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 53
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Governor Mason, commenting on the ac- count sales made to Captain Lippett's com- pany stationed at Santa Barbara, says:
"Now it is self evident that a private sol- dier does not want for his own actual individ- ual use and consumption hundreds of yards of merchandise, barrels of rum and thousands of cigars. No clubbing together to make pur- chases should be tolerated; each man must buy on his own account for his own use, not to be transferred to another by sale." One officer made oath that $400 of his purchase was comestibles. Governor Mason, comment- ing on this purchase, said: "Even if they were 'comestibles,' the amount is unreasonable and, therefore, liable to duties."
The proclamation that a treaty of peace had been declared between the United States and Mexico and that Upper California had been ceded to the United States was pub- lished by Governor Mason August 7, 1848. Orders were issued for the discharge of the New York Volunteers and all others whose periods of service ended with the war, and also that the collection of revenue as military contributions should forthwith cease.
For two years all collections at the different ports had been turned over to the quarter- masters of the military posts. Lieut. J. B. Davidson, the engineer, who planned Fort Moore, was the receiver for the port of San Pedro. The discharge of the officers and soldiers left Governor Mason in a sad dilem- ma. He had no officers or soldiers to enforce
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the collection of revenue if the merchants or people should refuse or try to evade the pay- ment of duties. He had to appoint civilian collectors and trust to their honesty and in- telligence to discharge their duty. Don David W. Alexander was continued collector of San Pedro; he had proved an efficient officer.
March 3, 1849, Congress passed an act to extend the revenue laws of the United States over the territory and waters of Upper Cali- fornia, and create a collection district therein. San Francisco was made a port of entry, and San Diego and Monterey were made ports of delivery and another port of delivery was to be established at the junction of the Gila and Colorado rivers. San Pedro was left out, al- though the shipping from it exceeded any other port in the territory except San Fran- cisco. A collector for the district was to be stationed at San Francisco on a salary of $1,500 per annum and the fees allowed by law. A deputy was allowed at each of the other ports at the magnificent salary of $1.000 per year.
James Collier of Ohio was appointed col- lector of customs at San Francisco. Collier was empowered to nominate his deputies. Alexander Irwin of Pennsylvania was chosen for Monterey, William Ferrell of South Caro- lina for San Diego and Alexander Bradford for the junction of the Gila and Colorado. Collier started for California from Fort Leav- enworth with a company of dragoons and ar- rived at San Francisco November 12, 1849. The party he came with had to fight Indians and four were drowned crossing the Colorado. One of the number was Captain Thorn of the dragoons. The party reached San Diego first and Collier went up to San Francisco by boat.
Writing to the United States treasurer the day after his arrival, he says:
"On my voyage to this port from San Diego I had an opportunity of visiting some of the points on the coast, which, in a commercial point of view, are of no little importance and to which your attention is solicited. One of them is San Pedro; I am fully of the opinion that more goods are landed at San Pedro than at any other point excepting only San Francisco. A large amount of smuggling is carried on at this point. It is distant from Los Angeles some twenty-five miles, and from
the latter the Mexicans obtain all their goods for trade in the interior of Mexico.
"These goods are generally of a high price and rich fabric. I met several large parties of these traders on my journey to the Pacific, and in every instance I was advised by them that they purchased their goods at Los An- geles. I saw while at San Pedro (which con- tains but three buildings), in a warehouse, a large amount of goods from China. I have been unable to ascertain where they were entered. The collector resides at Los An- geles, and these goods, together with most if not all that have been landed, have escaped the payment of duties. I recommend that it should be made a port of delivery, and that a deputy should be stationed there."
Of the port on the Colorado, he writes: "The act of Congress making California a collection district requires the secretary of the treasury to establish a port of delivery as near as may be to the junction of the rivers Gila and Colorado at the head of the Gulf of California. The establishment of such an office I do not consider at all prac- ticable. The Colorado will never, in my opin- ion, become navigable to this point. It is far off from civilization, on the borders of the great desert. The line between the United States and Mexico will not be more than two or three miles from the junction of the rivers. The valley of the Gila is utterly worthless and I would not take a deed to the whole country tomorrow. I presume that no white man could be found willing to become deputy collector where a flag would never flutter.
