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 12

Author: Guinn, James Miller, 1834-1918
Publication date: 1901
Publisher: Chicago : Chapman Pub. Co.
Number of Pages: 996

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THE HALL OF THE AMIGOS DEL PAIS.

The first social hall or club house ever built on the Pacific Coast was erected at Los Angeles in 1844. It was the hall of the Amigos del Pais. The "Amigos del Pais (Friends of the Country ) was a society or club made up of the leading citizens of the town, both native and foreign- born. A lot 100 varas square was granted the society, free of taxes, by the ayuntamiento. An adobe building was erected and fitted up with a dancing hall, reading room and card tables. The hall was dedicated by a grand ball and a nun1- ber of social entertainments were held. The Amigos for a time enjoyed their social privileges, and the society flourished. But it was a time of revolutions and political disturbances. In time social amenities gave place to political animos- ities. Although the members were "Friends of the Country" they became enemies of one an- other. The society ran in debt. Its member- ship fell off. The building was finally put up at a lottery. Andres Pico drew the lucky number. The Amigos del Pais disbanded. Their sala (hall) in course of time became a vinateria (saloon) and afterwards it was Los dos Amigos

HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.

-The two Friends-the friend behind the bar and the one in front of it. The building stood on the present site of the McDonald Block, on Northı Main street. It was demolished about 30 years ago.

THE GOVERNMENT HOUSE.

In 1835 the Mexican Congress proclaimed Los Angeles the capital of Alta California. Next year's commissioners were appointed to find suitable quarters in Los Angeles for government offices until a government house could be built. Don Louis Vignes' house, which stood on the present site of the Philadelphia Brewery, was offered at a yearly rental of $400. Don Juan Temple's house later on was offered and also the Widow Josefa Alvarado's. During the ten years that the capital question was agitated periodical house hunts were made for government head- quarters, but nothing came of them. The people of Monterey held on to the governors and the archives and added insult to injury by claiming that they were more moral and more cultured than the Angeleños. They claimed they had a fertile soil, a mild climate, and that their women and useful animals were very productive- insinuations that enraged the Angeleños. The bitter feeling engendered between the Arribaños of the North and the Abajeños of the South over the capital question was the beginning of the jealousy between Northern and Southern California-a jealousy that has been kept alive for more than sixty years. The capital question (as shown in a previous chapter) was the prin- cipal cause of the civil war between the North and the South in 1837-38, a war which resulted in the subjugation of the South and the triumph of Monterey. In the revolution of 1845 the South won. The decisive battle of Cahuenga made Pico governor of California and Los Angeles its capital. Next year the gringo army came, cap- tured the country and carried the capital back to Monterey. While Los Angeles was the capital the government house was an adobe building that stood on the present site of the St. Charles Hotel. It was used in 1847 by two companies of United States Dragoons as barracks, and when the county was organized in 1850 it became the first court house. Tlie lot extended through to Los Angeles street. In an adobe building on the rear of this lot the first newspaper-La Estrella (The Star)-ever issued in Los Angeles was printed.

The old adobe government house had rather an eventful history. It was built in the early '30s. Pico bought it for the government from Isaac Williams, agreeing to pay $5,000 for

it. In 1846, when hostilities broke out between the Americans and the native Californians in the North, Pico, "to meet urgent expenses necessary to be made by the government," mortgaged the house and lot to Eulogio de Celis for $2,000, "which sum shall be paid as soon as order shall be established in the department." The gringo invaders came down to Los Angeles shortly after the mortgage was made and Pico fled to Mexico. Several years after peace was restored de Celis began suit against Wilson, Packard and Pico to foreclose the mortgage. The mortgage was satisfied, but through some strange oversight tlie case was not dismissed. It was a cloud on the title of the property, and nearly fifty years after the suit was begun it was brought up in Judge York's court and dismissed on the showing that the issues that gave it existence had long since been settled.

It was in the old government house that Lieutenant Gillespie and his garrison were sta- tioned when the Californians under Varela and Flores revolted. An attack was made on Gil- lespie's force on the niglit of September 22, 1846, by the Californians, numbering about sixty men. Gillespie's riflemen drove them off, killing three of the assailants, so he claimed. But the dead were never found. Gillespie was compelled to abandon the government house and take a posi- tion on Fort Hill. After a siege of five days lie was compelled to evacuate the city.

From its proud position as the capital of Cali- fornia, this historic old adobe descended in the scale of respectability until it ended its eventful career as a bar-room and gambling hell.

