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 7

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 7

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In the Overland Monthly of March, 1894, J. D. Mason writes a sketch of our Joe Chapman's romantic adventures, and from his article I here quote a few points. Mason says :

"He was quite as much of a curiosity to the Los Angelenos as he was to the rancheros. * * The captured Yankee was watched with fear and trembling, much as a grizzly bear would be if turned loose. The question of what to do with him was necessarily prominent. Some openly asserted that he ought to have been executed ; and that it was not too late yet to remedy the mistake. Lugo, however, proved his fast friend.

"At that time quite a number of men and Indians were employed in the pine woods forty miles away [only about twenty miles], getting out timbers for the church. There was no road leading to the place, only a rough trail over the mountains and through rocky canyons. If he was set to work there, he could not communicate with any enemies nor escape, for the mountains beyond were considered impassable ; he would be lost if he attempted to climb them. So he was sent to the pine woods. Now, Chap- man knew all about timber. Though he could not ride a horse, he could chop down a tree, and make it fall just where he chose. He could line, score and hew it, for he had worked at ship-building ; and when that was * done he could hitch a drove of long-horned cattle to it and move it off. * A year passed, and he became sole manager of the timber squad, and was in high favor not only with Lugo, but with the church fathers as well. He had really become indispensible. Many consultations unknown to Chapman had been held as to the policy of identifying him with the colony by marry- ing him into some Spanish family, and holding him to the coast, as it were, by domestic ties. * * * There was talk of Castilian superiority - noble blood, and all that sort of stuff. * * They finally agreed to state the case to the padre of the Los Angeles Mission. In an hour they received a terse letter, written in a plain hand, on strong paper, as follows :

' MY CHILDREN : - Lugo's advice is sensible. Let the man Chapman marry.'

" This ended the discussion, as to the propriety of his marrying."*

[scoured] alike. They are as as smooth as though really plaued."-J. Albert Wilson, Hisl. Los Ang. Co. [1880], page 105. This was written of the San Fernando old Mission, built in 1795-96-97. But the same plan was used in building the church in Los Angeles, in 1818-19-20-21-22. I learned from the old Spanish people that pine timbers were brought down the same way from big Santa Anita canyon for building the church at San Gabriel.

*See Overland Monthly, March, 1894 ; article, "One Way to Get a Rancho," by J. D. Mason. He rep- resents events that really extended over four years of time as all occurring within oue year ; he repre- sents the pirate ship as plundering San Gabriel Mission by mistake for San Juan Capistrano ; he makes Chapman's wedding occur at Santa Barbara instead of Santa Ynez ; and overstates distances sometimes; yet his story of Chapman and his lovely Spanish bride is in the main correct. Mason seems to have had some points from Chapman's descendants in Ventura county, in addition to what Stephen Foster received from old Don Antonio Lugo, and what H. H. Bancroft had found in the old Mission and Pueblo records.

HISTORY OF PASADENA.

In another place Mason relates how Chapman "whipped a thousand Indians " with a club, in a night attack they made on his corral at mouth of Millard Canyon ;

" The time for the rainy season was near, and Chapman was preparing 'for his last haul of timber .* The cattle that had been pastured on small patches of grass were lying in the adobe corrals, which had been built to keep them together at night, and secure them from the raids of the wild Indians. Sometimes a dozen or more of "converted Indians," that were not satisfied with their allotted work or rations, or social relations with the females, would break away from the missions, and unite with the wild Indians to plunder the padres' storehouses or drive off their stock. This was a standing danger to the colonists as well as to the missions. During the night mentioned one of the Indian cattle-drivers awoke Chapman, say- ing, 'Senor, Senor ! The wild Indians are cutting the cattle out.' As Chapman awoke the man urged him to listen. He could distinctly hear a grating sound produced by moving something forward and backward like a saw. The noise was new to Chapman, but the Indian explained that it was the cutting down of the adobe walls, by drawing a rawhide riata across them ; that when a section was cut that way it could be pushed over, mak- ing an opening through which to stampede the cattle with firebrands and a great noise.

"' How many Indians ?' said Chapman to the vaquero.

"'Oh! thousand, Senor !' said the Indian excitedly.

