USA > California > Los Angeles County > An historical sketch of Los Angeles county, California. From the Spanish occupancy, by the founding of the mission San Gabriel Archangel, September 8, 1771, to July 4, 1876 > Part 2
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The working of these fields has been pursued intermittingly, more or less successfully, from their discovery to the present time. The small supply of water, available for hydraulic mining over this large field, is the cause why it has not been more thoroughly worked. Although in no part of this ex- tensive gold field have claims of great richness been found, a large number have been, and some are yet, worked with remunerating results.
The discovery of this gold field was, in a two-fold manner, accidental. Sometime in the latter part of 1840, or the early part of 1841, a Mexican mineralogist, Don Andres Castillerc, traveling from Los Angeles to Monterey, while passing along the road over the Las Virgenes Rancho, saw and gathered up some small, water-worn mineralogical pebbles, known by Mexican placer miners as tepustete-a variety of pyrites-which he exhibited at the residence of Don Jose Antonio de la Guerra y Noriega, in Santa Barbara, where he was a guest, and stated, that wherever these pebbles were found in place, it was a good indication of placer gold fields. A Mr. Francisco Lopez, also
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known by the name of Cuso, a farmer and herdsman, living at the time upon the Piru Rancho, was present, and heard the statement and saw the pebbles. Not long after this incident, Mr. Lopez, in company with a fellow-herdsman, was one day searching for strayed animals until their riding horses were jaded. At a suitable place they dismounted, and picketing their horses that they might rest and feed, Lopez busied himself in gathering a parcel of wild onions, a bed of which was near at hand, to carry home for a mess of greens. In pulling the onions from the ground he noticed a pebble, similar to the one he had seen in the hands of Mr. Castillero, and remembering what was then said about its being a sign of gold, he scooped up a handful of the earth, which he had loosened by gathering the onions, and rubbing it in his hand, found a grain of gold.
The news of this discovery soon spread among the inhabitants, from Santa Barbara to Los Angeles, and in a few weeks hundreds of people were engaged in washing and winnowing the sands and earth of these gold fields. The writer of this visited the mines within a few weeks from their discovery, and from these mines was obtained the first parcel of California gold dust received at the United States Mint in Philadelphia, and which was sent to that mint by the Hon. Abel Stearns, late of Los Angeles City. It was sent with Alfred Robinson, and went in a merchant sailing ship around Cape Horn. A certificate of its deposit in the mint is in the possession of the Society of California Pioneers, in San Francisco.
Two parcels of placer gold-one from the New Mexican, and the other from the Sonorian gold fields-were brought to Los Angeles in the Winter of 1833-4, and were here sold and exported to foreign countries, which fact has served to cloud the history of gold discovery in California.
The Spanish Government, acting upon the ground that the people over whom it held sway, especially those of its subjects in America, were its wards, or incompetent persons, unable to make suitable provision for them- selves, assumed the attitude of guardian toward its subjects. It ordained where and how they should live. It established the wages of laborers, and fixed the price of horses, cattle, and most commodities which were produced, or bought and sold by the people.
In consonance with this principle, the Town [Pueblo] of Nuestra Senora de Los Angeles, under and in conformity to an order of the then Governor of California, Phelipe de Neve, dated at the Mission of San Gabriel, August 26th, 1781, was founded in a formal manner on the fourth of September of the same year. The founders of the town numbered twelve adult males, all heads of families. The surnames of the twelve settlers were Lara, Navarro, Rosas, Mesa, Moreno, Rosas, Villavicencio, Banegas, Rodriguez, Camero, Quintero, and Rodriguez. These men had been soldiers at the Mission of San Gabriel, and, although: relieved or discharged from service, continued to receive pay and rations from the Spanish Government. The total number of souls comprising the settlement was forty-six. Twenty of these were chil- dren under ten years of age. Of the twelve adult men, two were natives of Spain, one a native of China, and the other ninc of some one of the following places : Sinaloa, Sonora, and Lower California.
