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 II > Part 20
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While in San Francisco Mr. Workman met Mrs. Elizabeth Gowen Haskins, whose husband, Thomas Haskins, had died while secretary of the United States Legation at Pekin, China. Mr. Workman and Mrs. Haskins were married September 3, 1909, and at once took a trip abroad, spending most of their honeymoon in the Chateau country of the Loire in France. Three months later, having returned to Los Angeles, Mr. Workman engaged in the stock and bond business with D. A. McGilvray under the firm name McGilvray, Workman & Com- pany. The partnership was dissolved in 1914, Mr. Workman then be- coming secretary to his father in managing the large Workman estate.
Several years ago Mr. Workman assumed the chief responsibility
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in interesting local capital and in directing a campaign of education preparatory to the organization of a Morris Plan Bank. This bank was opened for business at Los Angeles September 1, 1917, and it was the only important institution outside of war industries or organiza- tions directly related to the war which came into existence that year. Mr. Workman is secretary, manager and director of the bank. The ideals and purposes of the Morris Plan Bank are probably too well known to need any reference here. It is essentially a bank for the bor- rower of good character without assets and securities normally accepted by commercial banks. Its primary object is perhaps to combat the "Joan shark system" and furnish the same emergency service for which loan sharks charge extortionate interest rates. In the fourteen months prior to January 1, 1919, the Morris Plan Bank of Los Angeles loaned $1,010,550.00 to eight thousand people, and it had also served an im- portant purpose as a medium for the sale and distribution of hundreds of Liberty Bonds, especially in denominations of fifty and a hundred dollars.
Mr. Workman is a member of the California Club. He and his wife have three young children: Mary, born in 1911, a student in St. Mary's School for Girls; William H. III, born in 1915, and Betsy, born in 1917.
REV. PATRICK J. MCGRATHI, pastor of Our Lady of Angels church, of San Diego, had seven years of service as pastor of Mary Star of the Sea church at San Pedro. This is one of the older churches of the Southern California diocese. The present church edifice was erected in March, 1889, under Rt. Rev. Francis Mora, D. D. The first pastor of the parish was Rev. D. C. Tanguerey.
Father McGrath was educated and trained for the priesthood in the east, and has been zealously promoting the work of his church in California for twelve years. He was born in County Kilkenny, Ireland, November 6, 1873, son of Michael McGrath and Ann Bowe. His early education was supplied by the National schools of Ireland. At the age of sixteen he came to New York City, and for five years was a student in St. Francis College at Brooklyn. He studied theology and philosophy in St. Michael's College at Toronto, Canada, for nine years, and on June 9, 1906, was ordained a priest for the Los Angeles and Monterey diocese.
He received his first appointment July 14, 1906, as assistant at the Cathedral in Los Angeles. March 6, 1907, he was appointed assist- ant of St. Patrick's parish in Los Angeles, and November 19, 1908, he- came pastor of St. Aloysius and St. Anthony's parishes at Florence and Downey in Los Angeles county. One of his interesting services was as chaplain in the Sherman Indian School at Riverside from July 2, 1909, to March 20, 1912. Father McGrath took up his work as pastor of Mary Star of the Sea church in San Pedro, March 20, 1912. He was transferred to Our Lady of Angels church, San Diego, January 1, 1919. He is a member of the Knights of Columbus and the Young Men's In- stitute.
WILLIAM EDWARD McVAY. While widely known in Los Angeles financial circles as one of the most progressive bankers and citizens, William E. McVay has a very interesting distinction in the fact that throughout his thirty-one years' residence he may be said at least figura- tively never to have changed his desk or employment. Changes have
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gone on around him, and he has served several financial corporations of different names, but all essentially one and the same, since each was merely consolidation or reorganization of predecessors. He is now vice president and director of the Guaranty Trust & Savings Bank, which is the lineal successor of the first organization he joined on coming to California.
Mr. McVay was born at Dixon, Illinois, October 25, 1864, son of William J. and Sarah M. (Moore) McVay. His father is deceased and his mother is living in Los Angeles. He acquired a high school educa- tion at Dixon and also took a short course in the Bryant & Stratton Business College at Chicago. His experience before coming to Cali- fornia may be briefly summed up as bookkeeper and cashier for a gen- eral merchandise store, employment for a year or more in the local postoffice, and then as bookkeeper in the National Bank of his home town.