"I am perfectly astounded at the amount of business in this office-San Francisco. The tonnage on the 10th instant in port was 120,- 317 tons, of which 87,494 were American and 32,823 foreign."
If he was astounded at the amount of busi- ness, he was still more astounded at the cost of living. "Boarding without room averages $5 per day," he writes. "A small room, barely sufficient to contain a single bed, rents readily at $150 per month. Wood is $40 per cord, shingles $60 per thousand, lumber $300 and carpenters' wages from $12 to $17 per day." His little salary of $1,500 a year vanished rapidly.
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His greatest worry was to secure help. "Men Not only was he fully exonerated, but he ob- resort to the custom house for temporary em- ployment and for that only. They will continue only just so long as is necessary to seek some- thing more profitable. An instance has oc- curred this morning to illustrate this: I have a clerk acting as cashier, to whom I was com- pelled to pay (what you might regard as a high salary) $3,000 per annum. He was offered from a banking house $5,000, with the promise of a future interest, and has consequently given notice that he should leave the office."
It seemed impossible for the authorities at Washington to comprehend the condition ex- isting in California. For half a century the compensation for revenue officials had remained unchanged. Why such extravagance in this out-of-the-world territory, California? The Secretary of the Treasury, W. M. Meredith, had given Colonel Collier these instructions on his departure for San Francisco: "Upon entering on the discharge of your duties at San Fran- cisco should it become necessary to employ a subordinate officer or officers of the customs you may in pursuance of the second section of the compensation act of the 2nd of March, 1799, as modified by the Act of the 26th of April, 1816, employ such temporary or occa- sional inspectors as may be found indispensably necessary for the protection and security of the revenue to be paid when actually employed a sum not exceeding $3 per day each. In no case can the compensation for inspectors of the customs exceed $3 per day." Three dol- lars a day which was considered a snap in 1799 would scarce pay for a meal of victuals in the flush days of '49. Nor was it the collector alone who was in hard lines ; the officers of the revenue cutters were unable to live on their meager salaries. The wages of a steward were $150 a month and those of a common seaman $100. As a result, the sailors who were re- ceiving government pay deserted. Captain Fraser of the cutter reported he was left with three officers and no sailors and the officers were compelled to do their own washing and were in danger of starving on their meager wages.
Colonel Collier continued as the collector of the district of California until the change of administration in 1854. He was charged with being a defaulter to the amount of $700,000.
tained judgment against the United States for $37,000.
The charges grew out of the unprecedented conditions existing then in California. The government officials bound by tariff regulations half a century old could not understand the ex- igencies arising in California out of the dis- covery of gold and the rapid inflations of values. When it came to paying $2,400 a month for the rent of four small rooms for the collector's living apartments ( whose salary was only $1,500 a year) it looked to these officials like a case of embezzlement or at least of unwar- ranted extravagance. Collier writing to the secretary of the treasury and quoting the ex- orbitant price of building, says: "These facts may startle you, but such is the true state of things. I hope, therefore, that in ordering these indispensable repairs without waiting for in- structions I shall not be censured."
Nor were the chaotic conditions existing from high prices all the worry the collector had to face in establishing a collection district in the territory. The act extending the revenue laws of the United States over the territory and waters of Upper California provided that vio- lations of these laws were to be prosecuted in the District Court of Louisiana or the Supreme Court of Oregon. A litigant in a suit had the choice of a two thousand mile trip "the plains across" to Louisiana or a thousand mile voyage up the coast to the capital of Oregon.
The change of rulers did not improve condi- tions at San Pedro. Under Mexican rule every ship's cargo had to be entered at Monterey, under American rule it had to be listed at San Francisco and then any article for San Pedro reshipped to that port, which greatly increased the cost.
