Among the popular pleasure-resorts of 1860 was the Tivoli Garden on the Wolfskill Road, conducted by Charles Kaiser, who called his friends together by placarding the legend, "Hurrah for the Tivoli!" Music and other amusements were provided every Sunday, from two o'clock, and dancing could be enjoyed until late in the night; and as there was no charge for admission, the place was well patronized.

When the Fourth of July, 1859, approached and no preparation had been made to observe the holiday, some children who were being instructed in calisthenics by A. F. Tilden began to solicit money, their childish enthusiasm resulting in the appointing of a committee, the collecting of four hundred dollars, and a picnic in Don Luis Sainsevain's enclosed garden. A year later, Tilden announced that he would open a place for gymnastic exercises in "Temple's New Block;" charging men three dollars for the use of the apparatus and the privilege of a shower-bath, and training boys at half rates. This was the origin of systematic physical culture in Los Angeles.

CHAPTER XIX
STEAM-WAGON—ODD CHARACTERS
1860

Early in 1860, Phineas Banning and J. J. Tomlinson, the energetic rivals in lighterage and freighting at San Pedro, embarked as lumber merchants, thereby anticipating the enormous trade that has flowed for years past from the North through Los Angeles to Southern California and Arizona. Having many teams, they hauled lumber, when traffic was not sufficient to keep their wagon-trains busy, from the harbor to the city or even, when there was need, to the ranchos. It must have been in the same year that F. P. F. Temple, at a cost of about forty thousand dollars for lumber alone, fenced in a wide acreage, at the same time building large and substantial barns for his stock. By the summer of that year, Banning was advertising lumber, delivered in Los Angeles; and from October 1st, Banning & Hinchman had an office near the northern junction of Main and Spring streets. A couple of years before, Banning in person had directed the driving of seventeen mule teams, from San Pedro to Fort Yuma, covering, in twelve or thirteen days, the two hundred and thirty miles of barely passable road. The following March, Banning and Tomlinson, who had so often opposed each other even in the courts, came to an understanding and buried the hatchet for good.

At this time, Joseph Everhardt, who, with Frederick W. Koll, had conducted the Lafayette Hotel, sold out and moved to San Francisco, marrying Miss R. Mayer, now John Lang's widow, sister-in-law of Kiln Messer. Later, Everhardt went to Sonoma and then to Victoria, B. C., in each place making his mark; and in the latter city he died.

Like both Messer and Lang, Everhardt had passed through varied and trying experiences. The owner of the Russ Garden restaurant in 1849, in lively San Francisco, he came to Los Angeles and took hold of the hotel Lafayette. With him was a partner named Fucht; but a free fight and display of shooting irons, such as often enlivened a California hotel, having sent the guests and hangers-on scurrying to quarters, induced Fucht to sell out his interests in very short order, whereupon Everhardt took in with him Frederick W. Koll, who lived on a site now the southeast corner of Seventh and Spring streets where he had an orange-grove.

Pursuing Indians was dangerous in the extreme, as Robert Wilburn found when he went after some twenty head of cattle stolen from Felix Bachman by Pi-Ute or Paiute Indians in January, 1860, during one of their marauding expeditions into California. Wilburn chased the red men but he never came back; and when his body was found, it was pierced with three or four arrows, probably shot at him simultaneously by as many of the cattle-thieves.

Don Tomás A. Sanchez, Sheriff from 1860 to 1867, had a record for physical courage and prowess, having previously been an officer under Pico in the Mexican War days, and having later aided Pico in his efforts to punish Barton's murderers. Sanchez had property; and in 1887 a patent was granted his estate for four thousand or more acres in the ranch known as Ciénega ó Paso de la Tijera.

Destructive fires in the open country, if not as common as now, still occasionally stirred our citizens. Such a fire broke out in the San Fernando Valley in the middle of July, and spread so rapidly that a square mile and a half of territory was denuded and charred. Not only were there no organized means to fight such fires, but men were compelled to sound the alarm through couriers on horseback; and if the wind happened to be blowing across the plains, even the fleetest horseman had all he could do to avoid the flames and reach in time the widely-separated rancheros. Here I may add that as late as the sixties all of the uninhabited parts of Los Angeles, especially to the of Main Street, were known as plains, and "crossing the plains" was an expression commonly used with a peculiarly local significance.

