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 8
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In 1832 there was much civil strife between factions ; and now for the first time Indians were armed, to take part as soldiers in these public quar- rels. In April, Governor Echeandia had a force of soldiers and Indians en- camped at Paso de Bartolo on the San Gabriel river, under Captain Barroso. They marched to Los Angeles; then in a day or two they went to San Gabriel ; and here they borrowed $20,000 from the Mission treasury, t be- sides forced loans of supplies for men and horses-all which was very gall- ing to the padres, for this was the faction that they were opposed to. Sev- eral writers say there were 1,000 mounted Indians, besides white men.
In 1831-32, while Padre Sanchez was still in control, a schooner of sixty tons burden was framed here at San Gabriel by Joseph Chapman, assisted by an Englishmen named William Antonio Richardson, who claimed to be a carpenter, a shipwright and a pilot. The vessel was hauled in sections on carts to San Pedro,-there put together and launched in 1832, and used in the otter and seal fur trade among the channel islands. A man named Yount was part owner and became captain of this small ship; and differ- ent accounts have credited each of the three men, Chapman, Richardson and Yount as the builders. But it was Chapman who projected, planned and superintended its building at San Gabriel and cartage to San Pedro. He was the real head and hero of the whole affair until the owners took charge of it at anchor in San Pedro bay.
*This had been the hottest question in Mexican politics for about twenty years, between the Liberal party and the clerical or conservative party. Sometimes one and sometimes the other was in power, so that the padres had never obeyed either the Spanish or the Mexican law in regard to the matter, but held their grip of ecclesiastical dominance till Echeandia finally forced them to obey.
¡Eulalia Perez hid the keys of the money room and refused to give them up, as she was the Mis- sion treasure-keeper ; but the room was broken open, and the $20,000 thus "borrowed" from the padres, was never returned-for it took all of it and more, too, to pay costs of enforcing the law which they had so long disregarded.
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DIVISION ONE - PRE-PASADENIAN.
In 1832-33-34 the Mission cattle were slaughtered in droves by con- tract, just to sell the hides-the Mission treasury to receive half and the contractors half .* And Mofras, a French consul here at the time and who wrote a book about this country, says that in 1834, 100,000 hides, 2,500 centals of tallow and several cargoes of soap from San Gabriel were shipped at San Pedro. The fact was simply this : the Mission Fathers were rushing all their portable products into market before the government officers should arrive to take it from them.t
In 1834 Colonel Nicolas Gutierrez was sent to San Gabriel as adminis- trator, to take charge of all the property and secular business on behalf of the government, and readjust its affairs.
In 1838 Don Juan Bandini succeeded Gutierrez as administrator. And it is recorded that in June, 1839, the government visitador general, Hartnell, reported Bandini's accounts all right, and authorized him to "buy $2,000 worth of clothing, to be paid for in brandy." Then on December 31 of same year it appears that Bandini distributed $1,615 worth of clothing among 233 Indians -- this being the number then still remaining as neophytes and work people at the Mission. In March, 1840, Bandini reports that he had added 100 trees to the Mission orange orchard, the only one then existing in Cali- fornia. August I, of this year [1840] Bandini retired, the secularization business being about completed; į and all that was left of the Mission prop- erty was placed in charge of the curate, Padre Estenega-but Juan Perez had been major domo since 1837, and he continued to serve under Estene- ga's direction until March 1, 1843, when he dropped out, and the padre attended to everything himself for a year or so.
While Don Juan Bandini was administrator his home was at his great Jurupa ranch of seven square leagues which had been granted to him Sep- tember 28, 1838; but part of the time he lived at San Gabriel, occupying one of the padre cottages, as Senora Lopez informs me. In 1841, during his term of office, his father, Captain Jose Bandini died, and was buried under the flagstones of the old church. Then in a few weeks (or months) his daughter Arcadia was married in the church to Don Abel Stearns of Los
*Gen. M. G. Vallejo, a Mexican commandante, wrote: "In the Missions of San Gabriel, San Fer- nando, San Juan Capistrano, and San Luis Rey, they killed by contract with private individuals, during the years 1830-31-32, more than 60,000 head of cattle, from which they only saved the hides."
+In his MSS. Hist. Southern Cal., Bandini says: " 2,000 cattle were killed in a single day at one Mission. [San Gabriel, ] the meat and fat being left in the fields " Pio Pico, in his MSS. Hist. Cal., says he " had a contract at San Gabriel, employing ten vaqueros and thirty Indians, and killing over 5,000 cattle." Mrs. Ord, MSS. Occurances, says she "understood that 30,000 cattle were killed at San Gabriel, and remembers that there were fears of a pestilence from the rotting carcasses."
