An illustrated history of Los Angeles County, California. Containing a history of Los Angeles County from the earliest period of its occupancy to the present time, together with glimpses of its prospective future and biographical mention of many of its pioneers and also of prominent citizens of to-day, Part 21

Author: Lewis Publishing Company. cn
Publication date: 1889
Publisher: Chicago, Lewis Pub. Co.
Number of Pages: 1092

USA > California > Los Angeles County > An illustrated history of Los Angeles County, California. Containing a history of Los Angeles County from the earliest period of its occupancy to the present time, together with glimpses of its prospective future and biographical mention of many of its pioneers and also of prominent citizens of to-day > Part 21

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tal, he went to Philadelphia to tend office and write in his brother William's law office. This soon became too monotonous for his restless nature, and he engaged in the more active pur- snit of merchandising, in the employ of a large wholesale fancy-goods house on Market street, where he remained until he had passed his twenty-first birthday.

Impelled by the chafings of his ambition and adventurous spirit to seek the excitement and romance of frontier life in the new Golden State, young Banning left the Quaker City in 1851 for California, via the Isthmus of Panama. Land- ing first at San Diego and finding no special indncements to locate at that point, he came to Los Angeles; and soon after, in November, 1852, he, in company with Don George Alex- ander, engaged in freighting, staging and light- erage business at San Pedro, and between that place and Los Angeles and other points.

From that time forward Mr. Banning's career was an eventful one, and prominently inter- woven with the history of Los Angeles County. HIe founded and gave the name to Wilmington, christening it in memory of the city of that name in his native State. He was the chief projector and builder of the Los Angeles & Wilmington Railroad, and had sole management of it for a number of years, until it was sold to the Southern Pacific Company. During the construction of that company's line eastward General Banning was tireless in his efforts which proved very efficient in aiding the success of that great enterprise. In the freighting and transportation business General Banning had occasion to make frequent visits to Fort Tejon; and, as an illustration of his indomitable energy and endurance, it is related upon nnquestiona- ble authority that he often made the trip of 120 miles to the Fort in one day and the return trip the next. Being a man of broad and patriotic mind, whatever he planned and so grandly exe- ented was on a comprehensive scale; and in its projection and execution the thought of the public weal was paramount to his own private interests. Realizing the incalculable advantages

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of a good harbor on this portion of the coast, he made two trips to Washington, at his own expense, both of which were successful, to pro- cure appropriations by Congress for the im- provement of San Pedro Harbor; and to his efforts is largely due the construction of the breakwater and dredging of the bar which makes that now excellent harbor so important to the growing commercial interests of Los Angeles. In early days, when law had no ter- rors for evildoers, and the Vigilants and Ran- gers were about the only protection to life and property, General Banning was a firm friend to the Rangers, and aided and encouraged them in their work of ridding the country of thieves and outlaws. General Banning's military title was earned in the command of the First Brigade of the California State Militia, of which he was appointed Brigadier-General. Besides attend- ing to his other large business interests, he bought and improved a tract of 600 acres at Wilmington, cultivating it to fruits and grains. On this property he made the largest well in the country, to which powerful steam pumps were attached, and lifted water into several res- ervoirs, thus furnishing the water supply for the towns of Wilmington and San Pedro, for vessels in the harbor, and for irrigating and domestic purposes. His farming operations were carried on accordingly, the most approved methods being used and successful results fol- lowing. The elegant house he built, where he and his family resided, was ever celebrated for the generosity and hospitality of its inmates.

In his gigantic business enterprises General Banning made large sums of money, and, but for his public-spirited liberality and generosity, might have been a millionaire. But owing to these dominant traits in his character others reaped more of the benefits of his achievements than he. Being inspired by a patriotic zeal, every commendable enterprise received his hearty support, and his philanthropic heart al- lowed no worthy object of charity ever to appeal to him in vain.

In politics he was a staunch Republican. 9

Prior to the civil war he was a strong Aboli- tionist.

General Banning was twice married. ITis first wife was Rebecca Sanford, the mother of eight children, three sons-William, Joseph B. and Hancock Banning, now living, the latter being named for General Winfield S. Hancock, who was a very warm personal friend of Gen- eral Banning. Some time after the death of Mrs. Banning the General wedded Mary Hol- lister, on February 14, 1870, a native of Licking County, Ohio, daughter of J. II. Hollister, late of San Luis Obispo County, this State, a prom- inent and wealthy citizen of that county. Three daughters were born of General Banning's sec- ond marriage, one of whom died in early in- fancy. The living are Mary Hollister Banning and Lucy Tichnor Banning, seventeen and twelve years of age respectively.