For the centre of the town a parallelogram, one hundred varas long and seventy-five wide, was laid cut as a public square. Twelve house-lots, front- ing on the square, occupied three sides of it, and one-half of the remaining side of seventy-five varas was destined for public buildings, and the other half an open space. The location of the public square would nearly corres- pond to the following lines: The southeast corner of Upper Main and Mar-, chessault streets for the southern or southeastern corner of the square; the cast line of Upper Main street, from the above named corner, one hundred varas in a northerly direction, for the east line of the square; the eastern line of New High street for the western line of the square; and the northern line of Marchessault street for the southern line of the square. At a short dis- tance from the public square, and upon the alluvial bottom land of the river, upon which the water of the river for irrigation could be easily conducted, there were laid out thirty fields for cultivation. The fields contained forty thousand square varas cach, and were mostly laid out in the form of a square, and separated from each other by narrow lanes. In accord with the paternal
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idea of the Spanish Government, the head of each family was furnished front the royal treasury with two oxen, two mules, two mares, two sheep, two goats, two cows with one calf, one ass, and one hoe, and to the settlers in common, the tools for a cart-maker. These articles, as well as the live stock, were all charged to the individuals respectively, or to the community at a price fixed by the Government, and the amount was to be deducted, in small installments, from their pay.
As the government of California was a combination of military and ecclesiastical powers, so the municipal government devised for the settlers of Los Angeles was a compound of political and military government, in which the latter largely predominated. All the municipal power was vested in one officer, called Alcalde, who was appointed by the Governor-who was himself the military commander of the country-or by a military officer who commanded the military district in which the town was situated. The terri- tory of Upper California was divided into military districts corresponding in number with the military posts, which were four, and the jurisdiction of the commanding officer of the post extended over the district, and civil, as well as military matters, came under his cognizance.
The adult males, and those over eighteen years, were enrolled, and were subject to the performance of guard duty, both by day and night, at the guard house, which was located on the public square.
Notwithstanding that the laws of Spain, regarding the creation of town" or municipal organizations, were both munificent and liberal, yet as the organization of the municipal government of the Town of Los Angeles was effected by military officers exclusively, and as all those who composed thie original settlers, as well as those who for many years became settlers, had been soldiers-trained and accustomed to military government and disci- pline-the evolution of the municipality from its military character, into a local self-governing community within its own sphere of action, was slow and tortuous. We find a military officer, one whose jurisdiction was co-ex- tensive with that of the commanding officer of the garrison of Santa Barbara, granting a house-lot, in the Town of Los Angeles, on the 23d of June, 1821. This lot, upon which the Pico House stands, was granted to Jose Antonio Carrillo by his brother, Anastacio Carrillo, a military officer, who styled himself Commissioner. The exclusive jurisdiction of the Alcalde, the chief officer of Los Angeles, was extremely limited, even if in practice it was known to exist. Cases of all kinds, except such as could be heard by eccle- siastical authorities, both civil and criminal, and of trivial character, went from the Alcalde and beyond the territorial jurisdiction of Los Angeles, to be heard and determined by the military commandant of a garrison more than a hundred miles distant.
The absence of municipal records for the first half century after the founding of Los Angeles, of itself raises the presumption that the municipal officers exercised but little authority during that time. After the allotment of house lots and fields for cultivation to the original twelve settlers, there does not appear to have been any record kept of the grants of either house lots or farming lands until as late as 1836.
The system adopted by the Government for the formation of pueblos, and the granting of building lots and farming lands to settlers within the limits of a pueblo, did not require a record of the grant. In conferring upon a settler the right to acquire and occupy a lot upon which to build a dwelling house and land to cultivate, the Government did not absolutely divest itself of its title to and control over the soil. The settler who erected a house upon a lot assigned to him, or fenced and cultivated a field which had been set off to him, did not become vested with the unconditional title of ownership to either. If he, without justifiable cause, suffered his house to remain unoccupied, or to fall into decay, or his field to remain unculti- vated for two consecutive years, it became subject to denouncement by any other person legally competent to take by grant, and the granting authori- ties could and were by law required, upon a proper showing of the abandon- ment, to grant the property to the informant, who then acquired the same and no better rights than those possessed by his predecessor.
