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 III > Part 67
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Pacific Railway Company at San Francisco as geologist until 1908. He then became associate geologist to the Associated Oil Company, and in their service traveled all over the United States making investigations and reports. After a year, having returned to San Francisco, he became geologist for the Standard Oil Company of California, but since 1911 has been engaged in an independent practice as a geologist and mining engineer. During 1915-16 he served as deputy of the Southern District of the Department of Petroleum and Gas of the State Mining Bureau. Among other large interests which he represents in a professional capacity he is geologist for the Riverside Portland Cement Company of Riverdale.
Mr. Moran is a democrat, a member of the Presbyterian Church and . belongs to the University Clubs of Los Angeles and San Francisco. At Berkeley, California, in 1911, he married Miss Edna Venable, and they have three children.
HENRY JAMES ANGELL was graduated in law in 1906 and at once came from his native New England to · Los Angeles, where he has achieved a successful position in the bar.
Mr. Angell represents some of the oldest families in New England. He is a direct descendant of Thomas Angell, who was the only com- panion of Roger Williams when the latter left the Massachusetts Bay Colony and sought a new home in Providence and Rhode Island Planta- tions, of which community he is historically the founder. The Williams and Angell families were intermarried and Mr. Angell therefore has kinship with the descendants of Roger Williams.
Mr. Angell was born in Washington County, Rhode Island, January 15, 1879, son of James Phetteplace and Lillian (Geer) Angell. His parents were cultured and substantial people and their son was accorded every educational opportunity consistent with the high standards of New England. He attended the grammar and high schools of Hartford, Con- necticut, and his native Province, spent a year in the Bryant & Stratton Business College at Providence, and his college training was given him without formal enrollment in any institution under private tutors who were university professors. He spent five years under such instruction and on June 5, 1906, graduated from the law school of Northeastern College at Boston. Mr. Angell at once came to Los Angeles and is handling his extensive law practice with offices in the Security Building.
He is a Mason and Knight of Pythias, a republican and a member of the Baptist Church. At Hartford, Connecticut, June 2, 1906, he married Priscilla Hammond. They have two children: Henry Ham- mond, born February 15, 1917, and an infant.
FOREMAN & CLARK. While this is a firm title known to thousands of men patrons of clothing establishments in four or five of the larger cities of the country, the business was primarily a Los Angeles concern, established about ten years ago, with insignificant capital, but with some novel and efficient ideas of particular service in the retail clothing business.
In 1909 Winfield Amos Foreman and A. J. Clark were in Los Angeles and had between them cash assets of three hundred and ten dollars. Both of them knew something of the retail clothing business. Practically every men's clothing store in the city at that time was con- ducted on a "ground floor" plan. Foreman & Clark decided they could get business in spite of the handicap of an upstairs room. The first place they rented was a space 20x40 feet, upstairs at Third and Main. A friend
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who knew these young men at the time says: "They went out after business with suits on their arms." From the first they emphasized the economy of shopping upstairs, and "saving ten dollars," a slogan that has been a prominent feature of the business ever since and in all their stores. The idea was distinctive and appealed to the thrifty business man. Soon the young merchants were knocking out partitions and in- troducing new stock until they had many times the space of their original store.
The great expansion of the business has come within the past five or six years. They first added to their los Angeles business by opening a store at San Diego in 1913, another at Oakland in 1914, a second store at Los Angeles, now occupying the site at Fifth and Broadway, and in 1915 a store at San Francisco. In the latter year they also established a factory in New York City for the manufacture of some of their garments.
In 1916 Mr. Clark retired from the firm, and since then the business has been owned and controlled by Loren Owen Foreman and Winfield Amos Foreman, though they still retain the old name of Foreman & Clark. Immediately after Mr. Clark's retirement they invaded the highly competitive field of Chicago, opening a store at teh old Hub corner at State and Jackson, and by continued emphasis and advertising of their principle of economic merchandising had a steady trade flowing their way. In 1917 they opened a store in Pittsburgh, at the corner of Fifth and Liberty. In 1919 a new manufacturing plant was estab- lished at Newark, New Jersey, and another at Watervliet, New York. The last addition to their stores was made in 1920 at 12th and Walnut streets in Kansas City.
