An illustrated history of Southern California : embracing the counties of San Diego, San Bernardino, Los Angeles and Orange, and the peninsula of Lower California, from the earliest period of occupancy to the present time; together with glimpses of their prospects; also, full-page portraits of some of their eminent men, and biographical mention of many of their pioneers and of prominent citizens of to-day, Part 37

Author: Lewis Publishing Company
Publication date: 1890
Publisher: Chicago, Ill. : The Lewis Publishing Company
Number of Pages: 1038

USA > California > Los Angeles County > An illustrated history of Southern California : embracing the counties of San Diego, San Bernardino, Los Angeles and Orange, and the peninsula of Lower California, from the earliest period of occupancy to the present time; together with glimpses of their prospects; also, full-page portraits of some of their eminent men, and biographical mention of many of their pioneers and of prominent citizens of to-day > Part 37
USA > California > San Diego County > An illustrated history of Southern California : embracing the counties of San Diego, San Bernardino, Los Angeles and Orange, and the peninsula of Lower California, from the earliest period of occupancy to the present time; together with glimpses of their prospects; also, full-page portraits of some of their eminent men, and biographical mention of many of their pioneers and of prominent citizens of to-day > Part 37
USA > California > Orange County > An illustrated history of Southern California : embracing the counties of San Diego, San Bernardino, Los Angeles and Orange, and the peninsula of Lower California, from the earliest period of occupancy to the present time; together with glimpses of their prospects; also, full-page portraits of some of their eminent men, and biographical mention of many of their pioneers and of prominent citizens of to-day > Part 37
USA > California > San Bernardino County > An illustrated history of Southern California : embracing the counties of San Diego, San Bernardino, Los Angeles and Orange, and the peninsula of Lower California, from the earliest period of occupancy to the present time; together with glimpses of their prospects; also, full-page portraits of some of their eminent men, and biographical mention of many of their pioneers and of prominent citizens of to-day > Part 37

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).

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Humboldt. Finally the inhabitants were con- pelled to make a hasty flight from their homes, and hurriedly escaped to Uniontown. They swarmed down on the ranches below Bremer's place and murdered every white person and destroyed everything in their path.

One night abont two o'clock, Mr. Loop stopped at Bremer for his usnal cup of hot coffee, and sat back and listened to the ontrages committed by the Indians. He was unsus- picions of any danger, but concluded to be alert. After he had gone into the dense red- woods, he could not see or hear anything, and trusted entirely to his faithful, intelligent mule, which was sure-footed and familiar with the road. The heavy fog and deep-green foliage made it impossible for him to discern any ob- ject during the night. The Indians suddenly came upon him with fearful yells, the woods resounding with their wild screamns and sharp minsketry. Mr. Loop pulled out his revolver and fired as fast as he could, the innle whirled suddenly and started off at a rapid pace, while Mr. Loop hastened his speed as innch as possi- ble with the spur. The animal pitched off the mountain into a deep gully; Mr. Loop was thrown against a tree, knocking him senseless, and he remained in this condition until day- light, when he found the mule still inotionless by his side. He aroused him and managed to continue his journey.

General Kibber, in command of the State troops, followed the Indians and killed several hundred of them during this war. Several times the United States troops guarded Mr. Loop in his journey, but the dangers increased, so that it was unsafe to trust to such protection, and he resigned and went north to Puget Sound. From 1860 to 1862 he was in the express busi- ness in British Columbia. In 1862 he was caught in the snow between Fort Donglas and Lillenite, and had to carry $25,000 worth of treasure ou his back. At the head of Lillonite river, between Lillonite lake and Harrison lake, he procured four Indians and a canoe and went down the river. At that time there was not a

single white man in the whole country. It was an exciting trip, for the river was full of water- falls, some of which were over twenty feet in height. When they reached Fort Douglas, the entire population came ont and stood on the shore in great astonishment, and welcomed him with Insty cheers, as he was the first and only white man that had ever dared navigate the dangerous streamn. In the spring of 1862 he visited Cariboo mines, but left them on account of the severe winter affecting his lealth. In 1863 he went into the employ of Wells, Fargo & Co., in expressing and remained with them for eight years, and carried treasure from the Idaho Basin to the Columbia river and to Port- land. For a year he was in the Owyhee country, from Silver City to Winnemucca, traveling for Wells, Fargo & Co., on the celebrated pioneer and frontiersman, IIill Beachey's, stage line.

