Chapter XXIII: Assassination of Lincoln

1864-1865

Of all years of adversity before, during or since the Civil War, the seemingly interminable year of 1864 was for Southern California the worst. The varying moves in the great struggle, conducted mostly by Grant and Lee, Sherman and Farragut, buoyed now one, now the other side; but whichever way the tide of battle turned, business and financial conditions here altered but little and improved not a whit. The Southwest, as I have already pointed out, was more dependent for its prosperity on natural conditions, such as rain, than upon the victory of any army or fleet; and as this was the last of three successive seasons of annihilating drought, ranchman and merchant everywhere became downhearted. During the entire winter of 1862-63 no more than four inches of rain had fallen, and in 1864 not until March was there a shower, and even then the earth was scarcely moistened. With a total assessment of something like two million dollars in the County, not a cent of taxes (at least in the city) was collected. Men were so miserably poor that confidence mutually weakened, and merchants refused to trust those who, as land and cattle-barons, but a short time before had been so influential and most of whom, in another and more favorable season or two, were again operators of affluence. How great was the depreciation in values may be seen from the fact that notes given by Francis Temple, and bearing heavy interest, were peddled about at fifty cents on the dollar and even then found few purchasers.

As a result of these very infrequent rains, grass started up only to wither away, a small district around Anaheim independent of the rainfall on account of its fine irrigation system, alone being green; and thither the lean and thirsty cattle came by thousands, rushing in their feverish state against the great willow-fence I have elsewhere described. This stampede became such a menace, in fact, that the Anaheimers were summoned to defend their homes and property, and finally they had to place a mounted guard outside of the willow enclosures. Everywhere large numbers of horses and cattle died, as well as many sheep, the plains at length being strewn with carcasses and bleached bones. The suffering of the poor animals beggars description; and so distressed with hunger were they that I saw famished cattle (during the summer of 1864 while on a visit to the springs at Paso de Robles) crowd around the hotel veranda for the purpose of devouring the discarded matting-containers which had held Chinese rice. I may also add that with the approach of summer the drought became worse and worse, contributing in no small degree to the spread of smallpox, then epidemic here. Stearns lost forty or fifty thousand head of live stock, and was much the greatest sufferer in this respect; and as a result, he was compelled, about June, 1865, to mortgage Los Alamitos _rancho_, with its twenty-six thousand acres, to Michael Reese of San Francisco, for the almost paltry sum of twenty thousand dollars. Even this sacrifice, however, did not save him from still greater financial distress.

In 1864, two Los Angeles merchants, Louis Schlesinger and Hyman Tischler, owing to the recent drought foreclosed a mortgage on several thousand acres of land known as the Ricardo Vejar property, lying between Los Angeles and San Bernardino. Shortly after this transaction, Schlesinger was killed while on his way to San Francisco, in the _Ada Hancock_ explosion; after which Tischler purchased Schlesinger's interest in the ranch and managed it alone.

In January, Tischler invited me to accompany him on one of the numerous excursions which he made to his newly-acquired possession, but, though I was inclined to go, a business engagement interfered and kept me in town. Poor Edward Newman, another friend of Tischler's, took my place. On the way to San Bernardino from the _rancho_, the travelers were ambushed by some Mexicans, who shot Newman dead. It was generally assumed that the bullets were intended for Tischler, in revenge for his part in the foreclosure; at any rate, he would never go to the ranch again, and finally sold it to Don Louis Phillips, on credit, for thirty thousand dollars. The inventory included large herds of horses and cattle, which Phillips (during the subsequent wet season) drove to Utah, where he realized sufficient from their sale alone to pay for the whole property. Pomona and other important places now mark the neighborhood where once roamed his herds. Phillips died some years ago at the family residence which he had built on the ranch near Spadra.

James R. Toberman, after a trying experience with Texan Redskins, came to Los Angeles in 1864, President Lincoln having appointed him United States Revenue Assessor here, an office which he held for six years. At the same time, as an exceptional privilege for a Government officer, Toberman was permitted to become agent for Wells Fargo & Company.