"Some Indians had deserted a day or two before, and probably had in- duced others to join them in a raid ; but Chapman knew that a thousand was an impossibility. He had learned that an Indian's estimate of numbers was of little value; that scarcely one in a hundred could count more than twenty. More than that was a thousand or a million to their weak minds. So he concluded that there might be a dozen, the bulk of them stationed near the outer wall, opposite the bars, ready to break over with a wild hurrah when the bisected portion of the wall fell. He knew he could easily drive away the four or five that were sawing the wall with riatas, but the others might attack his men with their bows and arrows, and in the con- fusion kill some of them. He planned a daring way of discomfiting the Indians by a dash among them alone, while the others of the camp should make a great noise ; for noise is a potent factor in all savage warfare. The wild Indians generally ran away at the first explosion of fire-arms, but Chapman chose rather to teach them a lesson. He passed out quietly, and as he expected, saw a number of firebrands ready to be blown into a flame as soon as the wall fell. He rushed into the midst of the lights, his club describing wide circles as it went around his head, occasionally hitting some- thing with a sickening thud. About the same time the others rushed out with loud shouts and the firing of guns.

" The besiegers, when the club began to whack their heads, shouted ' Diablo Chapman ! Diablo Chapman !' They were too astonished to make any resistance, and fled with the others as the outcry and firing commenced

*This was in 1819; and during that winter (1819-20) he went to Santa Ynez, and there built a flouring mill for the padres. Lugo had often joked Chapman about the pretty girl who saved his life, and hinted that she loved him ; and this was probably the secret of Joe's going to Santa Ynez at this time, for the Ortega family came there to church by a bridle road only 10 miles over the mountains, while it was 30 miles to Santa Barbara ; aud thus he could see her and perhaps exchange glances with her almost every Sunday, although they could not speak together. In September the next year, he was ordered by the governor to build another mill at San Gabriel.

DIVISION ONE -- PRE-PASADENIAN.

from the corral. But after getting well out of range of Chapman's club they turned and shot a few arrows towards the adobe walls. Some were sent up into the air, so as to fall inside the corral and wound the cattle.

"Some of the vaqueros, frightened by the apparent numbers of the Indians, mounted their horses and fled toward Los Angeles, which they reached about daylight, with the report that all the men, including Chapman, were killed, and the cattle driven off. Lugo, who felt responsible for Chapman's safety, raised a few volunteers and started for the pine timber to investigate the matter. He was astonished to meet the train coming down in good order, not a beast lost, nor a man missing except such as had deserted.

"Every one was talking of the American Sampson who put a thousand wild Indians to flight, as a wolf would a flock of sheep. Chapman had no wonderful story to relate. He did not think it much of an affair to rout a few Indians with a good club. When asked how many he had killed, he answered, 'None'; anyhow, he left no dead Indians around the corral; he thought it quite likely that some of them might have sore heads for awhile. But some of the older Spaniards shook their heads, and had doubts about this 'Diablo Chapman,' that could rout a whole tribe of Indians with a club. Lugo, however, insisted that it was 'quite time to make him one of us by marrying him into a Spanish family'."

The camp and corral where this inci- dent occurred must have been at the mouth of Millard Canyon on the Gid- dings farm, or on the bench of land by the creek near where the road crosses leading up to Las Casitas. The principal camp of Chapman's working crew was kept here, because there was pasture for the oxen near by ; and from this point a whole train of drag teains could be started at once for Los Angeles. This accounts, too, for the metates and meal- ing stones plowed up by the Giddings OLD CHURCH AT THE PLAZA. Built in 1818 to 1822, with Joe Chapman's help. Photo taken in 1804, for "Land of Sunshine." men on their farm, along the creek bank. But it is also supposed that the Indians had a small settlement there before the Spaniards came into the country ; and it was their old familiarity with this canyon which led to the discovery of such good pine timber in its upper section for the church building uses.

After the church was finished* old Don Antonio Lugo took Chapman to Santa Barbara to find a true blood Spanish wife for him ; for Lugo was thoroughly in love with the Yankee, and sought for him an alliance with the best and noblest families in the province. They stopped at San Buena Ventura Mission, June 24, 1822, for Chapman to be baptized, for without this he could not lawfully marry, and Lugo stood god-father to him. As

*A new roof and some additions were built to it in 1841.

