Chapter XI: The Rush for Gold

1855

As I have already related, I made fifteen hundred dollars in a few months, and in January, 1855, my brother advised me to form a partnership with men of maturer years. In this I acquiesced. He thereupon helped to organize the firm of Rich, Newmark & Company, consisting of Elias Laventhal (who reached here in 1854 and died on January 20th, 1902), Jacob Rich and myself. Rich was to be the San Francisco resident partner, while Laventhal and I undertook the management of the business in Los Angeles. We prospered from the beginning, deriving much benefit from our San Francisco representation which resulted in our building up something of a wholesale business.

In the early fifties, Los Angeles was the meeting-place of a Board of Land Commissioners appointed by the National Government to settle land-claims and to prepare the way for that granting of patents to owners of Southern California ranches which later awakened from time to time such interest here. This interest was largely due to the fact that the Mexican authorities, in numerous instances, had made the same grant to different persons, often confusing matters badly. Cameron E. Thom, then Deputy Land Agent, took testimony for the Commissioners. In 1855, this Board completed its labors. The members were Hiland Hall (later Governor of Vermont,) Harry I. Thornton and Thompson Campbell; and during the season they were here, these Land Commissioners formed no unimportant part of the Los Angeles legal world.

Thomas A. Delano, whose name is perpetuated in our local geography, was a sailor who came to Los Angeles on January 4th, 1855, after which, for fifteen or sixteen years, he engaged in freighting. He married Señorita Soledad, daughter of John C. Vejar, the well-known Spanish Californian.

Slowness and uncertainty of mail delivery in our first decades affected often vital interests, as is shown in the case of the half-breed Alvitre who, as I have said, was sentenced to be executed. One reason why the Vigilantes, headed by Mayor Foster, despatched Brown was the expectation that both he and Alvitre would get a stay from higher authority; and sure enough, a stay was granted Alvitre, but the document was delayed in transit until the murderer, on January 12th, 1855, had forfeited his life! Curiously enough, another Alvitre--an aged Californian named José Claudio--also of El Monte, but six years later atrociously murdered his aged wife; and on April 28th, 1861, he was hanged. The lynchers placed him on a horse under a tree, and then drove the animal away, leaving him suspended from a limb.

Washington's Birthday, in 1855, was made merrier by festivities conducted under the auspices of the City Guards, of which W. W. Twist--a grocer and commission merchant at Beaudry's Block, Aliso Street, and afterward in partnership with Casildo Aguilar--was Captain. The same organization gave its first anniversary ball in May. Twist was a Ranger, or member of the volunteer mounted police; and it was he who, in March, 1857, formed the first rifle company. In the early sixties, he was identified with the sheriff's office, after which, venturing into Mexico, he was killed.

Henry C. G. Schaeffer came to Los Angeles on March 16th, 1855, and opened the first gunsmith shop in a little adobe on the east side of Los Angeles Street near Commercial, which he soon surrounded with an attractive flower garden. A year after Schaeffer came, he was followed by another gunsmith, August Stoermer. Schaeffer continued, however, to sell and mend guns and to cultivate flowers; and twenty years later found him on Wilmington Street, near New Commercial, still encircled by one of the choicest collections of flowers in the city, and the first to have brought here the night-blooming cereus. With more than regret, therefore, I must record that, in the middle seventies, this warm-hearted friend of children, so deserving of the good will of everyone, committed suicide.

Gold was discovered at Havilah, Kern County, in 1854; and by the early spring of 1855 exaggerated accounts of the find had spread broadcast over the entire State. Yarn after yarn passed from mouth to mouth, one of the most extravagant of the reports being that a Mexican doctor and alchemist suddenly rode into Mariposa from the hills, where he had found a gulch paved with gold, his horse and himself being fairly covered with bags of nuggets. The rush by gold-seekers on their way from the North to Los Angeles (the Southern gateway to the fields) began in January, 1855, and continued a couple of years, every steamer being loaded far beyond the safety limit; and soon miles of the rough highways leading to the mines were covered with every conceivable form of vehicle and struggling animals, as well as with thousands of footsore prospectors, unable to command transportation at any price. For awhile, ten, twelve and even fifteen per cent. interest a month was offered for small amounts of money by those of the prospectors who needed assistance, a rate based on the calculation that a wide-awake digger would be sure of eight to ten dollars a day, and that with such returns one should certainly be satisfied. This time the excitement was a little too much for the Los Angeles editors to ignore; and in March the publisher of the _Southern Californian_, himself losing his balance, issued an "extra" with these startling announcements:

STOP THE PRESS! GLORIOUS NEWS FROM KERN RIVER! BRING OUT
THE BIG GUN!