The Indian war was very bad about that time, and on his first trip they killed over sixty Chinamen. At Guinina (Spanish for "chicken") ranch, four suspicious-looking men got aboard the coach. When the stage reached Gibraltar Point, a very steep portion of the road across the Blue Mountains, near the summit, the pas- sengers alighited from the stage and walked up the grade. Loop stayed behind to guard the treasure. One of the four men, evidently the leader of the band, carelessly approached Loop, and in a pleasant, joking way, said. "That is a pretty nice gun you have; let me see it for a moment." Loop turned quickly and brought the gun, full cocked, np to his shoulder, and covered the stranger, saying, "The only way you can look at this gun is down the barrel, and at a reasonable distance." The fellow, not abaslied, coolly looked at Loop, and replied in a quiet, entreating voice, "I am not joking; let me look at your gun." Loop remained motion- less, and in a stern, determined voice, repeated his language. The passengers intuitively nn- derstood their position, and recognizing the cool bravery and heroic protection in their behalf, gave one rousing cheer. The mysterious quar- tette dropped off at the Mountain House and at

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HISTORY OF SAN DIEGO COUNTY.

the Twelve-Mile station out of Walla Walla, .although they had paid their tare clear through. Another time, when crossing Idaho Basin, four ten stood waiting on the road. The coach had on board 3,200 pounds of treasure, 1,000 pounds of gold and 2,200 of silver. In coming over the smininit and looking over the point, Mr. Loop saw a packed mule and three horses tied at a tree. A single man stood close by, watch- ing the animals. The spot was some distance from the road, and was sheltered by a dense growth of timber. The keen eyes of Mr. Loop discovered thein iu time, and turning sharply to the driver, he said, "Gallop the horses as fast as yon can right down this mountain, or I will blow your brains out." The driver made an effort to keep the horses on the road, but, glancing at Loop, saw a peculiar hard look in his eyes, and dashed the horses down the moun- tain, far away from the road, as commanded. The highwaymen followed, but the stage kept ahead of them, and arrived at Placerville that night. Mr. Loop subsequently found out that the leader of the band was the notorious Ned Bledsoe, who was a murderous villain.

In looking over the way-bills of the stage that trip, he saw that five passengers were regis- tered. None of them turned up, and the driver was nervous and irritable, and would not wait for them. This arroused the suspicions of Loop, and he watched the driver continually, apprehensive of some danger. When the stage came into Placerville, the driver disappeared, and was never heard of after that, which proves that he was acting in harmony with the rob- bers. One of the gang was the Sheriff of Boise County, who was afterward hung by the Vigi- lance Committee.

Mr. Loop settled in San Diego in the winter of 1880-'81, and has a pleasant, comfortable home. In December, 1880, he took the con- tract to build a portion of the California South- ern Railroad, and afterward became interested in Del Mar, laid out the town, and bought con- siderable real estate and several ranches adja- cent. He is a heavy operator in land. He is

well known to all the settlers as a man of con siderable force of character. He has two sons and two daughters. His oldest child is a young man, twenty years of age.

ANFORD WORTHING, the only son of Henry R. and Amanda Worthing, was bort. September 14, 1839, in the town of Shap. leigh, Maine, and shortly after returned with his parents to their new home in Waterborough. At the age of eleven he was sent to Boston, where he remained at school about a year. Be- ing a very apt scholar, being able to read when he was three years old, he was well advanced when he returned home, where he attended the district school, assisting his father on the farm during vacations until he was seventeen years old, when his father set him up in a merchan- dising business at Kennebunk Depot. He re- mained there but five months, when the store was exchanged for one at Ross' Corner, where the firm of H. R. Worthing & Son did a large bus- iness for two years. This was long enough for the son, whose restless nature began to chafe under the monotony of life in a country store, and he concluded to go to college. In pursu- ance of this resolve he attended school at Par- sonstield Seminary and Lebanon Academy, and then went to Bates College at Lewiston, Maine. While pursuing his studies at Lebanon he made the acquaintance of Celia Augusta Fiske, whom he married December 25, 1862, and left school to enter the army; but, at the earnest entreaty of friends, changed his mind and engaged in teaching school. He had inherited a taste for music and had improved opportunities for making himself proficient as a vocalist. His wife, the daughter of a professor of music, was a fine pianist, and they accepted situations as teachers in Cheshire Academy, Ohio, arriving there in February, 1863.

