USA > California > A history of California: the American period > Part 26
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To sum up in a single sentence one of the most dramatic periods of all San Francisco's stirring career, one may simply say that the Vigilantes of 1856 succeeded in carrying out the foregoing resolution. Upon the day of James King's funeral, after a fair, though non-technical trial, they hanged Casey and Cora from the windows of the headquarters' building, and later executed two other rascals of similar kidney. Their chief work, however, lay in clearing the city of undesirables, both prominent and obscure, by means of warnings and deportations, and in putting the fear of God into the hearts of the lawless characters who remained.
This process of regeneration was not accepted in a spirit of meekness by the victims, nor wholly unopposed by the regularly constituted authorities. A counter-movement,
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headed by so-called Law and Order men, sought and secured the aid of Governor J. Neely Johnson and the state militia against the Vigilantes, and even the President of the United State was requested to use federal troops to put down the "insurrection." W. T. Sherman, of later Civil War fame, was then engaged in banking in San Francisco and for a time led the anti-Vigilante party. Associated with him were General Volney Howard, Judge Terry of the State Supreme Court (who afterwards nearly forfeited his own neck by stabbing a member of the Committee named Hop- kins), and a number of other citizens equally well known.
Twice, at least, civil war seemed inevitable between the state authorities, backed by the Law and Order party, and the Vigilance supporters, but fortunately this catastrophe was averted. The city, however, for some months was like an armed camp. The Vigilantes had fully 9,000 members, all of whom were regularly drilled and organized into infantry, cavalry, and artillery units. The Committee's permanent headquarters on Sansome Street, in expectation of a siege, had been turned into a well defended fort known as Fort Gunnybags, from the sacks of earth with which it was protected. Some thirty cannon, ranging from six to thirty-two pounders, were in the hands of the organization, besides large stores of ammunition and thousands of muskets. Under such circumstances, suppression of the movement whether by state or federal troops, would have been a very bloody and costly business, and luckily it was not attempted.
By a singular coincidence, the Committee of 1856 hanged the exact number of criminals that the Committee of 1851 had hanged.
"But the committee did not stop there," says Mary Floyd Williams, "it laid its hands upon an incriminating ballot-box that was still stuffed with forged ballots; it obtained confessions from the ward heelers who had done the bidding of the powerful and efficient bosses; then it announced its intention of cleansing the city from the plague of political corruption. It sent into exile over a score of the most valuable members of the machine."
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Fortunately, as soon as the work in hand was done, the leaders of the Committee disbanded its followers, even though the organization was then at the height of its power, and thus saved the movement from becoming the tool of men eager to use it for selfish or partisan ends. Those who created it had shouldered a grave responsibility and taken a great risk. Only the utter demoralization of government and social conditions could have justified such a step. But for many years thereafter the salutary influence of the committee's work was felt in the city's political and social life, and few today will deny that San Francisco profited from this over-riding of law to save law.
The chief authority for the Vigilance movements is Mary Floyd Williams. Her Papers of the San Francisco committee of vigilance of 1851 was issued as vol. IV of the Publications of the Academy of Pacific Coast History (University of California Press). And her History of the San Francisco committee of vigilance of 1851 appeared as vol. XII in the University of California Publications in History, (Berkeley, 1921). These publications were not issued in time to be listed in Chapman's, Literature of California history.
CHAPTER XXI
THE QUEEN OF THE COW COUNTIES
WHILE Northern California was rejoicing in the prodigal riches of the Sierras and establishing a commercial and financial supremacy destined to last long after the close of the gold excitement, the southern part of the state found itself almost entirely cut off from any share in the newly discovered wealth. There was, it is true, a material increase of population in the southern counties, due in part to the immigration over the southern routes (much of which, though originally bound for the Sierras, actually got no farther than San Diego or Los Angeles), and to a considerable back drift from the mines. The southern merchants also enjoyed a season of prosperity, so long as the overland caravans had to be supplied with food and other necessaries for the jour- ney northward. But only in these, or similar indirect ways, did the south profit from the golden wealth with which the north was enriched.
