History of Pasadena, comprising an account of the native Indian, the early Spanish, the Mexican, the American, the colony, and the incorporated city, occupancies of the Rancho San Pasqual, and its adjacent mountains, canyons, waterfalls and other objects of interest: being a complete and comprehensive histo-cyclopedia of all matters pertaining to this region, Part 3

Author: Reid, Hiram Alvin, 1834-; McClatchie, Alfred James, comp
Publication date: 1895
Publisher: Pasadena, Cal., Pasadena History Co.
Number of Pages: 714

USA > California > Los Angeles County > Pasadena > History of Pasadena, comprising an account of the native Indian, the early Spanish, the Mexican, the American, the colony, and the incorporated city, occupancies of the Rancho San Pasqual, and its adjacent mountains, canyons, waterfalls and other objects of interest: being a complete and comprehensive histo-cyclopedia of all matters pertaining to this region > Part 3

Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).

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DIVISION ONE - PRE-PASADENIAN.

CHAPTER I.

THE PRE-PASADENIAN ABORIGINES. Early writers .- Hugo Reid, the Scotchman, and his Indian wife .- Sixteen Indian villages by name and location .- Pasadena's very first name and people-their government, medicine, food, etc .- The Indian re- ligion .- Mission incidents .- Pascual el Capitan and the Pascual Indians .- Indian Sweat House at Sheep Corral Springs .- Indians after the Mission days .- Indian horse-eaters kill two white men in the Arroyo .- Helen Hunt Jackson's work .- Why no Indian graves found.

INDIAN EVENTS IN PASADENALAND.

When the Spaniards first took possession of this region of country, which was in 1769-70, they found it occupied by native Indians who then had twenty-seven or more village settlements within what is now Los Angeles county, and the Spaniards called them rancherias .* Each village had its local chief ; and some clans had a group of villages with one hereditary or patriarchal chief over all, he bearing the clan name with the suffix "ic " to indicate his office. The writings of padres Crespi, Junipero Serra, Boscana, and others of the earliest missionaries here, besides records left by Governor Fages and many officers and soldiers of the first occupancy, give us in- formation of the Indians of South California in general ; but the one writer who devoted himself to local details concerning the Indians of Los Angeles county was Hugo Reid. He wrote from his own studies and investigations, made over sixty years after the Spaniards commenced their rule here, and of course did not get everything-yet he is the chief authority, and most often quoted by later writers in this particular field. Hence I give here a con- densed sketch of his life, as a part of the local history of Pasadenaland.

HUGO REID AND HIS INDIAN WIFE.

Hugo Reid was born in Scotland in 1811 ; came to New Mexico in 1828 and resided there six years. Came to California in 1834 and engaged in mercantile business at Los Angeles. In 1839 he became naturalized as a Mexican citizen, having married a native Indian woman at San Gabriel and settled on the rancho Santa Anita comprising three leagues of land, which was finally granted to him by Mexican authority in 1841 and 1845.1 Ti- burcio Lopez (a son of the historic Claudio Lopez of San Gabriel) had lived upon it and claimed it before, but somehow Reid got it; and in 1847 he sold it to Henry Dalton for $2,000. [The same land was sold in 1874

*In July, 1769, Father Junipero Serra wrote: " We found vines of a large size [wild] and in some cases quite loaded with grapes. *

* We have seen Indians in immense numbers ......... they con- trive to make a good subsistence on various seeds, and by fishing. The latter they carry on by means of rafts or canoes made of tule (bulrush).

All the males go naked ; but the women and female children are decently covered from their breasts downward."

+" Hartnell aided him [ Reid] in getting the land, against the efforts of J. A. Carrillo in behalf of the Lopez family."-Hist. Cal. Vol. 5. p. 691. This Hartnell was visitador general of Missions, under Governor Alvarado.