During the following summer Morgan made his famous raid through Indiana and Ohio, and Mr. Worthing, being a member of the First Ohio

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National Guards, went into the field with his command. After two weeks of rough campaign- ing, he assisted in capturing 3,000 of Morgan's men at the battle of Coal Hill, within two miles of Cheshire, where in a vain effort to cross the river into Virginia, they had been overtaken. Morgan had ransacked the town and Mrs. Worth- ing had been compelled to cook and serve a fine dinner to Morgan and his staff. The school had been broken up for that season and he resolved to take his wife back home and join the army. On his arrival he applied to the Governor of Maine for a commission to recruit a company for the war, but soon after he received the com- mission President Lincoln called tor "300,000 more," and, recruiting be'ng slow, he immedi- ately volunteered as a private in the First Maine Heavy Artillery. Before being sent to his regi- ment he was found to be a good scribe, and was detailed as a clerk in the Adjutant General's office at Camp Berry, Portland. Here he re- mained some three months, until the news of the Fort Pillow massaere of colored troops reached his ears, when he asked for and received permission to proceed to Washington to be ex- amined for a commission in the colored troops. While there he was subjected to a delay of three weeks on account of prior applications, and then, unwilling to wait longer, forced himself before the board, received a hurried examina- tion, and was appointed a Second Lieutenant, having refused the offer of influential recom- mendations which would have certainly given him a Captaincy. He was then ordered to re- port tor duty to General Burbridge, at Lexing- ton, Kentucky, when he was assigned to duty in the Twelfth United States Heavy Artillery (colored), with which regiment he was on duty about four months of guerrilla warfare in the State. Having been recommended for promo- tion over seniors by his regimental and depart- ment commanders three separate times, and been refused because it was against the rules of the regular army, into which his regiment had been mustered, he was detached and placed on staff duty. Here he was promoted successively

to Post Provost Marshal, Post Adjutant, Acting Commissary of Subsistence, Brigade Provost. Marshal, Superintendent of the Freedmen's Bu- reau, Judge of the Freedmen's Court, and Com- mandant of the Southern District of Kentucky, with a Lieutenant-Colonel's command. Here he served with marked satisfaction for seven months, reporting direct to General Clinton B. Fisk, commanding Department of Kentucky, Tennessee and Alabama, Bureau of Refugees, Freedinen and Abandoned Lands, until honor- ably mustered ont at the end of almost three years of service. Previous to his discharge he had passed an examination, "with special men- tion," before a board convened to examine offi- cers for transfer into the regular army, and was placed on the roll for future call. At the close of his service in the army he went to Missouri with his family, and in the city of Macon, with Thomas Proctor, engaged in publishing a weekly Republican newspaper, called the Macon Argus. While successfully managing the paper he was elected City Clerk, which position he filled creditably. Mr. Proctor died suddenly, and Mr. Worthing decided to go south and start au agri- cultural newspaper. While in New England visiting he changed his mind, and went into the job printing business in Boston. Through his ability and taste in doing fine work he obtained the specimen work of the Boston Type Foundry at a very remunerative price. From boyhood he had given evidence of decided ingenuity, and while in the printing business it took form, and he invented successively an improved composing stick, a gange-pin for job presses, and improved mitering and rule cutting machine, a printing press, a supplementary horse-car seat, steamless stove-ware, and a mechanical steam apparatus for rendering oil and grease from refuse meat, bones and dead animals, without stench. Having made some money, and broken down his health by too close application to business and neglect of natural laws, he was compelled to sell out his business and change climate; consequently on the 1st day of July, 1872, he started with his family for Colorado. His intention was to

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engage in sheep-raising, but on arriving at Colorado Springs and making some inquiry, he found that during the previous winter the "sheep men" had experienced heavy losses on account of severe weather, and when coupled with the fact that the purchasing price had nearly doubled, this discouraged him and he substituted the cattle business, locating a ranch about half a mile from the town. Here occurred a circumstance which showed a trait in his character that has always been prominent, and the only thing that has ever made him enemies, and that is, never submitting to a wrong, no matter how small, withont seeking redress of some sort. As a citizen of the United States he had as much right to appropriate the public domain as any man, but he found that a few of the older settlers had clubbed together and were claiming every foot of available land in the vicinity, and driving off with threats and vio- lence every one who attempted to interfere with them, and by perjuring themselves in turn for each other, obtaining patents from the Govern- ment without complying with the law. This completely shut out bona fide settlers from ol: taining farms or valuable Government lands, which Mr. Worthing did not propose to submit to; consequently he selected an unoccupied quar- ter section, and proceeded to build him a house. The enraged claimant, who was living on other Government land somne two miles away, as soon as he made the discovery, interviewed the "club," who, upon reconnoitering the premises and finding the occupant working, with a donble-barreled shot-gun in close proximity, concluded that part of their duty to each other had better be abandoned. It was supposed by many who were cognizant of the facts that he would be killed, but on discovering that it only needed pluck to get what they had a right to, many others followed his example, and soon outnumbered the old settlers and changed the programme entirely.