HISTORY OF PASADENA.

the custom then was, the old people attended to the business of match- making, although the lady in the case had the reserved right to say "No" if she wished to, and that would end it ; for the suitor must then try his luck somewhere else. Lugo introduced Chapman among his Barbareno friends, and vouched for his good character, his skill in useful arts, and his worthi- ness to mate with the best Spanish blood in the province ; so in a short time he and old Captain Ortega arranged that Chapman might marry Ortega's pretty daughter, Guadalupe .* The young lady at first rebelled, but finally consented ; and in proper time the wedding was duly celebrated -- and thus she became the Spanish bride of the down-east Yankee, who had only four years before, as a Buenos Ayrean buccaneer, frightened her and the whole family in hasty alarm from their home; and the first time she ever saw him was that same day, in sailor's garb, a bound and pinioned prisoner subject to death penalty. The men were going to tie Chapman's feet to a wild horse's tail and then turn it loose to drag him to death; but Guadalupe plead passionately against it as a barbarism unworthy of Chris- tians, or brave soldiers, or Spanish gentlemen, and so saved his life.

After the wedding ceremony and feasting were done with, which lasted some days, he took off his red silk sash, an essential part of the Spanish horseman's costume which he now wore, and made a loop of it to hang over the pommel of his saddle for a stirrup, for a lady to ride sidewise ; and on this he seated his bride, then sat himself on the crupper or pillion behind, and thus the two made the journey from Santa Barbara to Los Angeles, stopping over night, however, at the old Mission San Buena Ventura, where he had a few weeks before been baptized. His cognomen in Spanish was Jose el Ingles (Joseph the Englishman). He was the first English-speaking bona fide settler in the State of California, as claimed by Col. J. J. Warner and Hon. Stephen C. Foster. In his Historical Sketches, Foster says :

"In 1822, when the first American adventurers, trappers and mariners found their way to California, they found Jose Chapman at the Mission San Gabriel (with fair-haired children playing around him), carpenter, mill- wright, and general factotum of good old Father Sanchez."

Foster must be a little " too previous " with his "fair-haired children," for Chapman was not married until after June, 1822. I have gathered the following date points in his romantic career : Captured in 1818 ; got out timbers for church at plaza in Los Angeles, 1818-19 [this was in the Mount Lowe "Grand Canyon"] ; 1820-21, built mill at Santa Ynez ; in December, 1820, was pardoned by Gov. Sola, under the king's decree of amnesty ; in

*Don Jose Maria Ortega was one of the wealthiest rancheros on the coast. He had 48,000 acres of land along the coast above Santa Barbara [Rancho Neustra Senora del Refugio] granted to him hy the viceroy of Mexico in 1797. His second son, Jose Vicente Ortega, who developed and occupied the Refugio ranch, was father of the girl, Guadalupe, Mr. Elwood Cooper informs me that their old ranch house is still standing, near the beach about six miles east of Gaviota landing. There were five sons and two daughters of the original Ortega family who all married and raised families of their own, so that the name has become very numerous. The Bandinis of Pasadena have a family connection with the Ortegas. Santiago and Luis Arguello, two brothers of Arturo Bandini's mother, both married Ortega women who were cousins to the one that married Joseph Chapman.

DIVISION ONE - PRE-PASADNIAN.

1821-22, built mill at San Gabriel [the one in front of the church]; on June 24, 1822, he was baptized at San Buena Ventura ; and the same year, probably soon after, he was married at Santa Ynez old Mission to Seno- rita Guadalupe Ortega, and came to San Gabriel again ; in 1824 he bought a house and land from Agustin Machado, in Los Angeles, and planted 4,000 vines ; in 1829 he applied for naturalization as a Mexican citizen, and got it in 1831 ; this same year he built his 60-ton schooner at San Gabriel ; in 1836, lived in Santa Barbara, and by this time had five children ;* in 1838, received grant of a sobrante or "remainder " of 5,000 acres of land in the Santa Barbara district ; in 1845 to '47, he lived near San Buena Ventura, and died there in 1849. Some of his descendents reside in that region yet. And a grandson of his, John Chapman, now resides on the Aguirre ranch at Ballona, in Los Angeles county, his wife being a daughter of Francisco Aguirre. This man, John, is said to resemble his grandfather, "Jose el Ingles," in his large stature and great strength.

THE OLD MILL NO. 2, OR CHAPMAN'S MILL.