So wretched were the roads in the early decades after my arrival, and so many were the plans proposed for increasing the rapidity of travel, that great curiosity was excited in 1860 when it was announced that Phineas Banning had bought a "steam-wagon" and would soon introduce a kind of vehicle such as Los Angeles, at least, had never before seen. This steam-wagon was a traction engine built by J. Whitman & Sons, at Leeds, England, and was already on its way across the ocean. It had been ordered by Richard A. Ogden, of San Francisco, for the Patagonia Copper Mining Company, a trial before shipping having proved that, with a load of thirty-eight tons, the engine could attain a speed of five miles an hour; and Banning paid handsomely for the option of purchasing the vehicle, on condition that it would ultimately prove a success.

The announcement was made in April, and by early June the engine had reached San Francisco where it made the run to Mission Dolores in three-quarters of an hour. All the San Francisco papers told of "the truly wonderful machine," one reporter averring that "the engineer had so perfect control that a visit was made to various parts of the city, to the astonishment and gratification of the multitude;" and since these accounts were immediately copied by the Los Angeles papers (which added the official announcement that Captain Hughes had loaded the engine on board his schooner, the Lewis Perry, and was bringing it south as fast as he could), popular excitement rose like the mercury in summer, and but one more report was needed to make it the absorbing talk of the hour. That came on the twenty-eighth of July, when the Star announced: "The steam-wagon has arrived at San Pedro;" and it was not long before many persons went down to the port to get a sight of the wonderful object.

And wait they did. Although the Star said that "all our citizens were anxiously, hourly, expecting to see Major Banning heave in sight at the foot of Main Street," no Banning hove! Instead, on the fourth of August, the same Star broke forth with this lament: "The steam-wagon is at San Pedro, and we regret to learn that it is likely to remain there. So far, all attempts to reach this city with freight have failed." And that was the end of the steam-wagon experiment here.

In every community there are characters who, for one reason or another, develop among their fellows a reputation for oddity. We have all seen the good-natured, rather stout old gentleman, whose claim to dignity is his old-fashioned Prince Albert and rather battered-looking silk hat, but who, although he boasts many friends, is never successful in the acquisition of this world's goods. We have seen, too, the vender of ice-cream, tamales or similar commodity, who in his youth had been an opera singer or actor, but whose too intensive thirst rendered him impossible in his profession and brought him far down in the world. Some were dangerous criminals; some were harmless, but obnoxious; others still were harmless and amusing. Many such characters I have met during my sixty years in Los Angeles; and each filled a certain niche, even those whose only mission was to furnish their fellows with humor or amusement having thus contributed to the charm of life.

Viejo Cholo, or Old Half-breed, a Mexican over sixty years of age who was never known by any other name, was such an eccentric character. He was half blind; wore a pair of white linen pantaloons, and for a mantle used an old sheet. This he threw over his shoulders; and thus accoutered, he strutted about the streets like a Spanish cavalier. His cane was a broom-handle; his lunch-counter, the swill-bucket; and when times were particularly bad, Viejo begged. The youngsters of the pueblo were the bane of Cholo's existence and the torment of his infirmity and old age.

Cholo was succeeded by Pinikahti, who was half Indian and half Mexican. He was not over four feet in height and had a flat nose, a stubby beard and a face badly pockmarked; and he presented, altogether, as unkempt and obnoxious an appearance as one might imagine. Pinikahti was generally attired in a well-worn straw hat, the top of which was missing, and his long, hair stuck out in clumps and snarls. A woolen undershirt and a pair of overalls completed his costume, while his toes, as a rule, protruded from his enormous boots. Unlike Viejo Cholo, Pinikahti was permitted to go unmolested by the juvenile portion of the population, inasmuch as, though half-witted, he was somewhat of an entertainer; for it was natural for him to play the flute and—what was really interesting—he made his own instruments out of the reed that grew along the river banks. Pinikahti cut just the holes, I suppose, that produced what seemed to him proper harmony, and on these home-made flutes performed such airs as his wandering fancy suggested. He always played weird tunes and danced strange Indian dances; and through these crude gifts he became, as I have said, sufficiently popular to enjoy some immunity. Nevertheless, he was a professional beggar; and whatever he did to afford amusement, was done, after all, for money. This was easily explained, for money alone would buy aguardiente, and Pinikahti had little use for anything else. Aguardiente, as the word was commonly used in Southern California, was a native brandy, full of hell fire; and so the poor half-breed was always drunk. One day Pinikahti drank a glass too much, and this brought about such a severance of his ties with beautiful Los Angeles that his absorption of one spirit released, at last, the other.

Sometime in the eventful sixties, a tall, angular, muscular-looking woman was here, who went by the singular sobriquet of Captain Jinks, a title which she received from a song then very popular, the first couplet of which ran something like this:

She half strode, half jerked her way along the street, as though scanning the lines of that ditty with her feet. She was strong for woman's rights, she said; and she certainly looked it.