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Proof of the caution and circumspection necessary in collecting material for history, and the value of suspicion when directed to dates, is well exem- plified by the following circumstance. We have before us a traced copy of the original order of Governor Neve for the founding of the town of Los Angeles. To this copy is attached the certificate of Sherman Day, U. S. Surveyor General for California, that it is a true and correct copy of the original document on file in his office. This document, as traced, bears date of Mission of San Gobxxel, August 26th, 1788. Other evidence before us fixed the date of the founding of Los Angeles in September, 1781. In an examination for the discovery of this discrepancy, it was found that Gov. ernor Neve was succeeded by Governor Fages on the 7th of September, 1782. It was therefore conclusive that the scholar who executed this traced copy, not only transformed Gabriel into the uncouthi Gobxxel, but changed the date of 1781 into 1788, and that the United States officer, a highly educated gentleman, of experience and of probity, certified that a document with such gross blunders of the tracer, was a true and correct copy.
The quietude which prevailed in the civil, military and ecclesiastical government of California during the first half of a century after the advent of the Franciscan Missionaries into California, and which was not disturbed by the commotion in which the Government of New Spain was, during the lat- ter half of that period involved, began to give way before questions affecting the inhabitants of California which were agitated in the latter part of the third decade of the present century. With the exception of a slight ripple which manifested itself in the Military District of Monterey previous to 1830, no act of insubordination had transpired up to that time. Even the sovereignty of Spain, which was recognized without any attempt from any quarter to dispute its right up to this time, was quietly laid aside by the civil, military and ecclesiastical rulers on the 9th day of April, 1822, and allegiance to the "Kingdom of the Empire of Mexico " was voluntarily and peacefully assumed by the officers and those in authority, who, up to that day, had sworn only by the King of Spain, and this same quietude still con- tinued under the recognized sovereignty of Mexico, without any public dis- turbance, until the latter part of 1831, when an insurrection broke forth in the town of Los Angeles, which caused the spilling of the first blood shed in civil strife in California. A large number of the people of Los Angeles had, during the year 1831, assumed an attitude of hostility to the Alcalde, who had put under arrest and placed in confinement some of the influential citizens of the place. It was a matter of belief by the people of Los Angeles that what they looked upon as the arbitrary acts of the Alcalde were inspired by the Governor and Military Commandant of the Territory, Don Manuel Victoria, and in the latter part of November, he being on his way from Monterey to the southern part of the Territory, accompanied by a small military escort, they determined to rid themselves not only of their Alcalde, but the country of its Governor. On the morning of the 5th of December, 1831, the people having liberated those who had been imprisoned by the Alcalde, and made a prisoner of the latter, armed themselves and sallied forth to meet and oppose General Victoria. He was met a few miles from town, when a conflict ensued, in which one of his officers, Captain R. Pacheco-the father of ex-Governor Pacheco-and one of the attacking party, Don Jose Maria Abila, of Los Angeles, were killed. The General received a sword wound from Abila before the latter was killed. The com- batants separated immediately after these casualties. The General, leaving Los Angeles to his right, repaired to San Gabriel Mission, where on the following day he surrendered up his authority to the insurgents, who sent him to San Diego, from which place he shortly after embarked for the coast of Mexico.
For some time after the expulsion of General Victoria, Los Angeles was the seat of government of those who expelled him. The head of the gov- ernment was General Jose Maria Echandia, who had been the predecessor of Victoria. His jurisdiction, however, only extended over the southern part of the territory. The people of the northern portion of the territory adhered to the government of General Victoria, and sustained, as the rightful head of the civil and military government of California, Captain Agustin V. Zamo-
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rano, the military officer next in rank to the General. This division was not healed until General Figueroa reached California in 1833.
The Congress of Mexico erected the town of Los Angeles into a city in 1836, and shortly after appointed Carlos Antonio Carrillo, of Santa Barbara, the civil Governor of California. Upon receiving the appointment of Gov- ernor, the seat of government was established by Governor Carrillo in Los Angeles, August, 1837. His authority, as Governor, was not recognized by the people north of Santa Barbara, and after a few months he succumbed to Governor Juan B. Alvarado, who had been acting as Governor from the 6th of November, 1836.