The following memorial to Congress asking that San Pedro be made a port of entry and that a custom house be established there is the earliest effort made by the people of Los An- geles to secure improvement by the United States government for that port. A copy of this memorial was filed with the county clerk of Los Angeles county May 30, 1850 (the county had been organized in April of that year). The original draft of the memorial nu merously signed was sent to Colonel Thomas H. Benton, United States senator from Mis-
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souri, to be presented to Congress. California had not been admitted to the Union and had no representatives in Congress. Senator Ben- ton was regarded as one of the staunchest friends of the territory in Congress.
The memorial forcibly sets forth the com- mercial conditions existing in Southern Cali- fornia at that time and consequently is of great historical value :
TO THE HONORABLE MEMBERS OF THE UNITED STATES SENATE AND HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES IN CONGRESS ASSEMBLED.
The memorial of the undersigned inhabi- tants of the County of Los Angeles, State of California, respectfully represent :
"That for want of a Port of Entry within the district of country in which they reside its business and trade labor under the most serious disadvantages, its growth and settle- ment are materially retarded and great dissat- isfaction prevails among the people.
"So numerous and aggravated are the evils which your memorialists suffer for want of a Port of Entry and a Custom House that they can but feel some little delicacy in bringing them to the notice of your Honorable body, for it is fully believed that in no section of the United States has there ever existed obstruc- tions so serious in character to the prosperity of trade and commerce and which have been so long and so patiently endured by the same number of people as that to which your me- morialists are and have been subjected.
"The conditions of the country in which your memorialists reside are peculiar and hence re- sults a marked singularity in the state of its trade. Its proximity to the mining regions has caused it to be substantially denuded of its la- boring population and hence, although strik- ingly agricultural in its natural features, it has for the last two years been dependent on a foreign supply for not only the greater propor- tion of its breadstuffs, but for even the coarser articles, such as peas, beans, oats, barley, etc. These are brought usually from some of the South American ports, taken to San Francisco and thence reshipped to San Pedro. It thus appears that not only are the people of this region compelled to obtain the more costly fabrics of manufactures at another port, but
even articles of the most common consump- tion, at what additional cost the following facts will testify.
"The freight alone from San Francisco to San Pedro for the last two years has never been less than twice the amount of what is charged for conveying the same articles from New York to San Francisco. The expense upon a cargo of flour for sending it from the warehouse in San Francisco to San Pedro has been as high as $10.25 per barrel and has never been less than $5.75. One of your memorial- ists has paid for the expense of a single cargo of goods from San Francisco to San Pedro $14,000. In fine, the average additional cost upon goods purchased at San Francisco is not less than thirty per cent upon their being landed at San Pedro.
"Not alone would this entire amount be saved to your memorialists by the establishment of a Custom House at San Pedro, but many articles of trade which cannot now be procured at all at San Francisco would be brought to the former port. The people of this region are to a large extent of the Spanish race and whole cargoes of goods could be imported from Mex- ican ports and sold at a large advance that are never found at all in the markets of San Fran- cisco in consequence of the population there being so essentially American in its character.
"Were there a Custom House at San Pedro, cargoes of coffee and rice would be brought there from Central America; panocha (a coarse kind of sugar) from Mexico, flour from Chili and sugar from Peru, to say nothing of the enormous cost of reshipping these articles from San Francisco, which has already been alluded to, to the former place. In freight alone there would be a material reduction, for not only is the voyage some six hundred miles less, but from there not being the same induce- ments and facilities for desertions by his crew as at the north, a master could afford to run his vessel to San Pedro from a southern port at a much less rate than he could to San Fran- cisco. With a bare allusion to the enormous expense of unloading and storage at San Fran- cisco and which, of course, is included in the first cost to the purchaser at Los Angeles, and to the great lapse of time, delay and expense to the merchant of the latter place in going north to make his purchases, we pass to con-
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sider the amount of trade actual and prospec-ramento valley. Should these anticipations tive in this country: The amount of actual sales of goods landed at San Pedro for the last two years has been but little short of one mil- lion of dollars per annum. This amount was formerly much more, as it is well known that at the time of the old Missions there was more business done at the port of San Pedro than at any other port on the Pacific north of Aca- pulco.
