Chapter XXIV: H. Newmark & Co.--Carlisle-King Duel

1865-1866

From 1862 I continued for three years, as I have told, in the commission business; and notwithstanding the bad seasons, I was thus pursuing a sufficiently easy and pleasant existence when a remark which, after the lapse of time, I see may have been carelessly dropped, inspired me with the determination to enter again upon a more strenuous and confining life.

On Friday, June 18th, 1865, I was seated in my little office, when a Los Angeles merchant named David Solomon, whose store was in the Arcadia Block, called upon me and, with much feeling, related that while returning by steamer from the North, Prudent Beaudry had made the senseless boast that he would drive every Jew in Los Angeles out of business. Beaudry, then a man of large means, conducted in his one-story adobe building on the northeast corner of Aliso and Los Angeles streets the largest general merchandise establishment this side of San Francisco. I listened to Solomon's recital without giving expression to my immediately-formed resolve; but no sooner had he left than I closed my office and started for Wilmington.

During the twelve years that I had been in California the forwarding business between Los Angeles and the Coast had seen many changes. Tomlinson & Company, who had bought out A. W. Timms, controlled the largest tonnage in town, including that of Beaudry, Jones, Childs and others; while Banning & Company, although actively engaged in the transportation to Yuma of freight and supplies for the United States Government, were handicapped for lack of business into Los Angeles. I thought, therefore, that Phineas Banning would eagerly seize an opportunity to pay his score to the numerous local merchants who had treated him with so little consideration. Besides, a very close intimacy existed between him and myself, which may best be illustrated by the fact that, for years past when short of cash, Banning used to come to my old sheet-iron safe and help himself according to his requirements.

Arriving in Wilmington, I found Banning loading a lot of teams with lumber. I related the substance of Solomon's remarks and proposed a secret partnership, with the understanding that, providing he would release me from the then existing charge of seven dollars and a half per ton for hauling freight from Wilmington to Los Angeles, I should supply the necessary capital, purchase a stock of goods, conduct the business without cost to him and then divide the profits if any should accrue. Banning said, "I must first consult Don David," meaning Alexander, his partner, promising at the same time to report the result within a few days. While I was at dinner, therefore, on the following Sunday, Patrick Downey, Banning's Los Angeles agent, called on me and stated that "the Chief" was in his office in the Downey Block, on the site of Temple's old adobe, and would be glad to see me.

Without further parleying, Banning accepted my proposition; and on the following morning, or June 21st, I rented the last vacant store in Stearns's Arcadia Block on Los Angeles Street, which stands to-day, by the way, much as it was erected in 1858. It adjoined John Jones's, and was nearly opposite the establishment of P. Beaudry. There I put up the sign of H. Newmark, soon to be changed to H. Newmark & Company; and it is a source of no little gratification to me that from this small beginning has developed the wholesale grocery firm of M. A. Newmark & Company.[26]

At that time, Stearns's property was all in the hands of the Sheriff, Tomás Sanchez, who had also been appointed Receiver; and like all the other tenants, I rented my storeroom from Deputy A. J. King. Rents and other incomes were paid to the Receiver, and out of them a regular monthly allowance of fifty dollars was made to Stearns for his private expenses. The stock on Stearns's ranches, by the way, was then in charge of Pierre Domec, a well-known and prosperous man, who was here perhaps a decade before I came.

My only assistant was my wide-awake nephew, M. A. Newmark, then fifteen years of age, who had arrived in Los Angeles early in 1865. At my request Banning & Company released their bookkeeper, Frank Lecouvreur, and I engaged him. He was a thoroughly reliable man and had, besides, a technical knowledge of wagon materials, in which, as a sideline, I expected to specialize. While all of these arrangements were being completed, the local business world queried and buzzed as to my intentions.