HISTORY OF PASADENA.

for $200,000.] Its original west line ran from the mouth of Eaton canyon southwesterly to the corner of Wilson avenue and San Pasqual street, thence back east along that street to Santa Anita avenue, thence south on that avenue nearly to the Mission. In California he was always known as Hugo Reid. Just when he was married I did not learn, but it appears that in 1839, when he took the oath of Mexican citizenship, he already had his In- dian wife, Victoria, and two children. His wife was an excellent woman, much respected at San Gabriel,* and a cottage which she built and lived in is still pointed out as one of the historic buildings there, since her case was dimly woven into the famous story of "Ramona ". In 1838 a piece of land I2814 acres called Huerta [garden] de Cuati was granted to her by Mexican authority, and confirmed by U. S. patent of June 30, 1858 ; but as early as 1852 she had sold it to B. D. Wilson, and it became his Lake Vineyard home place, so intimately associated with Pasadena's early history. In 1843 Hugo Reid was justice of the peace at San Gabriel; in 1846 he was auxiliary administrator in closing up the business of secularizing the Mis- sion property ; the Mission was heavily in debt, and in June of that year Governor Pico sold out the whole business-buildings, lands, water rights, and all, to Hugo Reid and Wm. Workman-Reid being then in possession. But in August of same year the country was captured by Stockton and Fre- mont, and they annulled this sale as not valid under Mexican law. In 1849 Reid was elected to and served as a member of the convention which gave California her first constitution, under which she entered the Union as a sovereign state. He died in Los Angeles December 12, 1852.

A pioneer merchant and coast trader of San Francisco named Wm. Heath Davis published in 1889 a book entitled "Sixty Years in California "; and on pages 196-7 I find this narrative :

"In November, 1844, James Mckinlay and myself left San Diego and went overland to Santa Anita. Hugo Reid, a Scotchman, lived at Santa Anita. He was a skillful accountant, and we brought along with us, on a pack animal, a large pile of account books belonging to the business of Paty, Mckinlay and Fitch, who were about dissolving their partnership. We remained at Reid's house most of the months of November and Decem- ber, adjusting and settling the books, with his aid. Reid had been dis- appointed in love in his own country, his intended bride having 'thrown him over', so to speak ; and he left the country in disgust, vowing lie would marry some one of the same name as she who had slighted him, even though an Indian woman. He came to California and fell in with a woman of pure Indian blood, named Victoria, the name of his former love, and married her. Upon our visit at Reid's house we found that they were living very happily together. We were surprised and delighted with the excellence and neatness of the housekeeping of the Indian wife, which could not have been excelled. The beds which were furnished us to sleep in were exquis-

*" There are striking examples of Indian women married to foreigners and native Californians, exemplary wives and mothers." Hon. B. D. Wilson's report as U.S. Indian Agent 1852.

" The Indian women of California were far better stock than those of Mexico."-Davis' " Sixty Years in Cal.," p. 196.

DIVISION ONE -PRE-PASADENIAN.

quisitely neat, with coverlids of satin, the sheets and pillow cases trimmed with lace and highly ornamented."*

THE INDIAN VILLAGES.

Among Hugo Reid's writings is a list more or less complete of the or- iginal native Indian names of their villages or clan settlements in Los An- geles county. Usually a clan had only one village, a central settlement ; but sometimes the same clan had several villages, with an hereditary clan- chief over all, and an elected sub-chief in each village, thus forming a sort of patriarchal confederacy in government; and this seems to have been the case with our Arroyo Seco Indians when Governor Portola, the first white man here, was treated kindly by them and their head chief, Hahamovic, in January, 1770, at their village near the Garfias spring in South Pasadena. Reid's writings in regard to the Indians were first published in the Los An- geles Star in 1852, and republished in the California Farmer in January, 1861. A copy of the MSS. was furnished by Judge Hayes, to H. H. Bancroft while preparing his volume on "Native Races of the Pacific Coast", in 1881-82. Considerable portions of the matter were reprinted in Lewis's "History of Los Angeles Co." published in 1889. And from Reid's account of the Indian villages I select a few of the localities best known to Pasadena people, or with which they have some special interest, citing the Indian name, and its location as given by Reid, with my own notes of explanation as to present identity. The suffix "na" was equiva- lent to our word clan, but was also used in a sense the same as our suffixes "ville " or "burg ".