At that time, as the reader will bear in mind, the rancho San Pasqual or Pasadenaland was a part of San Gabriel. The cattle were killed for their hides only, these being mostly shipped around, Cape Horn to Boston ; they were Mission live stock, and this occurred in the process of secularizing the Mis- sions. Father Gonzales, one of the pioneer missionaries, writing of the Missions as they were in 1833, says : "The richest in population was that of San Luis Rey [in San Diego Co.]; in temporal things, that of San Gabriel. * * * Twice a year a new dress was given to the neophytes ;"' etc.
¿In August or September, 1841, Bandini was appointed to manage the temporal affairs of San Juan Capistrano, and to superintend the founding of the pueblo, San Juan de Arguello, as a home place for the now secularized Mission Indians. But on March 7. 1842, he put the whole business into Padre Zalvidea's hands, and on May 30 resigned this commissionership.
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HISTORY OF PASADENA.
Angeles, the bride being dressed in mourning,* and having ridden in on horseback from Jurupa [now Riverside], while Don Abel came with his friends from Los Angeles. And after the nuptial ceremony the whole wed- ding party went to Los Angeles for the usual social festivities. The youth- ful bride of this occasion, then only sixteen, is now Mrs. Col. R. S. Baker (widow) of Los Angeles, the wealthiest woman in Southern California.t
SOME SAN GABRIEL ITEMS.
"The earthquake of December 8, 1812, at sunrise, overthrew the main altar, breaking the St. Joseph, the St. Dominic, the St. Francis, and the Christ, damaging the church considerably, bringing down the top of the steeple, and badly cracking the sacristy walls, and injured the friars' houses and other buildings."-Hist. Cal., Vol. 2, p. 356.
The wall of the north forebay or water-head cistern at the old stone mill was cracked by this earthquake before a wheel was put in for its spout, and hence the mill never had but one wheel, although built for two. The walls were built so massively solid as they are, in order to withstand earth- quakes, in addition to their possible need as a fortress.
The first orange culture ever attempted in California, was at San Gabriel, from 1820 to '25.
In 1829 the Mission sheep were estimated at 54,000.
Robinson's book, " Life in California," written mostly in 1829 to 1835, and published in 1846, gives a picture of this old Mission church as he saw it, and it had a high pointed steeple on it. This was afterward blown down, and the unique five-groined stone belfry, as now seen there, was built in its place. On page 32 Robinson says [1829] :
" There are several extensive gardens attached to this Mission, where may be found oranges, citrons, limes, apples, pears, peaches pomegranates, figs and grapes in abundance. From the latter they make yearly from four to six hundred barrels of wine, and two hundred of brandy ; the sale of which produces an income of more than $12,000. The storehouses and granaries are kept well supplied, and the corridor in the square is usually heaped up with piles of hides and tallow. Besides the resources of the vine- yard, the Mission derives considerable revenue from the sale of grain; and the weekly slaughter of cattle produces a sufficient sum for clothing and supporting the Indians."
I11 1831 Col. J. J. Warner estimated the Mission hogs at 1,000 head- "used chiefly for making soap," he says. The same year the Mission's grape vines were reported to be 50,000. It was this year also that Chapman built a ship here in parts and hauled it to San Pedro in ox-carts. Alfred Robinson, who saw it launched, calls it the Refugio, a schooner of sixty tons burden ; but Bancroft calls it the Guadalupe. This discrepancy is easily explained.
*A Spanish woman who was there at the time told me that the bride not only stood up in mourn- ing attire, but in going to the altar she walked over the flagstone under which her grandfather was buried, and it was talked of as a bad omen for the girl's future, in social gossip.
¡Abel Stearns owned six great ranches in 1868-total 140,000 acres .- Hist. Los Angeles Co., p. 153 .-- Mrs. Baker was assessed in 1894 011 $264,255 valuation in Los Angeles county.
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DIVISION ONE - PRE-PASADENIAN.
Guadalupe was the name of Chapman's wife ; and Refugio was the name of her home ranch where he had been captured by the Spanish soldiers, and captivated by the Spanish maiden. This ship was his greatest mechanical achievement; and it bore both names, in romantic commemoration of his wife and her early home.
In December, 1831, Governor Victoria was brought to San Gabriel after being wounded in a battle with insurgents near Cahuenga; and he was nursed by Eulalia Perez, with Joseph Chapman, the Yankee "pilot prisoner," serving as surgeon pro tem.
