Refúgio Botello was another wholesale cattle- and meat-dealer.
Arthur McKenzie Dodson, who came here in 1850 and later married Miss Reyes, daughter of Nasário Dominguez, conducted a butcher shop and one of the first grocery stores. He was also the first to make soap here. For a while Dodson was in partnership with John Benner who, during a quarter of a century when in business for himself, in the old Temple adobe on Main Street, built up an important trade in the handling of meat. James H. Dodson is Arthur's son.
Santiago Bollo also kept a small grocery.
"Hog" Bennett was here in the middle fifties. He raised and killed hogs, and cured the ham and bacon which he sold to neighboring dealers.
Possessed as he was of an unusual sense of rectitude, I esteemed Francisco Solano, father of Alfredo Solano, for his many good qualities. He was in the butcher business in Sonora Town, and was prosperous in the early fifties.
An odd little store was that of Madame Salandie, who came to California in 1849, on the same vessel that brought Lorenzo Leck. She had a butcher shop; but, rather curiously, she was also a money-lender.
I believe that Jack Yates was here in 1853. He owned the first general laundry, located on Los Angeles Street between First and Requena, and conducted it with success and profit for many years, until he succumbed to the competition of the Chinese. Yates's daughter, Miss Mary D., married H. J. Woollacott, at one time a prominent financier.
More than once, in recording these fragmentary recollections, I have had occasion to refer to persons who, at one time or another, were employed in a very different manner than in a later period of their lives. The truth is that in the early days one's occupation did not weigh much in the balance, provided only that he was honorable and a good citizen; and pursuits lowly to-day were then engaged in by excellent men. Many of the vocations of standing were unknown, in fact, fifty or sixty years ago; and refined and educated gentlemen often turned their attention to what are now considered humble occupations.
CHAPTER VII
IN AND NEAR THE OLD PUEBLO
1853
About the time when I arrived, Assessor António F. Coronel reported an increase in the City and County assessment of over eight hundred and five thousand dollars, but the number of stores was really limited, and the amount of business involved was in proportion. The community was like a village; and such was the provincial character of the town that, instead of indicating the location of a store or office by a number, the advertiser more frequently used such a phrase as "opposite the Bella Union," "near the Express Office," or "vis-à-vis to Mr. Temple's." Nor was this of great importance: change of names and addresses were frequent in business establishments in those days—an indication, perhaps, of the restless spirit of the times.