Having rented quarters, I immediately telegraphed my brother, J. P. Newmark, to buy and ship a quantity of flour, sugar, potatoes, salt and other heavy staples; and these I sold, upon arrival, at cost and steamer freight plus seven dollars and a half per ton. Since the departure of my brother from Los Angeles for permanent residence in San Francisco (where he entered into partnership with Isaac Lightner, forming J. P. Newmark & Company), he had been engaged in the commission business; and this afforded me facilities I might otherwise not have had. Inasmuch also, as all of my neighbors were obliged to pay this toll for hauling, while I was not, they were forced to do business at cost. About the first of July, I went to San Francisco and laid in a complete stock paralleling, with the exception of clothing and dry goods, the lines handled by Beaudry. Banning, who was then building prairie schooners for which he had ordered some three hundred and fifty tons of iron and other wagon materials, joined me in chartering the brig _Tanner_ on which I loaded an equal tonnage of general merchandise, wagon parts and blacksmith coal. The very important trade with Salt Lake City, elsewhere described, helped us greatly, for we at once negotiated with the Mormon leaders; and giving them credit when they were short of funds, it was not long before we were brought into constant communication with Brigham Young and through his influence monopolized the Salt Lake business.

Thinking over these days of our dealings with the Latterday Saints, I recall a very amusing experience with an apostle named Crosby, who once brought down a number of teams and wagons to load with supplies. During his visit to town, I invited him and several of his friends to dinner; and in answer to the commonplace inquiry as to his preference for some particular part of a dish, Crosby made the logical Mormonite reply that _quantity_ was what appealed to him most--a flash of wit much appreciated by all of the guests. During this same visit, Crosby tried hard to convert me to Mormonism; but, after several ineffectual interviews, he abandoned me as a hopeless case.

At another time, while reflecting on my first years as a wholesale grocer, I was led to examine a day-book of 1867 and to draw a comparison between the prices then current and now, when the high cost of living is so much discussed. Raw sugar sold at fourteen cents; starch at sixteen; crushed sugar at seventeen; ordinary tea at sixty; coal oil at sixty-five cents a gallon; axle-grease at seventy-five cents per tin; bluing at one dollar a pound; and wrapping paper at one dollar and a half per ream. Spices, not yet sold in cans, cost three dollars for a dozen bottles; yeast powders, now superseded by baking powder, commanded the same price per dozen; twenty-five pounds of shot in a bag cost three dollars and a half; while in October of that year, blacksmith coal, shipped in casks holding fifteen hundred and ninety-two pounds each, sold at the rate of fifty dollars a ton.

The steamers _Oriflamme_, _California_, _Pacific_ and _Sierra Nevada_ commenced to run in 1866 and continued until about the middle of the seventies. The _Pacific_ was later sunk in the Straits of San Juan de Fuca; and the _Sierra Nevada_ was lost on the rocks off Port Harford. The _Los Angeles_, the _Ventura_ and the _Constantine_ were steamers of a somewhat later date, seldom going farther south than San Pedro and continuing to run until they were lost.

To resume the suggestive story of I. W. Hellman, who remained in business with his cousin until he was able in 1865 to buy out Adolph Portugal and embark for himself, at the corner of Main and Commercial streets: during his association with large landowners and men of affairs, who esteemed him for his practicality, he was fortunate in securing their confidence and patronage; and being asked so often to operate for them in financial matters, he laid the foundation for his subsequent career as a banker, in which he has attained such success.

The Pioneer Oil Company had been organized about the first of February, with Phineas Banning, President; P. Downey, Secretary; Charles Ducommon, Treasurer; and Winfield S. Hancock, Dr. John S. Griffin, Dr. J. B. Winston, M. Keller, B. D. Wilson, J. G. Downey and Volney E. Howard among the trustees; and the company soon acquired title to all _brea_, petroleum or rock oil in San Pasqual _rancho_. In the early summer, Sackett & Morgan, on Main Street near the Post Office, exhibited some local kerosene or "coal-oil;" and experimenters were gathering the oil that floated on Pico Spring and refining it, without distillation, at a cost of ten cents a gallon. Coming just when Major Stroble announced progress in boring at la Cañada de Brea, these ventures increased here the excitement about oil and soon after wells were sunk in the Camulos _rancho_.

On Wednesday afternoon, July 5th, at four o'clock, occurred one of the pleasant social occasions of the mid-sixties--the wedding of Solomon Lazard and Miss Caroline, third daughter of Joseph Newmark. The bride's father performed the ceremony at M. Kremer's residence on Main Street, near my own adobe and the site on which, later, C. E. Thom built his charming residence, with its rural attractions, diagonally across from the pleasant grounds of Colonel J. G. Howard. The same evening at half-past eight a ball and dinner at the Bella Union celebrated the event.

