Richard Laughlin died at his vineyard, on the east side of Alameda Street, in or soon after 1855. Like William Wolfskill, Ewing Young—who fitted out the Wolfskill party—and Moses Carson, brother of the better-known Kit and at one time a trader at San Pedro, Laughlin was a trapper who made his way to Los Angeles along the Gila River. This was a waterway of the savage Apache country traversed even in 1854—according to the lone ferryman's statistics—by nearly ten thousand persons. In middle life, Laughlin supported himself by carpentry and hunting.

With the increase in the number and activity of the Chinese in California, the prejudice of the masses was stirred up violently. This feeling found expression particularly in 1855, when a law was passed by the Legislature, imposing a fine of fifty dollars on each owner or master of a vessel bringing to California anyone incapable of becoming a citizen; but when suit was instituted, to test the act's validity, it was declared unconstitutional. At that time, most of the opposition to the Chinese came from San Franciscans, there being but few coolies here.

Certain members of the same Legislature led a movement to form a new State, to be called Colorado and to include all the territory south of San Luis Obispo; and the matter was repeatedly discussed in several subsequent sessions. Nothing came of it, however; but Kern County was formed, in 1866, partly from Los Angeles County and partly from Tulare. About five thousand square miles, formerly under our County banner, were thus legislated away; and because the mountainous and desert area seemed of little prospective value, we submitted willingly. In this manner, unenlightened by modern science and ignorant of future possibilities, Southern California, guided by no clear and certain vision, drifted and stumbled along to its destiny.

About the beginning of 1856, Sisters of Charity made their first appearance in Los Angeles, following a meeting called by Bishop Amat during the preceding month, to provide for their coming, when Abel Stearns presided and John G. Downey acted as Secretary. Benjamin Hayes, Thomas Foster, Ezra Drown, Louis Vignes, Ygnácio del Valle and António Coronel coöperated, while Manuel Requena collected the necessary funds. On January 5th, Sisters María Scholastica, María Corzina, Ana, Clara, Francisca and Angela arrived—three of them coming almost directly from Spain; and immediately they formed an important adjunct to the Church in matters pertaining to religion, charity and education. It was to them that B. D. Wilson sold his Los Angeles home, including ten acres of fine orchard, at the corner of Alameda and Macy streets, for eight thousand dollars; and there for many years they conducted their school, the Institute and Orphan Asylum, until they sold the property to J. M. Griffith, who used the site for a lumber-yard. Griffith, in turn, disposed of it to the Southern Pacific Railroad Company. Sister Scholastica, who celebrated in 1889 her fiftieth anniversary as a sister, was long the Mother Superior.

The so-called First Public School having met with popular approval, the Board of Education in 1856 opened another school on Bath Street. The building, two stories in height, was of brick and had two rooms.

On January 9th, John P. Brodie assumed charge of the Southern Californian. Andrés Pico was then proprietor; and before the newspaper died, in 1857, Pico lost, it is said, ten thousand dollars in the venture.

The first regular course of public lectures here was given in 1856 under the auspices of a society known as the Mechanics' Institute, and in one of Henry Dalton's corrugated iron buildings.

George T. Burrill, first County Sheriff, died on February 2d, his demise bringing to mind an interesting story. He was Sheriff, in the summer of 1850, when certain members of the infamous Irving party were arraigned for murder, and during that time received private word that many of the prisoners' friends would pack the little court room and attempt a rescue. Burrill, however, who used to wear a sword and had a rather soldierly bearing, was equal to the emergency. He quickly sent to Major E. H. Fitzgerald and had the latter come post-haste to town and court with a detachment of soldiers; and with this superior, disciplined force he overawed the bandits' compañeros who, sure enough, were there and fully armed to make a demonstration.

Thomas E. Rowan arrived here with his father, James Rowan, in 1856, and together they opened a bakery. Tom delivered the bread for a short time, but soon abandoned that pursuit for politics, being frequently elected to office, serving in turn as Supervisor, City and County Treasurer and even, from 1893 to 1894, as Mayor of Los Angeles. Shortly before Tom married Miss Josephine Mayerhofer in San Francisco in 1862—and a handsome couple they made—the Rowans bought from Louis Mesmer the American Bakery, located at the southwest corner of Main and First streets and originally established by August Ulyard. When James Rowan died about forty years ago, Tom fell heir to the bakery; but as he was otherwise engaged, he employed Maurice Maurício as manager, and P. Galta, afterward a prosperous business man of Bakersfield, as driver. Tom, who died in 1899, was also associated as cashier with I. W. Hellman and F. P. F. Temple in their bank. Rowan Avenue and Rowan Street were both named after this early comer.

The time for the return of my brother and his European bride now approached, and I felt a natural desire to meet them. Almost coincident, therefore, with their arrival in San Francisco, I was again in that growing city in 1856, although I had been there but the year previous.

On April 9th, occurred the marriage of Matilda, daughter of Joseph Newmark, to Maurice Kremer. The ceremony was performed by the bride's father. For the subsequent festivities, ice, from which ice cream was made, was brought from San Bernardino; both luxuries on this occasion being used in Los Angeles, as far as I can remember, for the first time.

To return to the Los Angeles Star. When J. S. Waite became Postmaster, in 1855, he found it no sinecure to continue even such an unpretentious and, in all likelihood, unprofitable news-sheet and at the same time attend to Uncle Sam's mail-bags; and early in 1856 he offered "the entire establishment at one thousand dollars less than cost." Business was so slow at that time, in fact, that Waite—after, perhaps, ruefully looking over his unpaid subscriptions—announced that he would "take wood, butter, eggs, flour, wheat or corn" in payment of bills due. He soon found a ready customer in William A. Wallace, the Principal of the boys' school who, on the twelfth of April, bought the paper; but Waite's disgust was nothing to that of the schoolteacher who, after two short months' trial with the editorial quill, scribbled a last doleful adiós. "The flush times of the pueblo, the day of large prices and pocket-books, are past," Wallace declared; and before him the editor saw "only picayunes, bad liquor, rags and universal dullness, when neither pistol-shots nor dying groans" could have any effect, and "when earthquakes would hardly turn men in their beds!" Nothing was left for such a destitute and discouraged quillman "but to wait for a carreta and get out of town." Wallace sold the paper, therefore, in June, 1856, to Henry Hamilton, a native of Ireland who had come to California in 1848 an apprenticed printer, and was for some years in newspaper work in San Francisco; and Hamilton soon put new life into the journal.

In 1856, the many-sided Dr. William B. Osburn organized a company to bore an artesian well west of the city; but when it reached a depth of over seven hundred feet, the prospectors went into bankruptcy.

