USA > California > Los Angeles County > Los Angeles > Historical and biographical record of Los Angeles and vicinity : containing a history of the city from its earliest settlement as a Spanish pueblo to the closing year of the nineteenth century ; also containing biographies of well known citizens of the past and present > Part 112
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the highest honors of her class and was awarded a class prize. Afterward she taught for six con- secutive years in the Citrus Union high school, meantime gaining a high reputation for thorough- ness in educational work. She finally resigned the position in order to take a post-graduate course in methods of teaching at the California State University in Berkeley, and is now teach- ing in the high school at Long Beach. The family are connected with the Presbyterian Church of Azusa.
While not as active in politics now as formerly Mr. Owens never loses his interest in public affairs and never ceases to advocate Republican principles, for he believes them to be for the high- est good of our country. On various occasions he has been a delegate from Glendora precinct to the county convention of his party.
ILLIAM S. HOOK. Unquestionably the progressive city of Los Angeles owes its truly remarkable growth and flourishing condition to the able and energetic business men who comprise a large share of her citizens. The visitor from the north and east caunot fail to be surprised when he observes that this city is far better equipped in numerous modern manifesta- tions of inventive genius, in streets and boule- vards, in water supply, and means of cheap and rapid transit, in the electric lighting of its thou- sands of beautiful homes and buildings, as well as the public highways, than are scores of the leading cities of the United States and other countries.
In this day of business activity and ambitious enterprise nothing is more important than the methods of transit. Los Angeles is to be espec- ially congratulated upon her fine street-railroad system, comprising about one hundred and fifty miles. One of the newest of these lines, known as the Los Angeles Traction Company, had its inception about six years ago, work being com- menced in March, 1895. The first portion of the road lay chiefly along Hoover street, to what then was the city limits, and later the line was ex- tended to the Southern Pacific Railroad station, then on West Adams street, to Western avenue, and afterwards along Eighth street to Westlake park.
The Los Angeles Traction Company now owns over twenty-six miles of road and operates more than twenty-nine miles. Within a few years the energetic business men who compose the company have accomplished much, and they are constantly planning additions to their lines and improvements in their system. The power- house is conceded to be one of the finest in the country, all the machinery used being of the lat- est and best construction. Nearly fifty beautiful new cars are used on the lines of the company, and the comfort of the public is looked out for in every detail of the service. Employment is given to upwards of one hundred and fifty persons, and none have reason to complain of the treatment which is accorded them.
The Hook brothers, who have taken so dis- tinctive a place in the management of the Los Angeles Traction Company, are old and expe- rienced men in the railroad business, as they have given about thirty years to that kind of enter- prise, first commencing their career in Illinois. Thomas J. Hook is the president of the Traction Company, while William S. Hook holds the re- sponsible position of manager. Both are indus- trious, thorough-going business men, as their suc- cess amply testifies. The company with which they are connected is a particularly strong one, owing to the fact that every dollar of its stock is owned and controlled by the directors and man- agement. Needless to say, the credit of the pros- perity of the enterprise is chiefly due to the ex- cellent judgment and fine executive ability of the president and manager, who carefully look after every detail of the business, and are ever ready to sacrifice time and means for the good of the company and the satisfaction of the public.
RANCIS O. YOST, M. D. The public is to be congratulated upon the fact that the lines are constantly being tightened around the medical profession, that the years of prepara- tion and study required are being lengthened, and that more rigorous examinations are exacted ere a physician is allowed to engage in medical practice to-day. Having met all the modern re- quirements the amateur practitioner certainly possesses a much better foundation for future success at the beginning of his career than did
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his medical brethren of a few decades ago, and is, moreover, conversant with all the latest and most approved methods of dealing with disease.
Dr. Francis O. Yost, who has been located in the eastern part of Los Angeles for the past seven years, has met with the success which he justly deserves. Thorough and painstaking in his care of patients, courteous in his manner and kindly in disposition, he numbers many sincere friends, even outside the limits of his patrons and con- stant associates and colleagues. Everyone real- izes that a young professional man in this day must possess great pluck and energy, especially when he is endeavoring to obtain a foothold and the confidence of the public in a strange city, and to those who keep up a brave heart during the first few years and win a place by trne merit great credit is due.
