Sixty Years in Southern California, 1853-1913. Harris Newmark
Pico's staff, served as a Ranger; and in 1853 he organized the first military company in Los Angeles.
Manuel Requena, from Yucatan, was another man of influence. He lived on the east side of Los Angeles Street, north of the thoroughfare opened through his vineyard and named after him—later extended east of Los Angeles Street. As early as June, 1836, Requena, then Alcalde, made a census of this district. He was a member of the first, as well as the second, third, fifth and seventh Common Councils, and with David W. Alexander was the only member of the first body to serve out the entire term. In 1852, Requena was elected a Supervisor. Mrs. Requena was a sister of Mrs. Alexander Bell and Mrs. James, or Santiago Johnson, and an aunt of Henry and Francis Mellus and Mrs. J. H. Lander. Requena died on June 27th, 1876, aged seventy-four years.
Henry N. Alexander appeared in Los Angeles at about the same time that I did—possibly afterward—and was very active as a Ranger. He too occupied positions of trust, in business as well as public life, being both City and County Treasurer—in the latter case, preceding Maurice Kremer. It is not surprising, therefore, that he became Wells Fargo & Company's agent when much uphill work had to be done to establish their interests here. He married a daughter of Don Pedro Dominguez. Alexander moved to Arizona, after which I lost track of him.
John W. Shore, who was here in 1853, was County Clerk from 1854 to 1857, and again from 1860 to 1863. He always canvassed for votes on horseback until, one day, he fell off and broke his leg, necessitating amputation. This terminated his active campaigns; but through sympathy he was reëlected, and by a larger majority. Shore was a Democrat.
Mention of public officials leads me to speak of an interesting personality long associated with them. On the west side of Spring Street near First, where the Schumacher Building now stands, John Schumacher conducted, in a single room, as was then common, a grocery store and bar. A good-hearted, honest German of the old school, and a first-class citizen, he had come from Würtemberg to America, and then, with Stevenson's Regiment, to California, arriving in Los Angeles in 1847 or 1848. From here he went to Sutter's Creek, where he found a nugget of gold worth eight hundred dollars, for which he was offered land in San Francisco later worth millions—a tender which the Würtemberger declined; and the same year that I arrived, he returned to Los Angeles, whose activity had increased considerably since he had last seen it. In 1855, Schumacher married Fräulein Mary Uhrie, from which union six children including two sons, John and Frank G. Schumacher, were born. The eldest daughter became Mrs. Edward A. Preuss. Schumacher established his store, having bought nearly the whole block bounded by Spring and First streets and Franklin Alley for the value of his famous gold nugget; and there he remained until the early seventies, the Schumacher Block being built, as I have said, on a part of the property. Mrs. Schumacher in 1880 met with a tragic death: while at the railway station in Merced, she was jolted from the platform of a car and was instantly killed.
For something else, however, Schumacher was especially known. When he returned in 1853, he put on sale the first lager beer introduced into Los Angeles, importing the same from San Francisco, of which enterprise the genial German was proud; but Schumacher acquired even more fame for a drink that he may be said to have invented, and which was known to the early settlers as Peach and Honey. It contained a good mixture with peach brandy, and was a great favorite, especially with politicians and frequenters of the neighboring Courthouse, including well-known members of the Bar, all of whom crowded John's place, "between times," to enjoy his much-praised concoction. Whenever in fact anyone had a cold, or fancied that he was going to be so afflicted, he hastened to John for his reputedly-certain cure. Schumacher, who served as Councilman in 1855, 1856 and 1857, was proficient in languages and, as an interpreter, often gave his time and services freely in assisting his less-gifted neighbors, particularly the poor and unfortunate, to straighten out their affairs. In the fall of 1860, he had a narrow escape through the carelessness of a customer who threw a lighted match into a can of powder. Schumacher owned some acreage in what was known as the Green Meadows, a section located near what is now South Figueroa Street; and this land he held with Jacob Bell, who was assassinated, as I shall relate, by a Frenchman named Lachenais—hanged, in turn, by an exasperated mob.
Most political meetings of that period took place at the Plaza home of Don Ygnácio Del Valle, first County Recorder. From 1841, Don Ygnácio lived for some time on the San Francisco rancho granted by the King of Spain to his father and confirmed by patent in 1875. He also owned the more famous Camulos rancho on the Santa Clara River, consisting of several thousand acres north and west of Newhall, afterward selected by Helen Hunt Jackson as the setting for some of the scenes in her novel, Ramona; and these possessions made him a man of great importance. During his later life, when he had abandoned his town residence, Del Valle dwelt in genteel leisure at the rancho, dying there in 1880; and I will not miss this opportunity to attest his patrician bearing and genial qualities.
At the time of my arrival, there was but one voting precinct and the polling place was located at the old municipal and County adobe already spoken of; although later a second polls was established at the Round House. Inside the room sat the election judges and clerks; outside a window stood the jam of voters. The window-sill corresponded to the thickness of the adobe wall, and was therefore about three feet deep. This sill served as a table, upon it being placed a soap- or candle-box, into which a hole had been cut for the deposit of the votes.
There was also no register, either great or small, and anyone could vote. Each party printed its own tickets; and so could any candidate. This resulted in great confusion, since there were always many tickets in the field—as many, in fact, as there were candidates; yet the entire proceeding had become legalized by custom. The candidate of one party could thus use the ticket of the other, substituting his own name for his opponent's, and leaving all of the remainder of the ticket unchanged; in addition to which there was such a lack of uniformity in the size and color of the ballots as greatly to add to the confusion in counting.
To make matters worse, the ballot-box was not easily reached because of the crowd which was made up largely of the candidates and their friends. Challenging was the order of the day; yet, after crimination and recrimination, the votes were generally permitted to be cast. Although it is true, of course, that many votes were legitimate, yet aliens such as Mexicans, who had not even considered the question of taking out citizenship papers, were permitted to vote while Indians and half-breeds, who were not eligible to citizenship at all, were irregularly given the franchise. The story is told of an election not far from Los Angeles at which a whole tribe of Indians was voted; while on another occasion the names on a steamer's passenger-list were utilized by persons who had already voted, that very day, once or twice! Cutting off the hair, shaving one's beard or mustache, reclothing or otherwise transforming the appearance of the voter—these were some of the tricks then practiced, which the new registry law of 1866 only partially did away with.
Sonorans, who had recently arrived from Mexico, as well as the aliens I have mentioned, were easy subjects for the political manipulator. The various candidates, for example, would round-up these prospective voters like so many cattle, confine them in corrals (usually in the neighborhood of Boyle Heights), keep them in a truly magnificent state of intoxication until the eventful morning, and then put them in stages hired from either Banning or Tomlinson for the purpose; and from the time the temporary prisoners left the corral until their votes had been securely deposited, they were closely watched by guards. On reaching the voting place, the captives were unloaded from the stage like so much inanimate baggage, and turned over to friends of the candidate to whom, so to speak, for the time being they belonged. One at a time, these creatures were led to vote; and as each staggered to the ballot-box, a ticket was held up and he was made to deposit it. Once having served the purpose, he was turned loose and remained free until another election unless, as I have intimated, he and his fellows were again corralled and made to vote a second or even a third time the same day.
Nearly all influential Mexicans were Democrats, so that this party easily controlled the political situation; from which circumstance a certain brief campaign ended in a most amusing manner. It happened that Thomas H. Workman, brother of William H., once ran for County Clerk, although he was not a Democrat. Billy was naturally much interested in his brother's candidacy, and did what he could to help him. On the evening before election, he rented a corral—located