"In touching upon the probable increase of trade in this section, we cannot withhold al- luding to the fact that the district of country in which your memorialists reside is infinitely superior to that of any other portion of Cali- fornia to sustain a dense population. It con- tains without a doubt a larger amount of arable and irrigable land in a single body than any other portion of the state. Its soil is of the best character and is usually well watered. The climate, it is fully believed, will compare fa- vorably for salubrity and evenness of tempera- ture with those of the finest regions of the south of Europe. In no other part of the world will the earth yield the same variety of vege- table production as in this. Here may be found growing side by side with luxurious fields of the cereals of the north, the grape, the fig, the orange, the pomegranate, the olive, etc., of a tropical clime. Large forests of fine timber abound in many sections. The mineral de- posits, too, are numerous and valuable ; salt, limestone, mineral tar, tequesquite (a natural salaratus), are found in great abundance and of the best quality. All of these natural ad- vantages betoken a no distant day when the section of the country in which your memor- ialists reside will be inhabited by a populous and intelligent American community.
"Nor is it alone from the operation of these canses that a rapid increase of population is anticipated. It is well known that the mining districts of California are constantly becoming enlarged by new discoveries, already they are worked to great effect at Kings river, distant from Los Angeles but about two hundred miles ; important discoveries of gold have also been made in nearer localities. On the road leading to the Great Salt Lake, gold has been found in many places, and it is believed by numbers that ultimately as prolific a mining re- gion will there be found as any within the Sac-
prove correct, it can be easily seen to what disadvantage the mining districts here would labor under from the increased price of goods owing to their being no Custom House at Sar Pedro.
"Your memorialists would now call attention of your honorable body to the fact that the port of San Pedro is the nearest commercial outlet to the large and highly flourishing com- munity of Deseret .* This is a fact but lately known even to those people themselves.
party under command of Gen. C. C. Rich, one of the twelve apostles of the sect of Mormons. came through from the Salt Lake valley this last winter for the purpose of surveying and measuring the route leading from thence to this section ; and it is from their report we learn that their foreign supplies of goods must be brought from this locality, as it is not only much nearer than to San Francisco and the road is better, but it can be traveled at all seasons of the year, while the road across the Sierra Nevadas, as is well known, cannot, as it is inaccessible at least six months out of the twelve. So well convinced are the Mormons of this fact that they have recently purchased one of the largest ranchos in this country with a view of laying out a settlement and founding a town thereon. This property they propose taking possession of in August next and they are confident in the opinion that in a few years' time they will have as large a settlement in this country as they have at the Salt Lake valley.
"Your memorialists will allude to but a sin- gle fact further in this connection ; the county of Los Angeles is the great thoroughfare for two of the most important routes of travel from the Eastern States and from Mexico. Over these routes flows a throng of immigrants so numerous as almost to defy belief. Most of these would purchase more or less of their sup- plies from the merchants of Los Angeles did not its trade labor under so many disadvant- ages.
"At least ten thousand Sonoranians pass through here on their way to the mines each
*The Mormons named their settlement at Great Salt Lake the State of Deseret. Congress named it the territory of Utah. At the time this memorial was written it was known as Deseret.
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spring, generally returning to Mexico in the autumn. Most of these people live remote from any commercial town in their own county and would purchase largely of American manufac- tured goods on their return home, could goods be had here on reasonable terms.
"Your memorialists will allude to but a sin- gle further consideration upon this subject, namely, that the port of San Pedro is but about one thousand miles north of Mazatlan ; at that port there are received every year large car- goes of foreign goods sent directly from Europe and selected with an especial eye to the wants of a Spanish population. Were there a Custom House at San Pedro a portion of these goods before being unloaded would be brought on to this port and sold to your memorialists not only at less than they can be obtained for in San Francisco but even in New York."
