A history of California and an extended history of its southern coast counties, also containing biographies of well-known citizens of the past and present, Volume I, Part 48

Author: Guinn, James Miller, 1834-1918
Publication date: 1907
Publisher: Los Angeles, Cal., Historic record company
Number of Pages: 1184

USA > California > A history of California and an extended history of its southern coast counties, also containing biographies of well-known citizens of the past and present, Volume I > Part 48

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).

287

HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.

The county of Los Angeles, before the crea- tion of San Bernardino county, was an empire in itself. It extended from the Pacific ocean on the west to the Colorado river on the east, an extreme length of 270 miles, and from San Diego county on the south to Santa Barbara and Mari- posa counties on the north. Its average breadth was 150 miles. Its area was about 34,000 square miles, over one-fifth of the area of the entire state. Excepting Maine it was equal in area to all the New England states. In its vast area it embraced the most diversified scenery, soil and climate of any other county in the United States. Within its limits were the barren sands and tor- rid heat of the desert; the perpetual ice and snow of the lofty mountain tops; the genial sun- shine and fragrant perfume of the orange groves of the valleys, and the unvarying temperature of the sea coast.

The formation of San Bernardino county cut off from Los Angeles 24,000 square miles, leav- ing her 10,000. For the second time she was cut off from all claim to a portion of the Colo- rado desert, but still retained her interest in the Mojave.

In 1866, the county of Kern was formed from portions of Tulare and Los Angeles counties. From 1855 to 1860 there had appeared in the legislature proceedings a spectral county called Buena Vista. In 1855 and again in 1859 it had been made a part of the proposed new state of Colorado, which was to include all the coun- try south of San Luis Obispo. The county was. never officially created and the territory included in the proposed county remained part of Los Angeles and Tulare counties until the creation of Kern county in 1866. This county took from Los Angeles about 5,000 square miles, but as this territory was mostly mountains and desert there was no opposition to the segregation.

In 1869 began the struggle to cut off a portion from the southeastern part to form a new county. This movement the people of Los Angeles re- sisted. The contest over county division lasted for twenty years. It ended in 1889 with the formation of Orange county. The story of this long-drawn-out contest is told in full in the his- tory of Orange county.

After the formation of Orange county Los

Angeles had an area of 3,980 square miles. In 1891 an effort was made to cut a slice off the eastern side to form with territory taken from San Bernardino the county of Pomona. Fortu- nately the scheme failed.

ORGANIZATION OF TIIE COUNTY GOVERNMENT.

The transition from the Mexican form of gov- ernment in California to that of the United States was very gradual. Los Angeles, the last Mexican stronghold, surrendered January 10, 1847. It was not until June 24, 1850, that the American municipal form of government by county officers superseded the ayuntamientos, al- caldes, prefects and sindicos of Spain and Mex- ico. The legislature had passed a county gov- ernment act, February 18, 1850, and had pro- vided for an election of county officers to be held the first Monday of April. The election was held April 1, 377 votes were cast in the county and the following named officers elected : County judge, Agustin Olvera.

County attorney, Benjamin Hays.

County clerk, B. D. Wilson.

Sheriff, G. Thompson Burrill.

Treasurer, Manuel Garfias.

Assessor, Antonio F. Coronel.

Recorder, Ignacio del Valle.

Surveyor, J. R. Conway.

Coroner, Charles B. Cullen.

COURT OF SESSIONS.

The court of sessions, which consisted of the county judge and two justices of the peace, con- stituted the legislative body of the county gov- ernments of the state up to 1853, when the civil business of the counties was turned over to a board of supervisors, created by an act of the legislature. The court of sessions had jurisdic- tion over the criminal business, the impaneling of juries and filling vacancies in office up to 1865, when it was legislated out of office.

The court of sessions was the motive power that set the county machinery in operation. The first meeting of the court in Los Angeles was held June 24, 1850. Hon. Agustin Olvera was the presiding judge; the associate justices were Jonathan R. Scott and Luis Robideau. Anto- nio F. Coronel, assessor-elect, and Charles B. Cullen, coroner-elect, were cited before the court

288

HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.

to qualify and file their official bonds. Coronel appeared next day and qualified, but Cullen de- clined to serve.

At the meeting of the court, June 26, Jailer Samuel Whiting was allowed $7 per day salary, out of which he was to employ a competent as- sistant. He was allowed "for feeding the pris- oners, fifty cents each ; that each prisoner shall have per day an amount of bread to the value of twelve and one-half cents or an equivalent in rice or beans; balance of the allowance in good meat."

