USA > California > Los Angeles County > Los Angeles > Los Angeles from the mountains to the sea : with selected biography of actors and witnesses to the period of growth and achievement, Volume I > Part 24
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This is the letter :
"Yerba Buena, March 27, 1837. "J. M. Guinn:
"Dear Sir :- I have been wandering about the country for several weeks and gradually becoming acquainted both with it and its inhabitants. This is the best part of the country, and in fact the only part that is at all adapted to agriculturists from our country. Nothing more is wanted but just and equal laws and a government-yes, any government that can be permanent and combine the confidence and good will of those who think. I have good hope, but not unmixed with doubt and apprehension. News has just arrived that an army from Sonora is on its march for the conquest and plunder of Cali- fornia. Its force is variously stated from two to six hundred men. This, of course, keeps everything in a foment.
"I have had a choice of two districts of land offered to me, and in a few days I shall take one or the other. A brig of the H. B. Co. (Hudson Bay Co.) is here from the Columbia with Capt. Young (who has come to buy cattle) and other gentlemen of the company. I have been at the headwaters of the Sacramento and met with near a hundred people from the Columbia; in fact, they and the people here regard each other as neighbors. Indeed, a kinder spirit exists here and less of prejudice and distrust to foreigners than in the pur- lieus of the City of the Angels.
"It is my intention to undergo the ceremony of baptism in a few days, and shall shortly need the certificate of my appli-
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cation for letters of naturalization. My application was made to the Most Illustrions Council of the City of the Angels, in the month of January, last year (1836). I wish you would do me the favor to obtain a certificate in the requisite form and direct it to me at Monterey to the care of Mr. Spence. Mr. Spear is about to remove to this place. Capt. Steele's ship has been damaged and is undergoing repairs, which will soon be completed. I expect to be in the Angelic City some time in May.
"Please give my respects to Messrs. Warner and W. M. Prior and all 'enquiring friends.'
"Very respectfully, "Your ob't. servant, "JOHN MARSH."
Dr. R. S. Den was born in Ireland in 1821. After receiv- ing a thorough education as a physician, surgeon and ob- stetrician, he was appointed surgeon of a passenger ship bound for Australia in 1842. From thence he came via Val- paraiso to Mazatlan, where he received with delight news from his brother Nicolas, from whom he had not heard for some years, and who was then living at Santa Barbara. Re- signing his position as surgeon, he came to California, arriv- ing at San Pedro August 21, and at Santa Barbara September 1, 1843, at the age of twenty-two years.
In the winter of 1843-44 Doctor Den was called to Los An- geles to perform some difficult surgical operations, when he received a petition, signed by leading citizens, both native and foreign, asking him to remain and practice his profession. And so, in July, 1844, he returned to Los Angeles. From that time on, until his death in 1895, he made his home here, with the exception of a brief period in the mines, and about twelve years, from 1854 to 1866, in which he had to look after inter- ests of his stock rancho of San Marcos, in Santa Barbara County.
A much fuller account of Doctor Den and his long and honorable career in Southern California during the pioneer times, may be found in the "Illustrated History of Los An-
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geles County," published in 1889, pp. 197-200, which also con- tains a steel engraving and good likeness of Doctor Den.
In the Medical Directory of 1878 the following paragraph appears. "It is of record that Dr. R. S. Den, in obedience to the laws of Mexico relating to foreigners, did present his diplomas as physician and surgeon to the government of the country, March 14, 1844, and that he received special license to practice from said government."
The document here referred to, Doctor Den, in the latter years of his life, showed to me. It was signed by Governor Micheltorena; and, as it was an interesting historical docu- ment, I asked that he present it to the Historical Society, which he promised to do. At his death I took considerable pains to have the paper hunted up, but without success. His heirs (the children of his brother Nicolas) apparently had but little idea of the historical value of such a document and there- fore it probably has been lost.