Chinamen were not only more numerous by 1860, but they had begun to vary their occupations, many working as servants, laundrymen or farm hands. In March, a Chinese company was also organized to compete for local fish trade.

In 1860, Émile Bordenave & Company opened the Louisiana Coffee Saloon as a French restaurant. Roast duck and oysters were their specialty, and they charged fifty cents a meal. But they also served "a plate at one bit."[20] Some years later, there was a two-bit restaurant known as Brown's on Main Street, near the United States Hotel, where a good, substantial meal was served.

James, often called Santiago Johnson, who, for a short time prior to his death about 1860 or 1861, was a forwarder of freight at San Pedro, came to Los Angeles in 1833 with a cargo of Mexican and Chinese goods, and after that owned considerable ranch property. In addition to ranching, he also engaged extensively in cattle-raising.

Peter, popularly known as Pete or Bully Wilson, a native of Sweden, came to Los Angeles about 1860. He ran a one horse dray; and as soon as he had accumulated sufficient money, he bought, for twelve hundred dollars, the southeast corner of Spring and First streets, where he had his stable. He continued to prosper; and his family still enjoy the fruits of his industry.

The same year, George Smith started to haul freight and baggage. He had four horses hitched to a sombre-looking vehicle nicknamed the Black Swan.

J. D. Yates was a grocer and provision-dealer of 1860, with a store on the Plaza.

I have referred to Bishop Amat as presiding over the Diocese of Monterey and Los Angeles; but Los Angeles was linked with Monterey, for a while, even in judicial matters. Beginning with 1860 or 1861 (when Fletcher M. Haight, father of Governor H. H. Haight, was the first Judge to preside), the United States Court for the Southern District of California was held alternately in the two towns mentioned, Colonel J. O. Wheeler serving as Clerk and the Court for the Southern term occupying seven rooms of the second story of John Temple's Block. These alternate sessions continued to be held until about 1866 when the tribunal for the Southern District ceased to exist and Angeleños were compelled to apply to the court in San Francisco.

For years, such was the neglect of the Protestant burial ground that in 1860 caustic criticism was made by each newspaper discussing the condition of the cemetery: there was no fence, headstones were disfigured or demolished, and there was little or no protection to the graves. As a matter of fact, when the cemetery on Fort Hill was abandoned, but few of the bodies were removed.

By 1860, the New England Fire Insurance Company, of Hartford, Connecticut, was advertising here through its local agent, H. Hamilton—our friend of the Los Angeles Star. Hamilton used to survey the applicants' premises, forward the data to William Faulkner, the San Francisco representative, who executed the policy and mailed the document back to Los Angeles. After a while, Samuel Briggs, with Wells Fargo & Co., represented the Phœnix Insurance Company.

H. Newmark & Company also sold insurance somewhat later, representing the Commercial Union Insurance Company. About 1880, however, they disposed of their insurance interests to Maurice Kremer, whose main competitor was W. J. Brodrick; and from this transaction developed the firm of Kremer, Campbell & Company, still in that business. Not only in this connection but elsewhere in these memoirs it may be noted how little specialization there was in earlier days in Los Angeles; in fact it was not until about 1880 that this process, distinctive of economic progress, began to appear in Los Angeles. I myself have handled practically every staple that makes up the very great proportion of merchandising activity, whereas my successors of to-day, as well as their competitors, deal only in groceries and kindred lines.

Two brothers, Émile and Théophile Vaché, in the fall of 1860, started what has become the oldest firm—Vaché Frères—in the local wine business, at first utilizing the Bernard residence at Alameda and Third streets, in time used by the Government as a bonded warehouse. Later, they removed to the building on Aliso Street once occupied by the Medical College, where the cellars proved serviceable for a winery. There they attempted the manufacture of cream of tartar from wine-crystals, but the venture was not remunerative. In 1881, the Vachés, joined by their brother Adolphe, began to grow grapes in the Barton Vineyard in San Bernardino County, and some time afterward they bought near-by land and started the famous Brookside Vineyard. Émile is now dead; while Théophile, who retired and returned to Europe in 1892, retaining an interest in the firm of T. Vaché & Company, passes his hours pleasantly on the picturesque island of St. George d'Oléron, in the Charente Inférieure, in his native France.