A. P. Hodges, M. D., was appointed coroner ( during his term as coroner he also served as the first mayor of the city). The county judge could not speak English and at least one asso- ciate judge spoke no Spanish, so G. Thompson Burrill was appointed county interpreter for the court at a salary of $50 per month. He was also sheriff.

At the session of July 11, 1850, it was ordered that the town council be permitted to work the county prisoners by paying the daily expense of each one's keeping-fifty cents-a master stroke of economy. Some one has sneeringly said that the first public buildings the Americans built in California after it came into their possession, were jails. This was true of Los Angeles, and in fact of all the counties of Southern California.

July 11, 1850, commissioners were appointed by the city and county to select a site for a jail. Lots Nos. 1, 2, 3. 7. 8 and 9 in square No. 34 (north of the Plaza church) were selected for a jail site. The city council was asked to donate said lots to the county and the city was requested to loan the county $2,000, to be used in building said jail, the city council to have permission to use said jail until the loan is refunded. The city fathers did not take kindly to these requests of the judges; so the county had to worry along two years longer before a jail was built and then it was not built on the site selected by the joint commission.

JUDGES OF THE PLAINS.

There was one Hispano-American institution that long survived the fall of Mexican domina- tion in California: and that was the office of jueces del campo, judge of the plains. A judge of the plains was a very important functionary.

It was this duty to be present at the annual ro- deos (round-ups of cattle) and recojedas (gath- ering up of horses). His seat of justice was in the saddle, his court room the mesa, and from his decision there was no appeal. All disputes about ownership of stock came before him. The code of his court was unwritten, or mostly so, which was fortunate, for many of the judges could not read. This hap-hazard way of admin- istering justice did not suit American ideas, so, at a meeting of the court of sessions, July 23, 1850, the county attorney was ordered "to col- lect the various bandos and reglamentos hereto- fore made up in this district respecting the jueces del campo and give his opinion upon the same at the next term of this court." At the next session of the court, August 22, the county attorney reported a number of regulations, some written, others established by custom. The court added several new regulations to those already existing, the most important of which (to the jueces) was a salary of $100 a year to each judge, payable out of the county treasury. Un- dler Mexican rule the plains judge took his pay in honor. As there were a round dozen of these officials in the county in 1850, their aggregate pay exceeded the entire expense of the municipal government of the district during the last year of the Mexican rule. After jails the next inno- vation the Americans introduced was taxes.

FEES AND SALARIES.

The first fee and salary bill of California was based upon prices ruling in the mining coun- ties, where a sheriff's fees amounted to more than the salary of the president of the United States. The liberal fees allowed for official serv- ices soon bankrupted the treasuries of the cow counties, and in 1851 they were petitioning the legislature for a reduction of fees. It cost $100 to hold an inquest on a dead Indian and as vio- lent deaths were of almost daily or nightly occur- rence, the coroner's office was quite lucrative. Some of the verdicts of the coroner's juries showed remarkable familiarity with the decrees of the Almighty. On a native Californian named Gamico, found dead in the street. the verdict was "Death by the visitation of God." Of a lead Indian, found near the zanja, the Los An-

289

HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.

geles Star says : "Justice Dryden and a jury sat on the body. The verdict was 'Death from intoxication or by the visitation of God.' Bacilio was a Christian Indian and was confessed by the reverend padre yesterday afternoon." The ju- rors were paid $10 each for sitting on a body. Coroner Hodges made the champion record on inquests. October 20, 1851, he held eleven in- quests in one day. These were held on Irving's band of horse thieves and robbers, who were killed by the Coahuilla Indians in the San Ber- nardino mountains.

The criminal element had been steadily in- creasing in Los Angeles. In 1851 a military company was organized to aid the sheriff in keeping order. November 24, 1851, the court of sessions ordered that the sheriff cause fifty good lances to be made for the use of the volunteer company. The pioneer blacksmith, John Goller, inade the lances and was paid $87.50 for the job. Goller also made a branding iron for the county. The county brand consisted of the letters "L. A.," three inches long. In January, 1852, the house occupied by Benjamin Hays, under lease from Felipe Garcia, was sub-let by him to the county for a court house for the balance of his term, expiring November 16, 1853. The sum of $650 was appropriated by order of the court of sessions to pay the rent for the agreed term. The first building used for a court house was the old government house that Pio Pico bought from Isaac Williams for the capitol. Pico had re- sided in it during his term as governor. After the conquest two companies of United States Dragoons were quartered in it. A contract was let, July 8, 1851, to build a jail and John G. Nichols appointed at $6 a day to superintend the job, but some misunderstanding with the city arising, the building was not erected, and Sep- tember 13, 1851, the court ordered the sheriff to sell the adobes now on hand for use of jail at the highest market price and turn the money over to the clerk of the court.