Dr. John S. Griffin, who for nearly half a century was an eminent citizen and an eminent physician and surgeon of Los Angeles, was a native of Virginia, born in 1816, and a grad- uate of the medical department of the University of Pennsyl- vania. After practicing his profession some three years in Louisville he entered the U. S. army as assistant surgeon, serving under General Worth in Florida and on the south- west frontier. As I presented the Historical Society a con- densed sketch of Doctor Griffin's life on the occasion of his death, three years ago (published in the society's Annual of 1898, pp. 183-5), I would here refer members to that sketch; and for further details, to the account that I wrote, taken down mainly from his own lips, for the Illustrated History of this county of 1889, pp. 206-7, which latter is accompanied by an excellent stipple steel portrait of Doctor Griffin. There are many citizens of Los Angeles and in fact, of California, still living who knew Doctor Griffin well and esteemed him highly. His death occurred in this city August 23, 1898.
Of other physicians and surgeons who practiced their pro- fession in Los Angeles in early times, there were Drs. A. P. Hodges, the first mayor of the city, and A. W. Hope, who was the first state senator from the first senatorial district; and
.
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Doctors McFarlane, Downey (afterwards governor of the state), Thos. Foster, T. J. White, R. T. Hayes, Winston, Cullen, and others; and during the '50s and '60s and later, many others too numerous to mention.
Mr. Barrow's friend, Mr. Moulton, who came to Los An- geles in 1845, informed him that he knew two other doctors who practiced here for a short time between '45 and '49; one of them a Frenchman, who went to San Diego with Doctor Griffin to assist him in treating the wounded soldiers, and who, Doctor Griffin said, was a first-class surgeon ; and an American named Keefe. The Frenchman's name has been forgotten.
From "California Pamphlets," on page 42 of the Centen- nial History, we excerpt the following item, which is of inter- est in connection with the above :
For physician in 1850 has W. B. Osborne, A. P. Hodges, W. W. Jones, A. W. Hope and Overstreet; in 1851 John Brinckerhoff, Thomas Foster and J. P. McFarland; in 1852, James B. Winston and others. Dr. J. S. Griffin returned to reside here in August, 1854. Dr. Richard S. Den was a phy- sician esteemed highly, prior to 1843. Doctor Osborne was a native of New York, came to California in 1847, in Colonel Stevenson's regiment. He put up the first drug store in 1850, which was followed by that of McFarland and Downey in 1851. Our first daguerreotypes were taken by him and Moses Searles, August 9, 1851. He often acted as deputy sheriff- impossible to recount his various functions; a most useful man anywhere-friendly among his neighbors, of intelligence and public spirit. He was the projector of the famed artesian well near the hill on the west side of the city. It reached the depth of 780 feet, but was abandoned by the company for want of funds. The third drug store was that of A. W. Hope, September, 1854; the fourth of Dr. Henry R. Myles, in 1860; then Winston & Welch-Dr. J. C. Welch; then Dr. Theodore Wollweber, 1863. The first dentist was J. W. Gaylord. Dr. J. C. Welch died August 1, 1869; he was a native of South Caro- lina. Doctor Hope was born in Virginia; died in the year 1855.
On page 273 of the publications of the Historical Society of California is an account of some eccentric characters of
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early Los Angeles, one of whom, named William Money, among numerous other accomplishments, was also a "doctor" and an author of a medical work as well. Particular attention is called to his statement published in a newspaper of Los Angeles in 1855 that his book, "The California Family Med- ical Instructor," contained a list of 5,000 patients who had been under his care, of whom only four to his knowledge died while under his treatment-a statement sufficiently suspicious to make one think him related to some of the originators of modern-day "isms."
The sketch to which we refer gives the following account of his interesting career :
The early years in the history of the new towns of the West were productive of eccentric characters-men who drifted in from older civilizations and made a name for them- selves or rather, as it frequently happened, had a name made for them by their fellow men.
These local celebrities gained notoriety in their new homes by their oddities, by their fads, their crankiness, or some other characteristic that made them the subject of remark. With some the eccentricity was natural; with others it was culti- vated, and yet again with others force of circumstances or some event not of their own choosing made them cranks or oddities, and gave them nicknames that stuck to them closer than a brother.
No country in the world was more productive of quaint characters and odd geniuses than the mining camps of early California. A man's history began with his advent in the camp. His past was wiped out-was ancient history, not worth making a note of. What is he now? What is he good for? were the vital questions. Even his name was sometimes wiped out, and he was rechristened-given some cognomen entirely foreign to his well known characteristics. It was the irony of fate that stood sponsor at his baptism. "Pious Pete" was the most profane man in the camp, and Pete was not his front name. His profanity was so profuse, so impres- sive, that it seemed an invocation, almost a prayer.