The Legislature passed a law in 1873 pro- hibiting the herding of more than twenty head of cattle within two miles of any town, which

compelled him to change his base, and he traded his cattle for real estate in Colorado Springs. He then purchased a saw mill and removed to the southern part of the State, on the supposed line of a projected railroad, where he engaged in manufacturing lumber and in merchandising until the railroad changed their line and gave him the go-by, when he " pulled up stakes " and moved to Lake County. Here he located in a mining district, and, becoming interested in some mining ventures about the time of the first discoveries of rich mineral at Leadville, moved there, purchased another mill, and with two steam mills, running night and day, sup- plied the Ininber with which Leadville was got- ten well under way. He had now retrieved his losses cantsed by the shrinkage of values on real estate during the panic, and, having accepted a large offer for his business in Leadville, con- cluded to devote his entire time to mining pur- suits. The summer of 1878 was a very sickly season in Leadville, and the fear of losing his children with diphtheria caused him to remove to Cañon City, where he remained until the summer of 1879, when he took his family to Silver Cliff, where he had by this time become extensively engaged in mining. In connection with a partner, who performed the labor while he furnished the expenses, the discovery of one of the largest mines in Colorado was made near Silver Cliff. The mine was so valuable that some disreputable parties trumped up a con- flicting claim and commenced a lawsuit for its possession. Pluck again came to his rescue, and after spending $18,000 and risking his life in a personal encounter with pistols, in which he got a bullet through his sleeve, he came out of the contest as one-half owner of a mine which has since been capitalized in New York at $10,000,000. He is also half owner of three other valnable mines near Ruby, Gunnison County, Colorado, which are considered to have millions in them. Mr. Worthing is now resting at the old home at Ross' Corner, where he has located his family and will remain until spring, returning to Colorado to prosecnte his mining

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enterprises. The details of this sketch of a bnsy life will show that, notwithstanding the oft- repeated prophecy of his people that he would never accumulate anything, on account of his roving disposition, the "rolling stone " docs sometimes " gather moss."

The foregoing sketch of Mr. Worthing's life was published in 1880, in a history of York County, Maine.

The summer of 1880 found him in Colorado, developing his mines in Gunnison County. In 1881, having taken hold of a number of enter- prises, he was secretary and general manager of the Fiske Consolidated Gold Mining Company, Central City, Colorado; president and general manager Augusta Mining Company, Gunnison County; vice-president and consulting engineer Boston Gold and Silver Mining Company, Colo- rado, and president and general manager El Gachi Mining Company, Sonora, Mexico, with headquarters in Denver, Colorado. In the fall of 1881, on account of his children, he decided to make a home in Massachusetts, and pur- chased and fitted up an elegant home in Sonth Lincoln, sixteen iniles from Boston. The mining boom of 1880, having passed its zenith, was rapidly subsiding, and mining stocks became demoralized to such an extent he decided to quit the business by selling out and withdrawing. In 1883 he had completely retired from busi- ness and settled down at the home he had pre- pared for and given to his wife in Lincoln, expecting to spend his days there in quiet.

The name Thing-sometimes spelled Thyng, to try to mitigate the peculiar insignificance and belittling effect of such a name-had always been a source of annoyance. The name in Maine, where the standing, wealth and respect- ability of the several numerous families had been well known for more than 200 years, passed without special notice; but everywhere else it seemed to strike every one hearing it for the first time, as intensely ridiculous. Printers could not conceive it possible to have such a name, and would invariably make something else of it. Children at school would make puns

and rhymes with it, until his own children's complaints resolved him to make a change; consequently in 1884 he made an application to the courts of Massachusetts to change the names of his entire family to Worthing, being a combination of his middle and last name, and also his first name to the simpler one of Ran- ford, but retaining the original initial.