In October, 1846, powder was manufactured at San Gabriel for General Flores' army, after Gillespie's U. S. troops had been driven out of Los Angeles. The powder was poor stuff, but it was all they had in the battles of January, 1847. It was made in an adobe guard-house that stood right where Mr. Silverstein's store is now-1895.
August 7, 1851, the court of sessions at Los Angeles divided the county into six townships, San Gabriel being one, and Rancho San Pasqual was included in its territory.
July 11, 1855, an earthquake made cracks or fissures in the ground at San Gabriel, and threw down the church bells. This accounts for the patched cracks now seen in the belfry walls.
CHAPTER III.
RANCHO SAN PASQUAL -Gov. Portolo's visit in 1770 .- How the ranch was named .- Its first owner a woman in 1827 .- The Garfias ownership from 1843 .- The Wilson and Griffin ownership, from 1858; and sale to the colonists, 1873 .- Complete Chain of Title-1769 to 1874; being the first complete schedule of its various occupancies and ownerships ever written.
FIRST WHITE MAN ON PASADENA SOIL ..
The initial point of the modern history of Pasadenaland is in January, 1770; and in April of the same year comes the first inkling of the name "San Pascual," as applied to this particular section. In 1769 Gov. Gaspar de Portola, marched overland with an expedition from Loreto in Lower Cali- fornia (the peninsula) to find Monterey bay, then only known from reports made by the navigator Vizcayno, who had discovered it in 1603-or 166 years previously. Portola's march was made with a total of 64 persons, in- cluding two priests, Crespi and Gomez. Crespi kept a diary. Lieut. Fages, afterward governor of California, was also along, and he wrote accounts of the country and people. On their up trip they crossed the Los Angeles river August Ist, 1769, and camped where Los Angeles city now stands. The Indian village of Yang-na was there. August 2d, they staid there to rest, and to prospect their route ahead. In the church calendar it was the
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HISTORY OF PASADENA.
day of "Saint Mary, Queen of the Angels"; the two priests celebrated it in due form, and in their diaries they designated that camp by the calendar day. This is how and when the place got its name of " Reina de Los Angeles." The river they called Rio Porciuncula. August 3d, they marched through the Cahuenga pass to the Indian village of Cabueg-na ; thence on up the south border of the upper Los Angeles valley through Calabasas, and over to Hueneme which was then an Indian village on the beach .* And so on westward. As the company was partly on foot and partly on saddle beasts, they could readily follow the Indian paths from one village to another. All this was of course before any of the California Missions had been established.
In January, 1770, Portola made the return trip eastward over the same route ; but after crossing the Santa Clara river he mistook the trail and wandered farther away from the coast than was intended, finally coming through the Simi pass into the San Fernando valley, near where the village of Chatsworth now stands, and thence across the valley to the region of Pacoima or Dundee on the Southern Pacific R. R., vainly searching for the Rio Porciuncula [Los Angeles river]. He was literally "lost," not knowing how to find his way back to the trail of his outward march ; but he pushed on eastward by way of Glendale and the lower part of Eagle Rock valley, and found the fording place across the Arroyo Seco at Garvanza. The stream was swollen with the winter rains; he supposed it to be the Rio Porciuncula again, and the priests so recorded it in their diaries. They marched up across the lands where Lincoln Park and South Pasadena are now located, and found there some Indian villages. His men were worn out with hardships of roadless and trackless mountain travel; their food . supply was exhausted ; and they were indeed in a sorry condition. The Indians here were the Hahamog-na clan and proved to be friendly ; so from them they obtained some dried meat and meal of dried acorns, and halted there a few hours for rest and recuperation. The old chief of this clan, Hahamovic, gave the governor some of their native tobacco [Nicotiana Begelovii ] and smoked the "peace pipe " with him.t
In referring to this part of Portola's return march, Bancroft's Hist. Cal., Vol. I, page 163, foot-note, says : "They finally crossed by the modern stage route via Simi. January 16th to 18th their route through the Los Angeles re- gion was also different but not very clear. On the 17th they crossed the Rio Por-
*" Ishgua, or Ishguaget, was a rancheria | village] near the mouth of the Saticoy river and not far from the beach. Ilueneme was a rancheria on the ocean coast a few miles south of Saticoy river."- Ventura Mission records, quoted in Bancroft's "Native Races," p. 459.
