USA > California > San Diego County > San Diego > City of San Diego and San Diego County : the birthplace of California, Volume I > Part 13
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).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48 | Part 49 | Part 50 | Part 51 | Part 52
Political organization of San Diego after the Americans took charge was effected without any trouble, but the records of that ac- complishment form an interesting section. The city now (in 1921) has 122 voting precincts, but at the first election held on April 1. 1850, there were only two, one at Old Town and the other at La Playa. There were only 157 voters on the poll lists. County officers were elected as follows:
William C. Ferrell, district attorney: John Hays, county judge ; Richard Rust. county clerk : Thomas W. Sutherland, county attorney ; Henry Clayton, county surveyor ; Agostin Haraszthy, sheriff ; Henry C. Matzell, county recorder; Jose Antonio Estudillo, county assessor ; John Brown, coroner : Juan Bandini, county treasurer.
The legislature appointed Oliver S. Witherby the first district judge, his district including San Diego and Los Angeles counties. The court was formally organized on Sept. 2, 1850, jurors were sum- moned and six cases were heard. The first grand jury was composed of the following: Charles Haraszthy, Ramon Osuna, James Wall, Loreta Amador, Manuel Rocha. J. Emers, Boniface Lopez, Hoklen Alara, Seth B. Blake, Louis Rose, William H. Moon, Cave J. Couts, Jose de Js. Moreno, Cristobel Lopez and Antonio Aguirre. Attorneys enrolled at the first term of the court were James W. Robinson, Thomas W. Sutherland, John B. Magruder and William C. Ferrell.
The legislature of 1850 incorporated San Diego as a city, and the first city election of the new town was held June 16, 1850. Joshua
84
CITY OF SAN DIEGO AND SAN DIEGO COUNTY
H. Bean was elected San Diego's first mayor ; the following council was elected : Charles Haraszthy, Charles R. Johnson, William Leamy, Charles P. Noell and Atkins S. Wright. Other city officers chosen at the first election were: Treasurer, Jose Antonio Estudillo ; assessor, Juan Bandini, who declined to serve and was succeeded by Richard Rust ; city attorney, Thomas W. Sutherland, and marshal, Agostin Haraszthy. The recurrence of names in the lists of city and county officers already set forth in this chapter is easily accounted for; the county and city were so small that it was not easy to find offices enough to go around or, conversely, enough different and competent men to fill all of the offices. Evidence of this is found in the fact that several San Diegans at various times in the early years actually hield two or three offices apiece. Among such were George A. Pend- leton and Philip Crosthwaite. Some of those elected at about this time declined to serve, administration of the county was loosely run at times as far as calendars are concerned, and some of those who were in local offices gave none too much attention to their duties. This was somewhat to be expected in a small community, many of whose residents had business which called them away from time to time: but it appears that no great harm resulted anyway. In 1852 the city's charter was repealed, and San Diego went back to the town form of government, the administration being in the hands of a board of five trustees. The president of the board was called mayor by courtesy. That form of government continued for more than thirty-five years. The local officials of the early days inherited from their predecessors something of the love of entertainment, and in the records of the first board are two entries showing appropriations for balls, one for the coast survey officials who had been sent to San Diego and the other to celebrate the admission of California into the Union.
Mention has already been made of the movement supported by Editor Ames of the Herald for state division. The six southern counties of California in a referendum vote in 1859 showed a two- thirds majority for division, but the legality of this action was ques- tioned, and the project was given up, although it has recurred in California politics to some extent since that time.
Between 1850 and 1860 San Diego county population grew from 800 to 4,300. Between 1860 and the end of the Civil war the com- munity practically marked time. Ames discontinued his Herald in 1860 and went to San Bernardino, where he died July 28, 1861.