There was another class of eccentricities in the cities and towns of California where life was less strenuous than in the
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mining camps. These were men with whims or fads some- times sensible, sometimes half insane, to which they devoted themselves until they became noted as notorious cranks.
San Francisco had its Philosopher Pickett, its Emperor Norton and a host of others of like ilk. Los Angeles had rep- resentatives of this class in its early days, but unfortunately the memory of but few of them has been salted down in the brine of history.
In delving recently among the rubbish of the past for scraps of history, I came across a review of the first book printed in Los Angeles-the name of the book, its author and its publisher. But for that review, these would have been lost to fame.
It is not probable that a copy of the book exists, and possi- bly no reader of that book is alive today-not that the book was fatal to its readers; it had very few-but the readers were fatal to the book; they did not preserve it. That book was the product of an eccentric character. Some of you knew him. His name was William Money, but he preferred to have the accent placed on the last syllable, and was known as "Money." Bancroft says of him: "Scotchman, the date and manner of whose coming are not known, was at Los Angeles in 1843." I find from the old archives he was here as early as 1841. In the winter of 1841-42 he made repairs on the Plaza Church to the amount of $126. Bancroft in his Pioneer Reg- ister states: "He is said to have come as the servant of a scientific man, whose methods and ideas he adopted. His wife was a handsome Sonorena. In '46 the couple started for Sonora with Coronel, and were captured by Kearny's force. They returned from the Colorado with the Mormon battalion. Money became an eccentric doctor, artist and philosopher at San Gabriel, where his honse, in 1880, was filled with pon- derous tomes of his writings, and on the simple condition of buying $1,000 worth of these I was offered his pioneer rem- iniscences. He died a few years later. His wife, long divorced from him, married a Frenchman. She was also living at Los Angeles in '80. It was her daughter who killed Chico For- ster."
Bancroft fails to enumerate all of Money's titles. He was
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variously called Professor Money, Doctor Money and Bishop Money. He was a self-constituted doctor and a self-anointed bishop. He aspired to found a great religious sect. He made his own creed and ordained himself "Bishop, Deacon and Defender of the Re-Formed New Testament Church of the Faith of Jesus Christ."
Doctor Money had the inherent love of a Scotchman for theological discussion. He was always ready to attack a religious dogma or assail a creed. When not discussing the- ological questions or practicing medicines, he dabbled in sci- ence and made discoveries.
In Book II of Miscel. Records of L. A. County, recorded September 18, 1872, is a map or picture of a globe labeled "Wm. Money's Discovery of the Ocean." Around the north pole are a number of convolving lines which purport to rep- resent a "whirling ocean." Passing down from the north pole to the south, like the vertebrae of a great fish, is a subterra- nean ocean. Beyond this on each side are the exhaustless fiery regions, and outside, a rocky mountain chain that evidently keeps the earth from bursting. At the south pole gush out two currents a mile wide marked the Kuro Siwo. There is no explanation of the discovery and no statement of which ocean. the whirling or the subterranean, that Doctor Money claimed to have discovered. Evidently a hole at the north pole sucks in the waters of the whirling ocean, which pass down through the subterranean ocean and are heated by the exhaustless fiery regions which border that ocean; then these heated waters are spurted out into space at the south pole. What becomes of them afterwards the records do not show.
From some cause Doctor Money disliked the people of San Francisco. In his scientific researches he made the discovery that that part of the earth's crust on which that city stands was almost burnt through, and he prophesied that the crust would soon break and the City of the Bay would drop down into the exhaustless fiery regions and be wiped out like Sodom and Gomorrah of old !
The review of Doctor Money's book, which I have men- tioned, was written by the genial Col. J. O. Wheeler, then editor of the Southern Californian, a paper that died and was
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buried in the journalistic graveyard of unfelt wants forty- eight years ago. Colonel Wheeler was a walking library of local history. He could tell a story well and had a fund of humorous ones, but I could never persuade him to write out his reminiscenees for publication. He died, and his stories of the olden times died with him, just as so many of the old pioneers will do, die and leave no record behind them.
