Chapter XXVIII: The Last of the Vigilantes

1870

As I have somewhere related, I began buying hides as far back as 1855, but it was not until 1870 that this branch of our business assumed such importance as to require more convenient quarters. Then we bought a place on the southeast corner of Alameda and Commercial streets, facing sixty feet on Alameda and having a depth of one hundred and sixty-five feet, where we constructed a hide-house and erected a press for baling. We paid P. Beaudry eleven hundred dollars for the lot. The relatively high price shows what the Los Angeles & San Pedro Railroad depot had done for that section. In the days when hides were sent by sailing-vessels to the East, a different method of preparing them for shipment was in vogue. The wet hides having been stretched, small stakes were driven into the ground along the edge of, and through the skins, thus holding them in place until they had dried and expanding them by about one-third; in this condition they were forwarded loose. Now that transportation is more rapid and there are tanneries in California, all hides are handled wet.

In 1870, business life was centered on Los Angeles Street between Commercial and Arcadia; and all the hotels were north of First Street. Fort Street ended in a little bluff at a spot now between Franklin and First streets. Spring Street was beginning to take on new life, and yet there was but one gas lamp along the entire roadway, though many were the appeals to add another lamp, "say, as far as First Street!"

Sometime in January, a number of ladies of this city met and, through the exertions of Mrs. Rosa Newmark, wife of Joseph Newmark, formed the Ladies' Hebrew Benevolent Society. Mrs. Newmark, as was once pointed out in a notable open-air meeting of women's clubs (to which I elsewhere refer), never accepted any office in the Society; but for years she was untiring in her efforts in the cause of charity. The first officers were: President, Mrs. W. Kalisher; Vice-President, Mrs. Harris Newmark; Treasurer, Mrs. John Jones; Secretary, Mrs. B. Katz; and Collector, Mrs. A. Baer. Three Counselors--Henry Wartenberg, I. M. Hellman and myself--occasionally met with the ladies to advise them.

Aside from the fact of its importance as the pioneer ladies' benevolent organization instituted in Los Angeles, the Society found a much-needed work to do. It was then almost impossible to obtain nurses, and the duty devolved on members to act in that capacity, where such assistance was required, whether the afflicted were rich or poor. It was also their function to prepare the dead for interment, and to keep proper vigil over the remains until the time of burial.

During the year 1869 or 1870, as the result of occasional gatherings in the office of Dr. Joseph Kurtz, the Los Angeles Turnverein was organized with eleven members--Emil Harris leading in the movement, assisted by Dr. Kurtz, Ed. Preuss, Lorenzo Leck, Philip and Henry Stoll, Jake Kuhrts, Fred Morsch, C. C. Lips and Isaac Cohn. Dr. Kurtz was elected President. They fraternized for a while at Frau Wiebecke's Garden, on the west side of Alameda near First Street, about where the Union Hardware and Metal Company now stands; and there, while beer and wine were served in the open air, the Teutons gratified their love of music and song. Needing for their gymnastics more enclosed quarters, the Turnverein rented of Kalisher & Wartenberg the barn on Alameda Street between Ducommon and First, used as a hide-house; and in that rough-boarded shack, whose none too aromatic odors are still a souvenir to many a pioneer resident, the _Turners_ swung and vaulted to their heart's content. Classes were soon arranged for boys; and the envy of all was the lad who, after numerous risks to limb and neck, proudly topped the human pyramid. Another garden of this period often patronized by the Turnverein was Kiln Messer's, on First Street between Alameda and the river.

The Post Office was moved this year from the corner of North Main and Market streets to the middle of Temple Block, but even there the facilities were so inadequate that Wells Fargo & Company, in June, put up a letter-box at the corner of Main and Commercial streets which was emptied but once a day, at four o'clock in the afternoon, save on steamer days when letters were taken out at half-past nine. One other box was at the sole railroad depot, then at the corner of Alameda and Commercial streets. The Post Office at that time was also so miserably illuminated that citizens fumbled about to find their letter-boxes, and ladies were timid about entering the building at night. Postmasters were allowed small reserves; and for some time in 1870 the Los Angeles Post Office was entirely out of one- and two-cent stamps.

In February, the way was prepared for the first city directory when the houses of Los Angeles were ordered to be numbered, a public discussion of the need for a directory having taken place the previous December. When the collaborators began to collect names and other data, there were many refusals to answer questions; but the little volume of seventy pages was finally published in 1871.