Most of the travel to and from San Diego in that period was by steamer. The first line to San Francisco was started in 1850. It later became the California Steam Navigation Company and later was sold to the Pacific Coast Steamship Company. Among the early boats putting into San Diego were the Ohio and Goliah, which already have been referred to in Derby's impressions of San Diego ; the Fremont, Southern, Senator and Thomas Hunt. Pacific Mail liners from Panama slipped in about twice a month. For a time packets were run from San Diego to the Hawaiian Islands. The mail service provided in those early days of American control was very poor, as can be seen from the files of Ames' Herald, in which he frequently voiced snorting complaint. Richard Rust was the first
85
CITY OF SAN DIEGO AND SAN DIEGO COUNTY
postmaster in 1850. He held the place only a year ; then Henry J. Couts took it for a year, being succeeded by George Lyons in 1853. Rust took the office again in 1856. W. B. Couts had it in 1858 and Joshua Sloane in 1859. The Herald, however, said with some force in September, 1851, that for two years there had been "no regularly appointed postmaster at San Diego," and declared that as only a pittance was allowed for the office, the service was very poor. Ames pitt most of his dependence on pursers of the steamers which put in at San Diego, and the columns of the Herald contain frequent refer- ences to the courtesies extended by the pursers to him. The first overland mail arrived in the city in August, 1857, having taken thirty- four days to come from San Antonio. That same year the Govern- ment made its contract with John Butterfield and his associates to carry the mails to the Pacific Coast from St. Louis, and the company sent coaches over the southern route to San Diego. The opening of the Civil war closed this route. and it was not reopened to San Diego until 1867. John G. Capron, San Diego pioneer, had the contract.
"Ranching," in the modern California usage of the word, amounted to little in those early days. Yet some few good beginnings were made in the growing of fruits in advantageous places. E. W. Morse, who saw the town in 1850, said, according to Smythe, that there "was literally no agriculture" in San Diego at that time. There were large ranches then, but they were cattle ranges, and Morse said the largest fenced field in this section was in the San Luis Rey valley and belonged to Indians. "Some years later," said Morse, "we had an assessor who was a cattle raiser, and in his report to the state comptroller he said that no part of the country was fit for agricul- ture. That was what people honestly thought, at the time." It must be remembered that the first success of any extent in agriculture in this section followed the storage of water by artificial means for use in the dry seasons which come with certain regularity in Southern
California. In later years A. E. Horton and other progressive citizens used windmills to pump water for gardens in which they took much pride as "show places," but real commercial success in agricul- ture in this part of California has been achieved principally by use of water from dams such as were not built at San Diego in the '50s or '60s or '70s. The Mission Fathers, building their dam at Mission Gorge in the San Diego River's course, had pointed the way, but that way was not taken for many a year by those who followed them.
Mention has been made of some of the Americans who were early residents of San Diego-the San Diego of Old Town. All of them of course have passed away ; comparatively few of them have left direct descendants of their names in San Diego. Those who seek genealogical information on this line will find an excellent chapter on "American Families of the Early Time" in Smythe's history ; he missed a few of the old settlers, but catalogued nearly all of them carefully and with a pleasing degree of accuracy. He provided also a similar chapter on the prominent Spanish families of the time, and data for this chapter, as he says, were obtained from a great variety of sources. Many of these Spanish names still survive in San Diego, and many of the beautiful daughters of these Spanish families are wives of Americans living in and about San Diego. These Spanish
86
CITY OF SAN DIEGO AND SAN DIEGO COUNTY
men and women have done much to preserve here the atmosphere of the early days and to keep warm the love which all residents hold of the romantic charm of that period.
There were few more striking figures in the early history of San Diego under the American flag than was Col. Cave Johnson Couts, for many years administrator of the famous Guajome ranch, where Helen Hunt Jackson is said to have obtained much of her material for her novel "Ramona." Nephew of Cave Johnson, Secre- tary of the Treasury under President Polk, member of a well known Tennessee family, educated at West Point and possessing a fine mili- tary record, he came to San Diego in the course of the Mexican war and on April 5, 1851, married Ysidora Bandini, daughter of the illustrious Don Juan Bandini, and in the fall of that year left the army. For two years after that he lived at Old Town, serving a term as county judge, but in 1853 removed with his family to the Guajome ranch. This was an Indian grant of more than 2,000 acres, and was presented to Mrs. Couts as a wedding present by her brother-in- law. Don Abel Stearns of Los Angeles. A sketch of Colonel Couts in the "History of Southern California" issued by the Lewis Publishing Company of Chicago in 1890, gives an interesting account of the work he did there. It credits Colonel Couts with being among the first to foresee that the climate of the section was adapted to agri- culture and with having been the first to plant an orchard on a large scale with the improved varieties of fruits.