The old stone mill had proved a failure, as before explained (see page 42), and the following citation is here in point :

"September 25, 1821, governor orders that the 'pilot prisoner' (Jose Chapman) be sent to build a mill at San Gabriel like that he had built at Santa Ynez."-Hist. Cal., Vol. 2., p. 568.1

So Chapman came to carry out this order. The site chosen was just south of the old Mission church, where the cement ditch forebay, the sluices, the wheel pit, the foundation walls, and other ruins can still be seen [1894]. Water in abundance for domestic uses had been brought by ditch long before, from a stone dam at mouth of Wilson Canyon ; } and the waters of Mission Canyon, San Marino Canyon and the Winston Springs were also trained into the ditch without need of dam. [They were then all three called " Mission Canyon."] But now they wanted more water ; and to meet this need, a stone dam was built at the cienega where the old Indian vil- lage of Acurag-na had stood- [the dam and lagoon are still there and still in use, about a quarter of a mile north of the "Sunny Slope " great winery]- and the accumulated waters from this place, afterward called La Presa, were also led by a ditch down to the Mission ; this stream and the one from Wil- son Canyon being then both run into the cemented head-storage ditch above the mill.

*The History of Santa Barbara County says : " Joseph Chapman, the hero of the pirate ship, and of the romantic affair with the daughter of the Ortega family, built a house, still standing in the rear of the Episcopal church." Mrs. Reid went and examined this historic old house for me, May 2, 1895.

¡Chapman's own statement. as recorded in state documents, was that " he remained here as a prisoner because he was forced, with other persons at the Sandwich Islands, on the expedition of Bou- chard;" sailing as a privateer of Buenos Ayres, then in revolt against Spain. He had been on a New England whaling ship.

#" The Mission Fathers built a stone dam at the mouth of the Wilson Canyon, near where the barn stands now, but the earth dain at the head of the Canyon was built by J. De Barth Shorb ; afterwards was rebuilt by Mr. George S. Patton."-Mr. Shorb, in Letter to Dr. Reid, March 29, 1894.

HISTORY OF PASADENA.

Chapman got his wheel pit as low as he could to advantage, then carried his foundation walls high enough and off to one side enough so that the framed superstructure for grinding room, etc., should be clear from dampness. Col. Warner in his "Historical Sketches," says this mill was built first, and had a horizontal water wheel on the lower end of a vertical shaft and the revolving mill-stone on the upper end, the same as in the stone mill. On both these points he was mistaken. My Spanish inform- ants in telling me about this one called it an "overshot wheel." They knew how it was different from the horizontal wheel in the old stone mill, but of course did not understand the technical terms for different styles of water wheels ; and from my examination and measurements, and tracing of flumes, forebay and tailrace in the ruins, I know it must have been what is called a "breast wheel," as there was not fall enough for an overshot. [Theodore Lopez, who had seen it when a boy, says it was a breast wheel- or at any rate the water went out under the wheel and not over it.] Chap- man made some wooden cogged miter gears to convert horizontal into verti- cal motion ; and this was Mission Mill No. 2, as built in 1821-22.

[NOTE-The grinding stones of this mill were made from great boulders of gray granite or syenite near the mouth of Santa Anita Canyon, and were laboriously pecked into shape by the Indians. The stones were three feet six inches in diameter and about one foot thick. One of them was broken in two and lay there with the ruins in the Bishop's orchard or garden for many years. I11 1889 Mrs. Jeanne C. Carr of Pasadena procured one of the broken halves, and now has it for a doorstep at the west front of her unique residence on Kensington place. The crest of her roof is also laid with tiles made at San Gabriel by the Indians during Padre Zalvidea's administration. I did not learn what became of the other half of the broken mill-stone. . Theodore Lopez said the stone that was not broken was taken away to use in a mill somewhere else, but he did not know the place. The grinding stones of the first Mission mill, and also of the Dan Sexton mill, were made from volcanic tufa instead of granite.]

In 1831 Chapman also built a ship (schooner) at San Gabriel, hauled it in parts to San Pedro on ox-carts, then put it together and launched it there.% He died in 1849, and in 1876 his descendants were living in Ven- tura county ; but in 1895 his grandson, John Chapman, lives at Ballona, Los Angeles county.

GOLD DISCOVERY IN 1842.

In March, 1842, Francisco Lopez, a grandson of Claudio Lopez, discov- ered gold in a canyon about thirty-five miles northeast from Los Angeles,

*" A launch was to take place at St. Pedro of the second vessel ever constructed in California. She was a schooner of about sixty tons, that had been entirely framed at St. Gabriel and fitted for subse- quent completion at St. Pedro. Every piece of timber had been hewn and fitted thirty mites from the place, and brought down to the beach upon carts."-Robinson's " Life in California," 1832, p. 100.