The birth of Dr. Francis O. Yost occurred in Unadilla, Mich., in 1871. His boyhood was chiefly passed in Boston, Mass., where he ob- tained a liberal education in the noted public schools of that city. Before he was twenty years of age he had decided what his future work should be and had entered the Harvard Medical School, where he was graduated in the spring of 1893. Soon after that event he came to South- ern California, and opening an office in East Los Angeles, has since been engaged in practice here. In order to keep fully in touch with modern thought he joined the Los Angeles County Med- ical Association and the Southern California Medical Society, and during the existence of the Los Angeles Polyclinic (which splendid charitable institution was necessarily closed for lack of funds to carry on the work) he was greatly inter- ested in the enterprise. Fraternally he is con- nected with several of the leading orders, among them the Knights of Pythias, the Foresters, the Knights of the Maccabees, the Modern Wood- men and the Sons of Veterans. In his political creed he is a loyal Republican, but has not been an aspirant to public positions nor has he, as yet, found the leisure time to devote to conven- tions save once in 1898, when he attended the Los Angeles city Republican convention.
Undoubtedly our subject inherited his love and talent for medical work from his father, Dr. George L. Yost, who for years was numbered among the prominent physicians and surgeons of
New York, his native state. He was a patriotic citizen and when the Civil war came on he en- listed in the One Hundred and Twenty-sixth New York Volunteers, and was houored by being made first lieutenant of his company. He died in 1877, when in his thirty-ninth year, at Water- 100, N. Y. He is survived by his wife, whose ยท maiden name was Sarah Stearns Patterson, and who at the present time is in her fifty-seventh year. Three of their four children are living.
AMMEL AND DENKER. The late Henry Hammel and Andrew H. Denker were two useful, widely known and esteemed pioneers of Los Angeles. Their characters and their des- tiny seem to have been cast in very similar moulds. True it is that their lines, as by fate, ran along quite parallel lines and later dropped into the same channel, their names becoming as familiar as household words and a tower of strength and influence in the business circles of Southern California. They were both of Ger- man birth, reared under rather similar circum- stances, gained a business experience when yet of tender age and left their native heath, their Fatherland, at precisely the same age, being sev- enteen when they came to America. Separately they drifted into the hotel business, in which they later became partners. They married sisters, young women of French birth. Of almost iden- tical business, social and domestic tastes, it does not seem strange that their partnership existed until they were separated by death, that of the one following closely upon that of the other.
Henry Hammel was born in the south of Ger- many, in Hesse-Darmstadt, September 19, 1834. There, as a youth, he acquired the rudiments of a fair German education. He seemed to have inherited the business instinct and naturally grew into habits of industry, frugality and economy, and it was these qualifications that furnished the foundation for his success in life. About 1851 he came to America and direct to Los Angeles. His first three years in California were spent in San Francisco, where he held subordinate positions in a hotel. On settling in Los Angeles he secured employment in the Bella Union hotel, of which very soon he became the proprietor. The Bella Union was in those days
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and for many years afterward the leading hotel in Los Angeles, and Mr. Hammel as host met and became somewhat intimately acquainted with nearly all of the leading public men and notable characters of those historic and romantic days. In 1864 he sold his interest in the Bella Union and joined the rush into the then newly dis- covered gold fields of the Kern river country. He located at Havilah and in partnership with Mr. Denker, built a hotel at that place which they called the Bella Union and for several years they carried on a profitable business. However, after a time the rush and excitement subsided and business declined. About 1868 Mr. Hammel returned to Los Angeles, Mr. Denker remaining to gradually close up the business. The firm leased the United States hotel, corner of Requena and Main streets in Los Angeles, and this they owned and operated until the opening of the great real-estate boom of 1886. From that time Mr. Hammel devoted his energies, with his part- ner, to the management of their extensive real- estate and property interests in and about Los Angeles.
In this city in 1869 Mr. Hammel married Miss Marie Ruellan, a native of Paris, France, who proved to him a truly noble wife and helpmeet, counseling and sustaining him through the vicis- situdes and excitement of the busy and eventful years that followed. She and one danghter, Matilda, wife of E. O. McLaughlin, and two grandchildren, Edward Henry and Cecile Ma- tilda, survive him. Mr. Hammel died Septem- ber 3, 1890, leaving an honored name as a citi- zen and business man. He was associated with the Free and Accepted Masons and was a Knight Templar.