Having a predilection for farming, he was now in a position to gratify that propensity and also his tastes for abstruse and occult science. De- siring always to communicate to others his con- clusions as the result of experiment on the farm, and deductions in science, he became a valued correspondent of the leading agricultural papers of the State, taking a leading position among the Patrons of Husbandry, and occupy- ing the position of Master of the Lincoln Grange and chairman of the Committee on Education of the State Grange, until he left the State. He has always taken a lively interest in all public ntilities, drifting naturally into politics, and, being a man of strong prejudices, always takes partisan grounds and a leading position. He would in all probability have been a mem- ber of the next Legislature of Massachusetts had he remained in that State; but he found that the cold of that climate was fast ruining his eyes, owing to a peculiar sensitiveness of the secretory glands, and he felt compelled to seek a warmer climate at once; so in December, 1886, he started sonth to seek for a location and to test the different climates in the South. He spent two months of the winter in traveling from Florida to sonthern California, landing in San Diego the 1st of February, 1887. This seemed at once to be the ne plus ultra of loca- tions, and he at once decided to make it his future home. Ranford Worthing is a profound thinker, a logical reasoner, and a fearless pro- mulgator,of his deductions. He has written for publication some of the best scientific con- clusions on metaphysical subjects that have ever been published. His theories on the scientific basis of so-called spiritualism, mind, faith, and Christian-science cures, and kindred subjects,

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from a scientific standpoint, are considered in- controvertible, and he will give you food for thought on almost any subject you can present for discussion. In fact he is a versatile genins. He came to the front very rapidly in San Diego, having been elected president of nearly every organization to which he has belonged. and at the last city election was proposed for the nomi- nation for Mayor in the Republican convention, but declined in favor of another. He is chair- man of the executive committee of the California State Liberal Union, which indicates his reli- gious belief. He is of a domestic turn of mind, has an elegant home, where with his wife and five children he can always be found when not necessarily away.

AMES DIX SCHUYLER was born in Ithaca, New York, in 1849, the youngest of a family of nine. The name of the family from which he descends is interwoven with the earliest history of Colonial New York, and is connected by ties of kinship and associa- tions with the Van Rensselaers, the Bleeckers, the Ten Broecks, the Livingstons, the Hamil- tons, the Churches, and other historic Knicker- bocker families. His father. Philip C. Schuyler, was of ardent anti-slavery principles, an inti- mate friend of Gerrit Smith and of Ossawato- mnie Brown. He removed to Kansas in 1854, and was a prominent figure in the early strng- gles of that State to throw off the yoke of slavery. His family followed in 1859, and the education of his youngest son, James, was much interrupted by the stirring incidents of life along the border during the troublous times of the following five years. In 1864 the sub- ject of this sketch returned to his native State, and received his education at a small Quaker university on the shores of Cayuga Lake. Re- turning home to Kansas in 1868, he was soon imbued with the western fever, and joined an engineering party engaged in locating the line of the Kansas Pacific Railway on the great

plains of eastern Colorado and western Kansas. It was in this work, within a few weeks after joining the party, that one of the most thrilling events of his life occurred. One bright morn- ing in June, the party, numbering fifteen, were attacked by a band of 100 hostile Indians that were at that time devastating the country, and after a running fight, in which four Indians were killed, they all escaped without injury ex- cept Mr. Schuyler, who was wounded in the leg. In recognition of his courage he was pro- moted to the chief place in the party on his return to it from his home, after six weeks' absence, and remained in the employ of the company until the completion of the road to Denver in 1870. He was subsequently engaged in the location and construction of the Denver & Boulder Valley Railroad and the Denver & Rio Grande Railway, beginning with the latter from its original inception, and making the first surveys for a considerable portion of the line, including some of the most difficult mountain passes now traversed by the locomotives.

He removed to California in 1873, engaging on the North Pacific Coast Railway, and the Stockton & Ione Railroad. During a period of three years' stagnation in engineering work, he monnted the editorial tripod on the Stockton Independent, leaving it to accept a position in the State Engineer department, as Chief Assist- ant State Engineer, in charge of the irrigation branch of the work, under William Ham. Hall, State Engineer. His reports on the develop- ment of irrigation in California, in connection with those of his superior, have added no little to the literature on that most interesting sub- ject. In 1882 he accepted a position as Chiet Engineer and General Superintendent of the Sinaloa & Durango Railroad in Mexico, and constructed the road from the Port of Altata to Culiacan, the capital of the State of Sinaloa. Returning to San Francisco after twenty months in the tropics, to escape the yellow fever which had broken out with severity on the west coast of Mexico, he engaged in contracting, his first work being the construction of one section of

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Author: Lewis Publishing Company Publication date: 1890 Publisher: Chicago, Ill. : The Lewis Publishing Company Number of Pages: 1038

Author: Lewis Publishing Company
Publication date: 1890
Publisher: Chicago, Ill. : The Lewis Publishing Company
Number of Pages: 1038