While these festivities were taking place, a quarrel, ending in a tragedy, began in the hotel office below. Robert Carlisle, who had married Francisca, daughter of Colonel Isaac Williams, and was the owner of some forty-six thousand acres comprising the Chino Ranch, fell into an altercation with A. J. King, then Under Sheriff, over the outcome of a murder trial; but before any further damage was done, friends separated them.

About noon on the following day, however, when people were getting ready to leave for the steamer and everything was life and bustle about the hotel, Frank and Houston King, the Under Sheriff's brothers, passing by the bar-room of the Bella Union and seeing Carlisle inside, entered, drew their six-shooters and began firing at him. Carlisle also drew a revolver and shot Frank King, who died almost instantly. Houston King kept up the fight, and Carlisle, riddled with bullets, dropped to the sidewalk. There King, not yet seriously injured, struck his opponent on the head, the force of the blow breaking his weapon; but Carlisle, a man of iron, put forth his little remaining strength, staggered to the wall, raised his pistol with both hands, took deliberate aim and fired. It was his last, but effective shot, for it penetrated King's body.

Carlisle was carried into the hotel and placed on a billiard-table; and there, about three o'clock, he expired. At the first exchange of shots, the people nearby, panic-stricken, fled, and only a merciful Providence prevented the sacrifice of other lives. J. H. Lander was accidentally wounded in the thigh; some eight or ten bystanders had their clothes pierced by stray bullets; and one of the stage-horses dropped where he stood before the hotel door. When the first shot was fired, I was on the corner of Commercial Street, only a short distance away, and reached the scene in time to see Frank King expire and witness Carlisle writhing in agony--a death more striking, considering the murder of Carlisle's brother-in-law, John Rains. Carlisle was buried from the Bella Union at four o'clock the next day. King's funeral took place from A. J. King's residence, two days later, at eight o'clock in the morning.

Houston King having recovered, he was tried for Carlisle's murder, but was acquitted; the trial contributing to make the affair one of the most mournful of all tragic events in the early history of Los Angeles, and rendering it impossible to express the horror of the public. One feature only of the terrible contest afforded a certain satisfaction, and that was the splendid exhibition of those qualities, in some respects heroic, so common among the old Californians of that time.

July was clouded with a particularly gruesome murder. George Williams and Cyrus Kimball of San Diego, while removing with their families to Los Angeles, had spent the night near the Santa Ana River, and while some distance from camp, at sunrise next morning, were overtaken by seven armed desperadoes, under the leadership of one Jack O'Brien, and without a word of explanation, were shot dead. The women, hearing the commotion, ran toward the spot, only to be commanded by the robbers to deliver all money and valuables in their possession. Over three thousand dollars--the entire savings of their husbands--was secured, after which the murderers made their escape. _Posses_ scoured the surrounding country, but the cutthroats were never apprehended.

Stimulated, perhaps, by the King-Carlisle tragedy, the Common Council in July prohibited everybody except officers and travelers from carrying a pistol, dirk, sling-shot or sword; but the measure lacked public support, and little or no attention was paid to the law.

Some idea of the modest proportion of business affairs in the early sixties may be gathered from the fact that, when the Los Angeles Post Office, on August 10th, was made a money-deposit office, it was obligatory that all cash in excess of five hundred dollars should be despatched by steamer to San Francisco.

In 1865, W. H. Perry, having been given a franchise to light the city with gas, organized the Los Angeles City Gas Company, five years later selling out his holdings at a large profit. A promise was made to furnish free gas for lamps at the principal crossings on Main Street and for lights in the Mayor's office, and the consumers' price at first agreed upon was ten dollars a thousand cubic feet.

The history of Westlake Park is full of interest. About 1865, the City began to sell part of its public land, in lots of thirty-five acres, employing E. W. Noyes as auctioneer. Much of it went at five and ten dollars an acre; but when the district now occupied by the park and lake was reached, the auctioneer called in vain for bids at even a dollar an acre; nobody wanted the alkali hillocks. Then the auctioneer offered the area at twenty-five cents an acre, but still received no bids, and the sale was discontinued. In the late eighties, a number of citizens who had bought land in the vicinity came to Mayor Workman and promised to pay one-half of the cost of making a lake and laying out pleasure grounds on the unsightly place; and as the Mayor favored the plan, it was executed, and this was the first step in the formation of Westlake Park.