After an illness of several months, General Banning passed away in San Francisco, on the 8th of March, 1885, with his devoted wife and loving daughters by his bedside. Thus went out the life of one of California's greatest and most public- spirited citizens and business men, and a most unselfish and loving husband and father. General Banning was a splendid speci- men of physical manhood, a large, well-formed body, surmounted by a large, well-poised brain, Original in his conceptions and methods, dauntless in courage and persistent in purpose, he was a born leader of men. He left a fine estate to his family, which was the accumula- tion of the later years of his life. Mrs. Ban- ning and her daughters reside in their attractive home on Fort Hill; the location is one of the most beautiful and commanding in Los Angeles, overlooking as it does a magnificent picturesque landscape, comprising many square miles of city valley and plain.

A stock company was formed by General Banning to succeed to his business. His sons now own a large majority of the stock. The officers of the company are: William Banning, President; Joseph B. Banning, Vice-President; Hancock Banning, Treasurer.

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HISTORY OF LOS ANGELES COUNTY.

Louis VIGNES, the pioneer of pioneers of the now numerous French colony of Los Angeles, was born in Bordeaux, France, abont 1775. When still a young man he went to the Sand- wich Islands, in the employ of a mercantile firm, which, meeting with reverses, compelled him to take as compensation for his services whatever he could get, which consisted of a lot of toy saints, amulets, church ornaments, etc., thought to be of little commercial valne, but which he brought with him to California, where, fortunately, he found a good market for them. Soon after his arrival in Los Angeles, some time early in the '30s, he planted thie ex- tensive vineyard long known as the " Aliso Vineyard," which took its name from the im- mense Aliso (sycamore) tree, still standing close to the Philadelphia Brewery, where it has stood as a patriarch and a landmark for more than 100 years, and no one living knows how much longer. Beneath its great branches he built his wine cellars, around which, and his residence and orangries, he erected a high adobe wall, which made his place a sort of castle, within which he could shut up himself, his treasures and his dependents from the outside world whenever there were political or other dis- turbances, or when the Indians, which in the early times were very numerous here, were troublesome. During the commotions and ex- citements that took place pending the change from Mexican to American rule, numerous families took refuge within the walls of the castle of " Don Louis del Aliso," and they were hospitably treated by him.

After Don Louis' death, which occurred Janu- ary 17, 1862, his vineyard was divided up, streets were laid out, and eventually the vines were dug np, and the site is now occupied by many dwellings, business houses, etc., and there is very little left to show there was once a large vineyard there. The venerable patronymic tree, however, still stands, a landmark in the midst of change in grim grandeur, and is apparently. good for another hundred or five hundred years.

Don Louis was, in many respects, a notable character in his day. He was shrewd and thrifty, and, as his vineyard was very prodnc- tive, its vintages were held in good repute, he became forehanded. Timber was not to be had here in those days, only as it was sawed ont by hand in the mountains, and hanled here with great labor. In 1841 he built a sawmill near San Bernardino, and put his nephew, Pedro Sainsevain, then a young man, who had come out from France a year or two before, in charge. In 1855 he sold his vineyard to his two nephews, Pedro and Jean Louis Sainsevain, who carried it on, together with an extensive wine business, till about 1867. Pedro still lives in San José, but his brother, genial Don Louis Sainsevain, long well and favorably known by the old- timers, died in this city during the present year (1889). A son of Don Louis, Michel, also well known, died a few years ago, leaving a widow and several children; and another son, Panl, lives in San Diego. Vital Fernando and Juan Maria Vignes are alsonephews of old Don Louis Vignes.

MATTHEW KELLER was born in Queenstown, Ireland, abont the year 1811. He came to America when young, and lived some time in Mexico. From some papers in the possession of his nephew, Thomas Leahy, of this city, it appears that he was naturalized as a citizen of the United States at New Orleans, in 1849; and he must have come to California soon after, for he wrote to his nephew in 1850, for him to come to him in Los Angeles.