Mr. McVay arrived in California in 1887, and first became secre- tary of the Security Loan and Trust Company. This was succeeded by the Union Bank of Savings, in which he was cashier, and that sub- sequently was merged with what is now the Guaranty Trust & Savings Bank. This is one of the leading financial institutions of southern Cali- fornia, with resources of over twenty-four million dollars and with capital of one and a half million dollars and surplus of seven hundred fifty thousand dollars.
Mr. McVay has given the best years of his life and all his talents and energies to this institution. He has formed no other important business connections outside of the bank. However, he is interested in public affairs and is chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Whit- tier State School, director and treasurer of the Y. M. C. A. and presi- dent of the Union Rescue Mission of Los Angeles. He is a republican, a member of the Immanuel Presbyterian church, and belongs to Los Angeles Athletic Club, San Gabriel Country Club and the Automobile Club of southern California.
At Princeton, Illinois, March 12, 1889, Mr. McVay married Miss Kate Bryant. The Bryant family is one of the oldest and most prominent in that section of northern Illinois. Mrs. McVay is a granddaughter of John Howard Bryant, for many years a resident of Princeton, and a brother of the famous poet, William Cullen Bryant. Mr. and Mrs. McVay are the parents of five children: Laura E., who is unmarried and is now in France, serving with the Y. M. C. A. organization ; Helene S., wife of H. D. Paulin, of Imperial, California; Silence K., wife of Howard W. Reynolds, of Los Angeles, and Frances A. and William Bryant.
ELIAS JACKSON BALDWIN. Any publication devoted to Americans of remarkable experience and achievement during the last century would reasonably include the name of Elias Jackson Baldwin. One of Cali- fornia's most famous characters, his name and work are of particular interest to southern California as founder of the great Santa Anita Rancho, which for a generation has been one of the show places around Los Angeles, and which, under its present proprietor, Anita M. Baldwin, is one of the most important sources of production of high-grade live stock in California.
The Santa Anita Rancho was established by the late Mr. Baldwin in 1873. It was while traveling to his Bear Valley mining property that he first saw the San Gabriel Valley. He soon afterward bought the original Santa Anita tract, containing some eight thousand five hundred
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acres, the purchase price being two hundred thousand dollars. Later he acquired other tracts until he had fifty-four thousand acres in the ranch. For all his other extensive properties, Mr. Baldwin probably took more pride in this rancho than in anything else. His holdings were so great that he could drive in a direct line on his own property for eighteen miles. He planned and built the water system for his land, and in 1879 laid out a part of it through Walnut Grove, at one time owned the largest orange orchard in the state, estimated to be worth ten millions of dollars, and developed nearly all the varieties of semi-tropical and deciduous fruits, including oranges, lemons, walnuts, almonds, peach, pear, apricot, prune, fig and Japanese persimmon trees, besides large plantations of olives, pepper, coffee and tea plants. The vineyard and winery produced annually about thirty thousand gallons of brandy and a hundred thousand gallons of wine. From other por- tions of the ranch were harvested yearly twenty-five hundred tons of alfalfa and twenty-eight thousand sacks of grain.
The rancho has been described again and again in press and litera- ture and of it the late H. H. Bancroft, the historian, said: "It is a spot whose attractions, both natural and artificial, it would be difficult to exaggerate, and we know not whether most to admire its vast extent, the magnitude and diversity of its interests, the beauty of its situation, the skill with which its various operations have been planned, or the well nigh perfect generalship with which they have been executed."
During Mr. Baldwin's lifetime the fame of his rancho was largely due to his efforts and unparalleled success as a breeder and developer of thoroughbreds. At one time the pastures of the foothills afforded grazing grounds for about twenty thousand head of sheep and two thousand dairy cows, while the stables and paddocks were the breeding and training ground of some of the greatest running horses in America. Under its present ownership the Santa Anita Rancho and its Anoakia Breeding Farm has a number of the real "thoroughbreds," distinguished from the purebreds, including many winners on eastern and western tracks, also Arabian, Percheron, purebred horses, a notable stud of Jacks and Jennets, and a large list of record-breaking Poland China and Berkshire hogs and Holstein-Friesian cattle.'