On September 21st, Captain W. S. Hancock, who first came to Los Angeles in connection with the expedition against the Mojave Indians in 1858, sought to establish a new kind of express between Los Angeles and Fort Mojave, and sent out a camel in charge of Greek George to make the trial trip. When they had been gone two and a half days, the regular express messenger bound for Los Angeles met them at Lane's Crossing, apparently in none too promising a condition; which later gave rise to a report that the camel had died on the desert. This occasioned numerous newspaper squibs à propos of both the speed and the staying powers of the camel as contrasted with those of the burro; and finally, in October, the following announcement appeared placarded throughout the town:

In 1858, Richard Garvey came to Los Angeles and entered the Government service as a messenger, between this city and New Mexico, for Captain W. S. Hancock. Later, he went to the Holcomb Valley mines, where he first met Lucky Baldwin; and by 1872 he had disposed of some San Bernardino mine properties at a figure which seemed to permit his retirement and ease for the rest of his life. For the next twenty years, he was variously employed, at times operating for Baldwin. Garvey is at present living in Los Angeles.

What was one of the last bullfights here, toward the end of September, when a little child was trodden upon in the ring, reminds me not only of the succeeding sports, including horse-racing, but as well that Francis Temple should be credited with encouraging the importation and breeding of good horses. In 1860 he paid seven thousand dollars, then considered an enormous sum, for Black Warrior; and not long afterward he bought Billy Blossom at a fancy figure.

A political gathering or two enlivened the year 1860. In July, when the local sentiment was, to all appearances, strongly in favor of Breckenridge and Lane, the Democratic candidates for President and Vice-President, one hundred guns were fired in their honor; and great was the jubilation of the Democratic hosts. A later meeting, under the auspices of the Breckenridge Club, was held in front of the Montgomery saloon on Main Street. Judge Dryden presided, and Senator Milton S. Latham was the chief speaker. A number of ladies graced the occasion, some seated in chairs near by and others remaining in their vehicles drawn up in a semicircle before the speaker's stand. As a result of all this effort, the candidates in question did lead in the race here, but only by four votes. On counting the ballots the day after election, it was found that Breckenridge had two hundred and sixty-seven votes, while Douglas, the Independent Democratic nominee, had polled two hundred and sixty-three. Of permanent interest, perhaps, as showing the local sentiment on other questions of the time, is that Lincoln received in Los Angeles only one hundred and seventy-nine votes.

Generally, a candidate persuaded his friends to nominate and endorse him, but now and then one came forward and addressed the public directly. In the fall of 1860, the following announcement appeared in the Southern News:

During my first visit to San Francisco, in the fall of 1853, and while en route to Los Angeles, my attention was called to a line of electric telegraph, then just installed between the Golden Gate and the town, for use in reporting the arrival of vessels. About a month later a line was built from San Francisco to Sacramento, Stockton and around to San José. Nothing further, however, was done toward reaching Southern California with the electric wire until the end of May or the beginning of June, 1860, when President R. E. Raimond and Secretary Fred. J. McCrellish (promoters of the Pacific & Atlantic Telegraph Company, organized in 1858 to reach San António, Texas, and Memphis, Tennessee) came to Los Angeles to lay the matter before our citizens. Stock was soon subscribed for a line through the city and as far as Fort Yuma, and in a few days Banning had fifty teams ready to haul the telegraph poles, which were deposited in time along the proposed route. In the beginning, interest was stimulated by the promise that the telegraph would be in operation by the Fourth of July; but Independence Day came and went, and the best that the telegraph company could do was to make the ambiguous report that there were so and so many "holes in the ground." Worse than that, it was announced, toward the end of July, that the stock of wire had given out; and still worse, that no more could be had this side of the Atlantic States! That news was indeed discouraging; but by the middle of August, twenty tons of wire were known to be on a clipper bound for San Francisco, around the Horn, and five tons were being hurried here by steamer. The wire arrived, in due season, and the most energetic efforts were made to establish telegraphic communication between Los Angeles and San Francisco. It was while McCrellish was slowly returning to the North, in June, that I met him as narrated in a previous chapter.

Finally, at eight o'clock on October 8th, 1860, a few magic words from the North were ticked out in the Los Angeles office of the telegraph company. Two hours later, as those familiar with our local history know, Mayor Henry Mellus sent the following memorable message to H. F. Teschemacher, President of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors:

Whereupon, the next day, President Teschemacher (who, by the way, was a well-known importer, having brought the first almond seed from the Mediterranean in the early fifties) replied to Mayor Mellus:

A ball in Los Angeles fittingly celebrated the event, as will be seen from the following despatch, penned by Henry D. Barrows, who was then Southern California correspondent of the Bulletin:

Barrows' telegram concluded with the statement, highly suggestive of the future commercial possibilities of the telegraph, that the steamer Senator would leave San Pedro that evening with three thousand or more boxes of grapes.

On October 16th, the steamer J. T. Wright, named after the boat-owner and widely advertised as "new, elegant, and fast," arrived at San Pedro, in charge of Captain Robert Haley; and many persons professed to see in her appearance on the scene new hope for beneficial coastwise competition. After three or four trips, however, the steamer was withdrawn.