When the first excitement of the gold rush died out, the people of the coast counties, accordingly, turned their attention more and more to the industry which had been the mainstay of California's economic life from the beginning of Spanish occupation; and for more than a decade longer, cattle raising remained almost the sole industry of Southern California. From Monterey to San Diego, indeed, the population was so thoroughly devoted to this distinctive business, that the counties were derisively dubbed the "cow counties" by the commercial and mining communities of the more prosperous north.
Chief of these "cow counties" was Los Angeles, whose ranges alone, according to one authority, supported over 100,000 cattle in 1854. Next came Santa Barbara, with
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approximately 50,000 head, and a very lordly group of cattle barons, whose control of that county's politics and business was complete. Monterey had nearly as many cattle as Santa Barbara. San Bernardino boasted close to 30,000 head; and San Luis Obispo claimed perhaps half that number.
The maintenance of this industry required the same large land holdings that had characterized the old days of Spanish- Mexican control. The methods of raising cattle were still much the same, and the range had to supply feed through all the seasons, without assistance from granary or haystack. In the south, as in every other section of the state, land titles were thrown into confusion by the transition from Mexican to American control, and the adjudication of claims by the Land Commissioners and the courts left many of the original holders with only a scant remnant of a once princely heritage. In these proceedings so much of the land went as lawyer's fees, that as early as 1852 the Los Angeles Star estimated that one tenth of the disputed hold- ings had been paid out in defense of the possessors' titles.
One of the most serious causes of these disputed titles, and of the endless boundary litigation that characterized the decade of the fifties, was the undefined limits of the land grants under the old Spanish-Mexican regime. A typical case of this kind is cited by J. M. Guinn.
"As an example of indefinite boundary lines," he says, "take those of La Habra rancho, formerly in Los Angeles, but now in Orange County; and these are not the worst that might be found in the records.
'Commencing at the camino viejo (old road) and running in a right line 550 varas, more or less distant from a small corral of tuna plants, which plants were taken as a landmark, thence in a direction west by south running along the camino viejo 18,200 varas to a point of small hills, at which place was fixed as a land- mark the head of a steer; from thence east by north passing a cuchillo (waste land) 11,000 varas, terminating at the right line of the small corral of tunas aforesaid, the point of beginning.'
In the course of time the camino viejo was made to take a shorter cut across the valley, the corral of tunas disappeared,
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a coyote or some other beast carried away the steer's head, the three oaks were cut down and carted away for fire-wood, the small stone was lost, the cuch llo was reclaimed from the desert, and the La Habra was left without landmarks or boundary lines. The land-marks lost, the owners of the adjoining ranchos, if so inclined, could crowd them over on to the La Habra; or its owner in the same way, could increase the area of his possessions, and the ex- panding process in all probability would result in costly litigation."
Yet despite squatters, litigation, and mortgage fore- closures, some of the native families succeeded in retaining their far stretching leagues of grazing land, upon which still roamed vast herds of long horned, slim bodied cattle. Among the American rancheros, too, were a number of those early immigrants who came to Southern California in the thirties or early forties and established a friendship and close identity of interests with the Californians.
Thus, for several years after conditions in Northern California had been completely revolutionized by the gold discovery and all the changes the "Great Migration" en- tailed, life in the south retained much of its pastoral, un- hurried character, partaking more of the characteristics of the native epoch than of the excitement, stir, and manifold business activities of the north.