THE ROUND HOUSE.

The old Round House was one of the land- marks of the city that for many years was pointed out to visitors, and the story of the purpose for which it was constructed varied with each nar- rator. There are but few historic associations connected with and no mystery about the purpose for which it was built. It was built for a dwell- ing house in the early '50s by Ramon Alexander, a retired French sailor, after a model he claimed to have seen on the coast of Africa. He married a native Californian woman and for a time they lived in the house. It passed through several hands until it came into the possession of George Lehman, who fitted up the grounds for a pleasure resort and the building for a saloon. Of late years writers refer to the grounds as the Garden of Eden. Leliman named the resort the Garden of Paradise. The following extract from the Los Angeles Star of October 2, 1858, gives an account of the opening of the resort:

HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.

THE GARDEN OF PARADISE.

"The handsome grounds of the Round House in the south part of Main street liave lately been fitted up as a public garden under the above rather high sounding title. In it are to be seen, elegantly portrayed, the primeval family- Adam and Eve-Cain and Abel; also the old serpent and the golden apples, all according to the record. There is a frame work containing what are called flying horses, for the amusement of children. A band of music stationed on the balcony of the house plays at intervals. The garden is tastefully laid out and is much fre- quented by citizens, especially on Sundays."

The modern proprietor (Lehman) of the Gar- den of Paradise, like Adam of old, sinned, not however, by eating forbidden fruit, but by con- tracting debts he could not pay. He was driven out of Paradise, not by a flaming sword, but by a writ of ejectment, and with him went the primeval family, the old serpent and the golden apples. The Round House stood on the west

side of Main street about one hundred feet south of Third. The grounds extended through to Spring street. On the Spring street front, now covered by the Henne, Breed and Lankershim Blocks, was a thick cactus hedge, which barred entrance to the grounds from that street; and was more effective than a flaming sword in keep- ing bad boys away from the golden apples of the tree of knowledge. The original Round House was built of adobe and was circular in form. Lehman or some subsequent owner inclosed it in a frame and weather boarded it; and in so doing changed it to an octagonal building.

In the arbors and under the shade trees and beneath the spreading branches of the tree of knowledge the patriots of Los Angeles celebrated the centennial of our nation's independence July 4, 1876. It was well out in the suburbs then and was classed as a suburban resort.

The Round House was torn down in 1889; the Garden of Paradise had disappeared several years before.

CHAPTER XV.

PIONEER FOREIGNERS.

NDER Spanish rule foreigners were ex- cluded from California. Runaway sailors who escaped from their ships, with the in- tention of remaining in the country, were ar- rested, and if their ships had departed, were sent to San Blas or some other port of Mexico, from whence they were returned to their own country. The first foreigner to enter Los Angeles was Joseph Chapman, a native of Massachusetts. As has been previously stated he was captured at Monterey, or rather he and two others deserted the ships of Bouchard, when that privateer cap- tured the town. At the time of his advent into the country (1818) Spain and Mexico were en- gaged in a sanguinary conflict-the war of Mexican Independence. Neither had time to look after California and she was left to shift for herself. José el Ingles (Joseph the Englishman) was allowed to remain in the country. He mar- ried Guadalupe Ortega, a daughter of Sergeant Ortega of Santa Barbara. He assisted in getting

out timbers for the Church of Our Lady of the Angels, the same year he was captured. He built a mill at Santa Inez and another at San Gabriel. He built the first ship ever launched in Southern California. He was a typical Yankee and could turn his hand to anything in a mechan- ical line. He died in 1849. Tom Fisher, cap- tured at the same time with Chapman, was the first American negro in California. He was for many years a vaquero for the Lugos.

After Mexico gained her independence she adopted a somewhat more liberal policy towards foreigners. Not perhaps because she was more tolerant, but because she was less able to enforce restriction laws. The foreigners came to Cal- ifornia whether they were welcome or not, and they settled in the country, married the fairest of its daughters, helped themselves to its richest acres, and monopolized its commerce and trade.

The first pioneer American to reach California by the overland route was Captain Jedediah S.

HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.