Until 1870 Los Angeles had no bookbinder, all binding having had to be sent to San Francisco; and a call was then sent out to induce a journeyman to settle here.

On the fourteenth of February, Phineas Banning was married to Miss Mary, daughter of Colonel J. H. Hollister--the affair being the consummation of a series of courtly addresses in which, as I have related, it was my pleasurable privilege to play an intermediary part. As might be expected of one who was himself an experienced and generous entertainer, the wedding was a social event to be long and pleasantly remembered by the friends of the bride and groom. Mrs. Banning, who for years maintained an attractive home on Fort Hill, is now living on Commonwealth Avenue.

About this time, Colonel Isaac R. Dunkelberger came to Los Angeles to live, having just finished his fifth year in the army in Arizona, following a long service under Northern banners during the Civil War. While here, the Colonel met and courted Miss Mary Mallard, daughter of Judge Mallard; and on February 26th, 1867, they were married. For eight years, from March, 1877, Dunkelberger was Postmaster. He died on December 5th, 1904, survived by his widow and six children. While writing about this estimable family, it occurs to me that Mary, then a little girl, was one of the guests at my wedding.

Frank Lecouvreur, who was Surveyor of Los Angeles County from 1870 until 1873, was a native of East Prussia and like his predecessor, George Hansen, came to California by way of the Horn. For a while, as I have related, he was my bookkeeper. In 1877, he married Miss Josephine Rosanna Smith who had renounced her vows as a nun. Ten years later he suffered a paralytic stroke and was an invalid until his death, on January 17th, 1901.

Once introduced, the telegraph gradually grew in popularity; but even in 1870, when the Western Union company had come into the field and was operating as far as the Coast, service was anything but satisfactory. The poles between Los Angeles and San Francisco had become rotten and often fell, dragging the wires with them, and interrupting communication with the North. There were no wires, up to that time, to Santa Bárbara or San Bernardino; and only in the spring of that year was it decided to put a telegraph line through to San Diego. When the Santa Bárbara line was proposed, the citizens there speedily subscribed twenty-two hundred and forty-five dollars; it having been the company's plan always to get some local stockholders.

As the result of real estate purchases and exchanges in the late sixties and early seventies between Dr. J. S. Griffin, Phineas Banning, B. D. Wilson, P. Beaudry and others, a fruit-growing colony was planned in April, when it was proposed to take in some seventeen hundred and fifty acres of the best part of the San Pasqual _rancho_, including a ten-thousand-dollar ditch. A company, with a capital stock of two hundred thousand dollars divided into four thousand shares of fifty dollars each, was formed to grow oranges, lemons, grapes, olives, nuts and raisins, John Archibald being President; R. M. Widney, Vice-President; W. J. Taylor, Secretary; and the London & San Francisco Bank, Treasurer. But although subscription books were opened and the scheme was advertised, nothing was done with the land until D. M. Berry and others came from Indiana and started the Indiana Colony.

A rather uncommon personality for about thirty years was Fred Dohs, who came from Germany when he was twenty-three and engaged in trading horses. By 1870 he was managing a barber shop near the Downey Block, and soon after was conducting a string band. For many years, the barber-musician furnished the music for most of the local dances and entertainments, at the same time (or until prices began to be cut) maintaining his shop, where he charged two bits for a shave and four bits for a hair-cut. During his prosperity, Dohs acquired property, principally on East First Street.

The first foot-bridge having finally succumbed to the turbulent waters of the erratic Los Angeles River, the great flood of 1867-68 again called the attention of our citizens to the necessity of establishing permanent and safe communication between the two sides of the stream; and this agitation resulted in the construction by Perry & Woodworth of the first fairly substantial bridge at the foot of the old Aliso Road, now Macy Street, at an outlay of some twenty thousand dollars. Yet, notwithstanding the great necessity that had always existed for this improvement, it is my recollection that it was not consummated until about 1870. Like its poor little predecessor carried away by the uncontrolled waters, the more dignified structure was broken up by a still later flood, and the pieces of timber once so carefully put together by a confident and satisfied people were strewn for a mile or two along the river banks.

