough for it, for we lay exposed to every wind that could blow, except the northerly winds, and they came over a flat country with a rake of more than a league of water. As soon as everything was snug on board, the boat was lowered, and we pulled ashore, our new officer, who had been several times in the port be- fore, taking the place of steersman. As we drew in we found the tide low, and the rocks and stones, covered with kelp and seaweed, lying for the distance of nearly an eighth of a mile. Leaving the boat, and picking our way barefooted over these, we came to what is called the landing-place, at high water mark. The soil was, as it appeared at first, loose and clayey, and, except the stalks of the mustard plant, there was no vegetation. Just in front of the landing, and immediately over it, was a small hill, which, from its being no more than thirty or forty feet high, we had not per- ceived from our anchorage.
"Over this hill we saw three men coming down, dressed partly like sailors and partly like Californians, one of them having on a pair of untanned leather trousers and a red shirt. When they reached us, we found that they were Englishmen. They told us that they had be- longed to a small Mexican brig which had been driven ashore here in a southeaster, and now lived in a small house just over the hill. Going up this hill with them, we saw, close behind it, a small, low building, with one room, containing a fireplace, cooking apparatus, etc., and the rest of it unfinished, and used as a place to store hides and goods. This, they told us, was built by some traders in the pueblo (a town about thirty miles in the interior, to which this was the port), and used by them as a storehouse, and also as a lodging place when they came down to trade with the vessels. These three men were employed by them to keep the house in order and to look out for the things stored there. They said that they had been there nearly a year; had nothing to do most of the time, living upon beef, hard bread,
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and frijoles, a peculiar kind of beans, very abundant in California. The nearest house, they told us, was a rancho, or cattle-farm, about three miles off, and one of them went there, at the request of our officer, to order a horse to be sent down, with which the agent, who was on board, might go up to the pueblo.
"From one of them, who was on intelligent English sailor, I learned a good deal in a few minutes' conversation about the place, its trade, and the news from the southern ports. San Diego, he told me, was a small, snug place, having very little trade, but decidedly the best harbor on the coast, being completely land locked, and the water as smooth as a duck- pond. This was the depot for all the vessels engaged in the trade; each one having a large house there, built of rough boards, in which they stowed their hides as fast as they collected them in their trips up and down the coast, and when they had procured a full cargo, spent a few weeks there taking it in, smoking ship, laying in wood and water, and making other preparations for the voyage home."
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"I also learned, to my surprise, that the deso- late looking place we were in furnished more hides than any other port on the coast. It was the only port for a distance of eighty miles, and about thirty miles in the interior was a fine plain country, filled with herds of cattle, in the center of which was the Pueblo de Los Angeles,-the largest town in California,-and several of the wealthiest missions; to all of which San Pedro was the seaport." *
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"The next day we pulled the agent ashore, and he went up to visit the pueblo and the neighboring missions; and in a few days, as the result of his labors, large ox-carts and droves of mules loaded with hides were seen coming over the flat country. We loaded our long boat with goods of all kinds, light and heavy, and pulled ashore. After landing and rolling them over the stones upon the beach, we stopped, waiting for the carts to come down the hill and take them; but the captain soon settled the matter by ordering us to carry them all up to the top, saying that that was 'Cali- fornia fashion.' So, what the oxen would not do, we were obliged to do. The hill was low, but steep, and the earth, being clayey and
wet with the recent rains, was but bad holding ground for our feet. The heavy barrels and casks we rolled up with some difficulty, get- ting behind and putting our shoulders to them ; now and then our feet, slipping, added to the danger of the casks rolling back upon us. But the greatest trouble was with the large boxes of sugar. These we had to place upon our oars, and lifting them up, rest the oars upon our shoulders, and creep slowly up the hill with the gait of a funeral procession. After an hour or two of hard work, we got them all up, and found the carts standing full of hides, which we had to unload, and to load the carts again with our own goods; the lazy Indians, who came down with them, squatting on their hams, looking on, doing nothing, and when we asked them to help us, only shaking their heads, or drawling out 'no quiero.'
"Having loaded the carts, we started up the Indians, who went off, one on each side of the oxen, with long sticks, sharpened at the end, to punch them with. This is one of the means of saving labor in California,-two Indians to two oxen. Now, the hides were to be got down; and for this purpose we brought the boat round to a place where the hill was steeper, and threw them off, letting them slide over the slope. Many of them lodged, and we had to let ourselves down and set them a-going again, and in this way became covered with dust, and our clothing torn. After we had the hides all down, we were obliged to take them on our heads and walk over the stones and through the water to the boat. The water and the stones together would wear out a pair of shoes a day, and as shoes were very scarce and very dear, we were compelled to go barefooted. At night we went on board, having had the hardest and most disagreeable day's work that we had yet experienced. For several days we were employed in this manner, until we had landed forty or fifty tons of goods, and brought on board about two thousand hides, when the trade began to slacken, and we were kept at work on board during the latter part of the week, either in the hold or upon the rigging."