"When Colonel Couts went out there in 1852 to take possession and inaugurate his improvements," says this sketch, "there was not the sign of a tree of any kind where now are immense orchards, vine- yards and willow thickets; he carried a few boards from San Diego, and with them and willow poles, hauled from the river bottom two miles away, he put up a little shed sufficient to cook and sleep in. There was a damp piece of land, a small cienega, but no running water, and in order to water his mules it was necessary to dig a hole in the ground with a spade, and with a small dipper dip up enough water to fill up a bucket and thus water his mules. Where that was done in 1852, there is now a large pond, sixty feet in diameter and seven feet deep, full all the time and running over in a large stream, which is used for irrigation. At that time there was a great number of Indians in and around San Luis Rey, and it was an easy matter for Colonel Couts, as he was an Indian agent, to command the services of enough laborers to do his work. It was not long before the result of the patient labor of 300 Indians took the form of an immense adobe house, built in a square, containing twenty rooms, a fine court-yard in the center, well filled with orange and lemon trees and every variety of flower; immense barns, stables, sheds and cor- rals were added, after extensive quarters for the servants were built: then to finish the whole a neat chapel was built and formally dedicated to the worship of God. His military training enabled him to control and manage the Indians, as only he could. Everything in and about the ranch was conducted with such neatness and precision that a stranger would at once inquire if 'Don Cuevas,' as he was generally called, was not from West Point. By strict attention to business he
87
CITY OF SAN DIEGO AND SAN DIEGO COUNTY
accumulated thousands of cattle, hundreds of horses and mules, a large band of sheep, and added to his landed interest by the purchase of the San Marcos, Buena Vista and La Joya ranches, besides some 8,000 acres of Government lands adjoining the homestead ; in all some 20,000 acres. But the passage of the 'no-fence law' almost ruined him financially, as he was compelled to dispose of his cattle at a fearful sacrifice, and he was just recovering from the crash when he died."
Colonel Couts passed away at the old Horton House in San Diego on June 10, 1874. Both he and Mrs. Couts were members of large families of children, and the couple had ten children who with their children have helped to keep the family name prominent in Cali- fornia. Dona Ysidora managed the vast estate for many years after her husband's death and did it with marked ability. She is said to have aided two of her sisters in making one of the first American flags hoisted in Southern California.
Another prominent American resident of the early days of San Diego was Henry D. Fitch, who for many years kept a "general" store at Old Town. Like many another who came to California at that period, he was a New England man, hailing from New Bedford. For several years he was in command of a small Mexican vessel which went to California ports and in 1833 became a Mexican citizen. He was baptized in San Diego in 1829 as Enrique Domingo Fitch and in 1834 was elected "cyndico procurador," or pueblo attorney, at the first election held at San Diego under civil rule. Fitch had fallen in love with the beautiful Josefa Carrillo, daughter of Joaquin Car- rillo and had promised in 1827 to marry her, and his baptism and becoming a Mexican citizen were steps taken to carry out that promise ; but legal difficulties were imposed by a ruling of the Mex- ican governor, so Fitch and his fiancee decided upon an elopement, in which Pio Pico, a cousin of the beautiful Spanish girl, assisted. Fitch made well advertised preparations to leave on an ocean voyage on the Vulture, said good-bye to his friends and to the charming girl and then went aboard. The Vulture, however, did not sail far away ; instead, it hugged the shore, and at night, when suspicions had been calmed, Miss Carrillo was taken on horseback by her cousin to a spot where a small boat was waiting. Soon the couple were united, and at Valparaiso they were married by a curate. When the bride and bridegroom returned to California the next year, bringing an infant son, there was some trouble with the church authorities, but the marriage at last was declared valid. The affair, however, was a topic of conversation and gossip along the Pacific Coast for many years and is mentioned by several writers who were here at the period. Fitch died in 1849 and it is said that he was the last to be buried on old Presidio Hill. Fitch in 1841 received a large grant in Sonoma county, and Fitch Mountain in that county is named for him. Fitch will long be remembered in San Diego for a survey and map which he made of San Diego in 1845; legal arguments concerning property in San Diego contain many a reference to his survey.