'Way back in the formative years of Los Angeles, there were suddenly added to the constellation of noteworthy local characters two jovial, witty, good-for-nothing Irishmen who from the first were pals. The two were known as Dan Kelly and Micky Free. Micky's right name was Dan Harrington; but I never knew Kelly to go under any other appellation. When sober, which was not very frequent, Dan and Micky were good-natured, jocular and free from care, and it mattered not to either of them whether the morrow might find them well-fed and at liberty or in the jail then known as the Hotel de Burns: "sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof" was the only philosophy they knew. They were boon companions when free from drink; but when saturated, they immediately fought like demons. They were both in the toils quite ten months of the year, while during the other two months they carried a hod! Of the two, Micky was the most irredeemable, and in time he became such a nuisance that the authorities finally decided to ship him out of the country and bought him a ticket to Oregon. Micky got as far as San Pedro, where he traded his ticket for a case of delirium tremens; but he did something more--he broke his leg and was bundled back to Los Angeles, renewing here the acquaintance of both the bartender and the jailer. Some years later, he astonished the town by giving up drink and entering the Veterans's Home. When he died, they gave him a soldier's honors and a soldier's grave.

In 1870, F. Bonshard imported into Los Angeles County some five or six hundred blooded Cashmere goats; and about the same time or perhaps even earlier, J. E. Pleasants conducted at Los Nietos a similar enterprise, at one time having four or five hundred of a superior breed, the wool of which brought from twenty-five to thirty-five cents a pound. The goat-fancying Pleasants also had some twelve hundred Angoras.

On June 1st, Henry Hamilton, who two years before had resumed the editorship of the Los Angeles _Star_, then a weekly, issued the first number of the _Daily Star_. He had taken into partnership George W. Barter, who three months later started the _Anaheim Gazette_. In 1872, Barter was cowhided by a woman, and a committee formally requested the editor to vamose the town! Barter next bought the _Daily Star_ from Hamilton, on credit, but he was unable to carry out his contract and within a year Hamilton was again in charge.

At the beginning of this decade, times in Arizona were really very bad. H. Newmark & Company, who had large amounts due them from merchants in that Territory, were not entirely easy about their outstanding accounts, and this prompted Kaspare Cohn to visit our customers there. I urged him to consider the dangers of the road and to abandon his project; but he was determined to go. The story of the trip, in the light of present methods and the comparative safety of travel, is an interesting one, and I shall relate his experiences as he described them to me.

He started on a Saturday, going by stage (in preference to buckboard) from Los Angeles to San Bernardino, and from there rode, as the only passenger, with a stage-driver named Brown, passing through Frink's Ranch, Gilman's, White River, Agua Caliente, Indian Wells, Toros, Dos Palmas, Chuckawalla, Mule Springs and Willow Springs. H. Newmark & Company had forwarded, on a prairie schooner driven by Jesse Allen of Los Angeles, a considerable amount of merchandise which it was their intention should be sold in Arizona, and the freighting charge upon which was to be twelve and a half cents per pound. In Chuckawalla, familiarly called Chucky Valley, the travelers overtook Allen and the stock of goods; and this meeting in that lonesome region was the cause of such mutual rejoicing that Kaspare provided as abundant an entertainment as his limited stores would permit. Resuming their journey from Chuckawalla, the driver and his companion soon left Allen and his cumbersome load in the rear.

It was near Granite Wash, as they were jogging along in the evening, that they noticed some Indian fire signals. These were produced by digging a hole in the ground, filling it with combustible material, such as dry leaves, and setting fire to it. From the smoldering that resulted, smoke was emitted and sparks burst forth. Observing these ticklish warnings, the wayfarers sped away and escaped--perhaps, a tragic fate. Arriving at Ehrenberg on a Tuesday morning, Kaspare remained there all night. Still the only passenger, he left the next day; and it may be imagined how cheering, after the previous experience, was the driver's remark that, on account of the lonesome character of the trip, and especially the danger from scalping Apaches, he would never have departed without some company!

Somewhere between Granite Wash and Wickenberg, a peculiar rattling revealed a near-by snake, whereupon Kaspare jumped out and shot the reptile, securing the tail and rattles. Changing horses or resting at Tyson's Wells, McMullen's and Cullen's Station, they arrived the next night at Wickenberg, the location of the Vulture Mines, where Kaspare called upon the Superintendent--a man named Peoples--to collect a large amount they owed us. Half of the sum was paid in gold bars, at the rate of sixteen dollars per ounce, while the other half we lost.