On September 2d, Dr. J. J. Dyer, a dentist from San Francisco, having opened an office in the Bella Union hotel, announced that he would visit the homes of patrons and there extract or repair the sufferers' teeth. The complicated equipment of a modern dentist would hardly permit of such peripatetic service to-day, although representatives of this profession and also certain opticians still travel to many of the small inland towns in California, once or twice a year, stopping in each for a week or two at a time.

I have spoken of the use, in 1853, of river water for drinking, and the part played by the private water-carrier. This system was still largely used until the fall when David W. Alexander leased all the public water-works for four years, together with the privilege of renewing the lease another four or six years. Alexander was to pay one thousand dollars rental a year, agreeing also to surrender the plant to the City at the termination of his contract. On August 7th, Alexander assigned his lease to Don Louis Sainsevain, and about the middle of October Sainsevain made a new contract. Damien Marchessault associated himself with Don Louis and together they laid pipes from the street now known as Macy throughout the business part of the city, and as far (!) south as First Street. These water pipes were constructed of pine logs from the mountains of San Bernardino, bored and made to join closely at the ends; but they were continually bursting, causing springs of water that made their way to the surface of the streets.

Conway & Waite sold the _News_, then a "tri-weekly" supposed to appear three times a week, yet frequently issued but twice, to A. J. King & Company, on November 11th; and King, becoming the editor, made of the newspaper a semi-weekly.

To complete what I was saying about the Schlesingers: In 1865, Moritz returned to Germany. Jacob had arrived in Los Angeles in 1860, but disappearing four years later, his whereabouts was a mystery until, one fine day, his brother received a letter from him dated, "Gun Boat _Pocahontas_." Jake had entered the service of Uncle Sam! The _Pocahontas_ was engaged in blockade work under command of Admiral Farragut; and Jake and the Admiral were paying special attention to Sabine Pass, then fortified by the Confederacy.

On November 27th, Andrew J. Glassell and Colonel James G. Howard arrived together in Los Angeles. The former had been admitted to the California Bar some ten or twelve years before; but in the early sixties he temporarily abandoned his profession and engaged in ranching near Santa Cruz. After the War, Glassell drifted back to the practice of law; and having soon cast his lot with Los Angeles, formed a partnership with Alfred B. Chapman. Two or three years later, Colonel George H. Smith, a Confederate Army officer who in the early seventies lived on Fort Street, was taken into the firm; and for years Glassell, Chapman and Smith were among the leading attorneys at the Los Angeles Bar. Glassell died on January 28th, 1901.

To add to the excitement of the middle sixties, a picturesque street encounter took place, terminating almost fatally. Colonel, the redoubtable E. J. C. Kewen, and a good-natured German named Fred Lemberg, son-in-law to the old miller Bors, having come to blows on Los Angeles Street near Mellus's Row, Lemberg knocked Kewen down; whereupon friends interfered and peace was apparently restored. Kewen, a Southerner, dwelt upon the fancied indignity to which he had been subjected and went from store to store until he finally borrowed a pistol; after which, in front of John Jones's, he lay in wait. When Lemberg, who, because of his nervous energy, was known as the Flying Dutchman, again appeared, rushing across the street in the direction of Mellus's Row, the equally excited Colonel opened fire, drawing from his adversary a retaliatory round of shots. I was standing nearly opposite the scene and saw the Flying Dutchman and Kewen, each dodging around a pillar in front of The Row, until finally Lemberg, with a bullet in his abdomen, ran out into Los Angeles Street and fell to the ground, his legs convulsively assuming a perpendicular position and then dropping back. After recovering from what was thought to be a fatal wound, Lemberg left Los Angeles for Arizona or Mexico; but before he reached his destination, he was murdered by Indians.

I have told of the trade between Los Angeles and Salt Lake City, which started up briskly in 1855, and grew in importance until the completion of the transcontinental railroad put an end to it. Indeed, in 1865 and 1866 Los Angeles enterprise pushed forward until merchandise was teamed as far as Bannock, Idaho, four hundred and fifty miles beyond Salt Lake, and Helena, Montana, fourteen hundred miles away. This indicates to what an extent the building of railroads ultimately affected the early Los Angeles merchants.