Leonard John Rose, a German by birth, and brother-in-law of H. K. S. O'Melveny, arrived with his family by the Butterfield Stage Route in November, having fought and conquered, so to speak, every step of his way from Illinois, from which State, two years before, he had set out. Rose and other pioneers tried to reach California along the Thirty-fifth parallel, a route surveyed by Lieutenant Beale but presenting terrific hardships; on the sides of mountains, at times, they had to let down their wagons by ropes, and again they almost died of thirst. The Mojave Indians, too, set upon them and did not desist until seventeen Indians had been killed and nine whites were slain or wounded, Rose himself not escaping injury. With the help of other emigrants, Rose and his family managed to reach Albuquerque, where within two years in the hotel business he acquired fourteen thousand dollars. Then, coming to Los Angeles, he bought from William Wolfskill one hundred and sixty acres near the old Mission of San Gabriel, and so prospered that he was soon able to enlarge his domain to over two thousand acres. He laid out a splendid vineyard and orange grove, and being full of ambition, enterprise and taste, it was not long before he had the show-place of the county.

Apparently, Temple really inaugurated his new theater with the coming to Los Angeles in November of that year of "the Great Star Company of Stark & Ryer," as well as with the announcement made at the time by their management: "This is the first advent of a theatrical company here." Stark & Ryer were in Los Angeles for a week or two; and though I should not vouch for them as stars, the little hall was crowded each night, and almost to suffocation. There were no fire ordinances then as to filling even the aisles and the window-sills, nor am I sure that the conventional fire-pail, more often empty than filled with water, stood anywhere about; but just as many tickets were sold, regardless of the seating capacity. Tragedy gave way, alternately, to comedy, one of the evenings being devoted to The Honeymoon; and as this was not quite long enough to satisfy the onlookers, who had neither trains nor boats to catch, there was an after-piece. In those days, when Los Angeles was entirely dependent on the North for theatrical and similar talent, it sometimes happened that the steamer was delayed or that the "star" failed to catch the ship and so could not arrive when expected; as a result of which patrons, who had journeyed in from the ranches, had to journey home again with their curiosity and appetite for the histrionic unsatisfied.

Prisoners, especially Indians, were employed on public works. As late as November, 1860, the Water Overseer was empowered to take out any Indians who might be in the calaboose, and to use them for repairing the highways and bridges.

About 1860, Nathan Jacoby came to Los Angeles, on my invitation, as I had known him in Europe; and he was with me about a year. When I sold out, he entered the employ of M. Kremer and later went into business for himself. As the senior partner of Jacoby Brothers, he died suddenly in 1911. Associated with Nathan at different periods were his brothers, Herman, Abraham, Morris, Charles and Lesser Jacoby, all of them early arrivals. Of this group, Charles and Lesser, both active in business circles in their day, are also dead.

Toward the end of 1860, Solomon Lazard returned to France, to visit his mother; but no sooner had he arrived at his old home and registered, according to law, with the police, than he was arrested, charged with having left his fatherland at the age of seventeen, without having performed military duty. In spite of his American citizenship, he was tried by court-martial and sentenced to a short imprisonment; but through the intervention of the United States Minister, Charles J. Faulkner—the author of the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850—and the clemency of the Emperor Napoleon III., he was finally released. He had to furnish a substitute, however, or pay a fine of fifteen hundred francs; and he paid the fine. At length, notwithstanding his unpleasant experience, Lazard arrived in Los Angeles about the middle of March, 1861.

Tired of the wretched sidewalks, John Temple, in December, 1860, set to work to introduce an improvement in front of his Main Street block, an experiment that was watched with interest. Bricks were covered with a thick coating of asphalt brought from La Brea Ranch, which was smoothed while still warm and then sprinkled with sand; the combination promising great durability. In the summer season, however, the coating became soft and gluey, and was not comfortable to walk upon.

I have already spoken of the effect of heat and age on foodstuffs such as eggs and butter, when brought over the hot desert between San Bernardino and Los Angeles. This disadvantage continued for years; nor was the succeeding plan of bringing provisions from San Francisco and the North by way of the ocean without its obstacles. A. Ulyard, the baker, realized the situation, and in December advertised "fresh crackers, baked in Los Angeles, and superior to those half spoiled by the sea voyage."