The late Andrew Henry Denker was born at Brunswick, four miles from Bremen, Germany, October 17, 1840, the son of a thrifty farmer. When yet a mere boy he entered a store and commenced selling goods in his native town, be- coming thoroughly familiar with the business. In 1857 he embarked for America. Landing in New York he found employment in a store and not long thereafter started in business on a modest and judicious scale for himself. He continued there until the year 1863, when he came via the isthmus to California, reaching San Francisco in the same year. He gratified his
desire for gold mining and adventure by making a somewhat extended prospecting tour of Arizona and New Mexico, which proved a fruitless ex- periment, and he returned to Los Angeles on foot, with a large fund of valuable experience and absolutely no money. However, he im- mediately found employment as clerk in the then Lafayette, later the Cosmopolitan and 110w the St. Elmo hotel, then owned and operated by Kohl, Dockwiler & Fluhe, but later owned by Hammel & Denker. After two years Mr. Denker went to Havilah and joined Mr. Hammel as a partner in the Bella Union hotel, where he remained about eight years. The business at Havilah prospered and the partners made money. Upon closing that hotel Mr. Denker rejoined Mr. Hammel at the United States hotel in 1871. The partnership proved in every respect agreeable and profitable and the partners invested their money in choice selections of both city and coun- try realty. Besides owning some of the best business and residence property in the city, they purchased the Rodeo de Las Aguas rancho, a fertile stretch of over thirty-five hundred acres of valley and frostless foothill land, lying between Los Angeles and Santa Monica, and traversed by both lines of the Los Angeles & Pacific Elec- tric Railroad to the Soldiers' Home and Santa Monica. Under the supervision of Henry H. Denker, a brother of Andrew H. Denker, who has been with the firm for the past thirty years, the magnificent ranch has since the present ownership been kept in an advanced state of cul- tivation and improvement. Henry Denker was born October 1, 1846, and was reared at the old home in Brunswick, Germany, becoming a prac- tical farmer. In 1859 he joined his brother in America. In 1866 he went to Havilah, where he was interested in mining. His knowledge of the grain and stock business, to which the ranch has been entirely devoted, is scientifically thor- ough, and the property is therefore a profitable investment.
Andrew H. Denker married Miss Louise A. Ruellan, a sister of Mrs. Hammel, and a native of France, where she lived until coming to Amer- ica with her mother in 1871. Just prior to leav- ing France she passed through all of the excite- ment incident to the Franco-Prussian war, and left her native city soon after the siege of Paris
E Bouton
HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
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was raised. She is a lady of retired and quiet tastes, fond of home and family. She has five children, namely: Marie, who is the wife of Louis Lichtenberger; Antoinette, Mrs. George Lichtenberger; Leontine and Isabel, both grad- uates of the Los Angeles high school; and Lonis, a youth of fifteen years. The family home is at No. 223 West Twenty-fourth street and is one of the attractive residences for which Los Angeles is celebrated.
During his busy career Mr. Denker was ac- counted one of the city's most active and pro- gressive citizens. His faith in the future of his adopted city was unbounded, and he laid plans that were destined to add to her future greatness. He planned and floated the great Tenth street hotel enterprise, which, if completed, would have been the finest hotel on the Pacific coast. The foundation was laid at great expense, but the subsidence of the great real-estate boom fore- stalled its completion. That the enterprise languished was not due to any lack of confi- dence, energy or wisdom on the part of its pro- jector. Mr. Denker was a Knight Templar Mason, an Odd Fellow and a member of the Ancient Order of United Workmen. He pos- sessed, to an unusual degree, those qualities of mind and heart which make a man popular and companionable. His death occurred November 13, 1892.