The Spanish drama was the event of December 17th, when Señor Don Guirado L. del Castillo and Señora Amelia Estrella del Castillo played _La Trenza de sus Cabellos_ to an enthusiastic audience.

In 1865 or 1866, William T. Glassell, a younger brother of Andrew Glassell, came to Los Angeles on a visit; and being attracted by the Southwest country, he remained to assist Glassell & Chapman in founding Orange, formerly known as Richland. No doubt pastoral California looked good to young Glassell, for he had but just passed eighteen weary months in a Northern military prison. Having thought out a plan for blowing up the United States ironclads off Charleston Harbor, Lieutenant Glassell supervised the construction of a cigar-shaped craft, known as a _David_, which carried a torpedo attached to the end of a fifteen-foot pole; and on October 5th, 1863, young Glassell and three other volunteers steamed out in the darkness against the formidable new _Ironsides_. The torpedo was exploded, doing no greater damage than to send up a column of water, which fell onto the ship, and also to hurl the young officers into the bay. Glassell died here at an early age.

John T. Best, the Assessor, was another pioneer who had an adventurous life prior to, and for a long time after, coming to California. Having run away to sea from his Maine home about the middle fifties, Best soon found himself among pirates; but escaping their clutches, he came under the domination of a captain whose cruelty, off desolate Cape Horn, was hardly preferable to death. Reaching California about 1858, Best fled from another captain's brutality and, making his way into the Northern forests, was taken in and protected by kind-hearted woodmen secluded within palisades. Successive Indian outbreaks constantly threatened him and his comrades, and for years he was compelled to defend himself against the savages. At last, safe and sound, he settled within the pale of civilization, at the outbreak of the Civil War enlisting as a Union officer in the first battalion of California soldiers. Since then Best has resided mostly in Los Angeles.

The year 1866 is memorable as the concluding period of the great War. Although Lee had surrendered in the preceding April, more than fifteen months elapsed before the Washington authorities officially proclaimed the end of the Titanic struggle which left one-half of the nation prostrate and the other half burdened with new and untold responsibilities. By the opening of the year, however, one of the miracles of modern history--the quiet and speedy return of the soldier to the vocations of peace--began, and soon some of those who had left for the front when the War broke out were to be seen again in our Southland, starting life anew. With them, too, came a few pioneers from the East, harbingers of an army soon to settle our valleys and seasides. All in all, the year was the beginning of a brighter era.

Here it may not be amiss to take up the tale of the mimic war in which Phineas Banning and I engaged, in the little commercial world of Los Angeles, and to tell to what an extent the fortunes of my competitors were influenced, and how the absorption of the transportation charge from the seaboard caused their downfall. O. W. Childs, in less than three months, found the competition too severe and surrendered "lock, stock and barrel;" P. Beaudry, whose vain-glorious boast had stirred up this rumpus, sold out to me on January 1st, 1866, just a few months after his big talk. John Jones was the last to yield.

In January, 1866, I bought out Banning, who was soon to take his seat in the Legislature for the advancing of his San Pedro Railroad project, and agreed to pay him, in the future, seven dollars and a half per ton for hauling my goods from Wilmington to Los Angeles, which was mutually satisfactory; and when we came to balance up, it was found that Banning had received, for his part in the enterprise, an amount equal to all that would otherwise have been charged for transportation and a tidy sum besides.

Sam, brother of Kaspare Cohn, who had been in Carson City, Nevada, came to Los Angeles and joined me. We grew rapidly, and in a short time became of some local importance. When Kaspare sold out at Red Bluff, in January, 1866, we tendered him a partnership. We were now three very busy associates, besides M. A. Newmark, who clerked for us.

Several references have been made to the trade between Los Angeles and Arizona, due in part to the needs of the Army there. I remember that early in February not less than twenty-seven Government wagons were drawn up in front of H. Newmark & Company's store, to be loaded with seventy to seventy-five tons of groceries and provisions for troops in the Territory.