Doetor Money's book was written and published in 1854. Colonel Wheeler's review is quite lengthy, filling nearly two columns of the Californian. I omit a considerable portion of it. The review says: "We are in luck this week, having been the recipients of a very interesting literary production en- titled 'Reform of the New Testament Church,' by Wm. Money, Bishop, Deacon and Defender of the Faith of Jesus Christ.
"The volume by Professor Money comes to us bound in the beautiful coloring so much admired, and is finely gotten up and executed at the Star office in this eity. Its title de- notes the general objects of the work which have been fol- lowed out in the peenliar style of the well-known author, and in the emphatie language of the Council General, Upper Cali. fornia, City of Los Angeles, we pronounce it a work worthy of all dignified admiration, a reform which ecclesiasties and eivil authorities have not been able to comply with yet.
"The work opens with an original letter from the afore- said Conneil General, which met Angust the 7th, 1854, near the main zanja in this city; said letter was indited, signed, sealed 'by supplieation of the small flock of Jesus Christ' represented by Ramon Tirado, president, and Francis Contre- ras, secretary, and directed with many tears to the great de- fender of the new faith, who, amid the quiet retreats with which the rural distriets abound, had pensively dwelt on the noble objeets of his mission, and, in fastings and prayer, con- eocted this great work of his life.
"The venerable prelate, in an elaborate prefix to his work, informs the public that he was born, to the best of his recollec- tion, about the year 1807, from which time up to the anniver- sary of his seventh year, his mother brought him up by hand. He says, by a singular circumstanee (the particular eireum-
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stance is not mentioned), I was born with four teeth, and with the likeness of a rainbow in my right eye.
It would seem that his early youth was marked by more than ordinary capacity, as we find him at seven entering upon the study of natural history; how far he proceeded, or if he proceeded at all, is left for his readers to determine. At the age of twelve, poverty compelled him to "bind himself to a paper factory." Next year, being then thirteen years of age, having made a raise, he commenced the studies of philosophy, civil law, medicine, philosophy of sound in a conch shell, pe- culiar habits of the muskrat, and the component parts of Swain's vermifuge. Thirsting for still further knowledge, four years afterwards we find him entering upon the study of theology; and he says: "In this year (1829) I commenced my travels in foreign countries," and the succeeding year found him upon the shores of the United States, indefatigable in body and mind; the closing of the same year found him in Mexico, still following the sciences above mentioned, but the- ology in particular.
About this time he commenced those powerful discussions with the Roman clergy in which our author launched forth against the old church those terrible denunciations as effective as they were unanswerable, and which for thirty years he has been hurling against her.
Perhaps the most memorable of all his efforts was the occasion of the last arguments had with the Roman clergy concerning abuses which came off in the Council of Pitaquitos, a small town in Sonora, commencing on the 20th of October, 1835, which continued to May 1, 1840, a period of five years. This convocation had consumed much time in its preparation, and the clergy, aware of the powerful foe with whom they had to deal, and probable great length of time which would elapse, selected their most mighty champions; men who in addition to a glib tongue and subtle imagination, were cele- brated for their wonderful powers of endurance. There were seven skilled disputants arrayed against Money, but he van- quished them single-handed.
The discussion opened on the following propositions: The Bishop of Culiacan and he of Durango disputed that Wm.
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Money believed that the Virgin Mary was the mother of Jesus, but not the mother of Christ. William Money makes his application to God, but not to the Virgin Mary.
These and other learned propositions were discussed and rediscussed constantly for five years, during which writing paper arose to such an enormous price that special enact- ments were made, withdrawing the duties thereon. Time would not admit of detailing the shadow of what transpired during the session.
Suffice it to say that through the indomitable faith and energy of Mr. Money, his seven opponents were entirely overcome; one sickened early in the second year and was con- strained to take a voyage by sea; two others died of hemor- rhage of the lungs ; one went crazy ; two became converted and left the council in the year 1838 and were found by Mr. Money on the breaking up of the council to have entered into connubial bonds, and were in the enjoyment of perfect hap- piness. The other two strenuously held out to the year 1840, when, exhausted, sick and dismayed, the council, in the lan- guage of the author, was broken up by offering Money to give up his sword, the Word of God, but he protested, saying: "God keep me from such treacherous men, and from becoming a traitor to my God."