Name of Indian village.

Location as given by Hugo Reid.

Present occupancy or identity of the site.

Acurag-na-La Presa. [A large tule bog or cienega on the L. J. Rose place, above the winery, where the padres built a stone dam in 1821 and conveyed the water in a ditch to their flouring mill No. 2, across the street in front of the church. The stone dam stands yet; and the foundation walls, cement flumes, wheel pit, etc., of the mill are still visible as ruins.]

Ahupquig-na-Santa Anita ranch, where Hugo Reid lived in 1844.

Awig-na-La Puente.

Azucsag-na-Azusa.

Cucomog-na-Cucamonga.

Hahamog-na-Verdugo ranch. [From other sources and circumstances 1 I find that this clan occupied both sides of the Arroyo Seco from Garvanza ford northward; and when Reid wrote his account the Arroyo hills were called promiscuously the "Verdugo hills", or "San Rafael" hills, all lumped off as pertaining to Don Jose Maria Verdugo's ranch. These were the Indians who occupied Pasadena's location when white men first visited the country in 1769-70.]

*This Indian woman had been one of the " neophytes" under the training of old Eulalia Perez at the San Gabriel Mission. See Chap. 2 and 3.

HISTORY OF PASADENA.

Isanthcog-na-Mission Vieja. [The place called " Old Mission," at the San Gabriel river-the site where San Gabriel Mission was at first estab- lished (September 8, 1771), but afterwards moved to its present location. Some fragments of the adobe walls of the old first church, and other struc- tures, may be seen yet (1895), at " Old Mission."]

Pasinog-na-Chino ranch.

Pubug-na-Alamitos ranch. [The shores of Alamitos bay.]

Sibag-na-San Gabriel. [This was at a great alluvial marsh which formerly existed in the washway southwest of the present village, and furt- ished rich crops of vegetables and grain to the Mission while its buildings were going up at the new location. But that body of rich marsh land has all been washed away, leaving only fields of sand and gravel.]

Sisit Canog-na-Pear Orchard. [The old Mission pear orchard, below the mouth of Wilson, Mission and San Marino canyons-now called the Cooper Place, where Isaac and Thomas Cooper live.]

Sonag-na-Mr. White's place. [Irving A. White of the Sierra Madre colony, near, or a part of the present village of Sierra Madre.]

Suang-na-Wilmington. [This was the largest or most populous of the Indian villages in the county, on account of the abundance of food, and so easily obtained from the great estuary or bay there-fish and clams, and such roots, berries and native plant seeds as they used for food.]

Tibahag-na-Cerritos ranch. [Site near Clearwater.] Toybipet-na-San Jose. [Spadra.]

Yang-na-Los Angeles.

PASADENA'S VERY FIRST NAME AND PEOPLE.

The Hahamog-na clan occupied our Arroyo Seco region, and therefore "Hahamog-na " may be set down as the first name by which Pasadena ter- ritory was ever designated in human speech ; and Hahamovic* was the name or title of the old native chief who smoked the peace-pipe with Gover- nor Portola at South Pasadena, January 17, 1770. In regard to tribal head- ship among the Indians, Bancroft's "Native Races," p. 409, says :

" Each tribe acknowledged one head, whose province it was to settle disputes, levy war, make peace, appoint feasts, and give good advice. Be- yond this he had little power. He was assisted in his duties by a council of elders. The office of chief was hereditary, and in the absence of a male heir devolved upon the female nearest of kin. She could marry whom she pleased, but her husband obtained no authority through the alliance, all the power remaining in his wife's hands until their eldest boy attained his ma- jority, when the latter at once assumed command."

This old chief, Hahamovic [called by the Spaniards " Pascual el Capi- tan"], was head chief, and his tribe or clan had several villages at points

*"The chief of each lodge took its name, followed by ic, with sometimes the alteration of one or more final letters. For instance, the chief of Azucsag-na was called Azucsavic; that of Sibag-na, Sibapic; etc."-Hugo Reid's Records: Letter I.