Again the Fourth of July was not celebrated here, the two factions in the community still opposing each other with bitterness. Hatred of the National Government had increased through an incident of the previous spring which stirred the town mightily. On the eighth or ninth of May, a group stood discussing the Fort Pillow Massacre, when J. F. Bilderback indiscreetly expressed the wish that the Confederates would annihilate every negro taken with arms, and every white man, as well, who might be found in command of colored troops; or some such equally dangerous and foolish sentiment. The indiscretion was reported to the Government authorities, and Bilderback was straightway arrested by a lieutenant of cavalry, though he was soon released.

Among the most rabid Democrats, particularly during the Civil War period, was Nigger Pete the barber. One hot day in August, patriotic Biggs vociferously proclaimed his ardent attachment to the cause of Secession; whereupon he was promptly arrested, placed in charge of half a dozen cavalrymen, and made to foot it, with an iron chain and ball attached to his ankle, all the way from Los Angeles to Drum Barracks at Wilmington. Not in the least discouraged by his uncertain position, however, Pete threw his hat up into the air as he passed some acquaintances on the road, and gave three hearty cheers for Jeff Davis, thus bringing about the completion of his difficulty.

For my part, I have good reason to remember the drought and crisis of 1864, not alone because times were miserably hard and prosperity seemed to have disappeared forever, or that the important revenue from Uncle Sam, although it relieved the situation, was never sufficient to go around, but also because of an unfortunate investment. I bought and shipped many thousands of hides which owners had taken from the carcasses of their starved cattle, forwarding them to San Francisco by schooner or steamer, and thence to New York by sailing vessel. A large number had commenced to putrefy before they were removed, which fact escaped my attention; and on their arrival in the East, the decomposing skins had to be taken out to sea again and thrown overboard, so that the net results of this venture were disastrous. However, we all met the difficulties of the situation as philosophically as we could.

There were no railroads in California until the late sixties and, consequently, there was no regular method of concentration, nor any systematic marketing of products; and this had a very bad economic effect on the whole State. Prices were extremely high during her early history, and especially so in 1864. Barley sold at three and a half cents per pound; potatoes went up to twelve and a half cents; and flour reached fifteen dollars per barrel, at wholesale. Much flour in wooden barrels was then brought from New York by sailing vessels; and my brother imported a lot during a period of inflation, some of which he sold at thirteen dollars. Isaac Friedlander, a San Francisco pioneer, who was not alone the tallest man in that city but was as well a giant operator in grain and its products, practically monopolized the wheat and flour business of the town; and when he heard of this interference, he purchased all the remainder of my brother's flour at thirteen dollars a barrel, and so secured control of the situation.

Just before this transaction, I happened to be in San Francisco and noticing the advertisement of an approaching flour auction, I attended the sale. This particular lot was packed in sacks which had been eaten into by rats and mice and had, in consequence, to be resacked, sweepings and all. I bought one hundred barrels and shipped the flour to Los Angeles, and B. Dubordieu, the corpulent little French baker, considered himself fortunate in obtaining it at fifteen dollars per barrel.

Speaking of foodstuffs, I may note that red beans then commanded a price of twelve and a half cents per pound, until a sailing vessel from Chile unexpectedly landed a cargo in San Francisco and sent the price dropping to a cent and a quarter; when commission men, among them myself, suffered heavy losses.

In 1864, F. Bachman & Company sold out. Their retirement was ascribed in a measure to the series of bad years, but the influence of their wives was a powerful factor in inducing them to withdraw. The firm had been compelled to accept large parcels of real estate in payment of accounts; and now, while preparing to leave, Bachman & Co. sacrificed their fine holdings at prices considered ridiculous even then. The only one of these sales that I remember was that of a lot with a frontage of one hundred and twenty feet on Fort Street, and a one-story adobe house, which they disposed of for four hundred dollars.