Smith. He, in command of a company of 15 hunters and trappers, left the Rocky Mountain Fur Company's Fort at Great Salt Lake, August 22, 1826. The object of the expedition was to find some new country that had not been trapped over. Striking out in a southwesterly direction, he discovered a river which he named the Adams, after John Quincy Adams, then president; it is 110W known as the Rio Virgin. He followed down this river to the Colorado and descended that stream to the Mojave villages. Here he found two wandering neophytes of the California Mis- sions, who guided him to San Gabriel, where he arrived early in December, 1826. He was ar- rested and taken to San Diego by order of the Comandante-General. There a number of ship captains and supercargoes signed a testimonial vouching for Smith's good character and certify- ing that he had been compelled to enter the coun- try for supplies. He was released, rejoined his company, and going northward, they trapped on the tributaries of the San Joaquin and Sacramen- to, as far as the American River, near where Folsom now stands. There Smith left them and crossed the Sierra Nevadas, the first white man to scale those mountains. He made his way to Salt Lake. On his return he entered California by way of Walker's Pass and left it by the Oregon coast route. On the Umpqua he was attacked by the Indians and only himself and two others es- caped. He was killed by the Indians on the Cimarron River, in New Mexico, in 1831, while in command of a trading expedition to Santa Fe. Smith was the pioneer of the hunters and fur trappers who between 1826 and 1845 made their way into California. Many of them became per- manent residents of the country.

The first pioneers to reach California by way of New Mexico and the Gila were the members of the Pattie party. This party consisted of Sylves- ter Pattie, James Ohio Pattie, son of Sylvester, Nathaniel M. Pryor, Richard Laughlin, Jesse Furguson, Isaac Slover, William Pope and James Puter.

The Patties left Kentucky in 1824, and fol- lowed trapping in New Mexico and Arizona un- til 1827; the elder Pattie for a time managing the copper mines of Santa Rita. In May, 1827, Pattie, in command of a party of 30 trappers, set out to trap the tributaries of the Colorado. Losses by the Indians, by dissensions and desertions re- duced the party under Pattie to eight. December Ist, 1827, while these were encamped on the Col- orado near the mouth of the Gila, the Yuma Indians stole all their horses. They built canoes and floated down the Colorado, expecting to find Spanish settlements on its banks, where they could procure horses to take them back to Santa

Fe. They floated down until they encountered the flood tide from the Gulf. Finding it impos- sible to proceed further, or to go back on account of the river current, they landed, cached their furs, and with a two days' supply of beaver meat, they struck across the desert towards California. After incredible hardships, they reached the old Mission of Santa Catalina, near the head of the Gulf of California. Here they were detained until news of their arrival could be sent to the Governor of the Californias, whose residence was then at San Diego. A guard of 16 soldiers was sent for them and they were conducted to San Diego, where they arrived February 27, 1828. Their arms were taken from them and they were imprisoned. The elder Pattie died while in con- finement. In September all the party, except young Pattie, who was retained as a lostage, were released and permitted to go after their buried furs. They found their furs had been ruined by the overflow of the river. Two of the party, Slover and Pope, made their way back to Santa Fe; the others returned, bringing with them their beaver traps. They were again im- prisoned by Gov. Echeandia, but were finally re- leased. Young Pattie entered into a contract to vaccinate all the whites and Indians in the terri- tory. His father had brought vaccine matter with him from the Santa Rita mine. Pattie claimed to have vaccinated twenty-two thousand people, principally mission Indians. He claimed to have vaccinated 2,500 in Los Angeles. The president of the missions offered him in pay 500 cattle and 500 mules, and land enough to pasture his stock, on condition that he would become a Catholic and a citizen of Mexico. Pattie scorned the offer and upbraided the padre roundly for taking advantage of him (or rather he asserts that he did).

He returned to the United States in 1830, by way of Mexico. He wrote a narrative of his ad- ventures, which was edited by the Rev. Timothy Flint, and published in Cincinnati in 1833. Stephen C. Foster, who was acquainted with Pryor and Laughlin, and whose stories of their adventures he had from themselves, pronounces most of Pattie's account false. Through the kindness of Dr. J. A. Munk, of this city, I have had the pleasure of reading this very rare book, "Pattie's Narrative." Foster's charge is alto- gether too sweeping. There are exaggerations in it and Pattie was very much given to boasting, but the story on the whole bears the impress of truth. Foster wrote a sketch of the adventures of this party, and in it he, too, draws on his ima- gination for some of the statements made.

Of this party, Nathaniel M. Pryor, Richard Laughlin and Jesse Furguson, became residents

HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.

of Los Angeles. Pryor was quite prominent in the public affairs of the town. By trade he was a silversmith. He married Doña Sepulveda and owned a large tract of land between Aliso and First streets, on which he was living at the time of his death, May, 1850.