A niece of M. Kremer lived in Wickenberg, where her husband was in business. She suffered a great deal from headaches, and a friend had recommended, as a talisman, the possession of snake rattles. Kaspare, with his accustomed gallantry, produced the specimen which he had obtained and gave it to the lady; and it is to be hoped that she was as permanently relieved of her pain as so many nowadays are cured of imaginary troubles by no more substantial superstitions.

Making short stops at Wilson's Station, Antelope Station, Kirkland Valley, Skull Valley and Mint Valley, Kaspare reached Prescott, some four hundred and thirty miles from San Bernardino, and enquired after Dan Hazard, the ex-Mayor's brother and one of our customers--who died about the middle of the eighties--and learned that he was then on his way to St. Louis with teams to haul back freight for Levi Bashford who, in addition to being an important trader, was Government Receiver of Public Moneys. Kaspare decided to remain in Prescott until Hazard returned; and as Jesse Allen soon arrived with the merchandise, Kaspare had ample time to sell it. Bashford, as a Government official, was not permitted to handle such goods as matches and cigars, which bore revenue stamps, but Kaspare sold him quantities of lard, beans, coffee, sugar and other supplies. He sold the revenue-stamped articles to Buffum & Campbell, the former of whom had once been a well-known resident of Los Angeles. He also disposed of some goods to Henderson Brothers, afterward prominent bankers of Tucson and Globe, Arizona. In the meantime, Dan Hazard returned and settled his account in full.

Kaspare remained in Prescott nearly four weeks. Between the collections that he made and the money which he received for the consigned merchandise, he had about thirteen thousand dollars in currency to bring back with him. With this amount of money on his person, the return trip was more than ever fraught with danger. Mindful of this added peril, Kaspare kept the time of his departure from Prescott secret, no one, with the exception of Bashford, being in his confidence. He prepared very quietly; and at the last moment, one Saturday afternoon, he slipped into the stage and started for California. Brown was again his companion as far as Ehrenberg. There he met Frank Ganahl and Charles Strong, both soon to become Southern Californians; and knowing them very well, their companionship contributed during the rest of the trip not only pleasure but an agreeable feeling of security. His arrival in Los Angeles afforded me much relief, and the story of his adventures and success added more than a touch of interest.

The first street-sprinklers in Los Angeles were owned and operated about the middle of July by T. W. McCracken, who was allowed by the Council to call upon residents along the route for weekly contributions to keep the water wagon going.

I have told of the establishing of Hellman, Temple & Company as bankers. In September, the first-named bought out his partners and continued, until 1871, as Hellman & Company.

With the commencement of autumn, when the belief prevailed that little or nothing could be done toward persuading the Common Council to beautify the Plaza, a movement to lay out and embellish the five-acre tract bounded by Hill and Olive, and Fifth and Sixth streets, met with such favor that, by the first week in October, some eight hundred dollars had been subscribed for the purpose. On November 19th a public meeting was held, presided over by Prudent Beaudry, Major H. M. Mitchell serving as Secretary; and it was suggested to call the proposed square the Los Angeles Park, and to enclose it, at a cost of about five hundred dollars, with a fence. Another two hundred dollars was soon made up; and the services of L. Carpenter, who offered to plow the land prior to sowing grass-seed, were accepted in lieu of a subscription. Both George Lehman and Elijah Workman showed their public spirit by planting what have since become the largest trees there. Sometime later, the name was changed to Central Park, by which it is still known.

The first hackney coach ever built in Los Angeles was turned out in September by John Goller for J. J. Reynolds--about the same time that the Oriental Stage Company brought a dozen new Concord coaches from the East--and cost one thousand dollars. Goller was then famous for elaborate vehicles and patented spring buggies which he shipped even to pretentious and bustling San Francisco. Before the end of November, however, friends of the clever and enterprising carriage-maker were startled to hear that he had failed for the then not insignificant sum of about forty thousand dollars.

Up to the fall of the year, no connection existed between Temple and First Streets west of Spring; but on the first day of September, a cut through the hill, effected by means of chain-gang labor and continuing Fort Street north, was completed, to the satisfaction of the entire community.

About the middle of October, a petition was presented to the Common Council calling attention to the fact that the Los Angeles Water Company two years before had agreed to erect a fountain on the Plaza; and declaring that the open place was little short of a "scarecrow for visitors." The Company immediately replied that it was ready to put up the fountain; and in November the Council ordered the brick tank taken away. At the beginning of August, 1871, the fountain began playing.