Alfred Robinson, who came to California in 1829 and afterwards became a permanent resi- dent of California, is less severe in his com- ments on San Pedro than Dana. I append his description of the harbor :
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"The harbor of San Pedro is an extensive and opened his heart to us about his past life. bay, and although not considered a safe anchor- age during the winter months, when the south- east wind prevails, yet vessels frequently em- bark and discharge their cargoes here at all seasons of the year. The best anchorage is close under the northwest point of the bay, about three-quarters of a mile outside of a small rocky island and the same distance from the beach. There is a house at the landing- place which generally serves as a landmark, in connection with the preceding location, and vessels usually, in the mild season of the year, bring this to bear W.N.W., while the point lies S.W. by S., and the island 1/2 E. From the month of October to the beginning of May ves- sels anchor at least a mile outside of these bearings, and ships are necessarily prepared for slipping their cables and getting under way, should the wind, as is often the case, chop in suddenly from the S.E. The holding ground is good, of stiff clay, in four and a half to nine fathoms.
"As we anticipated, our friends came in the morning, flocking on board from all quarters ; and soon a busy scene commenced, afloat and ashore. Boats were plying to and fro-launches laden with the variety of our cargo, passing to the beach, and men, women and children crowd- ing upon our docks, partaking in the general excitement."
In the following extract Dana describes a certain class of men found in California at that time. The ship upon which he was a sailor had come up from San Diego and anchored in San Pedro Bay :
"There was but one man in the only house here, and him I shall always remember as a good specimen of a California ranger. He had been a tailor in Philadelphia, and, getting in- temperate and in debt, joined a trapping party, and went to the Columbia river, and thence down to Monterey, where he spent everything, left his party, and came to the Pueblo de los Angeles to work at his trade. Here he went dead to leeward among the pulperias, gambling rooms, etc., and came down to San Pedro to be moral by being out of temptation. He had been in the house several weeks, working hard at his trade, upon orders which he had brought with him, and talked much of his resolution,
After we had been here some time, he started off one morning in fine spirits, well dressed, to carry the clothes which he had been making to the pueblo, and saying that he would bring back his money and some fresh orders the next day. The next day came, and a week passed, and nearly a fortnight, when one day, going ashore, we saw a tall man, who looked like our friend the tailor, getting out of the back of an Indian's cart, which had just come down from the pueblo. He stood for the house, but we bore up after him; when finding that we were overhauling him, he hove-to and spoke us. Such a sight! Barefooted, with an old pair of trous- ers tied round his waist by a piece of green hide, a soiled cotton shirt, and a torn Indian hat ; 'cleaned out' to the last real, and complete- ly 'used up.' He confessed the whole matter ; acknowledged that he was on his back; and now he had a prospect of a fit of the horrors for a week, and of being worse than useless for months. This is a specimen of the life of half of the Americans and English who are adrift along the coasts of the Pacific and its islands,-commonly called 'beach-combers.'"
Again Dana vents his spite on our beloved harbor thus: "Saturday, February 13th. Were called up at midnight to slip for a violent north- easter; for this miserable hole of San Pedro is thought unsafe in almost every wind. We went off with a flowing sheet, and hove-to un- der the lee of Catalina Island, where we lay three days, and then returned to our anchor- age."
The vessel had gone up to Santa Barbara and returned to San Pedro. This is Dana's parting salute to the harbor of our hopes: "Two days brought us to San Pedro, and two days more (to our no small joy) gave us our last view of that place, which was universally called the hell of California, and seemed designed in every way for the wear and tear of sailors. Not even the last view could bring out one feeling of regret. No thanks, thought I, as we left the hated shores in the distance, for the hours I have walked over your stones barefooted, with hides on my head,-for the burdens I have carried up your steep muddy hill,-for the ducking in your surf; and for the long days and longer nights passed on your desolate hill, watching piles of hides, hearing the sharp bark
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of your eternal coyotes, and the dismal hooting of your owls."
The first shipwreck in San Pedro bay oc- curred Christmas eve, 1828. The brig Danube of New York with a crew of twenty-eight men dragged her anchors in a fierce southeaster and was dashed on shore a total wreck. The officers and crew were all saved. "It is an ill wind that blows nobody any good." The southeaster that wrecked the Danube was the indirect cause of the building of the first ship launched in San Pedro bay. The hull of the vessel was sold for $1,760 to Guerra and Dana of Santa Bar- bara (not Dana of the Pilgrim). Father Sanchez of San Gabriel Mission was an enter- prising man awake to every opportunity to make money for his mission. He had long looked with disfavor on the encroachment of the Russian and American fur traders and hunters. The sea otter was being exterminated and but little profit had come to the Califor- nians from this valued peltry.
The hull timbers and iron of the wrecked Danube furnished material that hitherto it had been impossible to secure in California. Father Sanchez had in his employ at the mission Jose Chapman. Chapman was one of Bouchard's privateers who had been captured at Ortega's rancho, as told elsewhere in this history. He was a ship carpenter, and during his residence in California had become a jack of all trades. To him was assigned the duty of getting out ship timbers in the San Gabriel mountains. These were hauled on wooden-wheeled carts, drawn by oxen, to San Pedro. The vessel was constructed on the inner bay or slough, above what was formerly known as Timm's Point. Historians differ in regard to the name of the ship. Warner calls her the "Refugio." Robin- son and Bancroft the "Guadalupe." Bancroft is uncertain about the tonnage of the schooner and gives it in three different places variously at six, sixty and ninety-nine tons.