The first county jail was the adobe building on the hill back of the present postoffice site used by the troops for a guard house. There were no cells in it. Staples were driven into a heavy pine log that reached across the building, and short chains attached to the staples were fastened

to the handcuffs of the prisoners. Solitary con- finement was out of the question then. Indian culprits were chained to logs outside of the jail so that they could more fully enjoy the glorious climate of California. In 1853 the city and county built a jail on the present site of the Phillips block, northwest corner of Spring and Franklin streets. It was the first public building erected in the county.

The legislature of 1852 created the office of county supervisor. The first election for super- visors of the county was held June 14, 1852, and the following named persons elected : Jefferson Hunt, Julian Chavis, Francisco P. Temple, Man- uel Requena and Samuel Arbuckle. The board held its first meeting on the first Monday of July, 1852. Arbuckle was elected chairman. The supervisors transacted the civil business of the county.

The machinery of the county's government was now in full working order. We will turn our attention to other phases of its development.

SPANISH AND MEXICAN LAND GRANTS.

In what comprised the original county of Los Angeles there were during the Spanish and Mex- ican regimes sixty grants of land made. These varied in size from a grant of 44.36 acres to the Mission of San Juan Capistrano to the Rancho ex-Mission of San Fernando, granted to Eulo- gio de Celis, containing 121,619.24 acres.

At the time of the conquest about all the land fit for pasturage had been sequestered from the public domain in the form of grants. The old- est grants made within what is now the county of Los Angeles are the Nietos and the San Ra- fael. According to Col. J. J. Warner's his- torical sketch, "The Nietos tract, embracing all the land between the Santa Ana and San Ga- briel and from the sea to and including some of the hill land on its northeastern frontier, was granted by Governor Pedro Fages to Manuel Nietos in 1784.

"The San Rafael tract, lying on the left bank of the Los Angeles river and extending to the Arroyo Seco, was granted by Governor Pedro Fages. October 20, 1784, and the grant was re- affirmed by Governor Borica, January 12, 1798. to Jose Maria Verdugo." If as Colonel Warner

290

HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.

claims, the "Nietos tract" embraced all the land between the Santa Ana and the San Gabriel rivers, from the sea to the hills, Nietos' heirs did not hold it. Subscquently, there was a number of grants made in that territory. The Mission San Gabriel, previous to 1830, had possession of several subdivisions of this tract such as Las Bolsas. Alamitos, Los Coyotes, Puente and oth- ers. After the secularization of the missions all the lands held by the padres, except small tracts in the immediate neighborhood of the mission buildings, were granted to private owners.

Shortly after the admission of California to the Union the long-drawn-out legal contests over the confirmation of the Spanish and Mexican grants began. These contests, in some cases, were waged for years before the United States claims commission, the various courts and the land commissioner at Washington, before they were settled. Litigation often ruined both the contesting parties, and when the case was finally decided the litigants, like in "Jarndyce vs. Jarn- dyce," had nothing left but their bundles of legal documents. Even when a claimant did win and the decisions of courts and commissions gave hini undisputed possession of his broad acres, it often happened that a cancerous mort- gage, the result of litigation, was eating away his patrimony. The land grants in Los Angeles have all been confirmed and it is to be hoped that they will remain so. No greater blight can fall on a community than an attack upon the validity of its title to its lands.

In early times the county officials followed the Mexican plan of designating districts and legal subdivision by ranchos. August 7. 1851, the court of sessions "ordered that the county of Los Angeles be divided into six townships named as follows, and to comprehend the ran- chos and places as follows to each appropri- ated": The first of these was the township of Los Angeles. There are few now living who could trace from the description given in the records the boundaries of Los Angeles township fifty-five years ago. Here is the description :

Township of Los Angeles. "The city of Los Angeles and the following ranchos, to-wit: Los Corralitos, Feliz, Verdugos, Cahuenga, Tujunga, San Fernando, ex-Mission. San Francisco, Piro,

Camulos, Cañada de los Alamos, La Liebre, El Tejon, Trumfo, Las Vergenes, Escorpion, Los Cuervos, San Antonio de la Mesa, Los Alamitos, Vicente Lugo, Arroyo Seco, Encino, Maligo, Santa Monico, San Vicente, Buenos Ayres, La Bayona, Rincon de los Buey, Rodeo de Las Aguas, La Cienega, La Centinela, Sausal Re- dondo, Palos Verdes, San Pedro, Los Domin- guez, Rancho Nuevo, Paredon Blanco, Los Cer- ritos, La Jaboneria, Rosa de Castilla."