DIVISION ONE - PRE-PASADENIAN.

convenient to water-one near the Garfias spring which now supplies Lincoln Park with water ; one on banks of the brook east of Raymond hill ; one on C. M. Phillips's place, near the head springs of Los Robles brook and Oak Knoll brook ; one near the Ben Wilson and Richardson springs ; one on the Giddings place near the mouth of Millard canyon, far up whose mountain course the tribe obtained their finest and fattest acorns for food ; and per- haps others. Each village had its sub-chief, and these formed the "council of elders " referred to-a sort of cabinet or board of directors, with Hahamo- vic presiding. After the old chief was baptized and named Pascual, his tribe were called the " Pascual Indians;" but later all tribal distinctions were broken up by the Mission authorities and all were blended or mixed to- gether as " neophytes," or "Mission Indians "-and finally called Gabriel- enos, to distinguish this populace from those of other Missions-the term " Mission Indians " having come to be applied to any body of natives who had come under the rule of the padres. Our Pasadena chief, Hahamovic or Pascual, finally married a Spanish white woman named Angelina Sysa, re- sided at San Gabriel, and lived to be very old. Senora Maria Guillen de Lopez, aged 83, and still living at San Gabriel, knew him as a very old man when she was a little girl. Her mother was the famous Eulalia Perez de Guillen, first grantee of the Rancho San Pasqual ; and her husband was a son of the historic Claudio Lopez who served as major domo (chief overseer) at San Gabriel before and through the masterful administrations of Father Zalvidea and Father Sanchez-or a total period of about thirty-six years, as I was informed by his grandsons Felipe and Theodore Lopez of San Gabriel. Their grandmother, Eulalia Perez de Guillen, was living at San Gabriel and attended as midwife upon the mother of Governor Pio Pico when he was born, May 5, 1801 ; and it was the family tradition that Claudio Lopez was already serving as major domo at that time. Hence he was overseer of Indian laborers for a longer period and in greater numbers probably than any other man in California, and was the first man who ever started any civilized industries on the land now occupied and known as Pasadena. He used it as a Mission stock range.

These primitive people do not appear to have had any sort of domestic animals-not even dogs or cats-nor any sort of agriculture ;* but sub- sisted wholly upon the natural products of the land, both vegetable and animal, including the eggs of quails and other birds in their season. Never- theless, in some respects they seem to have made real advances toward a semi-civilization, as in matters of civil polity, literature, treatment of diseases, etc. Their medical practice was combined with a good deal of superstitious mummery by the "doctor," such as noise of rattles, smoking [incense] to the Great Spirit, singing of songs or incantations, and other

*The native inhabitants found on some of the Santa Barbara islands did have a domesticated variety of coyote or wild dog; but the early Spanish writers do not mention any such creatures in the Pasadena region.

HISTORY OF PASADENA.

ceremonial antics; yet withal they did have some practical and efficient knowledge of the use of sweating or steam baths, of numerous herb decoc- tions, of lobelia emetics, of counter-irritation by nettle blisters and by burn- ing or "moxa," and of blood-letting, etc. Among the herbs which they used medicinally were Nicotiana or wild tobacco, thornapple [jimson weed], marshmallow, tansy, mustard, southernwood [" old man," as it is sometimes called], wild sage, nettles, and some others. They also had knowledge and skill to prepare poisons for making their arrow points more deadly. In re- gard to civil regulations among them I quote this brief extract from Hugo Reid's work :

"The government of the people was in the hands of the chiefs, each captain commanding his own lodge. The command was hereditary in a family, descending from father to son, and from brother to brother. If the right line of descent ran out, they immediately elected one of the same kin nearest in blood. Laws in general were made as they were required, with the exception of some few standing ones. Robbery and thieving were un- known among them ; and murder, which was of rare occurence, was pun- ished by shooting the delinquent with arrows until dead. Incest was held in great abhorrence and punished with death ; even marriages between kins- folk were not allowed. The manner of death was by shooting with arrows. All prisoners of war were invariably put to death, after being tormented in a most cruel manner."