Alfred Robinson, in his "Life in California," gives the best description of the building and launching of the vessel extant. He says: "A launch was to take place at San Pedro-the second vessel ever constructed in California. She was a schooner of about sixty tons that had been entirely framed at San Gabriel and fitted for subsequent completion at San Pedro. Every piece of timber had been fitted thirty
miles from the place and brought down on the beach in carts. She was called the "Guada- lupe," in honor of the patron saint of Mexico, and as the affair was considered quite an im- portant era in the history of the country, many were invited from far and near to witness it.
"Her builder was a Yankee named Chapman, who had served his apprenticeship with a Boston ship builder. He was one of a piratical cruiser that attacked Monterey, at which time he was taken prisoner, and had lived in the country ever since. From his long residence he had acquired a mongrel language, English, Spanish and Indian being so mingled in his speech that it was difficult to understand him. Although illiterate, his ingenuity and honest deportment had acquired for him the esteem of the Californians and a connection in marriage with one of the first families of the country. Father Sanchez of San Gabriel used to say, Chapman could get more work out of the In- dians in his unintelligible tongne than all the major domos put together. I was present on one occasion when he wished to dispatch an Indian to the beach at San Pedro with his ox wagon, charging him to return as soon as pos- sible. His directions ran somewhat in this manner: 'Ventura! Vamos, trae los bueyes, go down to the playa and come back as quick as you can puede.'"
Of the career of the "Guadalupe" or the "Refugio" but little is known. Warner, who came to California the year the vessel was launched, disposes of the event in a brief para- graph. He says: "In 1831, the minister at San Gabriel, Father Sanchez, aided and en- couraged by William Wolfskill, Nathaniel Pryor, Richard Laughlin, Samuel Prentice and George Yount (all Americans), built a schooner at San Pedro, which was employed by the Americans named in the hunting of sea otter."
The vessel visited the channel island in search of otter. Prentice, who was one of the owners, took up his residence on Catalina Island, and died there. He was the first civ- ilized man buried on the island. Wolfskill, being a Mexican citizen, was able to get a license; with his associates he hunted otter up and down the coast in 1832; he soon aban- doned the business and became a ranchero in Los Angeles. The vessel was reported in San
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Francisco in 1834. She was wrecked on the Mexican coast, date not given.
San Pedro was the scene of the only case of marooning known to have occurred on the California coast.
"Marooning was a diabolical custom or in- vention of the pirates of the Spanish Main. The process was as simple as it was horrible. When some unfortunate individual aboard the piratical craft had incurred the hatred of the crew or the master, he was placed in a boat and rowed to some barren island or desolate coast of the main land, and forced ashore. A bottle of water and a few biscuits were thrown him, the boat rowed back to the ship, and left him to die of hunger and thirst, or to rave out his existence under the maddening heat of a tropical sun.
"In January, 1832, a small brig entered the bay of San Pedro and anchored. Next morn- ing two passengers were landed from a boat on the barren strand. They were given two bottles of water and a few biscuit. The vessel sailed away, leaving them to their fate. There was no habitation within thirty miles of the landing. Ignorant of the country, their fate might have been that of many another victim of marooning. An Indian, searching for shells, discovered them and conducted them to the Mission San Gabriel, where they were cared for."
They were two Catholic priests-Bachelot. a Frenchman, and Short, an Irishman, who had resided for some time in the Sandwich Islands, engaged in missionary work. They were forci- bly expelled by the queen regent, Kaahumau, who had recently been converted to Chris- tianity by the Protestant missionaries. She evidently wanted but one brand of religion in her domain. Bachelot for some time officiated as priest of the Church of Our Lady of the Angeles. The queen regent being dead, in 1838 Bachelot and Short returned to the islands and were again ordered by the government to leave. On their refusal they were forcibly put on board a vessel and sent away. Bachelot died at sea.
The principal article of California commerce in the early '40s continued to be hides. All foreign ships coming to the coast were com- pelled to go to Monterey to have their cargoes inspected and to pay the revenue charges on
their goods. The tariff rates were so exces- sive that all traders who came to the coast resorted to smuggling ; not only the traders, but the people, were constantly watching for op- portunities to evade the revenue laws.
"So large a portion of the inhabitants, both native and foreign, all classes," says Bancroft, "were engaged in contraband trade that there was slight risk of detection. Custom officers were the only ones who were at all dishonored by smuggling." The favorite method, which continued while California was under the Mex- ican government, was a transfer of cargo at sea. A ship would put into Monterey with a small cargo, pay the revenue and transfer her cargo to her consort at sea, and that vessel would do the trading. Another way of evading was to have a cache, or hiding place, on some island where the most of the cargo could be stored while the vessel with the least valuable part of the cargo would put into port, pass in- spection by the revenue officers and then re- turn for the remainder of its load.
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