RICHARD LAUGHLIN was a carpenter and joiner by trade. He came to Los Angeles in 1829. He owned a vineyard on the east side of Alameda street. He was very popular. Foster says his lively wit was the life of every circle, one for whom every man had a friendly word and every woman a smile. The Californians named him Ricardo el Buen Mozo ( Handsome Richard) . He died in 1855.

JESSE FURGUSON arrived at Los Angeles in 1828-29. For a time he conducted a store on Main street, while in the employ of Wm. G. Dana, of Santa Barbara. He married in Los Angeles and from here went to Lower California, where he died in 1843.

1827.

JOHN TEMPLE was among the earliest of the pioneers coming to California by sea to locate in Los Angeles. He was a native of Reading, Mass., and came from Honolulu to California in 1827 and shortly afterwards settled in Los Angeles. He formed a partnership with George Rice and carried on a mercantile business for several years. They did business in an adobe building where the Downey Block now stands. The firm of Temple & Rice dissolved in 1831. Temple continued the business alone until 1845, when he engaged in ranching. In 1857-58 he built the southern part of the Temple Block, and in 1859 erected the old court house, which stood on the present site of the Bullard Block. This building was originally intended for a mar- ket house and theatre. After his death it was sold to the county for a court house. About 1830 he married Dona Rafaela Cota. He died in San Francisco, May 30, 1866.

J. D. LEANDRY, a native of Italy, settled in Los Angeles about 1827. He conducted a store on the south side of the plaza for several years. He later on purchased an interest in the San Pedro rancho and engaged in cattle raising. He owned the Los Coyotes rancho at the time of his death, which occurred in 1842.

1828.

ABEL STEARNS (known by the natives as Don Abel) was born in Salem, Mass. He lived in Mexico four years before coming to California. He came to California in 1828 and located in Los Angeles shortly afterwards, where he engaged in merchandising. He owned a warehouse at San

Pedro and was accused of smuggling, but the charge was not proven. He married Doña Arcadia, daughter of Don Juan Bandini. He filled a number of positions in the city govern- ment under Mexican rule and was a member of the Constitutional Convention of 1849. He represented the county in the legislature of 1851 and again in 1861. In the later years of his life he was one of the largest landholders in Cali- fornia. He died at San Francisco, August 23, 1871.

(For more extended sketch, see biographical part of this volume).

SAMUEL PRENTISS, a native of Rhode Island, was one of the crew of the American brig Danube that was wrecked in San Pedro Bay on Christmas eve, 1828, and came with the rescued crew to Los Angeles. He engaged in otter hunting and fish- ing. He died on the island of Santa Catalina in 1865 and was buried there.

MICHAEL, WHITE was a native of Kent, Eng- land. He landed in Lower California in 1817 and spent eight years as a sailor on trading vessels in the Gulf of California. He went to the Sandwich Islands in 1826 and came from there to California as commander of the brig Dolly in 1828. He settled in Santa Barbara and built a schooner there. He came to Los Angeles the last day of the year 1828. He married Maria del Rosario Guillen, daughter of Eulalia Perez, famous in the annals of San Gabriel Mission. He was grantee of the Muscupiabe rancho, near San Bernardino. He was one of the Chino prisoners. His later years were spent in this city, where he died in poverty in 1885.

JOHANN GRONINGEN, or Juan Domingo (John Sunday), was a native of Hanover and the first German settler in Los Angeles. "His German name," says Steplien C. Foster, "was one no Spanish tongue could pronounce and so they called him Domingo, but, from a slight limp, he was most commonly known as 'Juan Cojo'" (Lame John). He was ship carpenter of the Danube and reached Los Angeles with the wrecked crew of that vessel on Christmas day, 1828. He married a Miss Feliz and planted a vineyard on the east side of Alameda street, between Aliso and First streets. He bought the site of the pueblito, the Indian village, when the Indians were removed across the river. His death occurred December 18, 1858.

1829.

LOUIS BOUCHETTE was the pioneer French- man of Los Angeles. He came to the pueblo in 1829 and purchased a vineyard on what is now Macy street. His residence was where the Baker Block now stands. He died October 23, 1847.

HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.

1831.

JEAN LOUIS VIGNES was another pioneer from France. He came to Los Angeles in 1831 from the Hawaiian Islands. He planted an extensive vineyard, long known as the Aliso Vineyard, and engaged in wine making. His wines became famous throughout California for their fine quality. He was familiarly known as Don Luis del Aliso from an immense sycamore tree that stood on his land. Beneath this he built his wine cellars and his residence, which he enclosed with an adobe wall to keep the Indians out. Not that the red men were hostile to him, but because they had too great an affection for his wine and brandy. Don Luis was everybody's friend, and during the war his house was a place of refuge at different times for both Americans and Califor- nians. His castle of refuge, his vineyards and the old Aliso, of which he was so proud, have all disappeared. He died January 17, 1862.