Those occupying the San Gabriel valley he designates by the general name "Gabrielenos," and the mountain Indians he calls " Serranos." Of their native articles of food he says :

" The animal food used by the Gabrielenos consisted of deer meat, young coyotes, squirrels, badgers, rats, gophers, skunks, raccoons, rabbits, wild cats, small crow, blackbirds, hawks, and snakes, with the exception of the rattlesnake .* A few ate of the bear, but in general it was rejected, on superstitious grounds. A large locust or a grasshopper was a favorite morsel, roasted on a stick at the fire. Fish, quails, seals, sea-otter, and shell- fish formed the principal subsistance of the immediate coast range lodges and Islanders. Acorns, after being divested of the shell, were dried and pounded in stone mortars, put into filterers of willow twigs, worked into a conical form and raised on little sand mounds, which were lined inside with two inches of sand ; water added and mixed up, filled up again and again with more water, at first hot and then cold, until all the bitter principle was extracted ; the residue was then collected and washed free of any sand par- ticles it might contain ; on settling, the water was poured off; on being boiled it became a sort of mush, and was eaten when cold.t The next

*Davis, "Sixty Years in Cal." p. 526, tells of a notable trip which he and others made in 1850-51, when Don Ramon Arguello (uncle to Arturo Bandini, of Pasadena,) officiated as guide. Rattlesnakes were very abundant and Don Ramon was wonderfully expert in killing them ; and Davis says: "He would eat a portion of their bodies after it was broiled over a hot fire, and often remarked to me that it was more nutritious than the meat of a tat chicken."

¡Fremont speaks of the Indians bringing him " bread made of acorns to trade," and adds that they "live principally on acorns aud the roots of the tule, of which also their huts are made."-Memoirs, page 360. The " tule " is Scirpus lacustris, variety occidentalis.

Another writer who has lived among these Indians, says : "Pine-nuts, acorns and roots are all pounded up together in a mortar. The flour is then made into a paste and thrown into a hole scooped out amongst the ashes of a hot fire," etc. * * * In case of birds, rabbits, fish, etc., "without remov- ing feathers, hair or scales, they are plastered over with mud, then buried in the fire. When the cook thinks the meat done it is raked out, the baked mud easily dropping off and taking the feathers or hair and skin with it."-Tourists' Guide to S. Cal., p. 192. By G. Wharton James.

DIVISION ONE-PRE-PASADENIAN.

favorite food was the kernel of a species of plum, which grows in the moun- tains and islands. It is sometimes called the mountain cherry, although it partook little of either, having a large stone wrapped in fiber and possessing little pulp .* Chia, which is a small, gray, oblong seed, was procured from a plant apparently of the thistle kind, having a number of seed vessels on a straight stalk, one above the other, like sage.t This, roasted and ground, made a meal which was eaten, mixed with cold water, being of a glutinous consistence and very cooling. Pepper seed (chilis) were also used ; likewise the tender tops of wild sage. Salt was used sparingly, as they considered it as having a tendency to turn the hair gray. All their food was eaten cold or nearly so."

In addition to what Hugo Reid says above, it appears from other writers that they also used prickly pears (fruit of the broad-leaved cactus), the suc- culent water cress, the root of some species of flag, wild barley (or wild oats, avena fatua) and various kinds of grass seeds - besides birds' eggs, of which a healthy quail usually lays from twelve to twenty in a season ; and thus it will be seen that the range of their dietary was not so very limited after all. They also used the native wild berries, some varieties of which are passably edible, as I have myself tested. These are, blackberries ; one species of gooseberries ; nightshade berries ; some portions of the elderberry crop ; manzanita berries ; grapes ; canyon bush cherries.

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Author: Reid, Hiram Alvin, 1834-; McClatchie, Alfred James, comp Publication date: 1895 Publisher: Pasadena, Cal., Pasadena History Co. Number of Pages: 714

Author: Reid, Hiram Alvin, 1834-; McClatchie, Alfred James, comp
Publication date: 1895
Publisher: Pasadena, Cal., Pasadena History Co.
Number of Pages: 714