I have told of Don Juan Forster's possessions--the Santa Margarita _rancho_, where he lived until his death, and also the Las Flores. These he obtained in 1864, when land was worth but the merest song, buying the same from Pio Pico, his brother-in-law. The two ranches included over a hundred and forty thousand acres, and pastured some twenty-five thousand cattle, three thousand horses and six or seven thousand sheep; yet the transaction, on account of the season, was a fiscal operation of but minor importance.

The hard times strikingly conduced to criminality and, since there were then probably not more than three or four policemen in Los Angeles, some of the desperadoes, here in large numbers and not confined to any particular nationality or color, took advantage of the conditions, even making several peculiar nocturnal assaults upon the guardians of the peace. The methods occasionally adopted satisfied the community that Mexican _bandidos_ were at work. Two of these worthies on horseback, while approaching a policeman, would suddenly dash in opposite directions, bringing a _reata_ (in the use of which they were always most proficient) taut to the level of their saddles; and striking the policeman with the hide or hair rope, they would throw him to the ground with such force as to disable him. Then the ingenious robbers would carry out their well-planned depredations in the neighborhood and disappear with their booty.

J. Ross Browne, one of the active Forty-niners in San Francisco and author of _Crusoe's Island_ and various other volumes dealing with early life in California and along the Coast, was on and off a visitor to Los Angeles, first passing through here in 1859, _en route_ to the Washoe Gold fields, and stopping again in 1864.

Politics enlivened the situation somewhat in the fall of this year of depression. In September, the troops were withdrawn from Catalina Island, and the following month most of the guard was brought in from Fort Tejón; and this, creating possibly a feeling of security, paved the way for still larger Union meetings in October and November. Toward the end of October, Francisco P. Ramirez, formerly editor of _El Clamor Público_, was made Postmaster, succeeding William G. Still, upon whose life an attempt had been made while he was in office.

As an illustration of how a fortunate plunger acquired property now worth millions, through the disinclination on the part of most people here to add to their taxes in this time of drought, I may mention two pieces of land included in the early Ord survey, one hundred and twenty by one hundred and sixty-five feet in size--one at the southwest corner of Spring and Fourth streets, the other at the southeast corner of Fort and Fourth--which were sold on December 12th, 1864, for _two dollars and fifty-two cents_, delinquent taxes. The tax on each lot was but one dollar and twenty-six cents, yet only one purchaser appeared!

About that very time, there was another and noteworthy movement in favor of the establishment of a railroad between Los Angeles and San Pedro. In December, committees from outside towns met here with our citizens to debate the subject; but by the end of the several days' conference, no real progress had been made.

The year 1865 gave scant promise, at least in its opening, of better times to come. To be sure, Northern arms were more and more victorious, and with the approach of Lincoln's second inauguration the conviction grew that under the leadership of such a man national prosperity might return. Little did we dream that the most dramatic of all tragedies in our history was soon to be enacted. In Southern California the effects of the long drought continued, and the certainty that the cattle-industry, once so vast and flourishing, was now but a memory, discouraged a people to whom the vision of a far more profitable use of the land had not yet been revealed.

For several years my family, including three children, had been shifting from pillar to post owing to the lack of residences such as are now built to sell or lease, and I could not postpone any longer the necessity of obtaining larger quarters. We had occupied, at various times, a little shanty on Franklin Street, owned by a carpenter named Wilson; a small, one-story brick on Main Street near First, owned by Henne, the brewer; and once we lived with the Kremers in a one-story house, none too large, on Fort Street. Again we dwelt on Fort Street in a little brick house that stood on the site of the present Chamber of Commerce building, next door to Governor Downey's, before he moved to Main Street. The nearest approach to convenience was afforded by our occupancy of Henry Dalton's two-story brick on Main Street near Second. One day a friend told me that Jim Easton had an adobe on Main Street near Third, which he wished to sell; and on inquiry, I bought the place, paying him a thousand dollars for fifty-four feet, the entire frontage being occupied by the house. Main Street, beyond First, was practically in the same condition as at the time of my arrival, no streets running east having been opened south of First.

