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  Inconsistent hyphenation and spelling in the original document have
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  [Illustration: Harris Newmark]




     SIXTY YEARS
     IN
     SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA

     1853-1913

     CONTAINING THE REMINISCENCES OF
     HARRIS NEWMARK

     EDITED BY
     MAURICE H. NEWMARK
     MARCO R. NEWMARK

     Every generation enjoys the use of a vast hoard bequeathed
     to it by antiquity, and transmits that hoard, augmented by
     fresh acquisitions, to future ages. In these pursuits, therefore,
     the first speculators lie under great disadvantages, and, even
     when they fail, are entitled to praise.--MACAULAY.

     _WITH 150 ILLUSTRATIONS_


     NEW YORK
     The Knickerbocker Press
     1916




     COPYRIGHT, 1916
     BY
     M. H. AND M. R. NEWMARK




     To
     THE MEMORY OF
     MY WIFE




In Memoriam


At the hour of high twelve on April the fourth, 1916, the sun shone
into a room where lay the temporal abode, for eighty-one years and
more, of the spirit of Harris Newmark. On his face still lingered that
look of peace which betokens a life worthily used and gently
relinquished.

Many were the duties allotted him in his pilgrimage; splendidly did he
accomplish them! Providence permitted him the completion of his final
task--a labor of love--but denied him the privilege of seeing it given
to the community of his adoption.

To him and to her, by whose side he sleeps, may it be both monument
and epitaph.

_Thy will be done!_

     M. H. N.
     M. R. N.




INTRODUCTION


Several times during his latter years my friend, Charles Dwight
Willard, urged me to write out my recollections of the five or six
decades I had already passed in Los Angeles, expressing his regret
that many pioneers had carried from this world so much that might have
been of interest to both the Angeleno of the present and the future
historian of Southern California; but as I had always led an active
life of business or travel, and had neither fitted myself for any sort
of literary undertaking nor attempted one, I gave scant attention to
the proposal. Mr. Willard's persistency, however, together with the
prospect of cooperation offered me by my sons, finally overcame my
reluctance and I determined to commence the work.

Accordingly in June, 1913, at my Santa Monica home, I began to devote
a few hours each day to a more or less fragmentary enumeration of the
incidents of my boyhood; of my voyage over the great wastes of sea and
land between my ancestral and adopted homes; of the pueblo and its
surroundings that I found on this Western shore; of its people and
their customs; and, finally, of the men and women who, from then until
now, have contributed to the greatness of the Southland, and of the
things they have done or said to entitle their names to be recorded.
This task I finished in the early fall. During its progress I entered
more and more into the distant Past, until Memory conjured before me
many long-forgotten faces and happenings. In the end, I found that I
had jotted down a mass of notes much greater than I had expected.

Thereupon the Editors began their duties, which were to arrange the
materials at hand, to supply names and dates that had escaped me, and
to interview many who had been principals in events and, accordingly,
were presumed to know the details; and much progress was made, to the
enlarging and enrichment of the book. But it was not long before they
found that the work involved an amount of investigation which their
limited time would not permit; and that if carried out on even the
modest plan originally contemplated, some additional assistance would
be required.

Fortunately, just then they met Perry Worden, a post-graduate of
Columbia and a Doctor of Philosophy of the University of Halle,
Germany; a scholar and an author of attainments. His aid, as
investigator and adviser, has been indispensable to the completion of
the work in its present form. Dr. Worden spent many months searching
the newspapers, magazines and books--some of whose titles find special
mention in the text--which deal with Southern California and its past;
and he also interviewed many pioneers, to each of whom I owe
acknowledgment for ready and friendly cooperation. In short, no pains
was spared to confirm and amplify all the facts and narratives.