George Lehman, early known as George the Baker (whose shop at one time was on the site of the Hayward Hotel), was a somewhat original and very popular character who, in 1856, took over the Round House on Main Street, between Third and Fourth, and there opened a pleasure-resort extending to Spring Street and known as the Garden of Paradise. The grounds really occupied on the one hand what are now the sites of the Pridham, the Pinney and the Turnverein, and on the other the Henne, the Breed and the Lankershim blocks. There was an entrance on Main Street and one, with two picket gates, on Spring. From the general shape and appearance of the building, it was always one of the first objects in town to attract attention; and Lehman (who, when he appeared on the street, had a crooked cane hanging on his arm and a lemon in his hand), came to be known as "Round House George." The house had been erected in the late forties by Raimundo, generally called Ramón, or Raymond Alexander, a sailor, who asserted that the design was a copy of a structure he had once seen on the coast of Africa; and there Ramón and his native California wife had lived for many years. Partly because he wished to cover the exterior with vines and flowers, Lehman nailed boards over the outer adobe walls and thus changed the cylinder form into that of an octagon. An ingenious arrangement of the parterre and a peculiar distribution of some trees, together with a profusion of plants and flowers—affording cool and shady bowers, somewhat similar to those of a typical beer or wine garden of the Fatherland—gave the place great popularity; while two heroic statues—one of Adam and the other of Eve—with a conglomeration of other curiosities, including the Apple Tree and the Serpent—all illustrating the world-old story of Eden—and a moving panorama made the Garden unique and rather famous. The balcony of the house provided accommodation for the playing of such music, perhaps discordant, as Los Angeles could then produce, and nearby was a framework containing a kind of swing then popular and known as "flying horses." The bar was in the Garden, near a well-sweep; and at the Main Street entrance stood a majestic and noted cactus tree which was cut down in 1886. The Garden of Paradise was opened toward the end of September, 1858, and so large were the grounds that when they were used, in 1876, for the Fourth of July celebration, twenty-six hundred people were seated there.

This leads me to say that Arthur McKenzie Dodson, who established a coal- and wood-yard at what was later the corner of Spring and Sixth streets, started there a little community which he called Georgetown—as a compliment, it was said, to the famous Round House George whose bakery, I have remarked, was located on that corner.

On June 7th, Dr. John S. Griffin, who had an old fashioned, classical education, and was a graduate, in medicine, of the University of Pennsylvania, succeeded Dr. William B. Osburn as Superintendent of the Los Angeles City Schools.

In these times of modern irrigation and scientific methods, it is hard to realize how disastrous were climatic extremes in an earlier day: in 1856, a single electric disturbance, accompanied by intense heat and sandstorms, left tens of thousands of dead cattle to tell the story of drought and destruction.

During the summer, I had occasion to go to Fort Tejón to see George C. Alexander, a customer, and I again asked Sam Meyer if he would accompany me. Such a proposition was always agreeable to Sam; and, having procured horses, we started, the distance being about one hundred and fifteen miles.

We left Los Angeles early one afternoon, and made our first stop at Lyons's Station, where we put up for the night. One of the brothers, after whom the place was named, prepared supper. Having to draw some thick blackstrap from a keg, he used a pitcher to catch the treacle; and as the liquid ran very slowly, our sociable host sat down to talk a bit, and soon forgot all about what he had started to do. The molasses, however, although it ran pretty slowly, ran steadily, and finally, like the mush in the fairy-tale of the enchanted bowl, overflowed the top of the receptacle and spread itself over the dirt floor. When Lyons had finished his chat, he saw, to his intense chagrin, a new job upon his hands, and one likely to busy him for some time.

Departing next morning at five o'clock we met Cy Lyons, who had come to Los Angeles in 1849 and was then engaged with his brother Sanford in raising sheep in that neighborhood. Cy was on horseback and had two pack animals, loaded with provisions. "Hello, boys! where are you bound?" he asked; and when we told him that we were on our way to Fort Tejón, he said that he was also going there, and volunteered to save us forty miles by guiding us over the trail. Such a shortening of our journey appealed to us as a good prospect, and we fell in behind the mounted guide.

It was one of those red-hot summer days characteristic of that region and season, and in a couple of hours we began to get very thirsty. Noticing this, Cy told us that no water would be found until we got to the Rancho de la Liebre, and that we could not possibly reach there until evening. Having no bota de agua handy, I took an onion from Lyons's pack and ate it, and that afforded me some relief; but Sam, whose decisions were always as lasting as the fragrance of that aromatic bulb, would not try the experiment. To make a long story short, when we at last reached the ranch, Sam, completely fagged out, and unable to alight from his horse, toppled off into our arms. The chewing of the onion had refreshed me to some extent, but just the same the day's journey proved one of the most miserable experiences through which I have ever passed.

The night was so hot at the ranch that we decided to sleep outdoors in one of the wagons; and being worn out with the day's exposure and fatigue, we soon fell asleep. The soundness of our slumbers did not prevent us from hearing, in the middle of the night, a snarling bear, scratching in the immediate neighborhood. A bear generally means business; and you may depend upon it that neither Sam, myself nor even Cy were very long in bundling out of the wagon and making a dash for the more protecting house. Early next morning, we recommenced our journey toward Fort Tejón, and reached there without any further adventures worth relating.

Coming back, we stopped for the night at Gordon's Station, and the next day rode fully seventy miles—not so inconsiderable an accomplishment, perhaps, for those not accustomed to regular saddle exercise.

A few months later, I met Cy on the street. "Harris," said he, "do you know that once, on that hot day going to Fort Tejón, we were within three hundred feet of a fine, cool spring?" "Then why in the devil," I retorted, "didn't you take us to it?" To which Cy, with a chuckle, answered: "Well, I just wanted to see what would happen to you!"

My first experience with camp meetings was in the year 1856, when I attended one in company with Miss Sarah Newmark, to whom I was then engaged, and Miss Harriet, her sister—later Mrs. Eugene Meyer. I engaged a buggy from George Carson's livery stable on Main Street; and we rode to Ira Thompson's grove at El Monte, in which the meeting was held. These camp meetings supplied a certain amount of social attraction to residents, in that good-hearted period when creeds formed a bond rather than a hindrance.

It was in 1856 that, in connection with our regular business, we began buying hides. One day a Mexican customer came into the store and, looking around, said: "¿Compra cueros?" (Do you buy hides?) "Sí, señor," I replied, to which he then said: "Tengo muchos en mi rancho" (I have many at my ranch). "Where do you live?" I asked. "Between Cahuenga and San Fernando Mission," he answered. He had come to town in his carreta, and added that he would conduct me to his place, if I wished to go there.