After moving in, we were inconvenienced because there was no driveway, and everything needed for housekeeping had to be carried, in consequence, through the front door of the dwelling. I therefore interviewed my friend and neighbor, Ygnácio Garcia, who owned a hundred feet adjoining me, and asked him if he would sell or rent me twenty feet of his property; whereupon he permitted me the free use of twenty feet, thus supplying me with access to the rear of my house. A few months later, Alfred B. Chapman, Garcia's legal adviser (who, by the way, is still alive)[25] brought me a deed to the twenty feet of land, the only expense being a fee of twenty-five dollars to Chapman for making out the document; and later Garcia sold his remaining eighty feet to Tom Mott for five dollars a foot. This lot is still in my possession. In due time, I put up a large, old-fashioned wooden barn with a roomy hay-loft, stalls for a couple of horses or mules, and space for a large flat-truck, the first of the kind for years in Los Angeles. John Simmons had his room in the barn and was one of my first porters. I had no regular driver for the truck, but John usually served in that capacity.

Incidentally to this story of my selecting a street on which to live, I may say that during the sixties Main and San Pedro streets were among the chief residential sections, and Spring Street was only beginning to be popular for homes. The fact that some people living on the west side of Main Street built their stables in back-yards connecting with Spring Street, retarded the latter's growth.

Here I may well repeat the story of the naming of Spring Street, particularly as it exemplifies the influence that romance sometimes has upon affairs usually prosaic. Ord, the surveyor, was then more than prepossessed in favor of the delightful Señorita Trinidad de la Guerra, for whose hand he was, in fact, a suitor and to whom he always referred as _Mi Primavera_--"My Springtime;" and when asked to name the new thoroughfare, he gallantly replied, "Primavera, of course! Primavera!"

On February 3d, a wind-storm, the like of which the proverbial "oldest inhabitant" could scarcely recall, struck Los Angeles amidships, unroofing many houses and blowing down orchards. Wolfskill lost heavily, and Banning & Company's large barn at the northeast corner of Fort and Second streets, near the old schoolhouse, was demolished, scarcely a post remaining upright. A curious sight, soon after the storm began to blow, was that of many citizens weighing down and lashing fast their roofs, just as they do in Sweden, Norway and Switzerland, to keep them from being carried to unexpected, not to say inconvenient, locations.

In early days, steamers plying up and down the Pacific Coast, as I have pointed out, were so poor in every respect that it was necessary to make frequent changes in their names, to induce passengers to travel on them at all. As far back as 1860, one frequently heard the expression, "the old tubs;" and in 1865, even the best-known boat on the Southern run was publicly discussed as "the rotten old _Senator_," "the old hulk" and "the floating coffin." At this time, there was a strong feeling against the Steam Navigation Company for its arbitrary treatment of the public, its steamers sometimes leaving a whole day before the date on which they were advertised to depart; and this criticism and dissatisfaction finally resulted in the putting on of the opposition steamer _Pacific_ which for the time became popular.

In 1865, Judge Benjamin S. Eaton tried another agricultural experiment which many persons of more experience at first predicted would be a failure. He had moved into the cottage at _Fair Oaks_, built by the estimable lady of General Albert Sidney Johnston, and had planted five thousand or more grapevines in the good though dry soil; but the lack of surface water caused vineyardists to shake their heads incredulously. The vines prospered so well that, in the following year, Eaton planted five or six times as many more. He came to the conclusion, however, that he must have water; and so arranged to bring some from what is now known as Eaton's Cañon. I remember that, after his vines began to bear, the greatest worry of the Judge was not the matter of irrigation, but the wild beasts that preyed upon the clustering fruit. The visitor to Pasadena and Altadena to-day can hardly realize that in those very localities both coyotes and bears were rampant, and that many a night the irate Judge was roused by the barking dogs as they drove the intruders out of the vineyard.