DIVISION ONE - PRE-PASADENIAN.

the first that had ever been found by white men in California .* It was in the San Fernando valley, on land owned by Ignacio del Valle. And by December, 1843, 2,000 ounces of gold dust had been taken from these mines. Then in 1853-54 gold was found in the foot-hills of the Santa Anita ranch, and in the San Gabriel Canyon, and in our own Eaton, Rubio and Arroyo Seco Canyons. In crossing the old flood-plain of the Eaton Canyon outwash above Lamanda Park, many mysterious-looking deep pits in the sand will be noticed. These were made by the gold-hunters of that period and later time. These were all placer diggings. A quartz mill was put in far up the San Gabriel Canyon some years later. And statistics show that during a period of eighteen years over $2,000,000 worth of gold dust was sold from these San Gabriel, Santa Anita and Eaton Canyon diggings. [Thompson &' West Hist. Los A. Co., p. 67.]

DAN SEXTON'S OLD ADOBE MILL.

On May 16, 1871, a patent for 22734 acres of the San Gabriel Mission lands were granted to Daniel Sexton. This man came to California in 1841 in the same company with B. D. Wilson, John Rowland, Wm. Workman Wade Hampton [afterward a famous Confederate General in the war of the Rebellion], and others.+ Sexton married one of the Mission Indian women, thus gaining the right under Mexican law to acquire land, and settled at San Gabriel before the United States took California. The old Mission mills were now in ruins, and he thought a mill was needed and might do a good paying business here ; so he put up an adobe structure 17x50 feet, with asphaltum roof, expecting to use water from the La Presa ditch to drive his mill machinery. His right to this water service was contested ; lawsuits were undertaken; and finally he lost both the water and the land-and his mill never turned a wheel. ¿ The building still stands, being now used for a dwelling, about one-fourth mile northeast from the East San Gabriel hotel ; the land now belongs to Gov. H. H. Markham, and was occupied in 1894 by Mr. C. M. Smith, as tenant. The millstones had been quarried out from volcanic tufa, the same as those in the old stone mill, and

*Davis, "Sixty Years in Calif.," page 222, credits this discovery to "some Mexicans from Sonora who were passing through going north," in 1840. This is a mistake. Lopez showed them some of the dirt in Los Angeles, and they confirmed it as gold-bearing-that is all ; and this was in 1842. Davis also mentions two priests who told him as early as 1843-14 that they had knowledge of gold in the Sacra- mento valley from Indians long ago, but they had charged the Indians upon "peril of the wrath of God " not to reveal the secret. Their idea was that if the existence of gold here became known, for- eigners would rush in to hunt for it, and would overrun and take the country. The same charge was made by the priests at San Diego and San Gabriel to Indians who brought them gold dust long before white men had discovered it. And Davis, p. 257-59, relates how in 1850-51 the old chief Zapaje rejected the most tempting bribes that could be offered to an Indian, rather than lead them to a gold mine which he had told the priest about 70 years before. In this adventure Davis was accompanied by three Arguellos of San Diego, uncles to our Arturo Bandini, and by Gen. Manuel Castro.

¡In the official list of the party as recorded at Los Angeles, Feb. 29, 1842, his name is written "Daniel Sinton, carpenter," or at least it has been printed that way from those records. It should be "Sexton " instead of Sinton. In 1894 he was still living at San Bernardino but died during the year.

#Sexton was one of the original owners of the old Orizaba tract, which was not marked on any map that I found, but it included Winston Heights, part of San Marino, and some other lands. He built on his part the very substantial adobe house, now occupied by Mr. N. A. Strain, foreman of Hon. J. De Barth Shorb's San Marino ranch.

HISTORY OF PASADENA.

were lying there in the house yard when I visited it on August 30, 1894, one of them being still unfinished.

NOTE .- I have taken pains to explain about this " old adobe mill " at San Gabriel, in order to prevent further confusion and misunderstanding from its being confounded with the two old Mission mills.

SECULARIZATION OF THE MISSION.

On January 6, 1831, Governor Echeandia had issued a final decree for secularizing the Missions, and forming them into towns, in accordance with the old Mexican law of September 13, 1823. Elections were ordered to be held on the third and fourth Sundays of January. The twenty-eighth article of this decree said : "With all possible haste a school is to be estab- lished at San Gabriel, in which reading, writing and arithmetic will be taught, as well as the best morals and politics."* Article 32 said: "Teach- ers to have $40 or $50, according to skill, and to have also $15 for each pro- ficient pupil produced in six months." [See Bancroft, Hist. Cal., Vol. 3, p. 306.]

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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