Thus ended this famous disputation of which history fur- nishes no parallel. From the foregoing our readers can form an idea of this great work. It forms a volume of twenty-two pages, printed in English and Spanish, with notes.
Doctor Money seems to have considered his call to preach paramount to his call to practice. In a card to the public, published in the Star of November 3, 1855, he says: "I am sorry to inform the public that since the Reformed New Testament Church has unanimously conferred on me the office of Bishop, Deacon, and Defender of the Faith of said apostolic church, it is at present inconvenient for me any longer to practice my physical system. My California Family Medical Instructor is now ready for the press, containing my three physical systems, in about 200 pages and 50 plates of the human body. It will likewise contain a list of about five thousand patients that I have had under my physical treat-
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ment in the course of fifteen years' practice, from the port of San Diego to that of San Francisco. Out of this large number only four, to my knowledge, have died while under my treatment. I do not publish this for the purpose of get- ting into practice, but only to get out of it."
His Family Medical Instructor was probably the second book written in Los Angeles, but whether it was ever pub- lished is not known. Some twenty-five years ago, when the public library was in the old Downey Block, he had on file in it a set of plates of the human body. He removed to San Gabriel, where he lived in a curiously constructed adobe house. He died in 1890, at San Gabriel. His books and papers were lost.
It is of the greatest interest to go back over the records and find what folks were doing concerning sanitation and the effort to preserve the public health in the old times of Los Angeles before the men and women who inhabit it now were born.
For instance, we find that in the year 1847 one Julian Chavez sent the following communication to the honorable Town Council of Los Angeles :
"It being one of the principal duties of any municipal body when it sees that an epidemic begins to attack the com- munity, to enforce cleanliness, fumigation and similar measures, I respectfully suggest that you instruct the Syndic to spend three or four dollars in causing all the heads and remains of cattle as well as dead animals that can be found, to be gathered into a heap in the borders of the town and set on fire at the hour of six in the evening to be thoroughly consumed and the air purified. Also that you admonish the people to keep their premises clean and sweep in front of their houses and on no condition to throw any garbage, filth or offal of the cattle they slaughter in the streets. Also that the work on the zanja be pushed to an early completion be- cause our citizens who live further below are suffering greatly for lack of water, which is also one of the causes why the epidemic lasts so long. In making these recommendations, I beg of you to give them your immediate consideration."
From one of the annual reports of Dr. L. M. Powers, for
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many years the efficient and well-beloved health officer, we gather some intensely interesting facts. For instance, it is learned that in the year 1850 police regulations were promul- gated which declared it "the duty of the police to attend to everything touching the comfort, health and adornment of the city." And the following two important articles :
"Article 6. On Saturdays every householder shall clean the front of his premises up to the middle of the street, or for the space of at least eight varas.
"Article 7. No filth shall be thrown into zanjas, carrying water for common use, nor into the streets of the City."
From the same report we find the medicine men doing their best to help the city to keep clean and healthy as it gradually assumed the dignity of a city through the slow and happy growth of the years.
In 1853, the City Council passed an ordinance concerning the making of bread, requiring the use of good and wholesome flour, and uniform size of loaves.
In 1855 the Common Council passed an ordinance regu- lating the conduction of a city slaughter house or corral and requiring a monthly fee or rental for the use of the same and the disposal of the offal in such a manner as not to be offensive. Also created the office of stock and meat inspector, who was to give bond of $500 and to receive fees for inspect- ing stock as follows. For meat cattle, 50 cents per head, and for sheep, goats and hogs, each 75 cents.
In 1868, when the County Hospital was only in name and the Sisters of Charity were paid per capita for the care of the indigent sick, and the police force consisted of the town marshal and one policeman, and the board of health, the mayor and two councilmen, appointed by the president of the Council, an epidemic of smallpox occurred and Dr. H. S. Orme was appointed health officer at a salary of $10 per day to care for smallpox patients and look after the sanitary con- ditions of the city.
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