"The residence of the authorities shall be in Los Angeles city."

IMMIGRANTS AND IMMIGRANT ROUTES.

The Sonorese or Sonoran migration began in 1848, as soon as the news of the discovery of gold in California reached Mexico. While these gold-seekers were called Sonorese or Sonorans, they came from the different states of northern Mexico, but in greater numbers from Sonora. The trail from Mexico by way of Aristo, Tuc- son, the Pima villages, across the desert and through the San Gorgonio Pass had been trav- eled for three-quarters of a century. Another branch of this trail crossed the desert from Yuma to Warner's ranch; and then by way of Temé- cula, Jurupa and the Chino, reached Los An- geles. Along these trails from 1848 to 1852 came the Sonorese migration. The extent of this migration was much greater than historians usually consider it. When Dr. Lincoln and ten of his ferrymen were massacred at the Yuma crossing of the Colorado river, one of the ferry- men who escaped stated in his deposition taken by Alcalde Stearns that Lincoln had $50,000 in silver and between $20,000 and $30,000 in gold. This was the proceeds of the ferry secured in less than four months almost entirely from the Sonoran immigrants. The charge for ferrying was $1 for a man. $1 for an animal and the same for a pack or mule cargo. The influx of these people in 1848, 1849 and 1850 must have reached 25,000 a year. These pilgrims to the shrine of Mammon were for the most part a hard lot. They were poor and ignorant and not noted for good morals. From Los Angeles northward, they invariably traveled by the coast route, and in squads of from 50 to 100. Some of them hrought their women and children with

291

HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.

them. With their few possessions packed on donkeys and mules they tramped their weary way from Mexico to the mines. They were not welcomed to the land of gold. The Americans disliked them and the native Californians treated them with contempt. The men wore cotton shirts, white pantaloons, sandals and sombreros. Their apparel, like the laws of the Medes and Persians, "changed not," nor did they change it as long as a shred of it held together. The native Californians nick-named them "calzonares blancos" (white breeches), and imposed upon them when an opportunity offered. The story is told of a native Californian alcalde or justice of the peace who had his office near the old mis- sion church of San Luis Obispo. When a band of these Sonoran pilgrims came along the high- way which led past the old mission, they inva- riably stopped at the church to make the sign of the cross and to implore the protection of the saints. This gave the alcalde his oppor- tunity. Stationing his alguaciles or constables on the road to bar their progress, he proceeded to collect fifty cents toll off each pilgrim. 16 word was passed back to the squads behind and they attempted to avoid the toll-gatherer by a detour to the right or left, the alcalde sent out his mounted constables and rounded up the poor Sonorans like so many cattle at a rodeo, then he and his alguaciles committed highway rob- bery on a small scale. Retributive justice over- took this unjust judge. The vigilantes hanged him, not, however, for tithing the Sonorese, but for horse stealing.

The Sonoran migration began to decline after 1850, and entirely ceased a year or two later. The foreign miner's tax and their persecution by the Americans convinced the Sonorans that there was no place like home. So they went home and stayed there.

A route by which a number of immigrants from Texas and some of the other gulf states came in 1849 led through the northern states of Mexico until it intercepted the Sonora trail and then by that to Los Angeles.

The old Santa Fe trail to New Mexico, then across Arizona, following the Gila to the Colo- rado river, was another southern route by which a great deal of overland travel reached South-

ern California. In 1854, from actual count, it was ascertained that 9,075 persons came by that route. About one-fourth of the 61,000 overland immigrants who came to the state that year reached it by the southern routes. But the route by which the majority of the Argonauts of '49 and the early '50s reached Southern California led south from Salt Lake City until it inter- cepted the great Spanish trail from Los Angeles to Santa Fé at the southern end of Utah Lake. Immigrants by this route, crossing the Colorado desert, reached the San Bernardino valley through the Cajon pass. Capt. Jedediah S. Smith, in 1826, was the first white man to reach Los Angeles by this trail. Tliere was consid- erable trade and travel between Santa Fé and Los Angeles over the old Spanish trail before the conquest of California. The early immigra- tion from New Mexico came by this route. By it came J. J. Warner, William Wolfskill, the Rowland-Workman party, numbering forty-four persons ; B. D. Wilson, D. W. Alexander, John Reed, Dr. John Marsh and many other pioneers.