Though Mr. Keller-who was well and generally known here by the native Califor- nians and by the old settlers as "Don Mateo" -spent some time in the mines, he became one of Los Angeles' most prominent and public- spirited citizens. He early engaged in vine- yarding and wine-making, and at one time he had, besides his store in Los Angeles, a large wine house in San Francisco, and also in New York and Philadelphia; and at the time of his death, which occurred April 11, 1881, from heart disease, he owned considerable vineyard

J.M. P.15

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property, besides his Malibou Rancho, etc. He was a man of tireless energy, even up to the end of his long life. He was a manufacturer of wine and grape brandy on a large scale for inany years. But as he felt age creeping ou, and that his large interests here needed his per- sonal attention, he sold out his Eastern busi- ness and returned from New York, where he had been compelled to remain part of the time, to Los Angeles in 1879, in order that he might give his undivided attention to his business here. And yet, notwithstanding he had arrived at that period in life when the natural forces begin to fail, he soon commenced planting out other vineyards on a large scale.

Mr. Keller was a good French and Spanish scholar, and his familiarity with the French language enabled him to draw much valuable information from French sources, relating to the vine, its diseases, its culture, etc., and also in regard to wine and its treatment, which he imparted to the public through the local press and other periodicals.

Mr. Keller left four children-one boy and three girls; one of the latter has since died in a convent. The son, who was educated in France, now lives on the Malibou Rancho.

JAMES WESLEY POTTS, Esq., is a native of Tennessee, and was born in Rutherford County, December 20, 1830. His parents were of Scotch, English and Irish ancestry. His grand- parents on both sides were born in America. His Grandfather Jones (on his mother's side) was a soldier under George Washington, and he died at about 103 years of age, in Nashville. IIis Great-grandfather Jones was a Scotchman, and was a relative of the celebrated Paul Jones, of Revolutionary fame, and was in the battle known as Braddock's defeat. His Great-grand- mother Jones, who came to America with the early settlers and settled in Virginia, was a native of Ireland. His Great-grandfather Potts was an Englishman. His Grandmother Potts was a Greene, and a relative of General Greene, the hero of Eutaw Springs. His mother's brothers were soldiers in the war of 1812, and

two of his brothers were in the late civil war. His father, John Greene Potts, died when James was only four years old, and his mother, nee ' Cynthia Jones, when he was thirteen. Being thus early in life deprived of parental care, young Potis was left to provide for himself. Ile made his home in Hayward County for four years with a friend, doing farm work, and attend- ing school three months during that time.

In 1852 he came overland to California, driving an ox team over the plains from George- town, Texas, walking the whole way, and ar- riving at Los Angeles in September. This place was then merely an adobe village of some 4,000 inhabitants, who were mostly Mexicans and Spaniards. Ile was first employed there on the streets, hauling dirt in a hand-cart. The hand-cart at that day was the only vehicle used for conveying dirt on the streets. After having earned $5 at that work, he engaged in selling fruits, first from a basket, and afterward he established a fruit stand, his sales increasing so that he cleared from $20 to $40 per day. He then went to the mines, but soon returned to Los Angeles and engaged in raising vegetables, and raised the first sweet potatoes in Los An- geles. He then entered the mercantile business, and at the opening of the civil war was worth $6,000, which, as a result of his outspoken Union sentiments, he soon lost. He, however, recovered, and from 1861 to 1865 he did an ex- tensive mercantile business, and by investing and dealing in real estate until 1878 he was estimated to be worth $150,000; but in that year, meeting with reverses and being loaded down with unproductive real estate, lie not only lost what he hal accumulated, but was. heavily in debt. He has, however, paid every dollar of his indebtedness, although a great amount of it was ontlawed.

Mr. Potts was originally a Whig and then a Republican, but is now a staunch Prohibitionist. He has served as a member of the Los Angeles City Council, and as such was foremost in push- ing city water improvements. He led the move- ment for constructing the east and west side

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ditehes and reservoirs and also the sewer from First street to the Briswater estate near the eity limits, both of which have proven of ineal- culable value to Los Angeles City. It may be said, that scarcely a question of loeal public moment has ever come up but that J. W. Potts has figured in the solution more or less promi- nently. His advice upon various knotty ques- tions involved in the new eity charter of Los Angeles was songht, received and acted upon. He has always been a firm believer in and strong advocate of the future of Southern Cali- fornia and the city of Los Angeles, and as early as 1876, in a letter to the Los Angeles Herald, he stated that the Los Angeles Valley was capable of supporting 1,000,000 of people, al- though at that time it was generally regarded as being good for stock ranges only.