Notwithstanding the handicaps in this wagon-train traffic, there was still much objection to railroads, especially to the plan for a line between Los Angeles and San Pedro, some of the strongest opposition coming from El Monte where, in February, ranchers circulated a petition, disapproving railroad bills introduced by Banning into the Legislature. A common argument was that the railroad would do away with horses and the demand for barley; and one wealthy citizen who succeeded in inducing many to follow his lead, vehemently insisted that two trains a month, for many years, would be all that could be expected! By 1874, however, not less than fifty to sixty freight cars were arriving daily in Los Angeles from Wilmington.

Once more, in 1866, the Post Office was moved, this time to a building opposite the Bella Union hotel. There it remained until perhaps 1868, when it was transferred to the northwest corner of Main and Market streets.

In the spring of 1866, the Los Angeles Board of Education was petitioned to establish a school where Spanish as well as English should be taught--probably the first step toward the introduction into public courses here of the now much-studied _castellano_.

In noting the third schoolhouse, at the corner of San Pedro and Washington streets, I should not forget to say that Judge Dryden bought the lot for the City, at a cost of one hundred dollars. When the fourth school was erected, at the corner of Charity and Eighth streets, it was built on property secured for three hundred and fifty dollars by M. Kremer, who served on the School Board for nine years, from 1866, with Henry D. Barrows and William Workman. There, a few years ago, a brick building replaced the original wooden structure. Besides Miss Eliza Madigan, teachers of this period or later were the Misses Hattie and Frankie Scott, daughters of Judge Scott, the Misses Maggie Hamilton, Eula P. Bixby, Emma L. Hawkes, Clara M. Jones, H. K. Saxe and C. H. Kimball; a sister of Governor Downey, soon to become Mrs. Peter Martin, was also a public school teacher.

Piped gas as well as water had been quite generally brought into private use shortly after their introduction, all pipes running along the surface of walls and ceilings, in neither a very judicious nor ornamental arrangement. The first gas-fixtures consisted of the old-fashioned, unornamented drops from the ceiling, connected at right angles to the cross-pipe, with its two plain burners, one at either end, forming an inverted T ([Symbol: upside-down T]); and years passed before artistic bronzes and globes, such as were displayed in profusion at the Centennial Exposition, were seen to any extent here.

In September, Leon Loeb arrived in Los Angeles and entered the employ of S. Lazard & Company, later becoming a partner. When Eugene Meyer left for San Francisco on the first of January, 1884, resigning his position as French Consular Agent, Loeb succeeded him, both in that capacity and as head of the firm. After fifteen years' service, the French Government conferred upon Mr. Loeb the decoration of an Officer of the Academy. As Past Master of the Odd Fellows, he became in time one of the oldest members of Lodge No. 35. On March 23d, 1879, Loeb married my eldest daughter, Estelle; and on July 22d, 1911, he died. Joseph P. and Edwin J. Loeb, the attorneys and partners of Irving M. Walker, (son-in-law of Tomás Lorenzo Duque),[27] are sons of Leon Loeb.

In the summer there came to Los Angeles from the Northern part of California an educator who had already established there and in Wisconsin an excellent reputation as a teacher. This was George W. Burton, who was accompanied by his wife, a lady educated in France and Italy. With them they brought two assistants, a young man and a young woman, adding another young woman teacher after they arrived. The company of pedagogues made quite a formidable array; and their number permitted the division of the school--then on Main near what is now Second Street--into three departments: one a kind of kindergarten, another for young girls and a third for boys. The school grew and it soon became necessary to move the boys' department to the vestry-room of the little Episcopal Church on the corner of Temple and New High streets.

Not only was Burton an accomplished scholar and experienced teacher, but Mrs. Burton was a linguist of talent and also proficient in both instrumental and vocal music. Our eldest children attended the Burton School, as did also those of many friends such as the Kremers, Whites, Morrises, Griffiths, the Volney Howards, Kewens, Scotts, Nichols, the Schumachers, Joneses and the Bannings.

Daniel Bohen, another watchmaker and jeweler, came after Pyle, establishing himself, on September 11th, on the south side of Commercial Street. He sold watches, clocks, jewelry and spectacles; and he used to advertise with the figure of a huge watch. S. Nordlinger, who arrived here in 1868, bought Bohen out and continued the jewelry business during forty-two years, until his death in 1911, when, as a pioneer jeweler, he was succeeded by Louis S. and Melville Nordlinger, who still use the title of S. Nordlinger & Sons.