The large ranches, however, whether of Californian or American ownership, were not looked upon with favor by the settlers who came to Southern California to acquire land for agricultural purposes. Conflicts between squatters and rancheros were not at all uncommon, and on more than one occasion whole communities of the new settlers banded themselves together to resist dispossession. Paragraphs similar to the following appeared frequently in newspapers of the time, showing the inevitable conflict of interests between the newly arrived Americans and the old time land holders. This particular notice was dated at El Monte, December 4, 1854. It read as follows:
"We, the undersigned citizens and residents of the San Francis- quito ranch do hereby agree to protect each other in our present claim lines until there is a final decision by the courts of the United
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States either for or against it, and that we will not allow Mr. Dalton or any other man to sell the land so claimed or intrude upon said lines in any way until such decision is made."
Other difficulties, beside those presented by the squatters and small farmers, kept the cattle barons from finding life altogether monotonous. The demand for beef in the mines and by the newly arrived immigrants at first furnished a highly profitable market for the southern cattle. But this very demand, with the ensuing high prices, stimulated com- petition from an unexpected quarter. Large droves of cattle and sheep soon made their appearance in California from the ranges of Sonora, Chihuahua and New Mexico. And though such an overland "drive" at best required weeks of time and not infrequently resulted in heavy losses from flood, starvation, or Indian attack (the last sometimes, indeed, destroying the entire enterprise, men and animals alike), yet whenever the California market promised a satisfactory price in those early years, sheep and cattle from beyond the Colorado sooner or later reached the coast.
In 1855 this form of competition, together with the large increase of Southern California herds due to several satis- factory rainy seasons, threw the industry into a severe depression. Values fell some seventy-five per cent, until prime cattle could be bought for four or five dollars a head. But within the next year or two prices again reached normal levels, and a revival of the business brought the herds back to normal size.
Yet the cattle industry, even when most prosperous, was not an unmixed blessing for the southern part of the state. So long as the business showed a profit, the owners of the large ranches were in no hurry to break up their holdings into small ranches for the benefit of settlers. Other forms of agriculture were accordingly discouraged and the increase of population retarded. Fortunately, before these evils had reached serious proportions, a trick of nature destroyed the supremacy of the cattle barons and forced a subdivision of many of the largest ranges.
A severe drought in 1856, following the low prices of the
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preceding year, caused a good deal of temporary discomfort to the cattle owners, and many of them lost a considerable percentage of their herds. But these losses were trifling compared to those which occurred in the early sixties. The season of 1860-61 was unusually dry. Cattle died by the hundreds for lack of grass and water; and the owners, anxious to save as much as possible from the wreckage, flooded the markets with such half starved animals as they were able to drive to the cities. The price of beef dropped to four, three, and even two cents a pound in the shops; and on many of the ranches the cattle were killed for what their hides, horns, and bones alone would bring.
This severe drought, which not only destroyed many animals but also left large numbers too weak and emaciated to withstand an unfavorable winter, was followed by one of the most prolonged rains the state has ever known. Be- ginning on December 24, 1861, the storm continued almost without interruption for nearly a month. So rarely was the sun visible during that time that the Star published the fol- lowing bit of interesting news,
"A Phenomenon-On Tuesday last the sun made its appear- ance. The phenomenon lasted several minutes and was witnessed by a great number of persons."
The floods which resulted from this storm drowned hun- dreds of cattle in the lowlands. But the damage was much more than offset by the benefit received by the ranges and underground sources of water supply. During the two suc- ceeding seasons the cattle found an abundance of grass, and the losses suffered in the preceding years were almost for- gotten. Then came the great disaster-the drought of 1864.
The fall of 1863 was unusually dry; and even the winter months, during which California normally receives her chief rainfall, brought no relief. Day after day went by with cloudless skies; and the grass failed to sprout from the famished earth. The springs and water holes dried up, and the great ranges were eaten bare of every kind of feed.
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"The loss of cattle was fearful," says the historian of early Southern California in speaking of this drought. "The plains were strewn with their carcasses. In marshy places and around the cienegas, where there was a vestige of green, the ground was covered with their skeletons, and the traveler for years afterward was often startled by coming suddenly on a veritable Golgotha- a place of skulls-the long horns standing out in defiant attitude, as if protecting the fleshless bones. It is said that 30,000 head of cattle died on the Stearn's Ranchos alone. The great drought of 1863-4 put an end to cattle raising as the distinctive industry of Southern California."