The combined capacity of their three factories is three thousand suits per week, but this falls far short of being enough to supply their trade, and they purchase thousands of additional garments every year. Their total sales for 1919 aggregated more than two hundred thousand gar- ments. All the stores of Foreman & Clark are upstairs. The popularity of their establishment in Los Angeles is indicated by the fact that the firm has resorted to no newspaper advertising for more than four years.
The active head of the business at Chicago is Winfield Amos Fore- man. He married Miss Rose Leonard, of Los Angeles, a daughter of J. F. Leonard.
The Los Angeles member of the firm at present is Loren Owen Foreman. He was born in Jasper County, Iowa, November 23, 1879, son of Thomas Clark and Letitia (Wyatt) Foreman. His father was a harness maker at Colfax, Iowa, but after 1893 retired. The mother is living at DesMoines, Iowa. Besides the two brothers who are partners in the Foreman & Clark firm, there is another younger brother, Walter Ray Foreman, who is an independent clothing merchant, proprietor of what is known as the Foreman Clothing Company of Minneapolis.
Mr. L. O. Foreman, who engaged in the clothing business in 1910, some six years before the retirement of Mr. Clark, acquired a grammar school education in Colfax, Iowa, attended high school at DesMoines and for about fourteen years was engaged in the furniture business. He came to Los Angeles at the age of thirty. He married Claudine Moberly, of Newton, Iowa, and they have an interesting young son of ten years, Byron Williard Foreman. Mr. Foreman is a member of the Los Angeles Athletic Club and is affiliated with the Elks Order.
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JONATHAN TEMPLE, who was better known to native Californians as . Don Juan Temple, was as keen a Yankee as ever shipped over western waters. He knew how to make money and keep it, and was a picturesque if not a magnificent figure in the early life and history of Southern California.
He was born at Reading in Middlesex County, Massachusetts. His father, Jonathan Temple, Sr., was born September 25, 1768. Jonathan Temple was of a roaming disposition, and as a young man we find him in the Sandwich Islands in 1825, owning his own vessel and trading with the natives. As early as 1827 he had established himself as a merchant in Los Angeles, where his business career commenced. He established himself in business in an adobe building at the intersection of Spring and Main streets. As business prospered he built with an eye to business rental property just south of his store, and this he rented to doctors, lawyers, merchants and others. This building still stands in August, 1918, and is known to all Californians as the Don Juan Temple Block. After Mr. Jonathan Temple's death this property was sold to his brother F. P. F. Temple for ten thousand dollars. The old adobe building was then torn down and what is known as the Temple Block was erected, in which the Temple and Workman Bank was opened.
In the middle fifties Mr. Temple built what was known as the City Market, standing where the Bullard Block is now located. It was fashioned after Faneuil Hall in Boston, the lower story being adapted as a market, while the upper story was used for judicial offices. Here Don Ignacio Sepulveda, one of the old California judges, held court for quite a number of years, as well as Hon. Volney E. Howard. Mr. Temple also owned the lot where the Postoffice and Federal Building now stand.
He was not satisfied with inside property and began to reach out. He bought Don Pedro Dominguez' interest in the famous Dominguez Ranch, comprising thirty thousand acres. This is now the property of the Jotham Bixby heirs, and the city of Long Beach is built on the property. This place Mr. Temple originally stocked up with immense herds of cattle. As a basis for his grazing industry he had practically all the lands from Los Angeles to the ocean, for a distance of twenty miles, and an equal distance from east to west. He and his brother Pliny Temple, who was equally as rich as his brother, combined their interests and sent immense herds of cattle to the mines in the northern part of the state, reaping immense fortunes. The master stroke of Jonathan Temple was in leasing the mint in Mexico, realizing an immense fortune from that venture. He refused a million dollars for his con- cession. He lived to see the day when he coined his own money, controlled seven hundred miles of the western coast of Mexico and had his boats running with his goods from Acapulco to San Francisco. Without entering into greater details, Jonathan Temple was the richest and heaviest taxpayer in Los Angeles. In business he did not mince his words, while his brother Pliny on the other hand could not say no, and that was the undoing of the latter's vast possessions. The Temple brothers were exceedingly fond of their eastern relatives, and they were as a father to them all, particularly to their sisters, whom they adored. The member of the family who furnished this information knew two sisters and a brother, and the memories of their brother Pliny leaving Boston often was related to him. Jonathan Temple would visit his eastern relatives quite frequently, stay with them a month or so and
I. Temple
F. P. F. Temple
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return to the coast with a large supply of the merchandise and com- modities he needed. His brother Pliny went back to Boston only once to visit his people, and that was June 20, 1870, after an absence of thirty years. He found only three, two sisters and a brother, out of a family of eleven, of whom he was the youngest. Jonathan and Pliny Temple were the last surviving children. The only surviving heirs of the original New England Temples are the Temples of California, including John, Walter, Charles, Lucinda and Margarita. Lucinda mar- ried Mr. M. M. Zuniga, and both are still living. Margarita is the widow of Mr. Samuel P. Rowland.
Jonathan Temple married September 17, 1830, Dona Rafaela Cota, of Santa Barbara. To this union there was born one child, Miss Francisca Temple. She married Don Gregorio de Ajuria, a native of Spain. They were married about August, 1848. To this union were born nine children, seven boys and two girls.
Jonathan Temple visited Paris March 20, 1858, with his wife and with Don Gregorio and his family. Mrs. Temple was so well pleased with Paris that she eventually went there to pass her remaining days. Mr. Temple died in San Francisco, May 31, 1866, and is buried there. Mrs. Temple and her daughter Francisca both died in Paris, and are buried there. Don Gregorio de Ajuria and his children are all now deceased but one, Antonio.
FRANCIS PLINY FISK TEMPLE. There is a rather persistent opinion among people otherwise well informed that Los Angeles was not discov- ered until the gold which made the name California potent throughout the civilized world. It will be a surprise to these people that men other than Indians and Spanish padres were living and working out their some- what isolated though not unimportant destiny in this section of Southern California long before the American conquest.
Perhaps the career of none of these old timers will serve better to translate some of the features of early California days to the modern generation than that of Francis Pliny Fisk Temple, a notable and pic- turesque figure among the pioneers of Los Angeles, and several of whose sons are still active in affairs and well known in Southern California.
Francis Pliny Fisk Temple was born at Reading, Middlesex county, Massachusetts, February 12, 1822. He represented one of the oldest and most highly respected New England families. As a young man he attended the public schools of his native town until he was about seven- teen years of age, and then took a two years' mercantile course in Boston. Reading was a quiet town and offered little opportunity to an ambitious young man. He therefore determined to follow the example of an older brother and come to California. He embarked on a vessel at Boston January 18, 1841, and after a long voyage around the Horn arrived at Los Angeles in the summer of the same year. When he arrived here he was a boy of nineteen. Jonathan Temple, his older brother, with the en- ergy characteristic of the family had identified himself with Southern California as a pioneer merchant in 1827, and in the meantime had be- come the leading merchant of Los Angeles. The younger brother joined him in business and lived with Jonathan until his marriage on September 30, 1845. Francis Temple married Senorita Antonia Margarita Work- man, only daughter of William Workman, Esquire.
After his marriage he remained with his father-in-law at the Puente
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Rancho for some three years. Two of his children were born there, Thomas and Francis Temple. The latter died some forty years afterward almost to a day in the same room in which he was born. During this time Mr. Temple purchased La Merced Rancho, consisting of 2,363 acres, where he built for himself a large roomy and substantial adobe building, after the old Spanish style, 110x100 feet, forming a half square. There he engaged largely in the breeding of stock, and he also bought stock from other raisers and sent immense droves of cattle north. As a stock- man he realized immense profits. About 1850 he commenced the work of further improving and beautifying his home property on the Merced ranch. He planted a vineyard of fifty thousand vines, set out thirty acres to miscellaneous fruits, and laid out a beautiful garden, one of the finest in the county in that day. Mr. Temple was also a lover of fine horses, and much interested in their breeding. In 1860 he purchased Black Warrior, paying seven thousand dollars, an almost unheard of price for a single animal in those days. He was also interested in the breeding of fine mules, paying a thousand dollars for a Kentucky Jack. About this time he began fencing in his large domain, spending about forty thousand dol- lars for that purpose alone, besides building commodious barns for his stock. All the lumber had to be brought by wagon from San Pedro har- bor, a distance of thirty miles.
Mr. Temple was one of the heavy land owners of California. He was half owner of Rancho Tejon, which contained twenty-two leagues; and was also part or whole owner of the following ranches: Chonchella, con- taining one hundred ten thousand acres; San Emedio, thirty thousand acres; La Merced, two thousand three hundred and sixty-three acres ; Potrero Grande, four thousand four hundred and thirty-one acres ; Ran- cho Potrero de Felipo Lugo, two thousand and forty-two acres. He also owned the Temple Block and had numerous lots and acre properties scat- tered all the way from Los Angeles to the ocean.
His participation in business affairs of Los Angeles was as a pioneer banker. He became associated with I. W. Hellman and his father-in-law, William Workman. This partnership was dissolved in 1871, and was ·succeeded by the banking house of Temple and Workman. The new · firm had their headquarters in the massive structure known then and now as the Temple Block, one of the best business locations in the city. The Temple and Workman bankers became well known in business circles all over the Pacific Coast, throughout the adjacent territories, and in many of the principal financial centers of the east. . The firm failed in 1875-76. Through that failure the magnificent fortune so energetically acquired by the proprietors melted away. Mr. Workman died May 17, 1876. Mr. Tem- ple never recovered from the financial disaster by which he lost all but his honor. He died of apoplexy at La Merced Rancho April 27, 1880. He lies in the La Puente family burying ground by the side of his bride of long ago, whom he took from the Workman homestead when she was fifteen and he a young man of twenty-two.
Perhaps the most impressive fact about his career was neither his splen- did accumulations of land and property nor the disaster which overtook him in banking, but consisted in the qualities of a noble heart, especially generosity, which would not allow him to see anyone suffer. During the smallpox epidemic of 1863 he kept a carpenter at his ranch at La Merced especially to make coffins for the poor, and they were free to anyone that needed them. As a friend he tided many a family over temporary crises by covering their credit at the grocery store. His generosity and his in-
Jahre H. Temple
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ability to say no were the real cause of his downfall, since he was taken advantage of at every turn. Mr. Temple was the father of eleven chil- dren, eight growing to manhood and womanhood, six sons and two daughters.
Apart from the interest attaching to it due to the personality of the pioneer writer, there is much vivid history contained in a letter now care- fully preserved by his descendants and written by Francis Pliny Fisk Temple to his brother in 1845. It is the privilege of the publishers to quote this letter in its essential parts, thus giving permanent record to a document which is now more than seventy years old.
"Pueblo de Los Angeles, Dec. 27, 1845.
Dear Brother :
The country is quiet at present. How long it will continue is difficult to say. At all events it will remain so until we have grass to fatten the horses, as Californians cannot fight unless they have something to run away on. We have had no rain to speak of since 1843. The plains are now barren as the Desert of Arabia. The cattle are dying of hunger in many parts. However, I hope in the course of the next month we shall have some rain, if not tallow will be scarce the coming season. Last February the Californians with the assistance of foreigners sent General Micheltonen with his troops out of the country. The battle was fought about ten miles from this place. There was a great number of cannon fired but without injury to either party, except the killing of a few horses which is of not much consequence in this country. Had the General gained the day the Pueblo probably would have been plundered by his troops, as he had promised them previous to their arrival near the place that in case of victory they should have two hours for plunder, but they were not victorious, they were sent to San Pedro to embark on board an American ship for San Blas.
"Don Pio Pico is now governor of California. He resides in this place, this being the seat of government at present. The Pueblo is increasing in population. Quite a number of houses (or huts) were put up last sea- son. A considerable quantity of brandy and wine was made here this year, this section of the country being the only part where liquors are made. Brandy is worth here thirty dollars a barrel of eighteen gal- lons, wine bears different prices, according to its quality, say from eighteen to twenty dollars per barrel."
Mrs. F. P. F. Temple died January 24, 1882. Her eleven children, with the dates of their birth, were: Thomas Workman Temple, Novem- ber 26, 1846; Francis Workman Temple, August 5, 1848; William Tem- ple, May 25, 1851 ; David Harris Temple, December 11, 1853; John Har- rison Temple, February 27, 1856; David Harris Temple, April 4, 1858; Lucinda Amada, September 13, 1860; Agnez, June 5, 1863; Margarita, September 2, 1866; Walter Pablo, June 7, 1869; and Charles Parker Tem- ple, May 10, 1872. Of these Thomas W Temple died February 11, 1892; Francis Workman Temple, August 2, 1888; and William Temple, Febru- ary 1, 1917. The three children that died in childhood were : David Har- ris Temple, December 21, 1856; David Harris Temple, July 29, 1859, and Agnez Temple July 19, 1865.
JOHN HARRISON TEMPLE. While he would be properly classified as a retired resident of Los Angeles, John H. Temple still has many connec- tions that give to his career a special interest for all who esteem the
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builders and makers of Southern California and the historical progress of the past.
Mr. Temple, a son of F. P. F. Temple, the pioneer Californian whose career has been sketched elsewhere, and Miss Margarita Workman, only daughter of William Workman, was born at La Merced Rancho Febru- ary 27, 1856. During his youth he was carefully reared and liberally edu- cated. Up to his eleventh year he was taught by a private tutor at his grandfather, Mr. William Workman's home at La Puente. This was a wonderful environment for his formative years, the historic Workman homestead being surrounded by twenty-five thousand acres of land. He was then sent to Santa Clara College, where he remained some three years. Returning to his father's farm, La Merced, he was his father's assistant until September, 1874, when he was sent East to his father's birthplace, - Reading, Massachusetts, and lived there two years with his father's sis- ter, Mrs. Clarinda Bancroft. While there he attended school in Reading for about one year, then went to Bryant & Stratton's Commercial School in Boston. Receiving his diploma, he traveled through the New England states, visiting Washington, and was at the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia in 1876. He went back to Reading, but after a brief stay started home for California, purchasing his return ticket almost two years to a day after he had started for Boston.
He had need of all the education and the resources of his individual character, since about the time he reached his majority his father failed in business, and the family fortune was swept away. John H. Temple proved equal to the emergency. Soon after arriving home he took active control of the seventy-five acre ranch known as the Rancho Potrero de Felipe Lugho. He soon had a walnut orchard of forty-four acres de- veloped, and built his own home in the midst of that grove. As none of his brothers were married, he felt that the responsibility of taking a wife devolved upon him. More than thirty years have passed, and today lie 1s convinced that his choice brought him the sweetest and kindest of women, Miss Anita Davoust, daughter of Mr. Adrian Davoust, and a niece of the famous Marshall Davoust of Napoleon's armies. They were mar- ried at the Old Plaza Church in Los Angeles September 30, 1886, by Bishop Verdagues. Taking his bride to his newly furnished home, he remained there until the death of his brother, Francis Workman Temple, who had willed the historic Temple homestead to him and to his hrother William. Later Mr. Temple bought his brother William's half interest, and remained there about ten years. Owing to inadequate school facilities he determined to move his family to Los Angeles, and has been a resi- dent of that city since 1898. Mr. Temple has been a factor in developing some of the most valuable properties in the Los Angeles territory, and his success is ample proof, if proof were needed, of the inherent business ability and energy of the Temple family. Mr. Temple is a republican voter and a member of the Catholic Church.
No part of his record could be read with more interest than that per- taining to his children. The names of these children and the dates of their birth follow: Francis Pliny Fisk Temple, August 24, 1887; Fran- cis Workman Temple, November 17, 1888; Edith Christina Temple, Janu- ary 20, 1891 : Adrian Davoust Temple, January 20, 1893 ; George Harri- son Temple, February 2, 1895; Edmund Parker Temple, January 7, 1897 ; Robert Palmerston Temple, December 3, 1898; and John Harrison Tem- ple, February 27. 1904.
The oldest son, named for his grandfather, F. P. F. Temple, received
Julian Brockman
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his certificate of graduation from the high school and then undertook work for himself when quite young. He now holds a prominent place with the Salt Lake Railroad. He married, June 27, 1914, Miss Florence Bacejalupi, of Tacoma, Washington, and their union has been blessed with a boy, given the name of his father and grandfather.
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