Then there was John Forster, who was known as "Don Juan" Forster, who married one of the Pico girls. Another was Captain
88
CITY OF SAN DIEGO AND SAN DIEGO COUNTY
Robert D. Israel, who married Maria Machado de Alipas, a daughter of Damasio and Juana Machado de Alipas ; he was a blacksmith and contractor and served in various offices in early American days. Mr. Israel died several years ago; his wife died Oct. 7, 1921. There was Philip Crosthwaite, who came over to the United States from Ireland when a child and who came to California for "a lark" and landed at San Diego. Here he took an active part in early activities of the Americans, served at the battle of San Pasqual and in the Garra insurrection and held several public offices in later days. He was first master of San Diego Lodge No. 35, F. & A. M. Crosthwaite, like many other Americans of his day in San Diego, married a Spanish girl; she was Josefa Lopez.
Andrew Cassidy, who died Nov. 25, 1907, was one of the most beloved of old residents of San Diego. He came here in 1853, and it is believed that he lived longer in San Diego than did any other man of his period except possibly two. Cassidy, who was a native of County Cavan, Ireland, came to the United States as a boy of seventeen years, became an employe of the coast survey office and in 1853 came to the Pacific Coast with a party which established a tidal gauge at La Playa. Cassidy was left in charge of that gauge and took observations for seventeen years. In 1864 he became the owner of the great Soledad rancho of 1,000 acres where the town of Sor- rento, now a small city precinct, was established, and engaged in cattle-raising. He sold the property in 1887. His first wife was Rosa Serrano, daughter of Jose Antonio Serrano of Old Town. She died on Sept. 10, 1869. His second wife was Miss Mary Smith, daughter of Albert B. Smith, a hero of the Mexican war. Cassidy held several public offices including that of supervisor and member of the old board of public works. To quote an admirer, one of many, he lived "a long life of usefulness" in a humble, kindly, loveable way.
Richard Kerren, with his family of six boys and four girls, was one of the prominent citizens of old San Diego. He came to San Diego at about 1847, with one of the infantry detachments sent to relieve Commodore Stockton. He held the grade of sergeant. Ser- geant Kerren was killed, several years after his coming to San Diego, by being thrown from a horse as he was riding out to his home near the Old Mission. Two of his sons, Richard, Jr., and Frank, were noted as musicians in the early days. They played entirely by ear, but mastered music so well that they were much in demand throughout the county, and, later, through a much wider territory. They were taken to Fort Yuma to play for festivities there, several times, and once were sent for to go to the town of Real del Castillo-at that time the capital of Baja California. His other sons were named James, John and William. Three of his four daughters, Maggie, Mary, Jennie and Katie, are still living. Richard, Jr., married Esther Smith, daughter of one of the town's earliest residents. She is still living at Old Town.
Ephraim W. Morse came here in 1849. A sketch of him appears later in this volume, as do sketches of Thomas Whaley and others. Louis Rose's name is perpetuated in Roseville and Rose Canyon. He laid out Roseville, which at one time was believed to be the probable site of the City of San Diego. In Rose Canyon he started a tannery in 1853. Then there were Joshua Sloane, at one time postmaster and
89
CITY OF SAN DIEGO AND SAN DIEGO COUNTY
for years an earnest advocate of San Diego's great city park, 110w Balboa Park; Capt. George A. Pendleton, for years county clerk ; James W. Robinson, who came to San Diego as a former governor of Texas and was district attorney for several years; Henry Clayton, the surveyor; William C. Ferrell, attorney, who became a recluse in Lower California and lived alone for many years in a mountain re- treat ; Dr. David B. Hoffman, early a coroner, later a district attorney, and another American who took a Spanish wife one of the Machado girls; James McCoy, who came to San Diego with Col. J. Bankhead Magruder's troops and who several times was elected sheriff of San Diego County ; Charles P. Noell, a storekeeper at Old Town, later a
1
SOME RUINS AT OLD TOWN, WHERE SAN DIEGO HAD ITS BEGINNING
state assemblyman from San Diego and always a highly respected and trusted citizen: Thomas Wrightington, who was one of the first Americans to settle at San Diego and who married one of the Machado girls. The list is long, and no attempt has been made here to have it complete: vet, short as it is, it tells a story of the inter- marriage of Americans and Spanish and something of the men who came out to these shores from the east.
Those who would absorb in a short visit the romantic atmos- phere which pervades the little settlement, much of it in ruins or in decav, at Old Town, the beginning of California,-and who would not be glad to take such a trip of the fancy into such a past ?- may travel that way by entering the old Estudillo home in Old Town.