The late Mr. Baldwin was always loth to part with portions of his holdings, though the demand for small farms became quite insistent. He sold off at various times small tracts, and in 1885 a portion of his rancho, comprising ninety acres, was subdivided and is the present site of the town of Monrovia, and since then the townsites of Sierra Madre, El Monte and Arcadia have been founded. At present the Santa Anita Rancho contains about thirty-five hundred acres in the vicinity of and immediately surrounding the old Baldwin homestead. The railroad station and postoffice of Santa Anita is on the Santa Fe Railway, and five miles away is the city of Pasadena, and fourteen miles distant is Los Angeles.
Anita M. Baldwin, the present proprietor, has much of the genius of her father as a business woman, especially in the management and direction of her live stock interests. She is also chairman of the Los Angeles Branch of the American Red Star Animal Relief, and is spe- cial representative and field inspector for southern California.
The late Elias Jackson Baldwin was born in Butler County, Ohio, April 3, 1828, son of Elias Clark and Charlotte (Davis) Baldwin. His father was born in Butler County, Ohio, in 1802, the same year Ohio was admitted to the Union, and the Baldwins were part of the first
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pioneer settlement in that locality. The Baldwin family, seven in num- ber, came to America in colonial times. The ancestry in remote genera- tions is traced back to Baldwin de l'Isle, Count of Flanders, whose daughter, Marianne Matilda, married William of Normandy, afterward William the Conqueror.
When Elias Jackson Baldwin was six years of age his parents moved to a farm in northwestern Indiana, ten miles from South Bend. He attended school there in winter and worked on a farm in summer. For a year his parents lived at Crawfordsville, Indiana, in order to give their children the benefit of higher education. At the age of twenty Elias Jackson Baldwin married a daughter of Joseph Unruh. For a year he continued as a farmer, but in 1846, after accumulating two thousand dollars through his genius as a horse trader, he estab- lished a grocery store at Valparaiso, Indiana. He inherited his ad- miration and skill in handling and judging horses from his father, and from boyhood was skilled in trading and was an ardent participant in that kingly sport of horse racing. It has been declared that he was one of the best judges of horseflesh the country ever knew. From Valparaiso Mr. Baldwin moved to New Buffalo, Michigan, a land then of great promise because of its prospects as the Lake Michigan terminus of some of the first transcontinental railway lines. He opened there a hotel and general store and was soon enjoying a prosperous business. He invested his profits in other enterprises. He built several canal boats and loaded them with grain for St. Louis. After two years he sold his interests at New Buffalo and moved to Racine, Wisconsin, where he bought a large hotel.
In March, 1853, having sold his property in Wisconsin, Elias Jack- son Baldwin started for California. He bought a number of horses, fitted out a train of four wagons and loaded them with the stock of goods which he thought could be sold profitably at the western mines or at some intermediate point. One wagon he had loaded with brandy, an- other with tobacco and tea. As usual, he judged correctly, for on reach- ing Salt Lake City he disposed of most of his cargo, and reinvested the profits in a string of horses, which he brought with him to California. After a brief stay at San Francisco, he went to Placerville, arriving in that historic mining town August 10, 1853. He did some mining there, but soon returned to San Francisco and bought the Pacific Temperance House on Pacific and Battery streets. Within thirty days he sold out at a profit of five thousand dollars. He then bought and fitted up the Clinton House on Jackson street, and soon afterward sold that property. About that time he met a Mr. Wormer, brother of a girl he brought to California with his family, and they formed a partnership for the manufacture of brick. After the firm dissolved Mr. Baldwin went to Fort Point and superintended the making of brick for the government. The brick he made is still to be seen at that fortress, and it was declared he made the best product ever seen in the west. After two years of this he engaged in the real estate and stock and bond brokerage business, but soon concentrated all his attention upon the stock and bond part of his work.