After the adoption by Mexico of the centralized form of government, and the transformation, under that government, of the States and Territories into Departments, and the subdivision of the latter into Prefectures, Los Angeles City was the seat of the Prefecture of the Southern District of Cal- ifornia, from some time in 1839 to about the close of 1843, when that system of government was abandoned. Tiburcio Tapia, a native of Los Angeles, was the first Prefect, and held the office about one year, when he was suc- ceeded by Santiago Arguello, who continued in office until July, 1843, when Manuel Dominguez was appointed, and held the office until December of that year. Mr. Dominguez was a member of the convention that framed the State Constitution, and still lives upon his San Pedro Ranch.
In the Summer of 1835, a small body of men, natives of Sonora and other Mexican States, having as leaders one Torres and Apalatey, collected at the Los Nietos Ranch and marched into the Town of Los Angeles, for the professed object of overthrowing the government of Figueroa and placing Mr. Ijar at the head of affairs. They took and held the town a few hours, when they betrayed their leaders, delivering them up to the regular authori- ties, and then dispersed.
Some time in 1835, the paramour of a married woman, abeted by the wife, murdered the husband while on his way from Los Angeles City to his residence. The parties to the homicide were soon arrested and lodged in prison. At that time there was no Court, or civil authority in California, which was invested with power to execute the sentence of death. In cases in which the punishment was death, the record of the trial was required to be sent to Mexico for inspection and approval by superior criminal officers, before the sentence could be executed. As this was attended with great delay, and the means of keeping prisoners under sentence were inadequate for their secure detention, the inhabitants of Los Angeles, after the trial had taken place and their guilt fully established, demanded of the Alcalde the surrender of these two prisoners, that they might be executed without any further delay. Although the demand was not granted no effort was made by the lawful authorities to prevent the execution of the demand. A body of armed men took the two prisoners from their place of confinement, and they were both publicly shot.
In April, 1838, a small body of men, under the command of Clemente Espinosa, an ensign, was sent from Santa Barbara by Colonel Jose Maria Villa, a partizan of Governor Alvarado and General Castro, to capture cer- tain persons suspected of being engaged in a plan to overthrow the govern- ment of Alvarado, and replace Governor Carrillo in authority. The party of Espinosa entered Los Angeles in the night, and camped on the open space in front of the old Catholic Church. The inhabitants discovered upon opening the doors of their dwellings on the following morning that the town had been captured, or rather that it was then held by armed men from abroad, who soon commenced a general search in the houses of the citizens for the suspected persons. Quite a number were arrested, among whom were Jose Antonio Carrillo, a brother of the deposed Governor, Pio Pico, Andres Pico and Gil Ybarra, the then Alcalde of Los Angeles, together with about half a dozen more of the most prominent 'native citizens of the place. They were all taken north as prisoners of war. The only casualty which occurred was the breaking of the arm of J. J. Warner, by one of Espinosa's men, in consequence of his inability to inform them where Don Pio Pico could be found, and his resistance to an order of arrest for refusing permission to have his house searched for suspected persons.
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In November, 1842, Commodore Thomas ap Catesby Jones, witlı his official suite of the United States navy, paid an official and apologetical visit to General Manuel Micheltorena, at Los Angeles. This interview grew out of the capture of Monterey, the Capital of California, by Commodore Jones on the 20th of the preceding month.
A bloodless battle, of two or three days' continuance, was fought in the San Fernando valley in the month of February, 1845, between Governor Micheltorena, at the liead of the troops which accompanied him to Califor- nia from Mexico, and General Jose Castro, at the head of citizens and resi- dents of the southern part of California, who had been hastily collected and armed to meet and oppose Micheltorena, who was marching upon Los Angeles from Monterey. The result of the battle was the surrender of Micheltorena and his expulsion from California.
Upon the expulsion of Micheltorena Los Angeles again became the seat of government, with Don Pio Pico as Governor, whose authority was recog- nized throughout California until the occupation of the country by the Americans, in 1846.