Mr. Potts has been the prime mover in early moral and religious movements. Ile was one of the organizers of the first Sabbath- school in Los Angeles City. Ile seenred tlie subscriptions for the Fort Street brick church, purchased the lot 120 x 165 feet, donated $150 and gave his personal obligation for $1,000 toward paying the indebtedness on the property. Such benefactions in early times were not made withont effort and sacrifice, and are truly worthy of note. His gifts of charity are numerous, and the worthy poor are never turned unrecog- nized from his door. The following tribute to J. W. Potts's sterling qualities recently appeared in one of the leading journals of Los Angeles, when his name was before the people as a can- didate for city councilor. It was written by a citizen who has known him for many years:

J. W. Potts is a son of a non-slaveholding pio- neer family that settled early in the eighteenth century in Tennessee and took part in the war for independence in 1776. At a very tender age he kissed his mother good-bye and walked away from the cabin door in search of work to pro- vide bread for that widowed mother and her younger children. While that mother lived and those children were helpless, he staid by his task at 122 cents a day, that they might neither beg nor want.

While thus employed he went thinly clad

and denied himself every pleasure so he might learn to read and write without going to school. While yet almost a child his word of promise was as good as any bond. He was never seen at a gambling table, never staked a cent on any game of chance, never drank or treated at a bar.

He has been thirty-four years in California. I have known him ever since 1854, and I think I thoroughly know J. W. Potts to be absolutely truthful and reliable.

As a young man he voted the Republican tieket in this State when Republicans were sub- ject to insult, to boycott in business, and even to personal danger, because they dared to be true to their convictions. He stood in for the Union, was the friend of the flag of the soldier when treason was bold and in power, when the "Bear" flag and the "Pacific Republic" were the hope of many.

He is, at least, one of the men to whom the Republican party is indebted for its history and its fame, and is as deserving of place and of honor as any man in its ranks to-day. To him and to such men as he, the party and the country owe a debt that no words of praise can repay.

To the older citizens of Los Angeles, where he has lived for all these years, lie needs no in- troduetion. But to the thousands of new-comers he is not so well known. To all these I would say, I have known him long and well, and sincerely believe him to be that noblest work of God- an honest man. Like the pure gold, the more yon inquire into his record the brighter it shines.

July 12, 1866, Mr. Potts was married, at Los Angeles, to Miss Emma Catherine Bedwell, daughter of Robert D. and Louisa Ann ( Pearce) Bedwell, both natives of Tennessee. She was born in Arkansas, reared in Texas, and came to Los Angeles with her parents when she was nine- teen years of age. Mr. Potts and his wife are members of the Fort Street Methodist Episcopal Church, and are among the original members of 1866. From his early youth Mr. Potts has been a member of the Methodist Church, and was the first Protestant church member in Los Angeles, and was the first to close his business doors on Sunday. They have had five children: Louise V. and Ida A., students attending the Ellis College of Los Angeles; and Robert

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Whaley and Emma M., attending the Los An- geles public school. They lost one child in infancy.

Mr. Potts has some striking characteristics. Like a true son of the mountains of Tennessee, he has very decided, sometimes radical, opinions on most subjects, and he is as a rule very out- spoken in those opinions. In other words, there is always a man behind them, and he is that man, for he never lacks the courage of his convictions. Although he is naturally genial and always a fast friend, no one who associates with him is likely to be deceived as to what his position is on any matter. During the war of the Rebellion he was a pronounced Unionist, even to the detriment of his business, and he has always been a man who would stand up for his principles, political, religious or social, whether he made thereby friends or foes. Mr. Potts is a man of great force of character, never losing his grip under the most disheartening circumstances. He and ex-Mayor Beandry built Temple street from Fort to Bunker Hill avenue, thus making the hill lands accessible. At one point on this portion of Temple street, the present grade of that thoroughfare is twenty feet, and another fifty feet above the bottom of the arroyo they filled up. After Mr. Potts had made a fortune and lost it, leaving him stranded and burdened with a big debt, he worked six-