Built by Don Jose Antonio Estudillo at about 1825. it stands there today practically as it was in the days of Spanish and Mexican rule and in the times of Stockton and Kearny. The original struc- ture crumbled into sad ruins many years ago, but was restored in a truly patriotic and architecturally faithful way in 1909. In this work
20
CITY OF SAN DIEGO AND SAN DIEGO COUNTY
several had a part. Principal among them was William Clayton, vice-president and managing director of the Spreckels companies, who regarded the work of restoration not only as one that ought to be done to afford pleasure to residents and tourists but as one which was due to the memories surrounding the quaint settlement. He re- quested Mrs. Hazel W. Waterman, talented daughter-in-law of the late Robert W. Waterman, former governor of California, to direct the task. No happier choice could have been made, for she performed the task with a zealous attention to detail and a cultured artistic sense, which has been reflected indeed in other work with which she has been identified in San Diego. As Edwin H. Clough has related in his charming booklet, "Ramona's Marriage Place, the House of Estudillo," she found little but a pile of ruins, practically nothing but the north end having been left in the shape of a house; tiles, adobe, wood and hardware had been carried away by memento-grabbing tourists, and the rest had fallen through neglect into a mere mockery of a home. From those small beginnings, aided by a close study of what was left in the vicinity of the old settlement and by visits afar to get what was lacking in information Mrs. Waterman went to work. Preliminary to the actual construction, she visited the Guajome ranch of the Couts family near San Luis Rey, where Helen Hunt Jackson got many of her ideas for the book "Ramona;" Don Juan Forster's Santa Margarita, and the Rancho Pinaquitos. She made trips to the famous Pico house at Whittier, the De la Guerra mansion at Santa Barbara and obtained details from Monterey and other places where still remained traces and relics of early Spanish days in Cali- fornia. Wherever possible the old work was retained in the re- stored building. The adobe walls of the front and main part of the house, and many of the tiles which are now on the roof were a part of the original structure. Those tiles used on the floor of the veranda were brought from the Old Mission Aqueduct below the celebrated dam which was built a few years after the Mission was moved from Old Town to its later site up the Mission Valley. For the restora- tion in 1909 adobe brick, roof tiles, and floor tiles were made by hand in the field nearby by Mexican workmen assembled for the task; those living in and near old San Diego brought others from Lower California for special knowledge or skill in the work. One old Mex- ican boasted that he had laid adobe for Father Ubach (the Father Gaspara of the "Ramona" story) ; all were eager to assist, and to use the old primitive methods. The east and the west wings of the building were almost entirely reconstructed, the veranda is all new, and the walls of the outer court were built at this time. The old timbers even in the main part of the building had decayed to such a stage that they had to be replaced to support the adobe and the tiles, so that the new timbers, hewn from telephone poles and railroad ties, were soaked in the waters and mud of the bay shore to "age" them, and when placed were bound with rawhide thongs as in the olden days when nails and spikes were not to be had but houses had to be built.
A striking yet characteristic feature of the restored structure is the patio, a square about seventy-five feet each way. The front of
CITY OF SAN DIEGO AND SAN DIEGO COUNTY 91
the house is 110 feet long and faces on the plaza ; each wing is ninety- seven feet long. The fireplace and oven are similar to those found in the old houses and descriptions of the early writers; the doors are like those noted in the Missions; and the hardware is either actually from some of the old places, or are anvil-hammered replicas. The veranda was roofed with tule, or "carisso," bound with rawhide, over which the large hand-molded tiles were laid. Mud plaster covered the adobes, after the manner of the old builders, while cactus juice glue was used for the wash over the walls which have the sun browned tint as of many returning years. So successfully has the work been accomplished that it is difficult to distinguish the new from the old parts of the building. The height of the building is twenty feet to the ridge. The original intention was to add to the reconstruction work a double-deck veranda similar to that which was added to the original structure by the Estudillos, partly to serve as sun-decks, as the modern phrase has it, and partly as a vantage point from which the Estudillos and their guests might watch what was going on in the plaza-perhaps a gay fiesta or a thrilling bullfight. This plan, however, was abandoned, or at least postponed, and has not been carried out.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.