EN. EDWARD BOUTON. According to a biographical and genealogical history pub- lished by Joel Munsell's Sons, of Albany, N. Y., the Bouton family have a traditional record or history dating back to the fifth century, when history tells us that clans or tribes of Gauls inhabited the country bordering on the river Rhone and extending from lake Geneva to the Mediterranean sea. But the Boutons were more particularly identified with the Visigoth clan, and the head of the Salian tribe, under King Hilderia, A. D., 481, who at his death left his son Clovis king of the tribe. From this period, during the reign of Clovis, wars of con- quest were of frequent occurrence; the Franks from the north making attacks upon the south- ern Gauls, were successfully resisted by Clovis; and Syragrius, a Roman usurper, was defeated
and his people subjugated by Clovis, who made himself popular with his subjugated subjects by favoring their bishops and by marrying Clotilde (or Holihelda), the niece (or, as some historians say, the daughter) of the king of Burgundy, a Christian. Clovis promised his wife that if her God, whose aid he invoked during the battle of Tolbiac, should give him success, he would em- brace her religion. This he subsequently did, and was baptized into the Christian faith; his example was generally followed by his people, among whom were the ancestors of the Bouton family, who were leaders in his army.
The ancient Bouton shield or coat of arms had the following motto on a groundwork on per- pendicular lines, "De Gules a'la Fasce d'Or," which is old French, and its translation means a force as of a leopard when it attacks with its red mouth open. This coat of arms is still borne by the Count Chamilly, at present residing in Rome.
DE GULES A'LA FASCE D'OR
The "Dictionaire des Generaux Francais" states that from 1350 the military and court records abound with the Bouton name for two centuries.
Nicholas Bouton, born about 1580, bore the title of Count Chamilly. Baron Montague de Naton was the father of Harard and John (twins) and of Noel Bouton, who were Huguenots and refugees during the violent persecution of the Protestants by the Roman Catholics during the predominance of the Guises in France. At length, the intolerance of the Catholics being over, Noel Bouton distinguished himself and was made Marquis de Chamilly and was subsequently made marshal of all France, and a life size portrait of him was placed in the gallery of French Nobles at Versailles, France, where it is still to be seen.
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The French historian, speaking of the Boutons, says that it is accorded to a noble ancestry that a proclivity for patriotism, education and religion is seen in the race all down the ages. Some members of this family settled permanently in England, where they had taken refuge during the Huguenot persecutions and soon became prominent in the military and civil service of the government, their names being Anglicized by adopting the "gh," spelling the name Boughton.
It is claimed that the first advent of the Bou- tons into England was as officers in the army of William the Conqueror in 1060, and that some time after other members of the family sought an asylum in England from the persecution of the Protestants in France, that under the names of Boughton, Rouse and Broughton, two members of this family were at the same time peers of England and six others represented seats in the English parliament. This statement seems au- thenticated by Burke's Peers of England.
Rouse Boughton's ancestors were of very high antiquity in the counties of Surrey, Worcester, Warwick, Gloucester and Hereford. Dr. Nash, in his history of Worcester, mentions that its patriarchs of that shire accompanied the Con- queror to England and the statement is con- firmed by the Battle Abbey Roll. The name of Bonghton became merged into Rouse by Thomas Philip Ronse Bonghton, who assumed the name of Rouse and took up his residence at Rouse Leach. This gentleman, as Thomas Rouse, Esq., served as high sheriff of Worcester in 1733.
Charles William Boughton, Esq. (second son of Schuckburgh Boughton, Esq., of Poston Court, County Hereford, and grandson of Sir William Boughton, fourth baronet of Lawford, County Warwick) assumed the surname of Rouse and represented the boroughs of Eversham and Bramber as Charles William Boughton Rouse, Esq. Mr. Boughton Rouse was chief secretary of the board of control and was created a baronet June 28, 1791, but soon afterward he inherited the baronetage of his own family, the Boughtons. Sir Edward Boughton, of Barchester, County Warwick, was created a baronet Angust 4, 1641. The Boughtons held baronetcies in England for eleven generations.
It is asserted that of the many Boutons and
Boughtons throughout New England during the Revolutionary war, there was not an able-bodied man who was not serving his country, and the records of the war department show that every northern state and over half of the southern states were represented by Boutons in the Union army during the war of the Rebellion, three of them attaining the rank of brigadier-general. It is undoubtedly a historical fact that for some fourteen centuries members of this family have proved themselves valiant soldiers on many of the important battlefields of the civilized world, and always on the side of loyalty, religious liberty and better government.