The Sacramento Union estimated that from one half to three fourths of the cattle in Los Angeles County died of starvation in this great drought. The News stated that 5,000 head had sold in Santa Barbara for 371/2 cents apiece. Only one rancher held a rodeo in all Los Angeles county during that disastrous season. Range lands fell so low in value that some of the southern counties assessed them at ten cents an acre-the same valuation that was placed on each individual grape vine in the wine vineyards.
The cattle industry could not survive this disaster. Many of the ranchers, who had borrowed money at the usurious rates then in vogue, were forced to give up their holdings; and the new owners found it more profitable and less risky to divide the ranges into small ranches and sell them in this fashion to the ever increasing number of settlers, than to attempt to maintain the business of cattle raising in the old way. So, while the drought of 1864 brought loss and in many cases ruin, and changed the whole economic life of Southern California, it was after all a blessing in disguise; for it led to those diversified and highly productive forms of agriculture which have so long furnished the basis of Southern California's prosperity, and determined her whole mode of life.
In the fifties, however, outside of the cattle industry, the agricultural productions of Southern California were decid- edly limited. Grain was grown in considerable quantities in nearly all of the southern counties, and some flour was
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ground in primitive mills for local consumption. In a small way there was likewise some production of vegetables and of the commoner varieties of deciduous fruits for commercial purposes. A few seedling oranges were also shipped north from the trees planted by William Wolfskill and the other pioneers in the citrus industry.
By way of contrast to this insignificant production of deciduous and citrus fruits, however, the vineyards of the south were already yielding very heavily. By 1860 a million pounds of fresh grapes packed in saw dust were being shipped annually from San Pedro. In addition, a considerable quan- tity of wine was manufactured each season in southern wineries. After supplying the local demand, much of this was sent north to San Francisco and the mines.
Manufacturing was almost non-existent. A little lumber was sawed in the San Bernardino mountains; but most of that required for building purposes was brought down from the north. And even in those early days, the annual impor- tations were heavy enough to make San Pedro one of the largest lumber ports along the coast.
The lack of a customshouse at San Pedro, however, for some time seriously interfered with the prosperity of South- ern California, and increased enormously the cost of all goods imported from other countries. Such imports, under the circumstances, had first to be landed at San Fran- cisco and were then brought down to the southern port. The hardships imposed by this requirement were strikingly shown in a memorial from the merchants of Los Angeles in 1850, asking Congress to establish a customshouse at San Pedro. Part of the memorial read as follows:
"The conditions of the country in which your memorialists reside are peculiar and hence results a marked singularity in the state of its trade. Its proximity to the mining regions has caused it to be substantially denuded of its laboring population and hence although strikingly agricultural in its natural features it has for the last two years been dependent on a foreign supply for not only the greater proportion of its bread stuffs but for even the coarser articles such as peas, beans, oats, barley, etc. These are brought
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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 consumption, 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 expenses upon a cargo of flour for sending it from the warehouse in San Francisco to San Pedro have been as high as ten dollars and twenty-five cents per barrel and have never been less than five dollars and seventy-five cents. One of your memorialists has paid for the expenses of a single cargo of goods from San Francisco to San Pedro fourteen thousand dollars. In fine the average additional cost upon goods purchased at San Francisco is not less than 30 per cent upon their being landed at San Pedro."
Perhaps the most serious drawback to the material devel- opment of the south was its deplorable lack of money. Interest rates as high as five per cent a month failed to bring in sufficient capital to meet the demand, and under such a handicap economic progress was necessarily slow.1 Twice, however, the hopes of the south were greatly stimulated by the excitement of nearby mining booms. In 1855 gold was discovered in considerable quantities on the Kern River. This at once attracted miners from the entire state and led to a rush of no mean proportions. The Southern Cali- fornia merchants were naturally jubilant over this event, in which they saw an opportunity of reaping some of the rich harvest which their San Francisco, Stockton, and Sacramento rivals had previously monopolized.