WILLIAM WOLFSKILL was born March 20, 1798, near Richmond, Ky. He lived several years in New Mexico, where lie was naturalized in 1830. In February, 1831, he arrived in Los Angeles with a large party of hunters and trap- pers. In company with Pryor, Loughlin, Pren- tiss and Yount, under the superintendence of Jose Chapman, he assisted in building the schooner Guadalupe for Padre Sanchez of San Gabriel Mission. He planted a vineyard in 1838 and an orange orchard in 1841. His orange orchard covered all the territory between San Pedro street and Alameda and from Third street to Seventh. It was cut down when the S. P. Depot was located on the Wolfskill Tract. He married, in 1841, Doña Magdalena Lugo. She died in 1862. Mr. Wolfskill died at Los Angeles October 3, 1866. He was an intelligent, enter- prising man and did more than any other person in early years to build up the horticultural interests of California.

SANTIAGO (JAMES) MCKINLEY may be classed as the pioneer Scotchman of Los Angeles. He came to California in 1824 on a whaler and was left at Santa Barbara. He came to Los Angeles about 1831 and was engaged in merchandising. He was reputed to have some knowledge of medicine and surgery and acted as physician in the pueblo when there were no representatives of the medical profession to be had in the town. He took an active part against Micheltorena in the Revolution of 1845. He was a man of good repute throughout his long career in California. He died in Monterey in 1875.

JONATHAN TRUMBULL WARNER, better known as Juan Jose Warner, was born in the town of Lyme, Conn., November 20, 1807. His health

having failed, he set out in the fall of 1830 for the far west to try to regain it. He reached St. Louis in November of that year. The arrival of a wagon train of furs from the Yellowstone country at St. Louis caused quite a sensation and gave an impetus to fur trapping and trading. Next spring he joined an expedition to Santa Fe, consisting of eighty-five men and twenty-three wagons. He was in the employ of the famous hunter and trapper, Captain Jedediah S. Smith, who was killed by the Indians on this expedition. He reached Santa Fe July 4, 1831. In Sep- tember he left for California in the employ of Jackson, Sublette and Ewing Young, who with a party of eleven men were going there to buy mules for the Louisiana market. They had with them five pack mules laden with Mexican silver dollars. He reached Los Angeles December 5, 1831. Here he and one other man remained whilst Jackson and the others went north to buy mules. The mule speculation proved a failure. Jackson returned in March with 500 horses and only 100 mules. Warner assisted in driving the stock to the Colorado River. The river was high and they experienced great difficulty and considerable loss in forcing their mules and horses to swim across. Young, Warner and three others of the party returned to Los Angeles.

During 1832 and 1833, with a party of four- teen under Young, Warner hunted and trapped in northern California and Oregon. In 1834 he settled in Los Angeles and engaged in merchan- dising. In 1837 he married Anita Gale, daugh- ter of Capt. William A. Gale of Boston. In 1840-41 he visited the Atlantic States and delivered a lecture at Rochester, N. Y., urging the building of a railroad to the Pacific. This was the first time the project was presented to the public.

In 1843 he moved to San Diego, on what has been known ever since as Warner's Ranch. The Cahuilla Indians raided the ranch, destroying six thousand dollars' worth of merchandise and run- ning off the stock. He took an active part in politics after the American occupancy of Califor- nia. In 1851-52 he represented San Diego Coun- ty in the senate. From March, 1858, to June, 1860, he published the Los Angeles Southern Vineyard. In 1860 he was elected to the assem- bly from this county. In 1876 he was appointed United States register in bankruptcy for the southern district, which office he held until his eyesight failed him. He was joint author, with Judge Benjamin Hayes and Dr. J. P: Widney, of the "Centennial Historical Sketch of Los Angeles County," a valuable publication, but now out of print. His part covered the period from 1771 to

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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 12

Author: Guinn, James Miller, 1834-1918 Publication date: 1901 Publisher: Chicago : Chapman Pub. Co. Number of Pages: 996

Author: Guinn, James Miller, 1834-1918
Publication date: 1901
Publisher: Chicago : Chapman Pub. Co.
Number of Pages: 996