In October, 1860, as I have intimated, Phineas Banning took A. F. Hinchman into partnership, the firm being known as Banning & Hinchman, and they seemed to prosper; but on February 12th, 1862, the public was surprised at the announcement of the firm's dissolution. Banning continued as proprietor, and Hinchman became Banning's Los Angeles agent.
Although cattle-raising was the mainstay of Southern California for many years, and gold-mining never played a very important part here, Wells Fargo & Co., during the spring, frequently shipped thousands of dollars' worth of gold at a time, gathered from Santa Anita, San Gabriel and San Fernando placers, while probably an equally large amount was forwarded out through other channels.
I have already pointed to the clever foresight shown by Abel Stearns when he built the Arcadia Block and profited by the unhappy experience of others, with rain that flooded their property; but I have not stated that in elevating his new building considerably above the grade of the street, somewhat regardless of the rights of others, he caused the surplus water to run off into neighboring streets and buildings. Following the great storm of 1861-62, the City sued Stearns for damages, but he won his case. More than that, the overflow was a Godsend to him, for it induced a number of people to move from Mellus's Row to Arcadia Block at a time when the owner of vast ranches and some of the best town property was already feeling the pinch of the alternate dry and over-wet seasons. The fact is, as I shall soon make clear, that before Stearns had seen the end of two or three successive dry seasons yet to come, he was temporarily bankrupt and embarrassed to the utmost.
By April, the walls and roof for the little Protestant Church at Temple and New High streets had been built, and there the matter rested for two years, when the structure, on which the taxes were unpaid, was advertised for sale.
We have seen that the first Jewish services here were held soon after the arrival of Joseph Newmark in 1854; under the same disadvantageous conditions as had hampered the Protestant denominations, Mr. Newmark volunteered to officiate on the principal holidays until 1862, when the Reverend Abraham Wolf Edelman arrived. Born at Warsaw in 1832, Rabbi Edelman came to America in 1851, immediately after he was married to Miss Hannah Pessah Cohn, and settled successively in New York, Paterson and Buffalo. Coming to California in 1859, he resided in San Francisco until 1862, when he was chosen Rabbi of the orthodox Congregation B'nai B'rith of Los Angeles, and soon attained distinction as a Talmudic scholar and a preacher. The first services under Rabbi Edelman were held in Stearns's, or Arcadia Hall; next, the Congregation worshipped in Leck's Hall on Main Street between Second and Third; and finally, through the courtesy of Judge Ygnácio Sepúlveda, the court room was used. In 1873 the Jews of Los Angeles erected their first synagogue, a brick building entered by a steep stairway leading to a platform, and located on the east side of Fort Street between Second and Third, on what is now the site of the Copp Building next to the City Hall. In 1886, when local Jewry instituted a much more liberal ritual, Rabbi Edelman's convictions induced him to resign. The purchase of a lot for a home on the corner of Sixth and Main streets proved a fortunate investment, later enabling him to enjoy a well-deserved comfort and to gratify his charitable inclinations. It is a strange coincidence that Reverend Edelman's first marriage ceremony was that which blessed Samuel Prager; while the last occasion on which he performed the solemn rites for the dead—shortly before his own death in 1907—was for the same friend. A. M. Edelman, the architect, and Dr. D. W. Edelman, both well-known here, are sons of the Rabbi.
As late in the season as April, hail and snow fell in and near Los Angeles. To the North of the city, the white mantle quite hid the mountains and formed a new and lower snow-line; while within the city, the temperature so lowered that at several intervals during the day, huge hail-stones beat against the window-panes—a very unusual experience for Angeleños.
Because of political charges preferred against A. J. King, then Under Sheriff of the County, the latter, on April 10th, was arrested by Henry D. Barrows, United States Marshal, who had been appointed by President Lincoln, the year previous. Colonel Carleton, Commander of the Southern Military Division, however, soon liberated King. On the last day of the year, the Under Sheriff married the estimable Miss Laura C. Evertsen.
Travelers to Europe have often suffered much annoyance through safe-conduct regulations, but seldom have Americans had their liberty thus restricted by their own authorities. Toward the middle of June, word was received in Los Angeles that, owing to the suspicion lest disloyalists were embarking for Aspinwall, all passengers for California via the Isthmus would be required to take out passports.
Anticipating, by forty years or more, Luther Burbank's work, attention was directed, as early as 1862, to the possibility of eating the cactus and thus finding, in this half-despised plant of the desert, relief from both hunger and thirst. Half a century later, in 1913, Los Angeles established the cactus candy industry through which the boiled pulp of the bisnaga, often spoken of as the fishhook, barrel and nigger-head variety, is made deliciously palatable when siruped from ten to thirty days.
Ygnácio Sepúlveda, declared by the Los Angeles Star "a young gentleman of liberal education, and good, natural endowments, already versed in legal studies," on September 6th was admitted to the District Court Bar.