Previous to the days of warehouses, and much before the advent of railroads, the public hay-scale was an institution, having been constructed by Francis Mellus in the dim past. Exposed to the elements, it stood alone out in the center of Los Angeles Street, somewhat south of Aliso; and in the lawless times of the young town was a silent witness to the numerous crimes perpetrated in the adjacent Calle de Los Negros. Onto its rough platform the neighboring farmers drove their heavy loads, often waiting an hour or two for the arrival of the owner, who alone had the key to its mysterious mechanism. Speaking of this lack of a warehouse brings to my mind the pioneer of 1850, Edouard Naud, who first attracted attention as a clever pastryman with a little shop on Commercial Street where he made a specialty of lady-fingers—selling them at fifty cents a dozen. Engaging in the wool industry, he later become interested in wool and this led him in 1878 to erect Naud's warehouse on Alameda Street, at present known as the Union Warehouse.[21] Naud died in 1881. His son, Edward, born in Los Angeles, is famous as an amateur chef who can prepare a French dinner that even a professional might be proud of.

In May, as elsewhere stated, Henry Mellus was elected Mayor of Los Angeles; and on the twenty-sixth of December he died—the first to yield that office to the inexorable demands of Death. The news of his demise called forth unfeigned expressions of regret; for Mellus was not only a man of marked ability, but he was of genial temperament and the soul of honor.

CHAPTER XX
THE RUMBLINGS OF WAR
1861

The year 1861 dawned dark and foreboding. On the twentieth of the preceding December, South Carolina had seceded, and along the Pacific, as elsewhere, men were anxiously wondering what would happen next. Threats and counter-threats clearly indicated the disturbed state of the public mind; and when, near Charleston Harbor, a hostile shot was fired at the Star of the West, the certainty of further trouble, particularly with the coming inauguration of Lincoln, was everywhere felt.

Aside, however, from these disturbing events so much affecting commercial life, the year, sandwiched between two wet seasons, was in general a prosperous one. There were evil effects of the heavy rains, and business in the spring was rather dull; but cattlemen, upon whose success so many other people depended, took advantage of the favoring conditions and profited accordingly.

During the period of the flood in 1859-60, the river, as we have seen, was impassable, and for months there was so much water in the bed, ordinarily dry, that foot-passage was interrupted. In January, 1861, therefore, the Common Council, under the influence of one of its members, E. Moulton, whose dairy was in East Los Angeles, provided a flimsy foot-bridge in his neighborhood. If my memory serves me, construction was delayed, and so the bridge escaped the next winter's flood, though it went down years later.

On January 9th, the schooner Lewis Perry arrived at anchorage, to be towed across the bar and to the wharf by the little steamer[22] Comet. This was the first sea-going vessel that had ever visited New San Pedro with a full cargo, and demonstrated, it was thought by many, that the port was easily navigable by vessels drawing eleven feet of water or less! Comments of all kinds were made upon this event, one scribe writing:

John M. Griffith came to Los Angeles in 1861, having four years previously married a sister of John J. Tomlinson. With the latter he formed a partnership in the passenger and freight-carrying business, their firm competing with Banning & Company until 1868, when Tomlinson died.

This same year, at the age of about eighteen, Eugene Meyer arrived. He first clerked for Solomon Lazard, in the retail dry-goods business; and in 1867 he was admitted into partnership. On November 20th of that year Meyer married Miss Harriet, the youngest daughter of Joseph Newmark—who officiated.

Felix Bachman, who came in 1853, was at various times in partnership with Philip Sichel (after whom Sichel Street is named, and Councilman in 1862), Samuel Laubheim and Ben Schloss, the firm being known as Bachman & Company; and on Los Angeles Street near Commercial they carried on the largest business in town. Bachman secured much Salt Lake trade and in 1861 opposed high freight rates; but although well off when he left here, he died a poor man in San Francisco, at the age of nearly one hundred years.

In 1861, Adolph Junge arrived and established a drug-store in the Temple Block, his only competitor being Theodore Wollweber; and there he continued for nearly twenty years, one of his prescription books, now in the County Museum, evidencing his activity. For a while, F. J. Gieze, the well-known druggist for so many years on North Main Street, and an arrival of '74, clerked for Junge. At the beginning of the sixties, Dr. A. B. Hayward practiced medicine here, his office being next to Workman Brothers' saddlery, on Main Street. Wollweber's name recalls a practical joke of the late sixties, when some waggish friend raised the cry that there was a bear across the river, and induced my Teutonic neighbor to go in hot pursuit. After bracing himself for the supreme effort, Wollweber shot the beast dead; only to learn that the bear, a blind and feeble animal, was a favorite pet, and that it would take just twenty-five dollars to placate the irate owner!

