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 21

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

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 21

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In June, 1853, the council passed a resolution to divide $100 between the two preceptors of the boys' school and the preceptress of the girls' school on condition that each teach ten poor children free.

The city council, March 8, 1851, granted Bishop Alameny blocks 41 and 42, O. S., for a college site, together with the flow of water from what was formerly known as the College Spring. A conditional grant of the same land had been made in 1849 to Padres Branche and Sanchez for a college site. (These blocks lie west of Buena Vista street and north of College street. )

The early schools seem to have been run on the go-as-you-please principle. The school con1- mittee reported "having visited the school twice without finding the children assembled. The committee, however, had arranged with the pre- ceptor for a full attendance next Friday, of which the council took due notice." Which of the three schools was so lax in attendance the committee does not state.

The first school ordinance was adopted by the council July 9, 1851. Article Ist provided that a sum not exceeding $50 per month shall be applied towards the support of any educational institution in the city, provided that all the rudi- ments of the English and Spanish languages be taught therein.

Article 2nd provided that should pupils receive instruction in any higher branches the parents must make an agreement with the "owner or

owners. of the school." August 13, 1852, an ordinance was passed by the council setting apart a levy of 10 cents on the $100 of the mu- nicipal taxes for the support of the schools. This was the first tax levy ever made in the city for the support of schools. Previous to this the school fund was derived from licenses, fines, etc. At the same meeting of the council Padre Anacleto Lestraode was granted two lots for a seminary. The location of the lots is not given. A. S. Breed opened a school for instruction in the English language in December, 1852. He was allowed $33 public funds on the usual terms. Breed was elected city marshal at the election the following May, embezzled public funds and was turned out of office.

The school committee of the council, Downey and Del Valle, reported, January 17, 1853, hav- ing visited the "two schools in charge of pre- ceptors Lestraode and Coronel (Ygnacio), found them well attended; 20 children in the former and 10 in the latter, besides 5 taught gratis." The council expressed great satisfaction, and re- quested the committee at its next visit to express to the preceptors its (the council's) appreciation of their good work. The report is not very definite in regard to the attendance. If the total number in the two schools was only 35 it would seem as if the council was thankful for small favors. June 11, 1853, Mrs. A. Bland, wife of the Rev. Adam Bland, a Methodist minister, having established a school for girls, was allowed $33.3373 from the public funds for teaching ten poor girls. The mayor was instructed by the council to find out whether the seats the city pays for in the various schools are filled, and if those occupying them are deserving.

At the session of the council, July 25, 1853, John T. Jones submitted an ordinance for the establishment and government of the city's public schools. It provided for the appointment by the council, with the approval of the mayor, of three commissioners of public schools, "who shall serve as a board of education for one year, the chairman to be superintendent of schools, and commissioners to have all the powers vested in a board of education by the act of the state legis- lature, 'entitled, an act to establish a common school system, approved May 3, 1852.'" The board had power to examine, employ and dismiss teachers and appoint a marshal to take a census of all children between the ages of 5 and 18 years. The ordinance was approved, and J. Lancaster Brent, Lewis Granger and Stephen C. Foster appointed a board of education, J. Lancaster Brent becoming ex-officio the city school superin- tendent. The council having established a public

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HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.

school system, by a resolution suspended the pay- ment of subsidies to private schools, the resolti- tion to take effect August 14, 1853.

In May, 1854, Hon. Stephen C. Foster, on assuming the office of mayor, in his inaugural message, urged the necessity of increased school facilities. He said: "Our last census shows more than 500 children within the corporate limits, of the age to attend school, three-fourths of whom have no means of education save that afforded by the public schools. Our city has now a school fund of $3,000." He urged the building of two schoolhouses, the appointment of a school super- intendent and a board of education. At the next meeting of the council an ordinance was passed providing for the appointment by the council, on the first Monday of June, each year, of three school commissioners or trustees, a superintend- ent and a school marshal.

At a meeting of the council held May 20, 1854, Lewis Granger moved that Stephen C. Foster be appointed city superintendent of common schools; Manuel Requena, Francis Mellus and W. T. B. Sanford, trustees; and G. W. Cole, school mar- shal. The nominations were confirmed. Thus the mayor of the city became its first school su- perintendent, and three of the seven members of the council constituted the board of education. The duties of the superintendent were to examine teachers, grant certificates and hold annual ex- aminations of the schools.

The board of education and the superintendent set vigorously to work, and before the close of the school year schoolhouse No. 1, located on the northwest corner of Spring and Second streets, on the lot now occupied by the Bryson Block and the old City Hall Building, was completed. It was a two-story brick building, costing about $6,000. It was well out in the suburbs then, the center of population at that time being in the neighborhood of the plaza. School was opened in it March 19, 1855, William A. Wallace in charge of the boys' department, and Miss Louisa Hayes principal of the girls' department. Co- education then, and for many years after, was not tolerated in the public schools of Los Angeles. Previous to the completion of the building, in the fall of 1854, T. J. Scully taught a public school in a rented building, and Ygnacio Coronel taught a school in his own building on the corner of Los Angeles and Arcadia streets. Mrs. M. A. Hoyt and son taught a public school in a rented build- ing, north of the plaza, in 1854-55-56.

Schoolhouse No. 2, located on Bath street, now Northı Main street, was built in 1856. It was a two-story, two-room brick building. It was de- mnolished when that street was widened and extended.

Wallace, after a few months' teaching, laid down the birch and mounted the editorial tripod. He became editor and publisher of the Los An- geles Star, but the tripod proved an uncomfortable seat and he soon descended from it. William McKee, an educated young Irishman, succeeded him in the school. McKee was a successful teacher. The Los Angeles Star of March 17, 1855, in an able editorial urged the planting of shade trees on the school lot. "When the feasibility of growing trees upon the naked plain is fairly tested the owners of lots in the neighbor- hood will imitate the good example," said the Star. To test the feasibility the trustees bought twelve black locusts at a dollar apiece and planted them on the school lot. The shade trees grew, but when the green feed on the "naked plains" around the schoolhouse dried up the innumerable ground squirrels that infested the mesa, made a raid on the trees, ate the leaves and girdled the branches. McKee, to protect the trees, pro- cured a shotgun, and when he was not teaching the young ideas how to shot he was shooting squirrels. There was no water system then in the city and water for domestic purposes was supplied by carriers from carts. McKee used water from the school barrel to water the trees. The "hombre" who supplied the water reported to the trustees that that gringo "maestro de escula" (schoolmaster) was wasting the public water trying to grow trees on the mesa where "any fool might know they wouldn't grow." The trees did survive the squirrels' attacks and waterman's wrath. They were cut down in1 1884, when the lot was sold to the city for a city hall site. From 1853 to 1866 the common council appointed the members of the board of education and the school superintendents. From 1866 to 1870 the school boards and the superintendents were elected by popular vote at the city elections. In 1870 it was discovered that there was no law authorizing the election of a superintendent; the city in school affairs being governed by three trustees the same as country districts. The of- fice was discontinued for two years. In 1872 a special act of the legislature created a city board of education consisting of five members and gave it power to appoint a superintendent. The fol- lowing is a list of the persons who have filled the office, with the years of their service:

J. Lancaster Brent, ex-officio. . . 1853 to 1854 Stephen C. Foster. 1854 to 1855

Dr. Wm. B. Osburn 1855 to 1856

Dr. John S. Griffin

1856 to 1857

J. Lancaster Brent. 1857 to 1858

E. J. C. Kewen. 1858 to 1859

Rev. W. E. Boardman 1859 to 1862

A. F. Heinchman 1862 to 1863

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HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.

Gustavus L. Mix 1863 to 1864

Dr. R. F. Hayes. 1864 to 1865

Rev. Elias Birdsell 1865 to 1866

Joseph Huber, Sr 1866 to 1867

H. D. Barrows. 1867 to 1868

Andrew Glassell

1868 to 1869

Dr. T. H. Rose.

1869 to 1870

No Superintendent. 1870 to 1872

A. G. Brown. 1872 to 1873

Dr. W. T. Lucky. 1873 to 1876

C. H. Kimball. 1876 to 1880

Mrs. C. B. Jones 1880 to 1881

J. M. Guinn. 1881 to 1883

L. D. Smith .. 1883 to 1885

W. M. Freisner. 1885 to 1893

Leroy D. Brown. 1893 to 1894

P. W. Search . 1894 to 1895

J. A. Foshay (present incumbent ) 1895 to

The office in earlier years was filled by lawyers, doctors, ministers and business men. It was not until 1869 that a professional teacher was chosen superintendent; since then professional teach- ers have filled the office. The high school was established in 1873, during the first year of Dr. Lucky's term. It was the first, and for several years after its organization, the only high school in Southern California. At the time it was es- tablished there were but six high schools in all California. Now there are ten in Los Angeles County alone. The first teachers' institute of Los Angeles County was organized in the old Bath street schoolhouse, October 31, 1870. It was held there because the school building on the corner of Spring street and Second was con- sidered too far out of town; the business center of the city being then on Los Angeles street between Arcadia and Commercial. There were no hotels south of First street. The officers of the institute were: W. M. McFadden, county superintendent; J. M. Guinn, president; T. H. Rose, vice-presi- dent; and P. C. Tonner, secretary. The entire teaching force of the city schools consisted of eight teachers; and from the county there were thirty, a total of thirty-eight for city and county, and the county then included all the area now in Orange County. During the '6os, on account of the sectional hatreds growing out of the Civil war, the public schools in Los Angeles were unpopular. They were regarded as a Yankee institution and were hated accordingly by the Confederate syn1- pathizers, who made up a majority of the city's population. The public school teachers during the Civil war and for some years afterwards were required by law to take an oath to support the constitution of the United States before they could obtain a certificate. This jarred on the sensitive feelings of some of the pro-slavery pedagogues, and refusing to take the oath, they were com-

pelled to quit the profession. The Los Angeles News of July 17, 1866, commenting on the public school system of California, says: "In New Eng- land the public schools educated the people up to negro equality and the same object is sought to be accomplished in this state; and unless parents and guardians take matters promptly in hand their * * children will be educated up to the New England standard of social ideas and infidelity." *

The editor of the News charges the State Board of Education with "making regulations for the government of the public schools and introducing therein a series of books that make these institu- tions but little more than schools for dissemina- tion of the doctrines of abolitionism." (Whittier's Poems were among the books of this series. )

"Under one of these regulations, teachers are required to have certificates of competency from a state board of examiners, accessible only to the purely loyal. Thus the representatives of New England negro equality have been forced into the public schools throughout the state to corrupt the minds of the youth with their damnable doctrines of social equality." With such teachings from the public press it is not strange that the public schools of the city were poorly patronized. In. the school year of 1865-66 the total number of school census children between five and fifteen years of age was 1,009. Of these 331 were en- rolled in the public schools during the year, and 309 in the private schools; 369 were not enrolled in any school. According to the New's the total average daily attendance in the six public schools was 61; in the three private schools 103-nearly 50 per cent greater than that of the public schools. Twenty-one negro children were en- rolled in a separate school. The education of these twenty-one little negroes was regarded as a menace to the future ascendency of the white race. Out of such mole hills does political bigotry construct impassable mountains! In 1870 county superintendent McFadden in his report said of the public schools of the city: "Los An- geles is far behind her sister cities of the same population and wealth in educational interest. Her school buildings are illy constructed, incom- modious, inconveniently located and conducted on a sort of guerrilla system" (no commanding officer or head to them). "Out of seventeen hun- dred and eighty children between 5 and 15 years of age, but twelve hundred have been enrolled in either public or private schools, and the average daily attendance in the public schools is only three hundred and sixty." Probably no other city of the United States outside of the former slave states can show in the past thirty-five years so remarkable a change of opinion in regard to the public schools as can Los Angeles. That the

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HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.

extracts from the Los Angeles Daily News pre- viously given reflected the sentiment of a large proportion of the city's population in regard to the public schools is evidenced by the statistics of school attendance. The enrollment in the public schools in 1865 was only thirty-three per cent of the census children, while the enrollment in the private schools was thirty per cent. The aver- age daily attendance of the private schools was nearly fifty per cent. greater than that of the public schools. In 1900, thirty-five years later, the enrollment in the public schools exceeded seventy per cent of the number of census children, while the enrollment in private schools had fallen below seven per cent. The immigration from the New England and northwestern states that began to arrive about 1870 and still continues is largely responsible for the change. About 1880 the separate school for negro children was abolished and colored children were allowed to attend the same school with the whites. The following table gives the number of census chil- dren, enrollment, average daily attendance and

number of teachers in the schools at different periods from 1855, when the first report was made, to 1900.

Year No. census children Enrollment Av. Daily At. No. teachers

1855

753

150

1865

1,009

331

1870

1,780

750

360

1880

3,579

2,098

1,343

1890

10,843

8,115

6,841

181

1895

20,679

16,719

11,798

377

1899

26,962

20,314

14,189

484

1900

30,354

21,640

15,156

500

The school census age on which apportionments of school monies were made was between 4 and 18 years from 1855 to 1865. From 1865 to 1870 5 to 15 years and from 1870 to the present time 5 to 17 years. The last school census taken be- fore the enlargement of the city by annexation was in 1895. A portion of the increase since then must be credited to the annexation of Ver- non, Harmony, University, Rosedale, Highland Park and Garvanza districts.

CHAPTER XXV.

POSTAL SERVICE-POSTMASTERS AND POSTOFFICE SITES.

I T MAY be a surprise to persons who are ac- customed to consider California as a compara- tively new country to learn that it had a postal system and an efficient mail service before the United States existed as a nation. When the continental congress in 1775 made Benjamin Franklin postmaster-general of the united colonies, on the far away Pacific shores soldier couriers were carrying their monthly bud- gets of mail between Monterey, in Alta California, and Loreto, near the southern end of the penin- sula of Lower California. Even that much- abused privilege, the franking system, the per- quisite of legislatorsand the plague of postmasters, was in full force and effect in California years and years before the lawmakers at Washington had granted themselves immunity to stuff the mail bags with garden seeds and patent office reports.

Padre Junipero Serra, president of the Califor-

uia Missions in 1773, secured from the viceroy of New Spain (Mexico), for the friars under his charge, the privilege of sending their letters through the mails free. The governors accused the padres of abusing their privilege and then there was trouble. In 1777 Governor Fages re- fused to allow Serra's voluminous letters to be forwarded free, and Serra, pleading poverty, told the inspector-general to keep the letters if they could not be sent without paying postage; but the padres were triumphant in the end. The government franked their letters.

At the beginning of Washington's administra- tion, in 1789, the longest continuous mail route in the United States was from Falmouth, in Maine, to Savannah, Ga., a distance of about 1,000 miles. This was not a through service, but was made up of a number of short lines or carries. At the same time, across the continent

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HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.

on the Pacific coast, the soldier mail carriers of the Spanish king, starting from San Francisco on the first day of each month, rode over a continu- ous route of 1,500 miles to Loreto, in Lower Cali- fornia, collecting, as they went southward, from each mission, presidio and pueblo its little budget of mail, and returning brought to the colonists of Alta California their mail from Mexico, making in all a round trip of 3,000 miles. When Franklin was postmaster-general the schedule time from Charleston, S. C., to Suffolk, Va., a distance of 433 miles, covered twenty-seven days-an average of sixteen miles a day. In 1793 a mail courier sent from Monterey, November 16, arrived at Loreto December 6, a ride of 1,400 miles in twenty days. There was a regular schedule of the day and the hour of the courier's arrival and departure at eachı mission and presidio. An hour's stop was allowed the courier at each sta- tion. The habilitados (paymasters) acted as postmasters at the presidios, and received 8 per cent. of the gross receipts for their compensation. At the pueblos the alcalde, or some officer detailed to act as administrador de correos (postmaster), received and distributed the small packages of mail. The compensation for his services was small. It did not require much of a political pull to get a postoffice in those days. It would be interesting to know the amount of revenue de- rived from the Los Angeles postoffice in 1799, one hundred years ago. As there were not more than half a dozen of the 200 inhabitants of the pueblo that could read and write at that time, the revenue of "La casa ó administracion de correos la estafeta" (postoffice) was not large, and it is probable that there were not many aspirants for the position of postmaster of Los Angeles a cen- tury ago. Under Mexican rule the increased number of vessels plying between Mexican and Californian ports did away to a certain extent with the carrying of mail by land, still the old route by the Camino del Rey (king's highway) to Loreto and across the gulf by vessel to San Blas was kept open. A shorter route by way of Sonora and the Colorado River was used when the Indians would allow it. I find in the old pueblo archives an order from acting governor Jimeno, dated August 24, 1839, authorizing the prefect of Los Angeles to appoint three collectors of duties, the revenues derived from such collec- tions to be applied to the establishing of a month- ly postal service to Lower California and thence to Mexico.