I obtained a wagon and, accompanied by Samuel Cohn, went with the Mexican. The native jogged on, carreta-fashion, the oxen lazily plodding along, while the driver with his ubiquitous pole kept them in the road by means of continual and effective prods, delivered first on one side, then on the other. It was dark when we reached the ranch; and the night being balmy, we wrapped ourselves up in blankets, and slept under the adobe veranda.

Early in the morning, I awoke and took a survey of the premises. To my amazement, I saw but one little kipskin hanging up to dry! When at length my Mexican friend appeared on the scene, I asked him where he kept his hides? (¿Donde tiene usted los cueros?) At which he pointed to the lone kip and, with a characteristic and perfectly indifferent shrug of the shoulders, said: "¡No tengo más!" (I have no more!)

I then deliberated with Sam as to what we should do; and having proceeded to San Fernando Mission to collect there, if possible, a load of hides, we were soon fortunate in obtaining enough to compensate us for our previous trouble and disappointment. On the way home, we came to a rather deep ditch preventing further progress. Being obliged, however, to get to the other side, we decided to throw the hides into the ditch, placing one on top of the other, until the obstructing gap was filled to a level with the road; and then we drove across, if not on dry land, at least on dry hides, which we reloaded onto the wagon. Finally, we reached town at a late hour.

In this connection, I may remind the reader of Dana's statement, in his celebrated Two Years before the Mast, that San Pedro once furnished more hides than any other port on the Coast; and may add that from the same port, more than forty years afterward, consignments of this valuable commodity were still being made, I myself being engaged more and more extensively in the hide trade.

Colonel Isaac Williams died on September 13th, having been a resident of Los Angeles and vicinity nearly a quarter of a century. A Pennsylvanian by birth, he had with him in the West a brother, Hiram, later of San Bernardino County. Happy as was most of Colonel Williams' life, tragedy entered his family circle, as I shall show, when both of his sons-in-law, John Rains and Robert Carlisle, met violent deaths at the hands of others.

Jean Louis Vignes came to Los Angeles in 1829, and set out the Aliso Vineyard of one hundred and four acres which derived its name, as did the street, from a previous and incorrect application of the Castilian aliso, meaning alder, to the sycamore tree, a big specimen of which stood on the place. This tree, possibly a couple of hundred years old, long shaded Vignes' wine-cellars, and was finally cut down a few years ago to make room for the Philadelphia Brew House. From a spot about fifty feet away from the Vignes adobe extended a grape arbor perhaps ten feet in width and fully a quarter of a mile long, thus reaching to the river; and this arbor was associated with many of the early celebrations in Los Angeles. The northern boundary of the property was Aliso Street; its western boundary was Alameda; and part of it was surrounded by a high adobe wall, inside of which, during the troubles of the Mexican War, Don Louis enjoyed a far safer seclusion than many others. On June 7th, 1851, Vignes advertised El Aliso for sale, but it was not subdivided until much later, when Eugene Meyer and his associates bought it for this purpose. Vignes Street recalls the veteran viticulturist.

While upon the subject of this substantial old pioneer family, I may give a rather interesting reminiscence as to the state of Aliso Street at this time. I have said that this street was the main road from Los Angeles to the San Bernardino country; and so it was. But in the fifties, Aliso Street stopped very abruptly at the Sainsevain Vineyard, where it narrowed down to one of the willow-bordered, picturesque little lanes so frequently found here, and paralleled the noted grape-arbor as far as the river-bank. At this point, Andrew Boyle and other residents of the Heights and beyond were wont to cross the stream on their way to and from town. The more important travel was by means of another lane known as the Aliso Road, turning at a corner occupied by the old Aliso Mill and winding along the Hoover Vineyard to the river. Along this route the San Bernardino stage rolled noisily, traversing in summer or during a poor season what was an almost dry wash, but encountering in wet winter raging torrents so impassable that all intercourse with the settlements to the east was disturbed. For a whole week, on several occasions, the San Bernardino stage was tied up, and once at least Andrew Boyle, before he had become conversant with the vagaries of the Los Angeles River, found it impossible for the better part of a fortnight to come to town for the replenishment of a badly-depleted larder. Lovers' Lane, willowed and deep with dust, was a narrow road now variously located in the minds of pioneers; my impression being that it followed the line of the present Date Street, although some insist that it was Macy.

Pierre Sainsevain, a nephew of Vignes, came in 1839 and for a while worked for his uncle. Jean Louis Sainsevain, another nephew, arrived in Los Angeles in 1849 or soon after, and on April 14th, 1855, purchased for forty-two thousand dollars the vineyard, cellars and other property of his uncle. This was the same year in which he returned to France for his son Michel and remarried, leaving another son, Paul, in school there. Pierre joined his brother; and in 1857 Sainsevain Brothers made the first California champagne, first shipping their wine to San Francisco. Paul, now a resident of San Diego, came to Los Angeles in 1861. The name endures in Sainsevain Street.

The activity of these Frenchmen reminds me that much usually characteristic of country life was present in what was called the city of Los Angeles, when I first saw it, as may be gathered from the fact that, in 1853, there were a hundred or more vineyards hereabouts, seventy-five or eighty of which were within the city precincts. These did not include the once famous "mother vineyard" of San Gabriel Mission, which the padres used to claim had about fifty thousand vines, but which had fallen into somewhat picturesque decay. Near San Gabriel, however, in 1855, William M. Stockton had a large vineyard nursery. William Wolfskill was one of the leading vineyardists, having set out his first vine, so it was said, in 1838, when he affirmed his belief that the plant, if well cared for, would flourish a hundred years! Don José Serrano, from whom Dr. Leonce Hoover bought many of the grapes he needed, did have vines, it was declared, that were nearly a century old. When I first passed through San Francisco, en route to Los Angeles, I saw grapes from this section in the markets of that city bringing twenty cents a pound; and to such an extent for a while did San Francisco continue to draw on Los Angeles for grapes, that Banning shipped thither from San Pedro, in 1857, no less than twenty-one thousand crates, averaging forty-five pounds each. It was not long, however, before ranches nearer San Francisco began to interfere with this monopoly of the South, and, as, a consequence, the shipment of grapes from Los Angeles fell off. This reminds me that William Wolfskill sent to San Francisco some of the first Northern grapes sold there; they were grown in a Napa Valley vineyard that he owned in the middle of the fifties, and when unloaded on the Long Wharf, three or four weeks in advance of Los Angeles grapes, brought at wholesale twenty-five dollars per hundred weight!

