And, considering the fate that has befallen more than one community which coldly regarded the proposals of these same California railroads, Crocker's warning was not without significance.
The Crocker incident having left matters in a worse state than before, Colonel Eldridge E. Hewitt, agent for the Southern Pacific, brought Governor Stanford to my office and introduced him. Stanford stated that his road would soon be in operation and expressed the hope that H. Newmark & Company would patronize it. I told Stanford that our relations with the steamship company had always been very pleasant, but that we would be very glad to give his line a share of our business, if rates were made satisfactory. At the same time, the Southern Pacific Railroad Company, having secured control of the Los Angeles & San Pedro Railroad, issued circulars announcing that steamer freight would henceforth be classified. As this was a violent departure from established precedents, it foreshadowed trouble; and, sure enough, rates moved upward from eight to as high as thirty dollars a ton, according to classification.
H. Newmark & Company and Hellman, Haas & Company, who were the heaviest shippers in Los Angeles, together with a number of other merchants, decided to charter a steamer or sailing vessel. James McFadden, of Santa Ana, owned the tramp steamboat Newport which plied between San Francisco and Newport Landing, in an irregular lumber-trade; and this, after some negotiations, we engaged for three years, on the basis of three dollars per ton. Having made this contract, we entered valiantly into the contest; and, in order suitably to impress the Southern Pacific Railroad Company with our importance, we loaded the vessel, on her initial trip, to the gunwales. Now cargo, on arriving at Wilmington at that time, used to be loaded into cars, brought to Los Angeles and left in the freight shed until we removed it at our convenience; but when the Newport arrived, the vessel was unloaded and the merchandise put into the warehouse at Wilmington, where it was held several days before it was reshipped. On its arrival in Los Angeles, the Railroad Company gave notice that removal must be effected within twenty-four hours, or demurrage would be charged; and since, with the small facilities in those days at our command, so prompt a withdrawal of an entire cargo was a physical impossibility, our expenses were straightway heavily increased.
Subsequent to this first shipment, we adopted a more conservative policy, in spite of which our troubles were to multiply. The Southern Pacific Railroad Company named a rate of three dollars a ton in less than carload lots between San Francisco and way-stations, and this induced many of our country customers to trade in that city. At the same time, the Company carried many lines between San Francisco and Los Angeles free of charge, potatoes and other heavy items being favored. The mask was now discarded, and it became evident that we were engaged in a life-and-death struggle.
Had there been a united front, the moral effect might have sustained us in the unequal contest; but unfortunately, H. Newmark & Company were abandoned by every shipper in Los Angeles except Hellman, Haas & Company, and we soon found that fighting railroad companies recalled the adage, "The game's not worth the candle." At the end of ten months of sacrifices, we invoked the assistance of my former partner and friend, Phineas Banning, who was then associated with the Southern Pacific; and he visited the officials in San Francisco in our behalf. Stanford told him that the Railroad Company, rather than make a single concession, would lose a million dollars in the conflict; but Banning finally induced the Company to buy the Newport, which brought to a close the first fight in Los Angeles against a railroad.
In the winter of 1876-77, a drought almost destroyed the sheep industry in Southern California. As a last resort, the ranchers, seeing the exhausted condition of their ranges, started to drive their sheep to Arizona, New Mexico or Utah; but most of them fell by the way.
Again, we had the coincidence of drought and a fatal epidemic of smallpox, not only leaving death in its wake, but incidentally damaging business a good deal. Mrs. Juan Lanfranco was one of those who died; Mr. and Mrs. Solomon Lazard lost a son, and a grocer by the name of Henry Niedecken, who had a little frame store where the Angelus Hotel now stands, as well as many others, succumbed.
CHAPTER XXXV
THE REVIVAL OF THE SOUTHLAND
1877-1880
The late seventies were marked by an encouraging awakening of national energy and a growing desire on the part of the Angeleño, notwithstanding the excessive local dullness, to bring the outside world a pace or two nearer; as a result of which, things began to simmer, while there was an unmistakable manifestation on the part of those at places more or less remote to explore the almost unknown Southwest, especially that portion bordering on the Pacific.
I have already noted, with varying dates, the time when patents to land were issued. These dates remind me of the long years during which some of the ranch owners had to wait before they received a clear title to their vast estates. Although, as I have said, the Land Commission was in session during the first decade of my residence here, it was a quarter of a century and more, in some cases, after the Commissioners had completed their reports before the Washington authorities issued the desired patents confirming the Mexican grants; and by that time, not a few of those who had owned the ranches at the beginning of the American occupancy were dead and buried.