The Sonoranians, or Sonoranes, as they were sometimes called, referred to in the memorial, constituted what was known as the Sonoran migration. From the discovery of gold and for half a dozen years later, these people mi- grated like the wild geese, coming north in the spring and returning south in the fall. They bought liberally on their return of various com- modities, but on their northern flight about their only purchases were frijoles (beans).
San Pedro was made a port of delivery in 1853. The commerce of the port increased greatly after the discovery of gold. The first steamer that visited San Pedro was the Gold Hunter, in 1849, a side-wheel vessel which ran between San Francisco and Mazatlan, touching at way ports. The next was the Ohio. These were followed by the Sea Bird, the Southerner and the Goliath. In 1853 the Sea Bird and the Southerner were running regularly three trips per month between San Francisco and San Diego, stopping at Monterey, Santa Barbara and San Pedro for passengers and freight. The Goliath was still on the line.
From 1844 to 1849, Temple and Alexander did the freighting between San Pedro and Los Angeles. Goods were carried in carts similar to the old Mexican carretas. The wheels in- stead of being solid were spoked and tired. Each cart was drawn by two yoke of oxen yoked by the horns, Mexican style. Freight was $1 per hundred. In 1851, D. W. Alexander
purchased at Sacramento ten heavy freight wagons that had been sent in from Salt Lake by Ben Holliday, and in 1853 he purchased a whole train of fourteen wagons and one hun- dred and sixty-eight mules that had come through from Chihuahua, paying for the outfit $23,000. So the carretas went to join the cabal- ladas in the commerce of San Pedro. The steamer trip to San Francisco in the early '50s was not the pleasure jaunt of the present day. First cabin fare was $55. The menu was limited in variety and not appetizing to seasick voyagers. It consisted of salt beef, hard bread, potatoes and coffee without milk or cream. The trip usually occupied about four days, depending on the amount of freight to be taken on or delivered at the way ports.
In 1852, Alexander and Banning established an "accommodation line" of stages between San Pedro and Los Angeles, carrying United States mail, the Adams and the Wells Fargo & Co. express. These stages, so their adver- tisement reads: "Will leave San Pedro for Los Angeles on the arrival of each steamer and at other times when there are passengers." The fare between San Pedro and Los Angeles was $10.
In 1854 the regular dispatch line of San Pedro packets was established. This line consisted of the clipper schooner Laura Bevan and the Sea Serpent. The only way port they touched at was Santa Barbara. They carried freight and passengers.
In 1854, Don Abel Stearns and Alfred Rob- inson built for trade between Boston and San Pedro the clipper ship Arcadia, named for Donna Arcadia, Stearns' wife. It was a vessel of eight hundred and fifty tons measurement. The Southern Californian of April 25, 1855. chronicles its arrival at San Pedro with a full cargo of merchandise only one hundred and twelve days from Boston. The Arcadia made regular trips between San Pedro and Boston. By direct shipment from the eastern cities, Johnson & Allanson, to whom most of the cargo of the Arcadia was consigned, advertised to sell merchandise cheaper than it could be sold in San Francisco.
In 1851 grapes in crates and boxes brought from twenty to twenty-five cents per pound in San Francisco and in the mines from sev-
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enty-five cents to $1 per pound. Grapes were too valuable to make wine of and wine making virtually ceased for a time. In 1854, Alexander & Banning advertised to ship from Los Ange- les to steamer grapes at fifty cents per hundred pounds. The grape shipments were the larg- est of any commodity shipped from San Pe- dro. From July 1 to October 31, 1855, Alex- ander & Banning forwarded to San Francisco over a million pounds, valued at $156,000. The value of all other products shipped during the same time was less than $50,000. In 1857 the shipment of grapes from San Pedro amounted to 1,427,710 pounds, valued in the schedule of exports at $128,414.
Among the exports of 1857 oranges appear for the first time. The shipment amounted to 55,372 pounds, priced at $11,274. In 1859 grape shipments had decreased one-half and wine had increased from 50,000 gallons in 1855 to 280,000 in 1859. Dana, who visited Los Angeles in 1859, estimated its wine production at half a million gallons.
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