In the summer, D. M. Berry, General Nathan Kimball, Calvin Fletcher and J. H. Baker came to Los Angeles from Indianapolis, representing the California Colony of Indiana, a coöperative association which proposed to secure land for Hoosiers who wished to found a settlement in Southern California. This scheme originated with Dr. Thomas Balch Elliott of Indianapolis, Berry's brother-in-law and an army surgeon who had established the first grain elevator in Indiana and whose wife, now ill, could no longer brave the severe winters of the middle West.
Soon after their arrival, Wall Street's crash brought ruin to many subscribers and the members of the committee found themselves stranded in Los Angeles. Berry opened a real estate office on Main Street near Arcadia, for himself and the absent Elliott; and one day, at the suggestion of Judge B. S. Eaton, Baker visited the San Pasqual rancho, then in almost primeval glory, and was so pleased with what he saw that he persuaded Fletcher to join Dr. Elliott, Thomas H. Croft of Indianapolis and himself in incorporating the San Gabriel Orange Grove Association, with one hundred shares at two hundred and fifty dollars each. The Association then bought out Dr. J. S. Griffin's interest, or some four thousand acres in the ranch, paying about twelve dollars and a half per acre, after which some fifteen hundred of the choicest acres were subdivided into tracts of from fifteen to sixty acres each.
The San Pasqual settlement was thus called for a while the Indiana Colony, though but a handful of Hoosiers had actually joined the movement; and Dr. and Mrs. Elliott, reaching Los Angeles on December 1st, 1874, immediately took possession of their grant on the banks of the Arroyo Seco near the Frémont Trail. On April 22d, 1875, The Indiana Colony was discontinued as the name of the settlement; it being seen that a more attractive title should be selected. Dr. Elliott wrote to a college-mate in the East for an appropriate Indian name; and Pasadena was adopted as Chippewa for "Crown of the Valley." Linguists, I am informed, do not endorse the word as Indian of any kind, but it is a musical name, and now famous and satisfactory. Dr. Elliott threw all his energy into the cultivation of oranges, but it was not long before he saw, with a certain prophetic vision, that not the fruit itself, but the health-giving and charming qualities of the San Pasqual climate were likely to prove the real asset of the colonists and the foundation of their prosperity. Pasadena and South Pasadena, therefore, owe their existence largely to the longing of a frail Indiana woman for a less rigorous climate and her dream that in the sunny Southland along the Pacific she should find health and happiness.
M. J. Newmark was really instrumental, more than anyone else, in first persuading D. M. Berry to come to California. He had met Berry in New York and talked to him of the possibility of buying the Santa Anita rancho, which we were then holding for sale; and on his return he traveled homeward by way of Indiana, stopping off at Indianapolis in order to bring Berry out here to see the property. Owing to the high price asked, however, Berry and his associates could not negotiate the purchase, and so the matter was dropped.
Lawson D. Hollingsworth and his wife, Lucinda, Quakers from Indiana, opened the first grocery at the crossroads in the new settlement, and for many years were popularly spoken of as Grandpa and Grandma Hollingsworth. Dr. H. T. Hollingsworth, their son, now of Los Angeles, kept the Post Office in the grocery, receiving from the Government for his services the munificent sum of—twenty-five cents a week.
The summer of 1873 was marked by the organization of a corporation designed to advance the general business interests of Los Angeles and vicinity. This was the Chamber of Commerce or, as it was at first called, the Board of Trade; and had its origin in a meeting held on August 1st in the old Court-House on the site of the present Bullard Block. Ex-Governor John G. Downey was called to the chair; and J. M. Griffith was made Secretary pro tem. Before the next meeting, over one hundred representative merchants registered for membership, and on August 9th, a constitution and by-laws were adopted, a board of eleven Directors elected and an admission fee of five dollars agreed upon. Two days later, the organization was incorporated, with J. G. Downey, S. Lazard, M. J. Newmark, H. W. Hellman, P. Beaudry, S. B. Caswell, Dr. J. S. Griffin, R. M. Widney, C. C. Lips, J. M. Griffith and I. W. Lord, as Directors; and these officers chose Solomon Lazard as the first President and I. W. Lord as the first Secretary. Judge Widney's office in the Temple Block was the meeting-place. The Chamber unitedly and enthusiastically set to work to push forward the commercial interests of Southern California; and the first appropriation by Congress for the survey and improvement of San Pedro Harbor was effected mainly through the new society's efforts. Descriptive pamphlets setting forth the advantages of our locality were distributed throughout the East; and steps were taken to build up the trade with Arizona and the surrounding territory. In this way the Chamber of Commerce labored through the two or three succeeding years, until bank failures, droughts and other disasters, of which I shall speak, threw the cold blanket of discouragement over even so commendable an enterprise and for the time being its activities ceased.
On October 3d, C. A. Storke founded the Daily and Weekly Herald, editing the paper until August, 1874 when J. M. Bassett became its editor. In a few months he retired and John M. Baldwin took up the quill.
In the autumn of 1873, Barnard Brothers set in operation the first woolen mill here, built in 1868 or 1869 by George Hansen and his associates in the Canal and Reservoir Company. It was located on the ditch along the cañon of the Arroyo de Los Reyes—now Figueroa Street; and for fifteen years or more was operated by the Barnards and the Coulters, after which it was turned into an ice factory.
In March of the preceding year, I sent my son Maurice to New York, expecting him there to finish his education. It was thought best, however, to allow him, in 1873, to proceed across the ocean and on to Paris where he might also learn the French language, at that time an especially valuable acquisition in Los Angeles. To this latter decision I was led when Zadoc Kahn, Grand Rabbi of Paris and afterward Grand Rabbi of France, and a brother-in-law of Eugene Meyer, signified his willingness to take charge of the lad; and for three years the Grand Rabbi and his excellent wife well fulfilled their every obligation as temporary guardians. How great an advantage, indeed, this was will be readily recognized by all familiar with the published life of Zadoc Kahn and his reputation as a scholar and pulpit orator. He was a man of the highest ideals, as was proved in his unflinching activity, with Émile Zola, in the defense and liberation of the long-persecuted Dreyfus.
Sometime in December, L. C. Tibbetts, one of the early colonists at Riverside, received a small package from a friend at Washington, D. C., after having driven sixty-five miles to Los Angeles to get it; and he took it out of the little express office without attracting any more attention than to call forth the observation of the clerk that some one must care a lot about farming to make so much fuss about two young trees. "'Tis nothing, says the fool!" The package in question contained two small orange trees from Bahia, Brazil, brought to the United States by the Agricultural Department and destined to bestow upon Tibbetts the honor of having originated the navel orange industry of California.