The Los Angeles papers played the boom up for all it was worth, and perhaps for a little more. The Southern Californian of February 8, 1855, for example, contained this paragraph:
"The road from our valley is literally thronged with people on their way to the mines. Every description of vehicle and animal
1 Harris Newmark, who came to Los Angeles in 1853 and died there in 1916,
states that interest rates of from 2% to 1212% a week were not unknown.
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has been brought into requisition to take the exultant seekers after wealth to the goal of their hopes. Immense ten-mule wagons strung out one after another; long trains of pack mules and men mounted and on foot, with picks and shovels; boarding-house keepers with their tents; merchants with their stocks of miners' necessaries, and gamblers with their papers are constantly leaving for the Kern River mines. . . . The opening of these mines has been a Godsend to all of us, as the business of the entire country was on the point of taking to a tree. The great scarcity of money is seen in the present exorbitant rates of interest which it com- mands; 8, 10, and even 15 per cent a month is freely paid and the supply even at these rates is too meager to meet the demands."
A month later the same editor wrote,
"Stop the Press! Glorious News from Kern River! Bring out the Big Guns! There are a thousand gulches rich with gold and room for ten thousand miners. Miners average $50 a day. One man with his own hands took out $160 in a day. Five men in ten days took out $4,500."
The Kern River excitement was short lived; and it was not until 1860 that a new rush, but on a much smaller scale, again swelled the hopes of the Los Angeles merchants. This was the result of the opening of mines in Bear and Holcomb valleys back of the Mormon settlements at San Bernardino. A thousand persons were said to have been on the ground at one time during this rush, but the deposits were soon exhausted and the boom collapsed.
But if the mines proved a disappointment and the South remained far behind the North in population and wealth, she at least knew the value of publicity; and even before the state was five years old, Los Angeles County had ac- quired a reputation and a name, and incidentally possessed a group of citizens who were not at all backward in proclaim- ing the greatness of the section in which they lived.
"The Queen of the Cow Counties bangs all creation in her pro- ductions," one of the Los Angeles editors wrote. "Whether it be shocking murders, or big beets, jail demolishers, expert horse thieves, lynch justices, fat beeves, swimming horses, expounders
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of new religions, tall corn, mammoth potatoes, ponderous cabbages, defunct Indians, secret societies, bright skies, mammoth pump- kins, Shanghai chickens, grizzlies, coyotes, dogs, smart men, office seekers, coal holers, scrip or fights ... she stands out in bold relief, challenging competition."
The city which gave its name to this marvellous "Queen of the Cow Counties," was little removed during the first decade of the state's history from the primitive appearance and manner of life that it had known under Mexican rule. Its houses were still chiefly of the familiar adobe type, their flat roofs covered with asphalt from the nearby brea pits on what is now the Hancock Banning ranch. The general appearance of these early Los Angeles homes has fortunately been left us in minute detail by one of the city's pioneers.
"Most of the houses were built of adobe, or mud mixed with straw and dried for months in the sun;" wrote Harris Newmark. "The composition was of such a nature that, unless protected by roofs and verandas, the mud would slowly wash away. The walls, however, also requiring months in which to dry, were generally three or four feet thick; and to this as well as to the nature of the material may be attributed the fact that the houses in the summer season were cool and comfortable, while in winter they were warm and cheerful. They were usually rectangular in shape, and were invariably provided with patios and corridors. There was no such thing as a basement under a house, and floors were frequently earthen. Conventionality prescribed no limit as to the number of rooms, an adobe frequently having a sitting-room, a dining-room, a kitchen and as many bed-rooms as were required; but there were few, if any, "frills" for the mere sake of style.
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