With the decline in the fresh fruit trade, however, the making and exportation of wine increased, and several who had not ventured into vineyarding before, now did so, acquiring their own land or an interest in the establishments of others. By 1857, Jean Louis Vignes boasted of possessing some white wine twenty years old—possibly of the same vintage about which Dr. Griffin often talked, in his reminiscences of the days when he had been an army surgeon; and Louis Wilhart occasionally sold wine which was little inferior to that of Jean Louis. Dr. Hoover was one of the first to make wine for the general market, having, for a while, a pretty and well-situated place called the Clayton Vineyard; and old Joseph Huber, who had come to California from Kentucky for his health, began in 1855 to make wine with considerable success. He owned the Foster Vineyard, where he died in July, 1866. B. D. Wilson was also soon shipping wine to San Francisco. L. J. Rose, who first entered the field in January, 1861, at Sunny Slope, not far from San Gabriel Mission, was another producer, and had a vineyard famous for brandy and wine. He made a departure in going to the foothills, and introduced many varieties of foreign grapes. By the same year, or somewhat previously, Matthew Keller, Stearns & Bell, Dr. Thomas J. White, Dr. Parrott, Kiln Messer, Henry Dalton, H. D. Barrows, Juan Bernard and Ricardo Vejar had wineries, and John Schumacher had a vineyard opposite the site of the City Gardens in the late seventies. L. H. Titus, in time, had a vineyard, known as the Dewdrop, near that of Rose. Still another wine producer was António María Lugo, who set out his vines on San Pedro Street, near the present Second, and often dwelt in the long adobe house where both Steve Foster, Lugo's son-in-law, and Mrs. Wallace Woodworth lived, and where I have been many times pleasantly entertained.

Dr. Leonce Hoover, who died on October 8th, 1862, was a native of Switzerland and formerly a surgeon in the army of Napoleon, when his name—later changed at the time of naturalization—had been Huber. Dr. Hoover in 1849 came to Los Angeles with his wife, his son, Vincent A. Hoover, then a young man, and two daughters, the whole family traveling by ox-team and prairie schooner. They soon discovered rich placer gold-beds, but were driven away by hostile Indians. A daughter, Mary A., became the wife of Samuel Briggs, a New Hampshire Yankee, who was for years Wells Fargo's agent here. For a while the Hoovers lived on the Wolfskill Ranch, after which they had a vineyard in the neighborhood of what is now the property of the Cudahy Packing Company. Vincent Hoover was a man of prominence in his time; he died in 1883. Mrs. Briggs, whose daughter married the well-known physician, Dr. Granville MacGowan, sold her home, on Broadway between Third and Fourth streets, to Homer Laughlin when he erected the Laughlin Building. Hoover Street is named for this family.

Accompanied by his son William, Joseph Huber, Sr., in 1855 came to Los Angeles from Kentucky, hoping to improve his health; and when the other members of his family, consisting of his wife and children, Caroline, Emeline, Edward and Joseph, followed him here, in 1859, by way of New York and the Isthmus, they found him settled as a vineyardist, occupying the Foster property running from Alameda Street to the river, in a section between Second and Sixth streets. The advent of a group of young people, so well qualified to add to what has truthfully been described by old-time Angeleños as our family circle, was hailed with a great deal of interest and satisfaction. In time, Miss Emeline Huber was married to O. W. Childs, and Miss Caroline was wedded to Dr. Frederick Preston Howard, a druggist who, more than forty years ago, bought out Theodore Wollweber, selling the business back to the latter a few years later. The prominence of this family made it comparatively easy for Joseph Huber, Jr., in 1865, to secure the nomination and be elected County Treasurer, succeeding M. Kremer, who had served six years. Huber, Sr., died about the middle sixties. Mrs. Huber lived to be eighty-three years old.

José de Rúbio had at least two vineyards when I came—one on Alameda Street, south of Wolfskill's and not far from Coronel's, and one on the east side of the river. Rúbio came here very early in the century, after having married Juana, a daughter of Juan María Miron, a well-known sea captain, and built three adobe houses. The first of these was on the site of the present home of William H. Workman, on Boyle Heights; the second was near what was later the corner of Alameda and Eighth streets, and the third was on Alameda Street near the present Vernon Avenue. One of his ranches was known as "Rúbio's," and there many a barbecue was celebrated. In 1859, Rúbio leased the Sepúlveda Landing, at San Pedro, and commenced to haul freight, to and fro. Señor and Señora Rúbio[16] had twenty-five children, of whom five are now living. Another Los Angeles vineyardist who lived near the river when I came was a Frenchman named Clemente.

Julius Weyse also had a vineyard, living on what is now Eighth Street near San Pedro. A son, H. G. Weyse, has distinguished himself as an attorney and has served in the Legislature; another, Otto G., married the widow of Edward Naud, while a third son, Rudolf G., married a daughter of H. D. Barrows.

The Reyes family was prominent here; a daughter married William Nordholt. Ysidro had a vineyard on Washington Street; and during one of the epidemics, he died of smallpox. His brother, Pablo, was a rancher.

While on the subject of vineyards, I may describe the method by which wine was made here in the early days and the part taken in the industry by the Indians, who always interested and astounded me. Stripped to the skin, and wearing only loin-cloths, they tramped with ceaseless tread from morn till night, pressing from the luscious fruit of the vineyard the juice so soon to ferment into wine. The grapes were placed in elevated vats from which the liquid ran into other connecting vessels; and the process exhaled a stale acidity, scenting the surrounding air. These Indians were employed in the early fall, the season of the year when wine is made and when the thermometer as a rule, in Southern California, reaches its highest point; and this temperature coupled with incessant toil caused the perspiration to drip from their swarthy bodies into the wine product, the sight of which in no wise increased my appetite for California wine.

A staple article of food for the Indians in 1856, by the way, was the acorn. The crop that year, however, was very short; and streams having also failed, in many instances, to yield the food usually taken from them, the tribes were in a distressed condition. Such were the aborigines' straits, in fact, that rancheros were warned of the danger, then greater than ever, from Indian depredations on stock.

In telling of the Sisters of Charity, I have forgotten to add that, after settling here, they sent to New York for a portable house, which they shipped to Los Angeles by way of Cape Horn. In due time, the house arrived; but imagine their vexation on discovering that, although the parts were supposed to have been marked so that they might easily be joined together, no one here could do the work. In the end, the Sisters were compelled to send East for a carpenter who, after a long interval, arrived and finished the house.

Soon after the organization of a Masonic lodge here, in 1854, many of my friends joined, and among them my brother, J. P. Newmark, who was admitted on February 26th, 1855, on which occasion J. H. Stuart was the Secretary; and through their participation in the celebration of St. John's Day (the twenty-fourth of June,) I was seized with a desire to join the order. This I did at the end of 1856, becoming a member of Los Angeles Lodge No. 42, whose meetings were held over Potter's store on Main Street. Worshipful Master Thomas Foster initiated me, and on January 22d, 1857, Worshipful Master Jacob Elias officiating, I took the third degree. I am, therefore, in all probability, the oldest living member of this now venerable Masonic organization.

CHAPTER XV
SHERIFF BARTON AND THE BANDIDOS
1857

In the beginning of 1857, we had a more serious earthquake than any in recent years. At half-past eight o'clock on the morning of January 9th, a tremor shook the earth from North to South; the first shocks being light, the quake grew in power until houses were deserted, men, women and children sought refuge in the streets, and horses and cattle broke loose in wild alarm. For perhaps two, or two and a half minutes, the temblor continued and much damage was done. Los Angeles felt the disturbance far less than many other places, although five to six shocks were noted and twenty times during the week people were frightened from their homes; at Temple's rancho and at Fort Tejón great rents were opened in the earth and then closed again, piling up a heap or dune of finely-powdered stone and dirt. Large trees were uprooted and hurled down the hillsides; and tumbling after them went the cattle. Many officers, including Colonel B. L. Beall—well known in Los Angeles social circles—barely escaped from the barracks with their lives; and until the cracked adobes could be repaired, officers and soldiers lived in tents. It was at this time, too, that a so-called tidal wave almost engulfed the Sea Bird, plying between San Pedro and San Francisco, as she was entering the Golden Gate. Under the splendid seamanship of Captain Salisbury Haley, however, his little ship weathered the wave, and he was able later to report her awful experience to the scientific world.

This year also proved a dry season; and, consequently, times became very bad. With two periods of adversity, even the richest of the cattle-kings felt the pinch, and many began to part with their lands in order to secure the relief needed to tide them over. The effects of drought continued until 1858, although some good influences improved business conditions.

Due to glowing accounts of the prospects for conquest and fortune given out by Henry A. Crabb, a Stockton lawyer who married a Spanish woman with relatives in Sonora, a hundred or more filibusters gathered in Los Angeles, in January, to meet Crabb at San Pedro, when he arrived from the North on the steamer Sea Bird. They strutted about the streets here, displaying rifles and revolvers; and this would seem to have been enough to prevent their departure for Sonita, a little town a hundred miles beyond Yuma, to which they finally tramped. The filibusters were permitted to leave, however, and they invaded the foreign soil; but Crabb made a mess of the undertaking, even failing in blowing up a little church he attacked; and those not killed in the skirmish were soon surrounded and taken prisoners. The next morning, Crabb and some others who had paraded so ostentatiously while here, were tied to trees or posts, and summarily executed. Crabb's body was riddled with a hundred bullets and his head cut off and sent back in mescal; only one of the party was spared—Charley Evans, a lad of fifteen years, who worked his way to Los Angeles and was connected with a somewhat similar invasion a while later.

In January, also, when threats were made against the white population of Southern California, Mrs. Griffin, the wife of Dr. J. S. Griffin, came running, in all excitement, to the home of Joseph Newmark, and told the members of the family to lock all their doors and bolt their windows, as it was reported that some of the outlaws were on their way to Los Angeles, to murder the white people. As soon as possible, the ladies of the Griffin, Nichols, Foy, Mallard, Workman, Newmark and other families were brought together for greater safety in Armory Hall, on Spring Street near Second, while the men took their places in line with the other citizens to patrol the hills and streets.

A still vivid impression of this startling episode recalls an Englishman, a Dr. Carter, who arrived here some three years before. He lived on the east side of Main Street near First, where the McDonald Block now stands; and while not prominent in his profession, he associated with some estimable families. When others were volunteering for sentry-work or to fight, the Doctor very gallantly offered his services as a Committee of One to care for the ladies—far from the firing line!

On hearing of these threats by native bandidos, James R. Barton, formerly a volunteer under General S. W. Kearny and then Sheriff, at once investigated the rumors; and the truth of the reports being verified, our small and exposed community was seized with terror.

A large band of Mexican outlaws, led by Pancho Daniel, a convict who had escaped from San Quentin prison, and including Luciano Tapía and Juan Flores, on January 22d had killed a German storekeeper named George W. Pflugardt, in San Juan Capistrano, while he was preparing his evening meal; and after having placed his body on the table, they sat around and ate what the poor victim had provided for himself. On the same occasion, these outlaws plundered the stores of Manuel Garcia, Henry Charles and Miguel Kragevsky or Kraszewski; the last named escaping by hiding under a lot of wash in a large clothes-basket. When the news of this murder reached Los Angeles, excitement rose to fever-heat and we prepared for something more than defense.

Jim Barton, accompanied by William H. Little and Charles K. Baker, both constables, Charles F. Daley, an early blacksmith here, Alfred Hardy and Frank Alexander—all volunteers—left that evening for San Juan Capistrano, to capture the murderers, and soon arrived at the San Joaquín Ranch, about eighteen miles from San Juan. There Don José Andrés Sepúlveda told Barton of a trap set for him, and that the robbers outnumbered his posse, two to one; and urged him to send back to Los Angeles for more volunteers. Brave but reckless Barton, however, persisted in pushing on the next day, and so encountered some of the marauders in Santiago Canyon. Barton, Baker, Little and Daley were killed; while Hardy and Alexander escaped.

When Los Angeles was apprised of this second tragedy, the frenzy was indescribable, and steps were taken toward the formation of both a Committee of Safety and a Vigilance Committee—the latter to avenge the foul deed and to bring in the culprits. In meeting this emergency, the El Monte boys, as usual, took an active part. The city was placed under martial law, and Dr. John S. Griffin was put in charge of the local defenses. Suspicious houses, thought to be headquarters for robbers and thieves, were searched; and forty or fifty persons were arrested. The State Legislature was appealed to and at once voted financial aid.

Although the Committee of Safety had the assistance of special foot police in guarding the city, the citizens made a requisition on Fort Tejón, and fifty soldiers were sent from that post to help pursue the band. Troops from San Diego, with good horses and plenty of provisions, were also placed at the disposition of the Los Angeles authorities. Companies of mounted Rangers were made up to scour the country, American, German and French citizens vying with one another for the honor of risking their lives; one such company being formed at El Monte, and another at San Bernardino. There were also two detachments of native Californians; but many Sonorans and Mexicans from other States, either from sympathy or fear, aided the murdering robbers and so made their pursuit doubly difficult. However, the outlaws were pursued far into the mountains; and although the first party sent out returned without effecting anything (reporting that the desperadoes were not far from San Juan and that the horses of the pursuers had given out) practically all of the band, as will be seen, were eventually captured.

Not only were vigorous measures taken to apprehend and punish the murderers, but provision was made to rescue the bodies of the slain, and to give them decent and honorable burial. The next morning, after nearly one hundred mounted and armed men had set out to track the fugitives, another party, also on horseback, left to escort several wagons filled with coffins, in which they hoped to bring back the bodies of Sheriff Barton and his comrades. In this effort, the posse succeeded; and when the remains were received in Los Angeles on Sunday about noon, the city at once went into mourning. All business was suspended, and the impressive burial ceremonies, conducted on Monday, were attended by the citizens en masse. Oddly enough, there was not a Protestant clergyman in town at the time; but the Masonic Order took the matter in hand and performed their rites over those who were Masons, and even paid their respects, with a portion of the ritual, to the non-Masonic dead.

General Andrés Pico, with a company of native mounted Californians, who left immediately after the funeral, was especially prominent in running down the outlaws, thus again displaying his natural gift of leadership; and others fitted themselves out and followed as soon as they could. General Pico knew both land and people; and on capturing Silvas and Ardillero, two of the worst of the bandidos, after a hard resistance, he straightway hung them to trees, at the very spot where they had tried to assassinate him and his companions.

In the pursuit of the murderers, James Thompson (successor, in the following January, to the murdered Sheriff Getman) led a company of horsemen toward the Tejunga; and at the Simi Pass, high upon the rocks, he stationed United States soldiers as a lookout. Little San Gabriel, in which J. F. Burns, as Deputy Sheriff, was on the watch, also made its contribution to the restoration of order and peace; for some of its people captured and executed three or four of Daniels's and Flores's band. Flores was caught on the top of a peak in the Santiago range; all in all, some fifty-two culprits were brought to Los Angeles and lodged in jail; and of that number eleven were lynched or legally hung.

When the Vigilance Committee had jailed a suspected murderer, the people were called to sit in judgment. We met near the veranda of the Montgomery, and Judge Jonathan R. Scott having been made Chairman, a regular order of procedure, extra-legal though it was, was followed; after announcing the capture, and naming the criminal, the Judge called upon the crowd to determine the prisoner's fate. Thereupon some one would shout: "Hang him!" Scott would then put the question somewhat after the following formula: "Gentlemen, you have heard the motion; all those in favor of hanging So-and-So, will signify by saying, Aye!"

And the citizens present unanimously answered, Aye!

Having thus expressed their will, the assemblage proceeded to the jail, a low, adobe building behind the little Municipal and County structure, and easily subdued the jailer, Frank J. Carpenter, whose daughter, Josephine, became Frank Burns's second wife. The prisoner was then secured, taken from his cell, escorted to Fort Hill—a rise of ground behind the jail—where a temporary gallows had been constructed, and promptly despatched; and after each of the first batch of culprits had there successively paid the penalty for his crime, the avengers quietly dispersed to their homes to await the capture and dragging in of more cutthroats.

Among those condemned by vote at a public meeting in the way I have described, was Juan Flores, who was hanged on February 14th, 1857, well up on Fort Hill, in sight of such a throng that it is hardly too much to say that practically every man, woman and child in the pueblo was present, not to mention many people drawn by curiosity from various parts of the State who had flocked into town. Flores was but twenty-one years of age; yet, the year previous he had been sent to prison for horse-stealing. At the same time that Flores was executed, Miguel Blanco, who had stabbed the militiaman, Captain W. W. Twist, in order to rob him of a thousand dollars, was also hanged.

Espinosa and Lopez, two members of the robber band, for a while eluded their pursuers. At San Buenaventura, however, they were caught, and on the following morning, Espinosa was hung. Lopez again escaped; and it was not until February 16th that he was finally recaptured and despatched to other realms.

Two days after Juan Flores was sent to a warmer clime, Luciano Tapía and Thomas King were executed. Tapía's case was rather regrettable, for he had been a respectable laborer at San Luis Obispo until Flores, meeting him, persuaded him to abandon honest work. Tapía came to Los Angeles, joined the robber band and was one of those who helped to kill Sheriff Barton.

In 1857, the Sisters of Charity founded the Los Angeles Infirmary, the first regular hospital in the city, with Sister Ana, for years well known here, as Sister Superior. For a while, temporary quarters were taken in the house long occupied by Don José María Aguilar and family, which property the Sisters soon purchased; but the next year they bought some land from Don Luis Arenas, adjoining Don José Andrés Sepúlveda's, and were thus enabled to enlarge the hospital. Their service being the best, in time they were enabled to acquire a good-sized, two-story building of brick, in the upper part of the city; and there their patients enjoyed the refreshing and health-restoring environment of garden and orchard.

It was not until this year that, on the corner of Alameda and Bath streets, Oscar Macy, City Treasurer in 1887-88, opened the first public bath house, having built a water-wheel with small cans attached to the paddles, to dip water up from the Alameda zanja, as a medium for supplying his tank. He provided hot water as well as cold. Oscar charged fifty cents a bath, and furnished soap and towels.

In 1857, the steamship Senator left San Francisco on the fifth and twentieth of each month and so continued until the people wanted a steamer at least once every ten days.

Despite the inconvenience and expense of obtaining water for the home, it was not until February 24th that Judge W. G. Dryden—who, with a man named McFadden, had established the nucleus of a system—was granted a franchise to distribute water from his land, and to build a water-wheel in the zanja madre. The Dryden, formerly known as the Ábila Springs and later the source of the Beaudry supply, were near the site selected for the San Fernando Street Railway Station; and from these springs water was conveyed by a zanja to the Plaza. There, in the center, a brick tank, perhaps ten feet square and fifteen feet high, was constructed; and this was filled by means of pumps, while from the tank wooden pipes distributed water to the consumer.

So infrequently did we receive intelligence from the remoter parts of the world throughout the fifties that sometimes a report, especially if apparently authentic, when finally it reached here, created real excitement. I recall, more or less vividly, the arrival of the stages from the Senator, late in March, and the stir made when the news was passed from mouth to mouth that Livingstone, the explorer, had at last been heard from in far-off and unknown Africa.

Los Angeles schools were then open only part of the year, the School Board being compelled, in the spring, to close them for want of money. William Wolfskill, however, rough pioneer though he was, came to the Board's rescue. He was widely known as an advocate of popular education, having, as I have said, his own private teachers; and to his lasting honor, he gave the Board sufficient funds to make possible the reopening of one of the schools.

In 1857, I again revisited San Francisco. During the four years since my first visit a complete metamorphosis had taken place. Tents and small frame structures were being largely replaced with fine buildings of brick and stone; many of the sand dunes had succumbed to the march of improvement; gardens were much more numerous, and the uneven character of streets and sidewalks had been wonderfully improved. In a word, the spirit of Western progress was asserting itself, and the city by the Golden Gate was taking on a decidedly metropolitan appearance.

Notwithstanding various attempts at citrus culture in Southern California, some time elapsed before there was much of an orange or lemon industry in this vicinity. In 1854, a Dr. Halsey started an orange and lime nursery, on the Rowland place, which he soon sold to William Wolfskill, for four thousand dollars; and in April, 1857, when there were not many more than a hundred orange trees bearing fruit in the whole county, Wolfskill planted several thousand and so established what was to be, for that time, the largest orange orchard in the United States. He had thrown away a good many of the lemon trees received from Halsey, because they were frost-bitten; but he still had some lemon, orange and olive trees left. Later, under the more scientific care of his son, Joseph Wolfskill, who extended the original Wolfskill grove, this orchard was made to yield very large crops.

In 1857, a group of Germans living in San Francisco bought twelve hundred acres of waste, sandy land, at two dollars an acre, from Don Pacífico Onteveras, and on it started the town of Anaheim—a name composed of the Spanish Ana, from Santa Ana, and the German Heim, for home; and this was the first settlement in the county founded after my arrival. This land formed a block about one and a quarter miles square, some three miles from the Santa Ana River, and five miles from the residence of Don Bernardo Yorba, from whom the company received special privileges. A. Langenberger, a German, who married Yorba's daughter, was probably one of the originators of the Anaheim plan; at any rate, his influence with his father-in-law was of value to his friends in completing the deal. There were fifty shareholders, who paid seven hundred and fifty dollars each, with an Executive Council composed of Otmar Caler, President; G. Charles Kohler, Vice-President; Cyrus Beythien, Treasurer; and John Fischer, Secretary; while John Fröhling, R. Emerson, Felix Bachman, who was a kind of Sub-treasurer, and Louis Jazyinsky, made up the Los Angeles Auditing Committee. George Hansen, afterward the colony's Superintendent, surveyed the tract and laid it out in fifty twenty-acre lots, with streets and a public park; around it a live fence of some forty to fifty thousand willow cuttings, placed at intervals of a couple of feet, was planted. A main canal, six to seven miles long, with a fall of fifteen to twenty feet, brought abundant water from the Santa Ana River, while some three hundred and fifty miles of lateral ditches distributed the water to the lots. On each lot, some eight or ten thousand grape vines were set out, the first as early as January, 1858. On December 15th, 1859, the stockholders came south to settle on their partially-cultivated land; and although but one among the entire number knew anything about wine-making, the dream of the projectors—to establish there the largest vineyard in the world—bade fair to come true. The colonists were quite a curious mixture—two or three carpenters, four blacksmiths, three watchmakers, a brewer, an engraver, a shoemaker, a poet, a miller, a bookbinder, two or three merchants, a hatter and a musician; but being mostly of sturdy, industrious German stock, they soon formed such a prosperous and important little community that, by 1876, the settlement had grown to nearly two thousand people. A peculiar plan was adopted for investment, sale and compensation: each stockholder paid the same price at the beginning, and later all drew for the lots, the apportionment being left to chance; but since the pieces of land were conceded to have dissimilar values, those securing the better lots equalized in cash with their less lucky associates. Soon after 1860, when Langenberger had erected the first hotel there, Anaheim took a leading place in the production of grapes and wine; and this position of honor it kept until, in 1888, a strange disease suddenly attacked and, within a single year, killed all the vines, after which the cultivation of oranges and walnuts was undertaken. Kohler and Fröhling had wineries in both San Francisco and Los Angeles, the latter being adjacent to the present corner of Central Avenue and Seventh Street; and this firm purchased most of Anaheim's grape crop, although some vineyard owners made their own wine. Morris L. Goodman, by the way, was here at an early period, and was one of the first settlers of Anaheim.

Hermann Heinsch, a native of Prussia, arrived in Los Angeles in 1857 and soon after engaged in the harness and saddlery business. On March 8th, 1863, he was married to Mary Haap. Having become proficient at German schools in both music and languages, Heinsch lent his time and efforts to the organization and drill of Germans here, and contributed much to the success of both the Teutonia and the Turnverein. In 1869, the Heinsch Building was erected at the corner of Commercial and Los Angeles streets; and as late as 1876 this was a shopping district, a Mrs. T. J. Baker having a dressmaking establishment there. After a prosperous career, Heinsch died on January 13th, 1883; his wife followed him on April 14th, 1906. R. C. Heinsch, a son, survives them.

Major Walter Harris Harvey, a native of Georgia once a cadet at West Point, but dismissed for his pranks (who about the middle of the fifties married Eleanor, eldest full sister of John G. Downey, and became the father of J. Downey Harvey, now living in San Francisco), settled in California shortly after the Mexican War. During the first week in May, 1857, or some four years before he died, Major Harvey arrived from Washington with an appointment as Register of the Land Office, in place of H. P. Dorsey. At the same time, Don Agustin Olvera was appointed Receiver, in lieu of General Andrés Pico. These and other rotations in office were due, of course, to national administration changes, President Buchanan having recently been inaugurated.

One of the interesting legal inquiries of the fifties was conducted in 1857 when, in the District Court here, António María Lugo, crowned with the white of seventy-six winters, testified, at a hearing to establish certain claims to land, as to what he knew of old ranchos hereabouts, recalling many details of the pueblo and incidents as far back as 1785. He had seen the San Rafael Ranch, for example, in 1790, and he had also roamed, as a young man, over the still older Dominguez and Nietos hills.

Charles Henry Forbes, who was born at the Mission San José, came to Los Angeles County in 1857 and, though but twenty-two years old, was engaged by Don Abel Stearns to superintend his various ranchos, becoming Stearns's business manager in 1866, with a small office on the ground-floor of the Arcadia Block. In 1864, Forbes married Doña Luisa Olvera, daughter of Judge Agustin Olvera, and a graduate of the Sisters' school. On the death of Don Abel, in 1871, Forbes settled up Stearns's large estate, retaining his professional association with Doña Arcadia, after her marriage to Colonel Baker, and even until he died in May, 1894.

As I have intimated, the principal industry throughout Los Angeles County, and indeed throughout Southern California, up to the sixties, was the raising of cattle and horses—an undertaking favored by a people particularly fond of leisure and knowing little of the latent possibilities in the land; so that this entire area of magnificent soil supported herds which provided the whole population in turn, directly or indirectly, with a livelihood. The live stock subsisted upon the grass growing wild all over the county, and the prosperity of Southern California therefore depended entirely upon the season's rainfall. This was true to a far greater extent than one might suppose, for water-development had received no attention outside of Los Angeles. If the rainfall was sufficient to produce feed, dealers came from the North and purchased our stock, and everybody thrived; if, on the other hand, the season was dry, cattle and horses died and the public's pocket-book shrank to very unpretentious dimensions. As an incident in even a much later period than that which I here have in mind, I can distinctly remember that I would rise three or four times during a single meal to see if the overhanging clouds had yet begun to give that rain which they had seemed to promise, and which was so vital to our prosperity.

As for rain, I am reminded that every newspaper in those days devoted much space to weather reports or, rather, to gossip about the weather at other points along the Coast, as well as to the consequent prospects here. The weather was the one determining factor in the problem of a successful or a disastrous season, and became a very important theme when ranchers and others congregated at our store.

And here I may mention, à propos of this matter of rainfall and its general effects, that there were millions of ground-squirrels all over this country that shared with other animals the ups and downs of the season. When there was plenty of rain, these squirrels fattened and multiplied; but when evil days came, they sickened, starved and perished. On the other hand, great overflows, due to heavy rainfalls, drowned many of these troublesome little rodents.

The raising of sheep had not yet developed any importance at the time of my arrival; most of the mutton then consumed in Los Angeles coming from Santa Cruz Island, in the Santa Bárbara Channel, though some was brought from San Clemente and Santa Catalina islands. On the latter, there was a herd of from eight to ten thousand sheep in which Oscar Macy later acquired an interest; and L. Harris, father-in-law of H. W. Frank, the well- and favorably-known President and member of the Board of Education, also had extensive herds there. They ran wild and needed very little care, and only semi-yearly visits were made to look after the shearing, packing and shipping of the wool. Santa Cruz Island had much larger herds, and steamers running to and from San Francisco often stopped there to take on sheep and sheep-products.

Santa Catalina Island, for years the property of Don José María Covarrúbias—and later of the eccentric San Francisco pioneer James Lick, who crossed the plains in the same party with the Lanfranco brothers and tried to induce them to settle in the North—was not far from San Clemente; and there, throughout the extent of her hills and vales, roamed herd after herd of wild goats. Early seafarers, I believe it has been suggested, accustomed to carry goats on their sailing vessels, for a supply of milk, probably deposited some of the animals on Catalina; but however that may be, hunting parties to this day explore the mountains in search of them.

Considering, therefore, the small number of sheep here about 1853, it is not uninteresting to note that, according to old records of San Gabriel for the winter of 1828-29, there were then at the Mission no less than fifteen thousand sheep; while in 1858, on the other hand, according to fairly accurate reports, there were fully twenty thousand sheep in Los Angeles County. Two years later, the number had doubled.

George Carson, a New Yorker who came here in 1852, and after whom Carson Station is named, was one of the first to engage in the sheep industry. Soon after he arrived, he went into the livery business, to which he gave attention even when in partnership successively with Sanford, Dean and Hicks in the hardware business, on Commercial Street. On July 30th, 1857, Carson married Doña Victoria, a daughter of Manuel Dominguez; but it was not until 1864 that, having sold out his two business interests (the livery to George Butler and the hardware to his partner), he moved to the ranch of his father-in-law, where he continued to live, assisting Dominguez with the management of his great property. Some years later, Carson bought four or five hundred acres of land adjoining the Dominguez acres and turned his attention to sheep. Later still, he became interested in the development of thoroughbred cattle and horses, but continued to help his father-in-law in the directing of his ranch. When rain favored the land, Carson, in common with his neighbors, amassed wealth; but during dry years he suffered disappointment and loss, and on one occasion was forced to take his flocks, then consisting of ten thousand sheep, to the mountains, where he lost all but a thousand head. It cost him ten thousand dollars to save the latter, which amount far exceeded their value. In this movement of stock, he took with him, as his lieutenant, a young Mexican named Martin Cruz whom he had brought up on the rancho. Carson was one of my cronies, while I was still young and single; and we remained warm friends until he died.

Almost indescribable excitement followed the substantiated reports, received in the fall of 1857, that a train of emigrants from Missouri and Arkansas, on their way to California, had been set upon by Indians, near Mountain Meadow, Utah, on September 7th, and that thirty-six members of the party had been brutally killed. Particularly were the Gentiles of the Southwest stirred up when it was learned that the assault had been planned and carried through by one Lee, a Mormon, whose act sprang rather from the frenzy of a madman than from the deliberation of a well-balanced mind. The attitude of Brigham Young toward the United States Government, at that time, and his alleged threat to "turn the Indians loose" upon the whites, added color to the assertion that Young's followers were guilty of the massacre; but fuller investigation has absolved the Mormons, I believe, as a society, from any complicity in the awful affair. Some years later the two Oatman girls were rescued from the Indians (by whom they had been tattooed), and for a while they stayed at Ira Thompson's, where I saw them.

In 1857, J. G. Nichols was reëlected Mayor of Los Angeles, and began several improvements he had previously advocated, especially the irrigating of the plain below the city. By August 2d, Zanja No. 2 was completed; and this brought about the building of the Aliso Mill and the further cultivation of much excellent land.

One of the passengers that left San Francisco with me for San Pedro on October 18th, 1853, who later became a successful citizen of Southern California, was Edward N. McDonald, a native of New York State. We had sailed from New York together, and together had finished the long journey to the Pacific Coast, after which I lost track of him. McDonald had intended proceeding farther south, and I was surprised at meeting him on the street, some weeks after my arrival, in Los Angeles. Reaching San Pedro, he contracted to enter the service of Alexander & Banning, and remained with Banning for several years, until he formed a partnership with John O. Wheeler's brother, who later went to Japan. McDonald, subsequently raised sheep on a large scale and acquired much ranch property; and in 1876, he built the block on Main Street bearing his name. Sixteen years later, he erected another structure, opposite the first one. When McDonald died at Wilmington, on June 10th, 1899, he left his wife an estate valued at about one hundred and sixty thousand dollars which must have increased in value, since then, many fold.

N. A. Potter, a Rhode Islander, came to Los Angeles in 1855, bringing with him a stock of Yankee goods and opening a store; and two years later he bought a two-story brick building on Main Street, opposite the Bella Union. Louis Jazynsky was a partner with Potter, for a while, under the firm name of Potter & Company; but later Jazynsky left Los Angeles for San Francisco. Potter died here in 1868.

Possibly the first instance of an Angeleño proffering a gift to the President of the United States—and that, too, of something characteristic of this productive soil and climate—was when Henry D. Barrows, in September, called on President Buchanan, in Washington and, on behalf of William Wolfskill, Don Manuel Requena and himself, gave the Chief Executive some California fruit and wine.

I have before me a Ledger of the year 1857; it is a medium-sized volume bound in leather, and on the outside cover is inscribed, in the bold, old-fashioned handwriting of fifty-odd years ago, the simple legend,