John Behn
Colonel Jonathan Trumbull Warner, master of Warner's Ranch, later the property of John G. Downey, and known—from his superb stature of over six feet—both as Juan José Warner and as Juan Largo, "Long John," returned to Los Angeles in 1857. Warner had arrived in Southern California, on December 5th, 1831, at the age of twenty-eight, having come West, from Connecticut, via Missouri and Salt Lake, partly for his health, and partly to secure mules for the Louisiana market. Like many others whom I have known, Warner did not intend to remain; but illness decided for him, and in 1843 he settled in San Diego County, near the California border, on what (later known as Warner's Ranch) was to become, with its trail from old Sonora, historic ground. There, during the fourteen years of his occupancy, some of the most stirring episodes of the Mexican War occurred; during one of which—Ensign Espinosa's attack—Don Juan having objected to the forcible searching of his house, he had his arm broken. There, also, António Garra and his lawless band made their assault, and were repulsed by Long John, who escaped on horseback, leaving in his wake four or five dead Indians. For this, and not for military service, Warner was dubbed Colonel; nor was there anyone who cared to dispute his right to the title. In 1837, Juan married Miss Anita Gale, an adopted daughter of Don Pio Pico, and came to Los Angeles; but the following year, Mrs. Warner died. Warner once ran against E. J. C. Kewen for the Legislature but, after an exceedingly bitter campaign, was beaten. In 1874 Warner was a notary public and Spanish-English interpreter. For many years his home was in an orchard occupying the site of the Burbank Theater on Main Street. Warner was a man of character and lived to a venerable age; and after a decidedly arduous life he had more than his share of responsibility and affliction, even losing his sight in his declining years.
William Wolfskill, who died on October 3d, 1866, was another pioneer well-established long before I had even thought of California. Born in Kentucky at the end of the Eighteenth Century—of a family originally of Teutonic stock (if we may credit a high German authority) traced back to a favorite soldier of Frederick the Great—Wolfskill in 1830 came to Los Angeles, for a short time, with Ewing Young, the noted beaver-trapper. Then he acquired several leagues of land in Yolo and Solano counties, sharing what he had with his brothers, John and Mateo. Later he sold out, returned to Los Angeles, and bought and stocked the rancho Lomas de Santiago, which he afterward disposed of to Flint, Bixby & Company. He also bought of Corbitt, Dibblee & Barker the Santa Anita rancho (comprising between nine and ten thousand acres), and some twelve thousand besides; the Santa Anita he gave to his son, Louis, who later sold it for eighty-five thousand dollars. Besides this, Wolfskill acquired title to a part of the rancho San Francisquito, on which Newhall stands, disposing of that, however, during the first oil excitement, to the Philadelphia Oil Company, at seventy-five cents an acre—a good price at that time. Before making these successful realty experiments, this hero of desert hardships had assisted to build, soon after his arrival here, one of the first vessels ever constructed and launched in California—a schooner fitted out at San Pedro to hunt for sea otter. In January, 1841, Wolfskill married Doña Magdalena Lugo, daughter of Don José Ygnácio Lugo, of Santa Bárbara. A daughter, Señorita Magdalena, in 1865 married Frank Sabichi, a native of Los Angeles, who first saw the light of day in 1842. Sabichi, by the way, always a man of importance in this community, is the son of Mateo and Josefa Franco Sabichi (the mother, a sister of António Franco Coronel), buried at San Gabriel Mission. J. E. Pleasants, to whom I elsewhere refer, first made a good start when he formed a partnership with Wolfskill in a cattle deal.
Concerning Mateo, I recall an interesting illustration of early fiscal operations. He deposited thirty thousand dollars with S. Lazard & Company and left it there so long that they began to think he would never come back for it. He did return, however, after many years, when he presented a certificate of deposit and withdrew the money. This transaction bore no interest, as was often the case in former days. People deposited money with friends in whom they had confidence, not for the purpose of profit but simply for safety.
Elijah T. Moulton, a Canadian, was one of the few pioneers who preceded the Forty-niners and was permitted to see Los Angeles well on its way toward metropolitan standing. In 1844 he had joined an expedition to California organized by Jim Bridger; and having reached the Western country, he volunteered to serve under Frémont in the Mexican campaign. There the hardships which Moulton endured were far severer than those which tested the grit of the average emigrant; and Moulton in better days often told how, when nearly driven to starvation, he and a comrade had actually used a remnant of the Stars and Stripes as a seine with which to fish, and so saved their lives. About 1850, Moulton was Deputy Sheriff under George T. Burrill; then he went to work for Don Louis Vignes. Soon afterward, he bought some land near William Wolfskill's, and in 1855 took charge of Wolfskill's property. This resulted in his marriage to one of Wolfskill's daughters, who died in 1861. In the meantime, he had acquired a hundred and fifty acres or more in what is now East Los Angeles, and was thus one of the first to settle in that section. He had a dairy, for a while, and peddled milk from a can or two carried in a wagon. Afterward, Moulton became a member of the City Council.
William Workman and John Rowland, father of William or Billy Rowland, resided in 1853 on La Puente rancho, which was granted them July 22d, 1845, some four years after they had arrived in California. They were leaders of a party from New Mexico, of which B. D. Wilson, Lemuel Carpenter and others were members; and the year following they operated with Pico against Micheltorena and Sutter, Workman serving as Captain, and Rowland as Lieutenant, of a company of volunteers they had organized. The ranch, situated about twenty miles east of Los Angeles, consisted of nearly forty-nine thousand acres, and had one of the first brick residences erected in this neighborhood. Full title to this splendid estate was confirmed by the United States Government in April, 1867, a couple of years before Workman and Rowland, with the assistance of Cameron E. Thom, divided their property. Rowland, who in 1851 was supposed to own some twenty-nine thousand acres and about seventy thousand dollars' worth of personal property, further partitioned his estate, three or four years before his death in 1873, among his nearest of kin, giving to each heir about three thousand acres of land and a thousand head of cattle. One of these heirs, the wife of General Charles Forman, is the half-sister of Billy Rowland by a second marriage.
John Reed, Rowland's son-in-law, was also a large land-proprietor. Reed had fallen in with Rowland in New Mexico, and while there married Rowland's daughter, Nieves; and when Rowland started for California, Reed came with him and together they entered into ranching at La Puente, finding artesian water there, in 1859. Thirteen years before, Reed was in the American army and took part in the battles fought on the march from San Diego to Los Angeles. After his death on the ranch in 1874, his old homestead came into possession of John Rowland's son, William, who often resided there; and Rowland, later discovering oil on his land, organized the Puente Oil Company.
Juan Forster, an Englishman, possessed the Santa Margarita rancho, which he had taken up in 1864, some years after he married Doña Ysidora Pico. She was a sister of Pio and Andrés Pico, and there, as a result of that alliance, General Pico found a safe retreat while fleeing from Frémont into Lower California. Forster for a while was a seaman out of San Pedro. When he went to San Juan Capistrano, where he became a sort of local Alcalde and was often called Don San Juan or even San Juan Capistrano, he experimented with raising stock and became so successful as a ranchero that he remained there twenty years, during which time he acquired a couple of other ranches, in San Diego and Los Angeles counties, comprising quite sixty thousand acres. Forster, however, was comparatively land-poor, as may be inferred from the fact that even though the owner of such a princely territory, he was assessed in 1851 on but thirteen thousand dollars in personal property. Later Don Juan lorded it over twice as much land in the ranches of Santa Margarita and Las Flores. His fourth son, a namesake, married Señorita Josefa del Valle, daughter of Don Ygnácio del Valle.
Manuel, Pedro, Nasário and Victoria Dominguez owned in the neighborhood of forty-eight thousand acres of the choicest land in the South. More than a century ago, Juan José Dominguez received from the King of Spain ten or eleven leagues of land, known as the Rancho de San Pedro; and this was given by Governor de Sola, after Juan José's death in 1822, to his brother, Don Cristóbal Dominguez, a Spanish officer. Don Cristóbal married a Mexican commissioner's daughter, and one of their ten children was Manuel, who, educated by wide reading and fortunate in a genial temperament and high standard of honor, became an esteemed and popular officer under the Mexican régime, displaying no little chivalry in the battle of Dominguez fought on his own property. On the death of his father, Don Manuel took charge of the Rancho de San Pedro (buying out his sister Victoria's interest of twelve thousand acres, at fifty cents an acre) until in 1855 it was partitioned between himself, his brother, Don Pedro and two nephews, José António Aguirre and Jacinto Rocha. One daughter, Victoria, married George Carson in 1857. At his death, in 1882, Dominguez bequeathed to his heirs twenty odd thousand acres, including Rattlesnake Island in San Pedro Bay. James A. Watson, an early-comer, married a second daughter; John F. Francis married a third, and Dr. del Amo married a fourth.