Tomlinson & Company, always energetic competitors in the business of transportation in Southern California, began running, about the first of April, a new stage line between Los Angeles and San Bernardino, making three trips a week.

On the fifteenth of April, my family physician, Dr. John S. Griffin, paid a professional visit to my house on Main Street, which might have ended disastrously for him. While we were seated together by an open window in the dining-room, a man named Kane ran by on the street, shouting out the momentous news that Abraham Lincoln had been shot! Griffin, who was a staunch Southerner, was on his feet instantly, cheering for Jeff Davis. He gave evidence, indeed, of great mental excitement, and soon seized his hat and rushed for the door, hurrahing for the Confederacy. In a flash, I realized that Griffin would be in awful jeopardy if he reached the street in that unbalanced condition, and by main force I held him back, convincing him at last of his folly. In later years the genial Doctor frankly admitted that I had undoubtedly saved him from certain death.

This incident brings to mind another, associated with Henry Baer, whose father, Abraham, a native of Bavaria and one of the earliest tailors here, had arrived from New Orleans in 1854. When Lincoln's assassination was first known, Henry ran out of the house, singing _Dixie_ and shouting for the South; but his father, overtaking him, brought him back and gave him a sound whipping--an act nearly breaking up the Baer family, inasmuch as Mrs. Baer was a pronounced Secessionist.

The news of Lincoln's assassination made a profound impression in Los Angeles, though it cannot be denied that some Southern sympathizers, on first impulse, thought that it would be advantageous to the Confederate cause. There was, therefore, for the moment, some ill-advised exultation; but this was promptly suppressed, either by the military or by the firm stand of the more level-headed members of the community. Soon even radically-inclined citizens, in an effort to uphold the fair name of the town, fell into line, and steps were taken fittingly to mourn the nation's loss. On the seventeenth of April, the Common Council passed appropriate resolutions; and Governor Low having telegraphed that Lincoln's funeral would be held in Washington on the nineteenth, at twelve o'clock noon, the Union League of Los Angeles took the initiative and invited the various societies of the city to join in a funeral procession.

On April 19th all the stores were closed, business was suspended and soldiers as well as civilians assembled in front of Arcadia Block. There were present United States officers, mounted cavalry under command of Captain Ledyard; the Mayor and Common Council; various lodges; the Hebrew Congregation B'nai-B'rith; the Teutonia, the French Benevolent and the Junta Patriotica societies, and numerous citizens. Under the marshalship of S. F. Lamson the procession moved slowly over what to-day would be regarded as an insignificantly short route: west on Arcadia Street to Main; down Main Street to Spring as far as First; east on First Street to Main and up Main Street, proceeding back to the City Hall by way of Spring, at which point the parade disbanded.

Later, on the same day, there were memorial services in the upper story of the old Temple Court House, where Rev. Elias Birdsall, the Episcopal clergyman, delivered a splendid oration and panegyric; and at the same time, the members of the Hebrew Congregation met at the house of Rabbi A. W. Edelman. Prayers for the martyred President were uttered, and supplication was made for the recovery of Secretary of State Seward. The resolutions presented on this occasion concluded as follows:

RESOLVED, that with feelings of the deepest sorrow we
deplore the loss our country has sustained in the untimely
end of our late President; but as it has pleased the
Almighty to deprive this Country of its Chief and great
friend, we bow with submission to the All-wise Will.

I may add that, soon after the assassination of the President, the Federal authorities sent an order to Los Angeles to arrest anyone found rejoicing in the foul deed; and that several persons, soon in the toils, were severely dealt with. In San Francisco, too, when the startling news was flashed over the wires, Unionist mobs demolished the plants of the _Democratic Press_, the _News Letter_ and a couple of other journals very abusive toward the martyred Emancipator; the editors and publishers themselves escaping with their lives only by flight and concealment.