¡This was on January 17th, 1770. " The Capitan, filling his long stemmed pipe with leaves of the wild tobacco, presented it to the Spanish officer, whose supply of the foreign weed had been long ex- hausted. Thus the consoling ' Pespihuta,' the Indian name of this plant, became the foundation of a lively traffic between the aborigines and Spaniards, who paid for it in trinkets and beads." -- Mrs. Jeanne C.Carr, in Hist. Los Ang. Co. (Lewis's), p. 313.
"A species of tobacco is found on the sandy beaches which the Indians prepare and smoke."-Com. Wilkes's U. S. Exploring Expd., Vol. V. p. 202.
" They use a species of native tobacco of nauseons and sickening odor."-Schoolcraft's Archaeology, Vol. III, p. 107.
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DIVISION ONE - PRE-PASADENIAN.
ciuncula [they thought so at the time but learned better afterward-ED. ], and went on to a valley which they called San Miguel, where San Gabriel Mis- sion afterward stood."
After this rest and refreshment he marched on eastward along the north side of the Mission hills till he came to the Rio San Miguel [the present San Gabriel river], at the point now called Mission Vieja or "Old Mission," where then stood the Indian village of Isanthcog-na, and where the San Gabriel Mission was at first established, about a year and a half later. Here the San Gabriel river makes passage from its upper valley through between the monticle ranges called "Mission hills " westward and "Puente hills" eastward ; and from this point he followed down the river to the place where he had crossed it on his outward march, some distance south of the Mission hills, and so found his lost "old trail " again. Thence southeastward to El Rio Jesus de los Temblores [the Santa Ana river], and so on to San Diego, where the famous Father Junipero Serra was then engaged in starting the San Diego Mission, the first one of the " old Missions" in our California.
In April, 1770, Portola again marched up the coast in search of Mon- terey bay, which he had failed to find [or rather failed to recognize] the year before, but had discovered San Francisco bay instead. This time he went partly over his return route of January, by the line which afterward became the Spanish governmet road from San Diego via San Juan Capistrano, San Gabriel, San Fernando (old Mission), San Buenaventura, Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo to Monterey, and crossing the Arroyo Seco at Lincoln Park or the old Garvanza ford. The poppy fields of Altadena were now all aflame with their redolence of rich golden color spread over thousands of acres ; Easter Sunday was fresh in mind [April], and the pious soldiers called this wonderful poppy field La Sabanilla de San Pascual -the great altar cloth of Holy Easter .*
The original or "Old Mission " San Gabriel was formally commenced Sept. 8th, 1771. This was at the place still known as "Old Mission," or Mission Vieja, near where the San Gabriel river passes through the line of Mission Hills that form the southern boundry of what is called in general terms the "San Gabriel Valley." There was already an Indian village at this place, called in their language Isanthcog-na. The river had before been called Rio San Miguel by the Spaniards, but from this time it was called Rio San Gabriel, and the Indians of the region began to be called the San Gabriel Indians. In 1775 the Mission was removed to the Indian vil- lage of Sibag-na, t where the famous old church still stands, surrounded by the modern village of San Gabriel. The church building erected at the
* " La Sabanilla de San Pascual was the name given by Spanish sailors to the vast fields of poppies seen from far out at sea, the same glorious altar cloth, or bridal veil, which adorns the foot-hills of North Pasadena with the return of every spring."-Mrs. Jeanne C. Carr, in Hist. Los Ang. Co.
+" The village of Sisit Canog-na was only a mile and a half further north, where the Mission pear orchard afterward stood, and now known as the Cooper place, occupied by Isaac and Thomas Cooper. Two of these old Mission pear trees are bearing yet. I saw them loaded with blossoms April 7th, 1895.
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HISTORY OF PASADENA.