For several years before the conquest, on ac- count of the hostility of the Indians, this trail had been little used, and to the great many of the Argonauts who crossed the plains in 1849 it was unknown. The belated immigrants of that year who reached Salt Lake too late to cross the Sierra Nevadas had the alternative present- ed them of wintering with the Saints or of find- ing a southern route into California and thus evading the fate that befell the Donner party in the snows of the Sierras. These delayed Argo- nauts found a Mormon captain, Jefferson Hunt, late captain of Company A of the Mormon Bat- talion, who had recently arrived in Salt Lake by this southern route. He was engaged as a guide. A train of about 500 wagons started in November, 1849, for Southern California. After several weeks' travel, a number of the immi- grants having become dissatisfied with Hunt's leadership, and hearing that there was a shorter route to the settlements than the train was pur- suing, seceded from the main body and struck out westward across the desert. After traveling for several days together, they disagreed. Some returned to the main body ; the others broke up into small parties and took different directions.

292

HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.

One of these parties, numbering eleven persons, penetrated Death valley and all perished. An- other, after incredible hardships and after losing several of their number on the desert, reached Los Angeles by the Soledad pass. Another com- pany, after weeks of wandering and suffering, reached the Tulare valley, where they were re- lieved by the Indians. The main body, with but little inconvenience, arrived in San Ber- nardino valley the last of January, 1850.

After the establishment of the Mormon colony at San Bernardino, in June, 1851, the Salt Lake route became a well-traveled road, over which, up to the completion of the Union Pacific Rail- road in 1869, a large amount of freight and travel passed between the City of the Saints and the City of the Angels. By this route came a number of the pioneer American families of Los Angeles. Among others may be named the Macys, Andersons, Workmans, Ulyards, Haz- ards, Montagues.

OX CARTS, STAGES AND STEAMERS.

San Pedro was, in 1850, as it had been for more than half a century before, the entrepot through which the commerce of the Los Angeles district passed. It was, next to San Francisco, the principal seaport of the coast. In the early '50s all the trade and travel up and down the coast came and went by sea. No stage lines had been established in the lower coast counties. In 1848, and for several years after, the only means of getting to the city from the port and vice versa was on horseback. A caballada (band) of horses was kept in pasture on the Palos Verdes for this purpose.

In 1849 Temple & Alexander had a general merchandise store at San Pedro, and did about all the forwarding business of the port. Goods were freighted to Los Angeles in carts drawn by two yoke of oxen yoked by the horns. The carts were similar to the Mexican carretas, ex- cept that they had spoked and tired wheels in- stead of solid ones. A regular freight train was composed of ten carts and forty oxen. Freight charges were $20 a ton. In 1852 stages were put on the route by Banning & Alexander. Tom- linson put on an opposition line, and in 1853 B. A. Townsend was running an accommoda-

tion line between the city and the port and ad- vertising in the Star, "Good coaches and teams as the county will afford." The stage fare was at first $10, then $7.50, dropped to $5, and as opposition increased went down to $1, and as the rivalry grew keener passengers were car- ried free.

The first steamer that ever entered the bay of San Pedro was the Gold Hunter, which an- chored in the port in 1849. She was a side- wheel vessel which had made the voyage from San Francisco to Mazatlan, stopping at way ports.

The Gold Hunter was followed by the steam- ers Ohio, Southerner, Sea Bird and Goliah in 1850 and 1851. In 1853 the Sea Bird was mak- ing three trips a month between San Francisco and San Diego, touching at Monterey, Santa Barbara and San Pedro. The price of a first- class passage from San Pedro to San Francisco in the early '50s was $55. The bill of fare con- sisted of salt beef, hard bread, potatoes and cof- fee without milk or sugar. Freight charges .were $25 a ton. It cost $10 to transport a barrel of flour from San Francisco to Los Angeles. The trip occupied four days. The way ports were Santa Barbara, San Luis Obispo and Mon- terey. There were no wharves or lighters on the route; passengers and freight were landed in the steamer's boats. If the sea was very rough the passengers were carried to San Fran- cisco and brought back on the return trip. Sometimes, when the tide was low, they had to be carried from the boat to the shore on the sailors' backs. The sailor, like the bronco, some- times bucked, and the passenger waded ashore. Both man and beast were somewhat uncertain "in the days of gold-the days of '49."

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.

A history of California and an extended history of its southern coast counties, also containing biographies of well-known citizens of the past and present, Volume I, Part 48

Author: Guinn, James Miller, 1834-1918 Publication date: 1907 Publisher: Los Angeles, Cal., Historic record company Number of Pages: 1184

Author: Guinn, James Miller, 1834-1918
Publication date: 1907
Publisher: Los Angeles, Cal., Historic record company
Number of Pages: 1184