Notwithstanding the strong Secessionist sentiment in Los Angeles during much of the Civil War period, the City election resulted in a Unionist victory. José Mascarel was elected Mayor; William C. Warren, Marshal; J. F. Burns, Treasurer; J. H. Lander, Attorney; and J. W. Beebe, Assessor. The triumph of the Federal Government doubtless at once began to steady and improve affairs throughout the country; but it was some time before any noticeable progress was felt here. Particularly unfortunate were those who had gone east or south for actual service, and who were obliged to make their way, finally, back to the Coast. Among such volunteers was Captain Cameron E. Thom who, on landing at San Pedro, was glad to have J. M. Griffith advance him money enough to reach Los Angeles and begin life again.

Outdoor restaurant gardens were popular in the sixties. On April 23d, the Tivoli Garden was reopened by Henry Sohms, and thither, on holidays and Sundays, many pleasure-lovers gravitated.

Sometime in the spring and during the incumbency of Rev. Elias Birdsall as rector, the Right Reverend William Ingraham Kip, who had come to the Pacific Coast in 1853, made his first visit to the Episcopal Church in Los Angeles, as Bishop of California, although really elevated to that high office seven years before. Bishop Kip was one of the young clergy who pleaded with the unresponsive culprits strung up by the San Francisco Vigilance Committee of 1856; and later he was known as an author. The Reverend Birdsall, by the way, was Rector of St. Paul's School on Olive Street, between Fifth and Sixth, as late as 1887.

John G. Downey subdivided the extensive Santa Gertrudis _rancho_ on the San Gabriel River in the spring, and the first deed was made out to J. H. Burke, a son-in-law of Captain Jesse Hunter. Burke, a man of splendid physique, was a blacksmith whose Main Street shop was next to the site of the present Van Nuys Hotel. Downey and he exchanged properties, the ex-Governor building a handsome brick residence on Burke's lot, and Burke removing his blacksmith business to Downey's new town where, by remaining until the property had appreciated, he became well-to-do.

I have alluded to the Dominguez _rancho_, known as the San Pedro, but I have not said that, in 1865, some four thousand acres of this property were sold to Temple & Gibson at thirty-five cents an acre, and that on a portion of this land G. D. Compton founded the town named after him and first called Comptonville. It was really a Methodist Church enterprise, planned from the beginning as a pledge to teetotalism, and is of particular interest because it is one of the oldest towns in Los Angeles County, and certainly the first "dry" community. Compton paid Temple & Gibson five dollars an acre.

Toward the end of the War, that is, in May, Major-General Irwin McDowell, the unfortunate commander of the Army of the Potomac who had been nearly a year in charge of the Department of the Pacific, made Los Angeles a long-announced visit, coming on the Government steamer _Saginaw_. The distinguished officer, his family and suite were speedily whirled to the Bella Union, the competing drivers shouting and cursing themselves hoarse in their efforts to get the General or the General's wife, in different stages, there first. As was customary in those simpler days, most of the townsfolk whose politics would permit called upon the guest; and Editor Conway and other Unionists were long closeted with him. After thirty-six hours or more, during which the General inspected the local Government headquarters and the ladies were driven to, and entertained at, various homes, the party, accompanied by Collector James and Attorney-General McCullough, boarded the cutter and made off for the North.

Anticipating this visit of General McDowell, due preparations were made to receive him. It happened, however, as I have indicated, that José Mascarel was then Mayor; and since he had never been able to express himself freely in English, though speaking Spanish as well as French, it was feared that embarrassment must follow the meeting of the civil and military personages. Luckily, however, like many scions of early well-to-do American families, McDowell had been educated in France, and the two chiefs were soon having a free and easy talk in Mascarel's native tongue.

An effort, on May 2d, better to establish St. Vincent's College as the one institution of higher learning here was but natural at that time. In the middle of the sixties, quite as many children attended private academies in Los Angeles County as were in the public schools, while three-fifths of all children attended no school at all. At the beginning of the Twentieth Century, two-thirds of all the children in the county attended public schools.

FOOTNOTE:

[25] Died, January 22d, 1915.