orignal site was of adobe bricks, and some fragments of its walls may be seen there yet. The first church built at the new site was also adobe, a short distance north of the present stone edifice ; but its walls were cracked by an earthquake and made unsafe ; and about 1791 work was commenced on the stone church. In 1797 the stone church was about half finished and partly occupied. In 1800 it was still unfinished. In 1804 foundation was laid for some additional portion of the great structure. These various changes of site, and the long slow progress of work on the present stone edifice, with occasional change of plan and change of priest, gave rise to conflicting reports as to dates in the matter, so that I found variations among different authors amounting to a difference of over twenty years as to when this stone church was built. It was about fifteen or sixteen years being built. Now, the point I was coming at is, that sometime while the Mission remained at the old site, the Indian chief, Hahamovic, who had befriended Gov. Portola and his famished men at South Pasadena [their village being near the Garfias Spring], was baptized at this Old Mission and given the name "Pascual," from the fanciful name "La Sabanilla de San Pascual," which had been given to the vast cloth-of-gold poppy fields within or bor- dering, his tribal domain, that comprised both sides of the Arroyo Seco from South Pasadena to the mountains ; and his tribe were thenceforth known as the Pascual Indians. [Chief Pascual afterward married a white woman named Angela Seise, and lived at San Gabriel to a very old age.] Then, after the Mission was removed to its present site, and the old Mill erected [about 1810 to 1812], and the Wilson Lake dammed up for irrigation purposes and to run a saw mill, etc., these Indians were reduced to heavy servitude, and proved a very important factor in producing the wealth for which the San Gabriel Mission became famous, even exceeding all others in California ; but they also specially served as herders and shepherds .* This mill was in- tended to be the source of breadstuff for the San Fernando, San Buenaven- tura and Santa Barbara Missions, and all the outlying settlements ; and the main road leading to the Mill and the Mission from these western localities is still called the Monterey road. It crossed the Arroy Seco at Lincoln Park or Garvanza, where there was always a good fording place, just below the present county bridge at that point. The cement quarry in the Lincoln Park hills, where the reservoir is now, was then worked by Indians and its pro- duct hauled in heavy ox-carts [carretas], to the other Missions - even as far as Monterey, away up the coast almost to San Francisco.
RANCHO SAN PASQUAL'S FIRST OWNER.
In 1806 Father Jose Maria Zalvidea was removed from San Fernando to the San Gabriel Mission and placed at the head of its affairs, a position
*"After the removal of Mission San Gabriel to its present site, the San Pascual Indians were employed as herders; the 'bell mare,' fleetest and most beautiful of the padres' stock, ranged in the glades and led the band of wild horses to crop the grasses of the Altadena uplands."- Mrs. Jeanne C Carr, Hist. Los Ang. Co., p. 314.
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DIVISION ONE- PRE-PASADENIAN.
which he held with distinguished success for twenty years. It was during his administration that the old stone mill and the great stone dam at Wilson's lake were built ; saw mill, tannery, tallow chandlery, spinning rooms, weav- ing works, saddle factory, and other industries were established and pushed to success ; large orchards and vineyards planted, and water brought in ditches from long distances to irrigate extensive field crops as well as fruits. All this in addition to what had been done by his predecessors ; and thus he brought the Mission to the highest degree of industrial and commercial suc- cess ever reached by any Mission in California. But in the height of his career, and when he had plans under way for a still farther increase of business and pretige for this Mission, he was in 1826 removed by order of the Friar President to San Juan Capistrano ; * and Friar Jose Bernardo Sanchez was placed in charge of the San Gabriel Mission.
During Zalvidea's administration there had resided at San Gabriel a devout, motherly woman named Eulalia Perez de Guillen, a Spanish lady of purest blood, who had won high repute as a midwife and nurse, and was in attendance upon Senora Pico when her son Pio Pico [afterward twice made Governor of California], was born May 5th, 1801. Eulalia Perez had taken an earnest and practical interest in the welfare of the Indians, especially the women - teaching them the arts, decencies and religious sentiments of civilized life as best she could, and was a sort of Mother Superior to them in her devotion and zeal for the church. For several years before Zalvidea's removal from San Gabriel in 1826, the matter of secularizing the Mission lands had been agitated ; for as early as Sept. 13th, 1823, the Mexican Con- gress had passed a law for this purpose, which however was repealed and reenacted, ordered enforced and then countermanded several times, and was not finally enforced until about ten years later. Eulalia had been so helpful and faithful in works of the churcht that Father Zalvidea wished to provide for her in her old age by securing to her a large body of land, before the Mission authority should be entirely broken up; į accordingly he prepared a deed to her of 31/2 square leagues of land in the northwest portion of lands belonging to the San Gabriel Mission. This deed was sent to Father San- chez, who also knew right well of Senora Eulalia's life-long labors for the good of others ; and he approved and ratified it on Easter Day [called “San
* Zalvidea served here until 1842, when he was sent to San Luis Rey Mission, and died there early in 1846.
+Eulalia's husband, Antonio Guillen, was one of the King's soldiers stationed at San Diego when that Mission was first founded. But later he was sent to San Gabriel, and was there with his family in 1801. Then, some time before 1812 he was sent back to San Diego, and his daughter Maria de Los Angeles was born there in that year. Later he fell sick; his son Theodore took his place as soldier of the Mission guard ; and about 1821 he returned with his family to San Gabriel [the daughter above mentioned tells me she was nine years old when they came], and died here. Eulalia had eleven children, as follows :
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