SUPPLEMENT
To the history of the Bouton race, as published in the Bouton (Boughton) genealogy, copied from a manuscript made by Judge William S. Bouton, of South Norwalk, Conn., from a French history in the Astor Library, New York City.
The Boutons are of Bungarian extraction, and very much of the patriotic, moral and religious character exhibited by the family all through the centuries to the present was an inheritance trans- mitted by a noble ancestry, which shone with re- newed lustre in its descendants who served in the war of the Rebellion for the preservation of this re- public. The patriotism and religious character of the family will become more apparent as we proceed to an examination of the history of its several branches from 1356, when Edward III. of England invaded France, to 1865, the close of the rebellion in the United States.
ORIGIN OF THE NAME
In the twelfth century an ancestor serving as a chorister in the chapel of the duke of Burgundy founded his name and fortune and that of his family by striking down with his official baton an assassin who made an attempt on the life of his master, which act raised him in the ducal chapel to the position of page of honor to the duke of Burgundy, and his gallant achievement was properly commemorated by heraldic inscrip- tion on a shield, which the family have ever since borne, viz .: De Gules a la Fasce d'Or, witli the surname Baton (which was afterward cor- rupted into Bouton) bestowed upon him by the
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duke. The change of Baton to Bouton was, it was said, in allusion to the brightness of the buttons with which as a page his coat was adorned.
(Note .- According to well authenticated rec- ords, there were officers by the name of Bou- ton in William the Conqueror's army in 1060, a century earlier than the incident related of the chorister in the duke of Burgundy's chapel.)
Subsequently he acquired other laurels in the wars of the times, for which the duke bestowed further favors upon him. To him was given the command of the fortress of Dole, and the hand of a beautiful heiress with large estates and baronial castles, which gave him rank among the foremost nobles of Burgundy. It was at this point in its history that the family began to emigrate to other climes, and it will be more practicable to follow their history in the locality or countries where they settled.
The French line is traced back authentically as far as 1350 to Jean Bouton, Signeur de Savigny. Many of the Bouton name appear in the French military and court records of the fifteenth, sixteenth and later centuries. Nicholas Bouton bore the titles of Count de Chamilly, Baron Montague de Nato11. His son, Noel Bouton, born 1636, advanced the honor of the house and was made marquis of Chamilly, and in 1703 the marshal of all France. "See Dic- tionaire des Generaux and Dictionaire de la Noblesse."
THE ENGLISH BRANCH OF THE BOUTONS
Willian Bouton, according to tradition and history, was a Bungarian soldier of fortune and served in the army of Edward III. of England when he invaded France in 1356, and attained the title of Sir William Boughton. He won the personal favor of King Edward at the battle of Portiers and ever after followed his fortunes, and at the close of the campaigns returned with him to England and was knighted by his adopted sovereign. Sir William's estates were situated on the banks of the river Avon, and the manor house was known as Lawford hall and was built by Edward, son of Sir William, during the reign of Queen Elizabeth. Edward Boughton was high sheriff of the county and member of the shire, and
after death his body was consigned to the family vault under the church at Newbold.
THE IRISH BRANCH OF THE FAMILY
The Irish branch of the family was founded by Herard Bowton, a descendant of the brother of the marquis, who, in the reign of Louis XIV. of France, rose to the rank of Premier Valette de Chambre, and died upon the scaffold in the prison of the Luxembourg in 1794 for his opposition to priest and king. Herard Bowton had a twin brother named John. Both were educated in the family of a priest in Ireland. Herard Bowton, upon the revocation of the edict of Nantes, re- turned to Ireland, still following the fortunes of Marshal Tehomborge, under whom he served in the Protestant army under William III., risking life and fortune in behalf of civil and religious liberty. He particularly distinguished himself as a fearless and valiant soldier at the battle of the Boyne, July 1, 1690. . Herard Bowton was rewarded by the king with a share of the con- fiscated lands situated in the county of Bally- rack, which had fallen to the Conqueror. Herard and John Bowton were twin brothers and born in France about seventy-five years before the battle of the Boyne. Probably after that en- gagement Herard returned to France, where he received the income of his estates at Ballyrack, Ireland.
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