On the 7th of August, 1846, the American squadron, under Commodore R. F. Stockton, anchored in the bay of San Pedro. Col. J. C. Fremont, at the head of his command of volunteers, which had occupied San Diego in the latter part of the preceding month, was then approaching Los Angeles from San Diego. Commodore Stockton, upon anchoring at San Pedro, landed four hundred men and some artillery. Having formed a junction with the force under Fremont, he moved upon, and on the 15th of August occupied Los Angeles City. Governor Pico and General Castro abandoned the city a short time before its occupation by Commodore Stockton. The Governor made his way, without discovery by the American forces, through San Diego into Lower California, and thence crossed the Gulf and landed in Sonora. General Castro, after disbanding the force under his command, took the road, with a small number of adherents, for Sonora, over the Colo- rado River route. Some little effort was made by the Americans to capture both him and Governor Pico, but they made good their escape.
On the 23d of the following September, (Commodore Stockton and Col- onel Fremont, having some time previous left Los Angeles for San Fran- cisco), the quarters of the Americans under A. H. Gillespie, a Lieutenant of Marines, who had been left by Stockton as Military Commandant at Los Angeles, were attacked by Cervol Varelas, a native of Los Angeles, at tlie head of a few of his countrymen. Three days thereafter the Hon. B. D. Wilson, who had been placed in command of a few men at the Jarupa Ranch, to protect the inhabitants of that section of country and their pro- perty from Indian raids, and who had been ordered by Gillespie to come to his relief, was captured, together with his small command, at the Chino Ranch, to which place he had repaired upon discovering that the march of his small body of men was being threatened by the forces of Varelas and Diego Sepulveda. In the meantime, and until the 30th of September, the siege of Gillespie was continued, and seeing no way of raising the siege, after learn- ing of the capture of Wilson's party, he signed articles of capitulation on the 30th, and marching the garrison to San Pedro, embarked it on board an American merchant ship lying there at anchor.
On the 6th of October, Captain Mervin, in the frigate Savannah, an- chored at San Pedro. On the following day he debarked, as also did the force under Gillespie, and at the head of his marines and the men under Gillespie took up liis march for Los Angeles. His force amounted in all to five hundred men. The insurgents at Los Angeles were not inactive during this time. A force, with one small piece of artillery, was organized under Jose Antonio Carrillo and Jose Maria Flores, and sent to check the approach of Captain Mervin. Some slight skirmishing was done along the line of march during the 7th, but on the 8th, after a spirited engagement which lasted for an hour or more, Captain Mervin, who up to this time continued his advance, becoming alarmed at the resistance which he encountered, and the loss of men he was suffering, ordered a retreat, and reaching the shore of San Pedro, immediately embarked his forces.
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On the 1st of November Commodore Stockton, who had returned to San Pedro, landed eight hundred men, for the purpose of marching upon and capturing Los Angeles. Instead, however, of taking up the line of march for Los Angeles he re-embarked his forces, and, with the squadron, sailed for San Diego.
On the 8th of January, 1847, Commodore Stockton having been joined at San Diego by General Kearny and his escort of dragoons, with which he had arrived at that place from New Mexico, reached the San Gabriel River in his march upon Los Angeles from San Diego. The insurgents, under the command of Jose Maria Flores, who had attained to the rank of General-in-Chief, occupying the right bank of the river, opposed the cross- ing, but it was effected without much loss on the part of the Americans, and with but little on the part of the Californians. On the following day the American column, while on the march, was attacked by the forces of Flores. This attack took place between the Laguna and the Mesa, some four or five miles southeasterly from Los Angeles City, and is sometimes called the bat- tle of the Laguna, and sometimes that of the Mesa. On the following day, January 10th, Commodore Stockton and General Kearney entered the City of Los Angeles. .
The insurgent force, under Flores, failing to make any impression upor the Americans in their attack upon the marching column on the 9th, was moved to San Pasqual, some five or six miles northeast of Los Angeles. On the night of the 11th, at an early hour, General Flores, with forty or fifty men, started for Sonora, going by the way of the San Gorgonio Pass and the Colorado River.
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