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:
We expect to see coasting steamers make their regular trips to New Town, discharging freight and loading passengers on the wharf, safe from the dangers of rough weather, instead of lying off at sea, subjecting life and property to the perils of southeast gales and the breakers. The Senator even, in the opinion of experienced persons, might easily enter the channel on the easterly side of Dead Man's Island, and thence find a safe passage in the Creek. It will yet happen!
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.
Winfield Scott Hancock