There are a thousand gulches rich with gold, and room for
ten thousand miners! Miners average $50.00 a day. One man
with his own hands took out $160.00 in a day. Five men in
ten days took out $4,500.00.

The affair proved, however, a ridiculous failure; and William Marsh, an old Los Angeles settler and a very decent chap, who conducted a store at Havilah, was among those who suffered heavy loss. Although some low-grade ore was found, it was generally not in paying quantities. The dispersion of this adventurous mass of humanity brought to Los Angeles many undesirable people, among them gamblers and desperadoes, who flocked in the wake of the gold-diggers, making another increase in the rough element. Before long, four men were fatally shot and half a dozen wounded near the Plaza, one Sunday night.

When the excitement about the gold-finds along the Kern River was at its height, Frank Lecouvreur arrived here, March 6th, on the steamship _America_, lured by reports then current in San Francisco. To save the fare of five dollars, he trudged for ten hours all the way from San Pedro, carrying on his shoulders forty pounds of baggage; but on putting up at the United States Hotel, then recently started, he was dissuaded by some experienced miners from venturing farther up the country. Soon after, he met a fellow-countryman from Königsberg, named Arnold, who induced him, on account of his needy condition, to take work in his saloon; but disliking his duties and the rather frequent demands upon his nervous system through being shot at, several times, by patrons not exactly satisfied with Lecouvreur's locomotion and his method of serving, the young German quit the job and went to work as a carriage-painter for John Goller. In October, Captain Henry Hancock, then County Surveyor, engaged Lecouvreur as flagman, at a salary of sixty dollars; which was increased twenty-five per cent. on the trip of the surveyors to the Mojave.

March 29th, 1855, witnessed the organization of the first Odd Fellows' lodge--No. 35--instituted here. General Ezra Drown was the leading spirit; and others associated with him were E. Wilson High, Alexander Crabb, L. C. Goodwin, William C. Ardinger, Morris L. Goodman and M. M. Davis.

During the fifties, the Bella Union passed under several successive managements. On July 22d, 1854, Dr. Macy sold it to W. G. Ross and a partner named Crockett. They were succeeded, on April 7th, 1855, by Robert S. Hereford. Ross was killed, some years afterward, by C. P. Duane in San Francisco.

In pursuit of business, in 1855, I made a number of trips to San Bernardino, some of which had their amusing incidents, and most of which afforded pleasure or an agreeable change. Meeting Sam Meyer on one of these occasions, just as I was mounted and ready to start, I invited him to accompany me; and as Sam assured me that he knew where to secure a horse, we started down the street together and soon passed a shop in which there was a Mexican customer holding on to a _reata_ leading out through the door to his saddled nag. Sam walked in; and having a casual acquaintance with the man, asked him if he would lend him the animal for a while? People were generous in those days; and the good-hearted Mexican, thinking perhaps that Sam was "just going around the corner," carelessly answered, "_Sí, Señor_," and proceeded with his bartering. Sam, on the other hand, came out of the shop and led the horse away! After some days of minor adventures, when we lost our path near the Old Mission and had to put back to El Monte for the night, we arrived at San Bernardino; and on our return, after watering the horses, Sam found in his unhaltered steed such a veritable Tartar that, in sheer desperation, he was about to shoot the borrowed beast!

On another one of these trips I was entertained by Simon Jackson, a merchant of that town, who took me to a restaurant kept by a Captain Weiner. This, the best eating-place in town, was about ten feet square and had a mud floor. It was a miserably hot day--so hot, in fact, that I distinctly remember the place being filled with flies, and that the butter had run to oil. Nature had not intended Weiner to cater to sensitive stomachs, at least not on the day of which I speak, and to make matters worse, Weiner was then his own waiter. He was wallowing around in his bare feet, and was otherwise unkempt and unclean; and the whole scene is therefore indelibly impressed on my memory. When the slovenly Captain bawled out: "Which will you have--chops or steak?" Jackson straightened up, threw out his chest, and in evidence of the vigor of his appetite, just as vociferously answered: "I want a steak _as big as a mule's foot_!"

Living in San Bernardino was a customer of ours, a celebrity by the name of Lewis Jacobs. He had joined the Mormon Church and was a merchant of worth and consequence. Jacobs was an authority on all matters of finance connected with his town, and anyone wishing to know the condition of business men in that neighborhood had only to apply to him. Once when I was in San Bernardino, I asked him for information regarding a prospective patron who was rather a gay sort of individual; and this was Jacobs's characteristic reply: "A very fine fellow: he plays a little poker, and drinks a little whiskey!" Jacobs became a banker and in 1900 died on shipboard while returning from Europe, leaving a comfortable fortune and the more valuable asset of a good name.