teen hours a day to carn a living for his family for four long years, or till his lost fortune was regained. He still owns an orchard in the hills west of town, that he acquired title to by plant- ing and cultivating the same on shares, the owner deeding him one-half after a certain number of years. Certain dilettante writers have taken the absurd ground that Southern California is no place for a poor man. Men having the grit of J. W. Potts and many others, who like him have been reduced to poverty, have shown by results time and again that they take no stock in this theory. Such men are not as easily snuffed out or suppressed as these fanciful the- orists imagine: they clearly realize at the out- set that hardships are necessarily incident to the settlement of every new country, and they are not dismayed or vanquished by them when they come. Obstacles and disaster only stimulate them to renewed exertion. The value of the labor and example of such men to a new com- munity cannot be measured by dollars and cents. Only the old citizens of Los Angeles can fully appreciate how useful Mr. Potts has been to the church, to the schools, to good municipal gov- ernment and to local material improvement and prosperity, during his long residence in Los Angeles County. May the builders of new States and cities, like him, increase in the land!

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RAILROADS.

CHAPTER XIII.

HE modern, or railroad, period of the his- tory of this county may naturally be considered part of this volume.

Los Angeles County is the first in the State to enjoy two competing transcontinental rail- roads, a pleasure in which it still has a profita- ble monopoly to the exclusion of the rest of the State. Railroad surveys were early made, but the first road did not come till 1869. The Southern Pacific came in 1877; and the Santa Fé system in 1885.

Lieutenant Williamson briefly surveyed South- ern California in 1853 for a railroad route, under the military escort of then Lieutenant (now ex- Governor) Stoneman. In 1861 a bill was intro- duced into the Senate of the California Legis- lature authorizing the board of supervisors of Los Angeles County to subscribe $150,000 toward the construction of a railroad between Los Angeles and San Pedro. The measure seems to have slumbered for two years more, when, in 1863, an act for the construction of the Los Angeles & San Pedro Railroad passed both houses. Still i othing was done till 1864, when a meeting of the citizens of Los Angeles was " called to deliberate upon the best means of bringing about the desired connection with Wilmington." But nothing practical came of this movement.

The Los Angeles News of February 27, 1866, notes that two remonstrances were then in cir- culation, one at the precinct of El Monte, a

place then controlled by a strong anti-railroad feeling, and another in Los Angeles, against railroad bills introduced into the Legislature by the Hon. Phineas Banning. In the session of 1867-'68 the bill passed both houses of the Legislature. The movement now took a prac- tical shape. On March 4, 1868, in accordance with the provisions of the act, ex-Governor J. G. Downey, Dr. J. S. Griffin and John King, as directors of the "Los Angeles & San Pedro Railroad," filed a petition with the board of supervisors, asking the board to call an election of the people upon the question of authorizing the county to subscribe $150,000 to the capital stock of the company, in accordance with the act which had been approved February 1, 1868. On March 9 a similar petition was presented to the city council by the same parties, asking that body to call an election of the citizens upon the question of the city subscribing $75,000 to the capital stock of the company. Both peti- tions were granted. Thomas D. Mott, then county clerk, published a proclamation on March 10, calling the election on the 24th of the same month. The proclamation designated the precincts, and was published, as were all laws in those days, in both Spanish and English.

Fourteen days was necessarily a " short " campaign, yet it was anything but " sweet." Tomlinson, Banning's rival in business, was the strongest opponent to the measure, but he died about two weeks before the election. A corre-

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spondent in the Los Angeles News of March 13, 1868, over the nom de plume of "Farmer," tersely put the question thus: "The estimated trade between Los Angeles and San Francisco is 1,000 tons per month. If corn grown in the Monte can be shipped to San Pedro for one- quarter of a cent less per pound, that would be $7 per ton, and if two tons are produced to the acre the railroad will make the land worth at least $14 more per acre. Besides, the road will pay out at least $4,000 per month for wages, to be spent mostly in the city."

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Author: Lewis Publishing Company. cn Publication date: 1889 Publisher: Chicago, Lewis Pub. Co. Number of Pages: 1092

Author: Lewis Publishing Company. cn
Publication date: 1889
Publisher: Chicago, Lewis Pub. Co.
Number of Pages: 1092