During the second marshalship of William C. Warren, when Joe Dye was one of his deputy officers, there was great traffic in Chinese women, one of whom was kidnaped and carried off to San Diego. A reward of a hundred dollars was offered for her return, and she was brought back on a charge of theft and tried in the Court of Justice Trafford, on Temple Street near Spring. During the trial, on October 31st, 1870, Warren and Dye fell into a dispute as to the reward; and the quarrel was renewed outside the courtroom. At a spot near the corner of Spring and Temple streets Dye shot and killed Warren; and in the scrimmage several other persons standing near were wounded. Dye was tried, but acquitted. Later, however, he himself was killed by a nephew, Mason Bradfield, whose life he had frequently threatened and who fired the deadly bullet from a window of the New Arlington Hotel, formerly the White House, at the southeast corner of Commercial and Los Angeles streets. Mrs. C. P. Bradfield, Bradfield's mother and a teacher, who came in 1875, was the author of certain text-books for drawing, published by A. S. Barnes & Company of New York.

Failures in raising and using camels in the Southwest were due, at least partially, to ignorance of the animal's wants, a company of Mexicans, in the early sixties, overloading some and treating them so badly that nearly all died. Later, Frenchmen, who had had more experience, secured the two camels left, and by 1870 there was a herd of no less than twenty-five on a ranch near the Carson River in Nevada, where they were used in packing salt for sixty miles or more to the mills.

On October 31st, the first Teacher's Institute held in Los Angeles County was opened, with an attendance of thirty-five, in the old Bath Street schoolhouse, that center being selected because the school building at Spring and Second streets, though much better adapted to the purpose, was considered to be too far out of town! County Superintendent W. M. McFadden was President; J. M. Guinn was Vice-President; and P. C. Tonner was Secretary; while a leader in discussions was Dr. Truman H. Rose, who there gave a strong impetus to the founding of the first high school.

Soon after this Institute was held, the State Legislature authorized bonds to the amount of twenty thousand dollars for the purpose of erecting another schoolhouse; and the building was soon to be known as the Los Angeles High School. W. H. Workman, M. Kremer and H. D. Barrows were the building committee.

Mentioning educators, I may introduce the once well-known name of Professor Adams, an instructor in French who lived here in the early seventies. He was so very urbane that on one occasion, while overdoing his polite attention to a lady, he fell off the sidewalk and badly broke his leg!

In a previous chapter I have spoken of a Frenchman named Lachenais who killed a fellow-countryman at a wake, the murder being one of a succession of crimes for which he finally paid the penalty at the hands of a Vigilance Committee in the last lynching witnessed here.

Lachenais lived near where the Westminster Hotel now stands, on the northeast corner of Main and Fourth streets, but he also had a farm south of the city, adjoining that of Jacob Bell who was once a partner in sheep-raising with John Schumacher. The old man was respectable and quiet, but Lachenais quarreled with him over water taken from the _zanja_. Without warning, he rode up to Bell as he was working in his field and shot him dead; but there being no witnesses to the act, this murder remained, temporarily, a mystery. One evening, as Lachenais (to whom suspicion had been gradually directed), was lounging about in a drunken condition, he let slip a remark as to the folly of anyone looking for Bell's murderer; and this indiscretion led to his arrest and incarceration.

No sooner had the news of Lachenais's apprehension been passed along than the whole town was in a turmoil. A meeting at Stearns's Hall was largely attended; a Vigilance Committee was formed; Lachenais's record was reviewed and his death at the hands of an outraged community was decided upon. Everything being arranged, three hundred or more armed men, under the leadership of Felix Signoret, the barber--Councilman in 1863 and proprietor of the Signoret Building opposite the Pico House--assembled on the morning of December 17th, marched to the jail, overcame Sheriff Burns and his assistants, took Lachenais out, dragged him along to the corral of Tomlinson & Griffith (at the corner of Temple and New High streets) and there summarily hanged him. Then the mob, without further demonstration, broke up; the participants going their several ways. The reader may have already observed that this was not the first time that the old Tomlinson & Griffith gate had served this same gruesome purpose.

The following January, County Judge Y. Sepúlveda charged the Grand Jury to do its duty toward ferreting out the leaders of the mob, and so wipe out this reproach to the city; but the Grand Jury expressed the conviction that if the law had hitherto been faithfully executed in Los Angeles, such scenes in broad daylight would never have taken place. The editor of the _News_, however, ventured to assert that this report was but another disgrace.