Charles C. Lips, a German, came to Los Angeles from Philadelphia in 1866 and joined the wholesale liquor firm of E. Martin & Company, later Lips, Craigue & Company, in the Baker Block. As a volunteer fireman, he was a member of the old Thirty-Eights; a fact adding interest to the appointment, on February 28th, 1905, of his son, Walter Lips, as Chief of the Los Angeles Fire Department.

On October 3d, William Wolfskill died, mourned by many. Though but sixty-eight years of age, he had witnessed much in the founding of our great Southwestern commonwealth; and notwithstanding the handicaps to his early education, and the disappointments of his more eventful years, he was a man of marked intelligence and remained unembittered and kindly disposed toward his fellow-men.

A good example of what an industrious man, following an ordinary trade, could accomplish in early days was afforded by Andrew Joughin, a blacksmith, who came here in 1866, a powerful son of the Isle of Man, measuring over six feet and tipping the beam at more than two hundred pounds. He had soon saved enough money to buy for five hundred dollars a large frontage at Second and Hill streets, selling it shortly after for fifteen hundred. From Los Angeles, Joughin went to Arizona and then to San Juan Capistrano, but was back here again in 1870, opening another shop. Toward the middle seventies, Joughin was making rather ingenious plows of iron and steel which attracted considerable attention. As fast as he accumulated a little money, he invested it in land, buying in 1874, for six thousand dollars, some three hundred and sixty acres comprising a part of one of the Ciénega _ranchos_, to which he moved in 1876. Seven years later, he purchased three hundred and five acres once called the Tom Gray Ranch, now known by the more pretentious name of Arlington Heights. In 1888, three years after he had secured six hundred acres of the Palos Verdes _rancho_ near Wilmington, the blacksmith retired and made a grand tour of Europe, revisiting his beloved Isle of Man.

Pat Goodwin was another blacksmith, who reached Los Angeles in 1866 or 1867, shoeing his way, as it were, south from San Francisco, through San José, Whisky Flat and other picturesque places, in the service of A. O. Thorn, one of the stage-line proprietors. He had a shop first on Spring Street, where later the Empire Stables were opened, and afterward at the corner of Second and Spring streets, on the site in time bought by J. E. Hollenbeck.

Still another smith of this period was Henry King (brother of John King, formerly of the Bella Union), who in 1879-80 served two terms as Chief of Police. Later, A. L. Bath was a well-known wheelwright who located his shop on Spring Street near Third.

In 1866, quite a calamity befell this pueblo: the abandonment by the Government of Drum Barracks. As this had been one of the chief sources of revenue for our small community, the loss was severely felt, and the immediate effect disastrous. About the same time, too, Samuel B. Caswell (father of W. M. Caswell, first of the Los Angeles Savings Bank and now of the Security), who had come to Los Angeles the year before, took into partnership John F. Ellis, and under the title of Caswell & Ellis, they started a good-sized grocery and merchandise business; and between the competition that they brought and the reduction of the circulating medium, times with H. Newmark & Company became somewhat less prosperous. Later, John H. Wright was added to the firm, and it became Caswell, Ellis & Wright. On September 1st, 1871, the firm dissolved.

FOOTNOTES:

[26] Fifty years after this unpretentious venture in Arcadia Block, that is, in the summer of 1915, the half-centenary of M. A. Newmark & Company and their predecessors was celebrated with a picnic in the woodlands belonging to Universal City, the holiday and its pleasures having been provided by the firm as a compliment to its employees. On that occasion, a loving-cup was presented by the employees to M. A. Newmark, who responded feelingly to the speech by M. H. Newmark. Another, but somewhat differently inscribed cup was tendered Harris Newmark in an address by Herman Flatau, bringing from the venerable recipient a hearty reply, full of genial reminiscence and natural emotion, in which he happily likened his commercial enterprise, once the small store in Los Angeles Street, to a snowball rolling down the mountain-side, gathering in momentum and size and, fortunately, preserving its original whiteness. Undoubtedly, this Fifty-Year Jubilee will take its place among the pleasantest experiences of a long and varied career.--THE EDITORS.

[27] Died on April 6th, 1915.