News from the outside world traveled slowly in those days. An American pioneer at Los An- geles notes in his diary the receipt of the news of President W. H. Harrison's death in 1841. It took the news three months and twenty days to

reach California. A newspaper from the states a year old was fresh and entertaining when Dana was hide droghing at San Pedro in 1835.

After the American conquest of California the military authorities established a regular service between San Francisco and San Diego. Soldier carriers, starting from each end of the route, met half way, and, exchanging mail pouches, each then returned to his starting point. It took a fortnight for them to go and return. After the soldiers were discharged in the latter part of 1848, a semi-monthly, or perhaps it might be more in accordance with the facts to say a semi-occasional, mail service was established between San Fran- cisco, Los Angeles and San Diego. The mail was carried by sailing vessels (there were no steamers on the coast then). Wind and weather permitting, a letter might reach its destination in three or four days, but with the elements against it, it might be delayed a fortnight. Masters and supercargoes of vessels took charge of letters and delivered them to the owners or agents of some shipping house at the port, and in some way the letters reached their destination.

There was no stage line for conveying passen- gers or mails from the embarcadero of San Pedro to Los Angeles previous to 1851. Before that time a caballáda (band of horses) was kept in pasture at the landing. When a vessel was sighted in the offing the mustangs were rounded up, driven into a corral, lassoed, saddled and bridled, and were ready for the conveyance of passengers to the city as soon as they came ashore. As the horses were half-broken brón- cos and the passengers were mostly newcomers from the states, unused to the tricks of bucking mustangs, the trip generally ended in the passen- ger arriving in the city on foot, the broncho having landed him at some point most convenient to him-the broncho-not the passenger.

In 1849 Wilson & Packard, whose store was on Main street where the Farmers' & Merchants' Bank now stands, were the custodians of the let- ters for Los Angeles. A tub stood on the end of a counter. Into this the letters were dumped. Anyone expecting a letter was at liberty to sort over the contents of the tub and take away his mail. The office, or rather the postoffice tub, was conducted on an automatic free delivery sys- tem. Col. John O. Wheeler, who had clerked for the firm in 1849, bought out the business in 1850 and continued the "Tale of a Tub," that is, continued to receive the letters and other literary contents of the mail bags and dump them into the tub. There was no regularly established postoffice, and, of course, no postmaster. An officious postal agent of San Francisco found fault with the tub postoffice and the free and easy de-

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HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.

livery system. The colonel, who had been ac- commodating the public free of charge, told the agent to take his postal matter elsewhere.

The first postoffice in California established under American rule was that of San Francisco, established November 9, 1848. The postoffice at Los Angeles was established April 9, 1850; J. Pugh was the first postmaster. The second was W. T. B. Sanford, appointed November 6, 1851. The third was Dr. William B. Osburn, appointed October 12, 1853. James S. Waite was appointed November 1, 1855; J. D. Wood- worth, May 19, 1858; Thomas J. White, May 9, 1860; William G. Still, June 8, 1861; Francisco P. Ramirez, October 22, 1864; Russell Sackett, May 5, 1865; George J. Clarke, June 25, 1866; H. K. W. Bent, February 14, 1873; Col. Isaac R. Dunkelberger, February 14, 1877; John W. Green, February 14, 1885. Green was succeeded by E. A. Preuss, who was succeeded in turn by Green. Green died in office and H. V. Van Dusen completed the term. Gen. John R. Mathews was appointed December 20, 1895. The present postmaster, Lewis A. Groff, took charge of the office March 1, 1900.

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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 21

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