At that time, during the '60s, San Francisco was going wild over stock speculations, particularly on the Comstock mining stocks. When Mr. Baldwin entered the arena his plunging soon made him a leader among the speculators. He had as his attorney and confidential ad- viser Reuben H. Lloyd, president of the Park Board. His operations were on a large scale, and one particular day he was credited with "clean-
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ing up" over eight million dollars. He dealt heavily in Ophir, Crown Point, Belcher, Savage and other stocks.
Never will the people of San Francisco forget the black Friday of August 26, 1875, when it was whispered about in tremulous breath that the Bank of California had closed its doors. At first men would not believe the report, for the bank had long been considered the most stable of all monetary institutions, and that it should collapse was no more thought possible than that the skies should fall or the mountains be cast into the seas. But the rumor was only too true, and on the following afternoon of this day the panic fear that spread through the city was further intensified by the death and was supposed suicide of the cashier, by whose indiscretion, to use no harsher phrase, the catastrophe had been brought about. The streets were filled with a surging multitude, a dense, black mass of terrified and despairing men, for all were aware that a dire calamity had befallen the commerce and industries of the city, the state and the coast. It was truly a grewsome spectacle, such as never before had been witnessed in this, our western metropolis, and never, let us hope, shall be witnessed again. But let us hear what part Mr. Baldwin played in the rehabilitation of the Bank of California, for his was a leading part and by him and a few other public-spirited men was averted a financial crisis such as would have paralyzed the entire com- munity for many a year to come.
For two or three years he had been among its largest depositors, having at one time $3,600,000 to his credit, bearing interest at nine per cent. When the bank closed its doors he was its heaviest creditor, with a balance of more than $2,000,000. He was then in the eastern states, and the fact that the bank was paying such a large interest had long caused him uneasiness. After largely reducing his account he telegraphed for $400,000 more, but this he never received, for an hour later a mes- sage from his attorney was placed in his hands advising him of the bank's suspension. In his answer at once dispatched by wire he said: "Protect my interests, but do nothing to hurt Ralston." Thereupon he immediately returned to San Francisco. R. H. Lloyd relates: "I asked Ralston what was the actual condition of the bank, and he replied : 'You and I have had several transactions, and I always told you the truth, didn't I?' I said: 'Yes, sir, I think you always did.' He then said: 'There is dollar for dollar in this bank for depositors if properly man- aged, but very little for stockholders.' Believing that, I went to Sharon and suggested the idea of subscribing money and putting the bank on its feet. He eagerly seized the idea. We went to work at it, and when Baldwin came back, he said : 'You did just right,' and took hold of it.
"Mr. Mills and his attorney wanted to put the bank in insolvency, but we strenuously objected and succeeded in stopping it. A heroic effort was made to repair the disaster, and I am doing no injustice to others when I say that but for Mr. Baldwin's co-operation this effort would have been in vain. Night after night he passed at the residence of Wil- liam Sharon and, in company of his attorney Reuben H. Lloyd, and Michael Reese, often working until daylight, surprised them at the task, while devising means for bringing order out of the chaos.
"None others were present either among depositors or directors, and by Mr. Baldwin and his colleagues was assumed the load of the bank's responsibilities and obligations. Every argument was used, every in- ducement was offered to secure the forbearance and aid of other capital- ists to enlist their sympathies in a project which has been acknowledged as among the greatest financial achievements of the age. Nor was it
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until after a severe and protracted strain, a strain not only on their re- sources, but on their vital powers, taxed as they were to the utmost limit of human edurance, that their purpose was finally accomplished. At length, however, it was accomplished, a fund being subscribed to reor- ganize the bank to pay the depositors and to resume its business with a new and sufficient capital. To this fund Baldwin and Sharon contributed each $1,000,000, Lloyd $100,000, and others as means and inclination dictated."
In bringing about this result it is the opinion of those best informed in the matter that Mr. Baldwin has not received his due share of recogni- tion. Not only did he, as the heaviest creditor of the bank, refrain from attaching its property for the $2,000,000 at his credit, but risked another $1,000,000 in the project for its rehabilitation, a project which by the community at large was deemed well nigh impossible of achievement. Nor did he stop here, but long continued to give the institution the benefit of his moral support. On the very day when its doors were reopened, while timid creditors were withdrawing their deposits, he placed on the counter all the money he could carry, some $40,000 in double eagles, and otherwise aided in restoring confidence among the faint hearted, many of whom were prevented from closing their accounts. Whatever may have been the motives of other far-seeing men whose forbearance may have been exercised and their responsibilities assumed to avert financial ruin, or in the expectation of benefits which might accrue to them later, no such motives can justly be attributed to Mr. Baldwin. Rather was he actuated by sympathy for the fallen, by å becoming sentiment of pride, a pride that would have shown to the world, to enemies as well as friends, what a deed these men of California were capable of accomplish- ing, a deed that had for its object the salvation of his adopted state, that should prevent a collapse which would have shaken the community to its center, a catastrophe which years would not have effaced.
In the early '70s he took an option on the corner of Market and Powell streets, and in 1873 erected the Baldwin Hotel. The property at that time was a sand hill, and he was roundly laughed at for what was termed a foolhardy scheme. But, as was his custom in all his business affairs, Mr. Baldwin paid no attention to what anybody said, but finished his building. He invested three million dollars in the hotel and theater, and the result was the most famous building of its kind on the Pacific Coast at that time. In the hotel he endeavored to supply San Francisco with an urgent need for a family hotel, and he gave San Francisco one of the first of the many institutions of a similar kind that have since been founded. His theater was opened in 1875 with the production of Richard III, by Harry Sullivan, the cast including such latter day stage celebri- ties as Louis James and James O'Neill. This building was destroyed in November, 1898, by fire, and Mr. Baldwin himself had a narrow escape from death. Later he sold the property, but retained possession of the Market street property east of the hotel, upon which the Baldwin Annex stood until the great fire of 1906. The hotel property was the subject of one of Mr. Baldwin's most famous law suits. He was never known to compromise any litigation, but always fought through to the bitter end. In the case of the hotel property he won a clear title after the suit was carried through all the courts until 1892.
A great degree of the fame associated with his name was due to his operations on the turf. It was during an eastern trip that he first entered the racing arena in a substantial way, and in the years that followed he became one of the most famous and certainly the most unique and spec-
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tacular turf operator in recent history. He was one of the few who really profited by his operations, and for a number of years the winnings of his horses in purses amounted to about a hundred thousand dollars annually. While in the east he went to Saratoga with a friend and took a liking to the horse Grinstead, who by no means was a favorite at the track. But he knew horses better than most men and wagered heavily in the auction pools. There was no book-making in those days. He won a large amount of money and promptly bought the horse. Grinstead afterward became the sire of many famous racers. Mr. Baldwin did likewise with the horse Rutherford, and shipped his two purchases to the west. Then he went into the racing business in real earnest. A few years later he invaded the east with a string of horses and was laughed at for his pains. Four times were the Baldwin colors first at the wire in the classic American Derby, an achievement standing alone in the annals of the turf, no other ranch or breeder boasting of even two winners. The Baldwin horses captured fifteen of the twenty-five races participated in at Saratoga. The blood of some of those famous thoroughbred win- ners is still on the Santa Anita Rancho, and its present owner is doing much to perpetuate the fame of the achievements of her honored father. When Mr. Baldwin completed the Santa Anita race course on his own property he sold off a number of his racing horses, as he did not believe an owner should race his horses on his own track. That was character- istic of the man. He played every game he entered vehemently, but always fairly.
Mr. Baldwin owned the Tallac property at the world's famous re- sort, Lake Tahoe, and since his death the Tallac Hotel has been com- pleted in the midst of a picturesque woodland of a thousand acres. He also owned the Oakwood Hotel at Arcadia, in the highlands of Los Angeles County, and owned much valuable business and residence prop- erty both in Los Angeles and San Francisco.
Mr. Baldwin married four times. By his first wife he had two daughters, one of whom died in infancy, and the other married Mr. Harold, son of a prominent Philadelphia physician. For his second wife he married Miss Cochrane, of New Orleans. His third wife, mother of Miss Anita Baldwin, her only child, was Jane Virginia Dexter, daughter of Colonel Peter A. and Mary Ann (Bryan) Dexter. Mary Ann Bryan was of famous Irish lineage, going back to the noted Brian Boru. For his fourth wife Mr. Baldwin married Lillie C. Bennett, whose father was an architect.
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