Whether to arrange the matter chronologically or not, was a problem
impossible of solution to the complete satisfaction of the Editors;
this, as well as other methods, having its advantages and
disadvantages. After mature consideration, the chronological plan was
adopted, and the events of each year have been recorded more or less
in the order of their happening. Whatever confusion, if any, may arise
through this treatment of local history as a chronicle for ready
reference will be easily overcome, it is believed, through the dating
of the chapters and the provision of a comprehensive index; while the
brief chapter-heading, generally a reference to some marked occurrence
in that period, will further assist the reader to get his bearings.
Preference has been given to the first thirty years of my residence in
Los Angeles, both on account of my affectionate remembrance of that
time and because of the peculiarity of memory in advanced life which
enables us to recall remote events when more recent ones are
forgotten; and inasmuch as so little has been handed down from the
days of the adobe, this partiality will probably find favor.

In collecting this mass of data, many discrepancies were met with,
calling for the acceptance or rejection of much long current here as
fact; and in all such cases I selected the version most closely
corresponding with my own recollection, or that seemed to me, in the
light of other facts, to be correct. For this reason, no less than
because in my narrative of hitherto unrecorded events and
personalities it would be miraculous if errors have not found their
way into the story, I shall be grateful if those who discover
inaccuracies will report them to me. In these sixty years, also, I
have met many men and women worthy of recollection, and it is certain
that there are some whose names I have not mentioned; if so, I wish to
disclaim any intentional neglect. Indeed, precisely as I have
introduced the names of a number for whom I have had no personal
liking, but whose services to the community I remember with respect,
so there are doubtless others whose activities, past or present, it
would afford me keen pleasure to note, but whom unhappily I have
overlooked.

With this brief introduction, I give the manuscript to the printer,
not with the ambitious hope of enriching literature in any respect,
but not without confidence that I have provided some new material for
the local historian--perhaps of the future--and that there may be a
goodly number of people sufficiently interested to read and enjoy the
story, yet indulgent enough to overlook the many faults in its
narration.

     H. N.

     LOS ANGELES,
     _December 31, 1915_.




FOREWORD


The Historian no longer writes History by warming over the pancakes of
his predecessors. He must surely know what they have done, and
how--and whereby they succeeded and wherein they failed. But his own
labor is to find the sidelights they did not have. Macaulay saves him
from doing again all the research that Macaulay had to do; but if he
could find a twin Boswell or a second Pepys he would rather have
either than a dozen new Macaulays. Since history is becoming really a
Science, and is no more a closet exploration of half-digested
arm-chair books, we are beginning to learn the overwhelming value of
the contemporary witness. Even a justice's court will not admit
Hearsay Evidence; and Science has been shamed into adopting the same
sane rule. Nowadays it demands the eye-witness. We look less for the
"Authorities" now, and more for the Documents. There are too many
histories already, such as they are--self-satisfied and oracular, but
not one conclusive. Every history is put out of date, almost daily, by
the discovery of some scrap of paper or some clay tablet from under
the ashes of Babylon.

Mere Humans no longer read History--except in school where they have
to, or in study clubs where it is also Required. But a plain personal
narrative is interesting now as it has been for five thousand years.
The world's greatest book is of course compulsory; but what is the
_interesting_ part of it? Why, the stories--Adam and Eve; Abraham,
Isaac and Jacob; Saul and David and Samson and Delilah; Solomon, Job,
and Jesus the Christ! And if anyone thinks Moses worked-in a little
too much of the Family Tree--he doesn't know what biblical archaeology
is doing. For it is thanks to these same "petty" details that modern
Science, in its excavations and decipherings, has verified the Bible
and resolved many of its riddles!

Greece had one Herodotus. America had _four_, antedating the year
1600. All these truly great historians built from all the "sources"
they could find. But none of them quite give us the homely, vital
picture of life and feeling that one untaught and untamed soldier,
Bernal Diaz, wrote for us three hundred years ago when he was past
ninety, and toothless--and angry "because the historians didn't get it
straight." The student of Spanish America has often to wish there had
been a Bernal Diaz for every decade and every province