The absence in general of shade trees was so noticeable that when John Temple, on January 31st, planted a row facing Temple Building there was the usual town gossip. Charley Ducommon followed Temple's example. Previously, there had been several wide-spreading trees in front of the Bella Union hotel, and it came to pass within the next five years that many pepper-trees adorned the streets.

In 1861, the Post Office was removed from North Spring Street to a frame building on Main Street, opposite Commercial. About the same time when, owing to floods, no mail arrived for three or four weeks and someone facetiously hung out a sign announcing the office "To Let!" the Washington postal authorities began issuing stamped envelopes, of the values of twelve and twenty-four cents, for those business men of Los Angeles and the Pacific Coast who were likely to use the recently-developed Pony Express.

Matthew Keller, or Don Mateo, as he was called, who died in 1881, was a quaint personality of real ability, who had a shop on the northwest corner of Los Angeles and Commercial streets, and owned the adjoining store in which P. Beaudry had been in business. His operations were original and his advertising unique, as will be seen from his announcement in the Star in February:

Which warning was followed, in the next issue, by this:

This later advertisement, with the line in parenthesis, continued to be printed, week after week, without change, for at least twelve months.

The following year, Keller, in flaring headlines, offered for sale the front of his Los Angeles vineyard, facing on Aliso Street, in building lots of twenty by one hundred feet, saying, in his prospectus:

Nathaniel Pryor—sometimes known as Don Miguel N. Pryor or Prior—is the pioneer referred to by Keller. At the age of thirty, it is said, in 1828, he came here, and fifteen or twenty years later, about the time that he was a Regidor or Councilman, was one of eight or ten Easterners who had farms within the pueblo district. His property, in part a vineyard, included what is now Commercial to First streets and possibly from Los Angeles Street to the river; on it was an adobe which is still standing on Jackson Street, and is the only mud-brick structure in that section. For a while, and probably because he had loaned Pryor some money, F. P. F. Temple had an interest in the estate. Pryor was twice married, having a son, Charles, by his first wife, and a son, Nathaniel, Jr., by his second. Pablo Pryor of San Juan was another son. The first Mrs. Pryor died about 1840, and is one of the few—with the mother of Pio Pico—buried inside of the old church at the Plaza. The second Mrs. Pryor, who inherited the property, died about 1857. A granddaughter, Mrs. Lottie Pryor, is a surviving member of this family.

During the administration of Padre Blas Raho, a genial, broad-minded Italian, several attempts were made, beginning with 1857 or 1858, to improve the old church at the Plaza; and in 1861, the historic edifice, so long unchanged, was practically rebuilt. The front adobe wall, which had become damaged by rains, was taken down and reconstructed of brick; some alterations were made in the tower; and the interesting old tiled roof was replaced—to the intense regret of later and more appreciative generations—with modern, less durable shingles. A fence was provided, and trees, bushes and plants were set out. The church was also frescoed, inside and out, by Henri Penelon, the French pioneer artist and photographer, who painted upon the wall the following inscription:

Los Fieles de Esta Parroquia á la Reina de los Angeles, 1861.[23]

Early in March, Sanchez Street was opened by the Common Council. It was opposite the northern section of Arcadia Block, passed through the properties of Sanchez, Pico, Coronel and others, and terminated at the Plaza.

The Los Angeles Mounted Rifles, part of the five thousand militia wanted by California, was organized on March 6th at a meeting in the Court House presided over by George W. Gift, with M. J. Newmark, who became an officer in the company, as Secretary.

Late in March, John Fröhling rented from the City Fathers a space under the Temple Market building for a wine cellar; and in December, 1860, at the close of his vintage, when he had conducted a hearty harvest-home celebration, he filled the vault with pipes and other casks containing twenty thousand or more gallons of native wines. In a corner, a bar was speedily built; and by many Angeleños that day not associated with at least one pilgrimage to Fröhling's cool and rather obscure recesses was considered incomplete.

Few who witnessed the momentous events of 1861 will forget the fever-heat of the nation. The startling news of the attack on Fort Sumter took twelve days by Pony Express to reach the Coast, the overland telegraph not being completed until six months later; but when, on the twenty-fourth of April, the last messenger in the relay of riders dashed into San Francisco with the story, an excited population was soon seething about the streets. San Francisco instantly flashed the details south, awakening here much the same mingled feelings of elation and sorrow.