In referring to Alexander & Mellus and their retirement from business, I have said that merchandise required by Southern Californians in the early days, and before the absorption of the Los Angeles market by San Francisco, was largely transported by sailing vessels from the East. When a ship arrived, it was an event worthy of special notice, and this was particularly the case when such sailing craft came less and less often into port. Sometimes the arrival of the vessel was heralded in advance; and when it was unloaded, the shrewd merchants used decidedly modern methods for the marketing of their wares. In 1855, for example, Johnson & Allanson advertised as follows:

NEW GOODS! NEW GOODS!

Direct from the Atlantic States, 112 Days' Passage.

Samples of the Cargo at our Store in the Stearns Building;
and the entire Cargo will be disposed of cheap, for cash.

Goods delivered at San Pedro or Los Angeles.

From the above announcement, it must not be inferred that these Los Angeles tradesmen brought to this port the whole shipload of merchandise. Such ships left but a small part of their cargo here, the major portion being generally consigned to the North.

The dependence on San Francisco continued until the completion of our first transcontinental railway. In the meantime, Los Angeles had to rely on the Northern city for nearly everything, live stock being about the only exception; and this relation was shown in 1855 by the publication of no less than four columns of San Francisco advertisements in the regular issue of a Los Angeles newspaper. Much of this commerce with the Southland for years was conducted by means of schooners which ran irregularly and only when there was cargo. They plied between San Francisco and San Pedro, and by agreement put in at Santa Bárbara and other Coast places such as Port San Luis, when the shipments warranted such stops. N. Pierce & Company were the owners. One of these vessels in 1855 was the clipper schooner _Laura Bevan_, captained by F. Morton and later wrecked at sea when Frank Lecouvreur just escaped taking passage on her; and another was the _Sea Serpent_, whose Captain bore the name of Fish.

I have said that in 1849 the old side-wheeler _Gold Hunter_ had commenced paddling the waters around here; but so far as I can remember, she was not operating in 1853. The _Goliah_, on the other hand, was making two round trips a month, carrying passengers, mail and freight from San Francisco to San Diego, and stopping at various Coast points including San Pedro. In a vague way, I also remember the mail steamer _Ohio_ under one of the Haleys, the _Sea Bird_, at one time commanded by Salisbury Haley, and the _Southerner_; and if I am uncertain about others, the difficulty may be due to the fact that, because of unseaworthiness and miserable service, owners changed the names of ships from time to time in order to allay the popular prejudice and distrust, so that during some years, several names were successively applied to the same vessel. It must have been about 1855 or 1856 that the _Senator_ (brought to the Coast by Captain Coffin, January 28th, 1853) was put on the Southern run, and with her advent began a considerably improved service. As the schooners were even more irregular than the steamers, I generally divided my shipments, giving to the latter what I needed immediately, and consigning by the schooners, whose freight rates were much lower, what could stand delay. One more word about the _Goliah_: one day in the eighties I heard that she was still doing valiant service, having been sold to a Puget Sound company.

Recalling these old-time side-wheelers whose paddles churned the water into a frothing foam out of all proportion to the speed with which they drove the boat along her course, I recall, with a feeling almost akin to sentiment, the roar of the signal-gun fired just before landing, making the welcome announcement, as well to the traveler as to his friends awaiting him on shore, that the voyage had been safely consummated.

Shortly after my arrival in Los Angeles, the transportation service was enlarged by the addition of a stage line from San Francisco which ran along the Coast from the Northern city to the Old Town of San Diego, making stops all along the road, including San José, San Luis Obispo, Santa Bárbara and San Buenaventura, and particularly at Los Angeles, where not only horses, but stages and supplies were kept. The stage to San Diego followed, for the most part, the route selected later by the Santa Fé Railroad.

These old-time stages remind me again of the few varieties of vehicles then in use. John Goller had met with much skepticism and ridicule, as I have said, when he was planning an improvement on the old and clumsy _carreta_; and when his new ideas did begin to prevail, he suffered from competition. E. L. Scott & Company came as blacksmiths and carriage-makers in 1855; and George Boorham was another who arrived about the same time. Ben McLoughlin was also an early wheelwright. Among Goller's assistants who afterward opened shops for themselves, were the three Louis's--Roeder, Lichtenberger and Breer; Roeder and Lichtenberger[14] having a place on the west side of Spring Street just south of First.

Thomas W. Seeley, Captain of the _Senator_, was very fond of Los Angeles diversions, as will appear from the following anecdote of the late fifties. After bringing his ship to anchor off the coast, he would hasten to Los Angeles, leaving his vessel in command of First Mate Butters to complete the voyage to San Diego and return, which consumed forty-eight hours; and during this interval, the old Captain regularly made his headquarters at the Bella Union. There he would spend practically all of his time playing poker, then considered the gentleman's game of chance, and which, since the mania for Chemical Purity had not yet possessed Los Angeles, was looked upon without criticism. When the steamer returned from San Diego, Captain Seeley, if neither his own interest in the game nor his fellow-players' interest in his pocketbook had ebbed, would postpone the departure of his ship, frequently for even as much as twenty-four hours, thus adding to the irregularity of sailings which I have already mentioned. Many, in fact, were the inconveniences to which early travelers were subjected from this infrequency of trips and failure to sail at the stated hour; and to aggravate the trouble, the vessels were all too small, especially when a sudden excitement--due, perhaps, to some new report of the discovery of gold--increased the number of intending travelers. It even happened, sometimes, that persons were compelled to postpone their trip until the departure of another boat. Speaking of anchoring vessels off the coast, I may add that high seas frequently made it impossible to reach the steamers announced to leave at a certain time; in which case the officers used to advertise in the newspapers that the time of departure had been changed.

When Captain Seeley was killed in the _Ada Hancock_ disaster, in 1863, First Mate Butters was made Captain and continued for some time in command. Just what his real fitness was, I cannot say; but it seemed to me that he did not know the Coast any too well. This impression also existed in the minds of others; and once, when we were supposed to be making our way to San Francisco, the heavy fog lifted and revealed the shore thirty miles north of our destination; whereupon a fellow-passenger exclaimed: "Why, Captain, this isn't at all the part of the Coast where we should be!" The remark stung the sensitive Butters, who probably was conscious enough of his shortcomings; and straightway he threatened to put the offending passenger in irons!

George F. Lamson was an auctioneer who arrived in Los Angeles in 1855. Aside from the sale of live stock, there was not much business in his line; although, as I have said, Dr. Osburn, the Postmaster, also had an auction room. Sales of household effects were held on a Tuesday or a Wednesday; while horses were offered for sale on Saturdays. Lamson had the typical auctioneer's personality; and many good stories were long related, illustrating his humor, wit and amusing impudence by which he often disposed, even to his friends, of almost worthless objects at high prices. A daughter Gertrude, widely known as Lillian Nance O'Neill, never married; another daughter, Lillian, is the wife of William Desmond, the actor.

In 1854, Congress made an appropriation of fifty thousand dollars which went far toward opening up the trade that later flourished between Los Angeles and Salt Lake City. This money was for the survey and location of a wagon-road between San Bernardino and the Utah capital; and on the first of May, 1855, Gilbert & Company established their Great Salt Lake Express over that Government route. It was at first a pony express, making monthly trips, carrying letters and stopping at such stations as Coal Creek, Fillmore City, Summit Creek and American Fork, and finally reaching Great Salt Lake; and early having good Los Angeles connections, it prospered sufficiently to substitute a wagon-service for the pony express. Although this was at first intended only as a means of connecting the Mormon capital with the more recently-founded Mormon settlement at San Bernardino, the extension of the service to Los Angeles eventually made this city the terminus.

Considerable excitement was caused by the landing at San Pedro, in 1855, of a shipload of Mormons from Honolulu. Though I do not recall that any more recruits came subsequently from that quarter, the arrival of these adherents of Brigham Young added color to his explanation that he had established a Mormon colony in California, as a base of operations and supplies for converts from the Sandwich Islands.

Thomas Foster, a Kentuckian, was the sixth Mayor of Los Angeles, taking office in May, 1855. He lived opposite Masonic Hall on Main Street, with his family, among whom were some charming daughters, and was in partnership with Dr. R. T. Hayes, in Apothecaries' Hall near the Post Office. He was one of the first Masons here and was highly esteemed; and he early declared himself in favor of better school and water facilities.

About the second week of June, 1855, appeared the first Spanish newspaper in Los Angeles under the American _régime_. It was called _El Clamor Público_, and made its appeal, socially, to the better class of native Californians. Politically, it was edited for Republicans, especially for the supporters, in 1856, of Frémont for President. Its editor was Francisco P. Ramirez; but though he was an able journalist and a good typo--becoming, between 1860 and 1862, State Printer in Sonora and, in 1865, Spanish Translator for the State of California--the _Clamor_, on December 31st, 1859, went the way of so many other local journals.

FOOTNOTE:

[14] Lichtenberger died some years ago; Roeder died February 20th, 1915.