When the war thus broke out, Albert Sidney Johnston, a fellow-townsman who had married a sister of Dr. J. S. Griffin, and who, in 1857, had successfully placed Utah under Federal control, resigned from his command as head of the Department of the Pacific—General Edwin V. Sumner succeeding him—and, being a Southerner, left for the South, by way of Warner's Ranch and the Overland Route, with about a hundred companions, most of whom were intercepted at Fort Yuma through the orders of Captain W. S. Hancock. According to Senator Cornelius Cole, Sumner arrived at Johnston's headquarters in San Francisco after dark; and in spite of Johnston's protest, insisted on assuming command at once. Johnston took up arms for the Confederacy, and was made a Brigadier-General; but at Shiloh he was killed, the news of his death causing here the sincerest regret. I shall speak of the loss of one of General Johnston's sons in the disaster to the Ada Hancock; another son, William Preston, became President of Tulane University.

Others of our more enthusiastic Southerners, such as Cameron E. Thom and J. Lancaster Brent, also joined the Rebellion and proceeded to the seat of war. Thom, who has since attained much distinction, returned to Los Angeles, where he is still living[24]. Brent never came back here, having settled near New Orleans; and there I again met him, while I was attending the Exposition. He had fought through the War, becoming a General before its close; and he told me that he had been arrested by Federal officers while on his way to the South from Los Angeles, but had made his escape.

Among the very few who went to the front on the Union side and returned here was Charles Meyrs Jenkins, already referred to as a city Zanjero. Owing to the possible need of troops here, as well as to the cost of transportation, volunteers from the Pacific slope were not called for and Jenkins joined an Eastern cavalry battalion organized in October, 1862. Even then, he and his comrades were compelled to pay their own way to the Atlantic seaboard, where they were incorporated into the Second Massachusetts Cavalry. Jenkins engaged in twenty battles, and for fifteen months was a prisoner of war confined at both Andersonville and Libby; suffering such terrible hardships that he was but one of three, out of a hundred and fifty of his battalion, who came out alive.

Not everyone possibly even among those familiar with the building of the Los Angeles & San Pedro Railroad, knows that an effort was made, as far back as 1861, to finance a railroad here. About the middle of February in that year, Murray Morrison and Abel Stearns, Assemblymen, learned of the willingness of Eastern capitalists to build such a road within eighteen months, providing the County would subscribe one hundred thousand dollars toward the undertaking, and the City fifty thousand. The Legislature therefore on May 17th, 1861, granted the franchise; but important as was the matter to our entire district, nothing further was done until 1863 to give life to the movement.

For almost a decade after I came here, St. Valentine's Day was seldom observed in Los Angeles; but about 1861 or 1862, the annual exchange of decorated cards, with their sentimental verses, came to be somewhat general.

Phineas Banning was a staunch Republican and an ardent Abolitionist; and it was not extraordinary that on May 25th, at a grand Union demonstration in Los Angeles, he should have been selected to present to the Union Club, in his characteristically vigorous manner, an American flag made for the occasion. Columbus Sims, as President, accepted the emblem, after which there was a procession, led by the First Dragoons' band, many participants being on horseback. In those days such a procession had done its duty when it tramped along Main Street and around the Plaza and back, by way of Spring Street, as far as First; and everyone was in the right frame of mind to hear and enjoy the patriotic speeches made by Captain Winfield Scott Hancock, General Ezra Drown and Major James Henry Carleton, while in the distance was fired a salute of thirty-four guns—one for each State in the Union.

Senator William McKendree Gwin was another man of prominence. Following his search for gold with the Forty-niners—due, he used to say, to advice from John C. Calhoun, who, probably taking his cue from Dana's prophecy in Two Years Before the Mast, one day put his finger on the map and predicted that, should the bay now called San Francisco ever be possessed by Americans, a city rivaling New York would spring up on its shores—Gwin came to Los Angeles occasionally, and never forgot to visit me at my home. In 1861, he was arrested by the Federal Government for his known sympathy with the South, and was kept a prisoner for a couple of years; after which he went to France and there planned to carry through, under force of arms, the colonization of Sonora, Mexico, depending in vain on Napoleon III. and Maximilian for support. Notwithstanding this futile effort, Gwin became a leader in national Democratic councils, and was an intimate adviser of Samuel J. Tilden in his historic campaign.

Oscar Macy, son of Dr. Obed Macy, having as a newspaper man enthusiastically advocated the election of Frémont in 1856, was appointed, on Lincoln's inauguration, to the Collectorship of Customs at San Pedro; a post which he continued to fill even after the office had been reduced to an inspectorship, later resigning in favor of George C. Alexander. This recalls another appointment by Lincoln—that of Major António María Pico, a nephew of Pio Pico, to the Receivership of Public Moneys at Los Angeles. Pico lived at San José; and finding that his new duties exiled him from his family, he soon resigned the office.

Old-time barbers, as the reader may be aware, were often surgeons, and the arrival in Commercial Street, in the early sixties, of J. A. Meyer, "late of San Francisco," was announced in part as follows: