by Paul R. Spitzzeri
We close this post, having gone into some detail about the loss in the 1890s of the 814-acre Joseph M. Workman tract within Rancho La Puente and the suits filed by his daughter, Josephine, a former film star known as Princess Mona Darkfeather, to recover part ownership and back rents on the remaining portion, and heard and adjudicated between 1918 and 1924. What remains to do is look into some of the testimony and other features of the cases, which helps us understand a little better about the legal issues at hand, but also some of the Workman family relationships, documentation of which is extremely rare.
When Joseph was a child, he was sent to Baltimore to live with Agnes Workman Vickers, his father’s sister, presumably so he could receive a better education than he could get in the remote frontier pueblo of Los Angeles. After her death in 1848, he resided with his father’s brother, David Workman and his family in central Missouri and, in 1854, came with them to California, reuniting with his family.
Joseph was then about 21 years of age and he was immediately sent north of Los Angeles to help manage cattle for his father and his brother-in-law, F.P.F. Temple. At the end of his 15 years in that area, he married Josephine Belt of Stockton and then returned to La Puente in 1870 to take possession of the ranch, though he didn’t receive the deed for some time, as we’ll note below.
After about a dozen years, the family, which eventually included seven children, with five daughters (one died as a toddler) and two sons, moved to Boyle Heights, on a property sold to Joseph and his wife by his cousin, William H. Workman. The ranch at La Puente was leased and it appears the family primarily lived off that income, including during the great Boom of the 1880s (during which William H. was the Angel City’s mayor). But, with the inevitable bust and some poor economic periods came financial trouble and the loss of the ranch in 1895 to the German-American Savings Bank.
A published report of the case when heard by the California Supreme Court and filed in February 1923 noted that, when the bank filed several foreclosure notices in 1894 (a national depression burst forth the prior year), one of these included Joseph and Josephine’s two eldest daughters, Mary and Agnes, as defendants because of their involvement in two mortgages of the ranch for securing two promissory nots totaling $17,000 and issued in June and July 1891. Soon, the bank became owner of the ranch and, in July 1895, conveyed it to Bassett for “a sum of money equivalent to the amount necessary to redeem the mortgaged premises from all sales.”
Notably, the report added that,
At the time O.T. Bassett purchased the interest of Joseph M. Workman in the land, very little, if any, of it had been placed under irrigation, but all the land had been used for farming purposes in growing such crops [wheat or barley, probably] as could be grown without irrigation.
This changed, however, when Bassett took possession and planted walnuts, requiring “ditches over the land in various directions” and water delivered “by means of pumping plants.” At the end of 1895, a subdivision was established and known as “O.T. Bassett’s Subdivision of the Workman Tract,” of which 124 acres were sold and these dedicated to dry farming. When he died in 1898, Bassett left no will and the property and others within Los Angeles County were subject to a public administrator acting on behalf of the sole heir, Charles, who was a minor for more than two years.
A distribution was made through the courts in October 1900, though Charles did not reach his majority until the next year. Over the course of several years, the younger Bassett sold more of the ranch so that what was left was just about 285 acres by the time that Josephine Workman Akley filed her suit in 1918. The most recent action, heard in September 1922, was for a partition of the remaining portion with the proportions averred to be 7/18 for Bassett, 2/18 for the Workman heirs, including son William J., and 1/18 for the widow of the other son, George, who died by suicide in 1903, though the couple was separated at the time.
As for notice in the quit claim filing made by the elder Bassett against the Workman heirs, it is worth noting that, while Josephine was the youngest child, she had two older siblings who were still minors at the time the action was instituted in early March 1895—these were Williams, who turned 19 that year, and George, who became 16. Moreover, Superior Court Judge Waldo M. York appointed a guardian for the trio, though, again, it was later argued that “Josephine M. Akley was never served with process, and the court never obtained any jurisdiction over her,” including the guardianship.
The text of the 11 October 1870 deed from William Workman to his son was also included, stipulating the life estate and then, on Joseph’s death, the passage of the land to his children. Another interesting element of the transactions a quarter century later is that the Workman children, in 1895, were ready to pursue a claim to the ranch, but struck a deal with Oscar Bassett to acquire property in El Paso for $15,000 and drop their claim. Moreover, from rents derived from Texas holdings, Joseph Workman was to receive $50 a month for life as something of annuity, while Mary Workman’s then-husband, Jesse J. Thornton was to collect money as trustee for the minor children for distribution when they became of age. Joseph sued Thornton in 1898 over alleged accounting irregularities regarding this annuity, though the disposition of that matter has not been located.
As to testimony, William R. Rowland, son of Rancho La Puente co-grantee John Rowland, a two-time county sheriff and then in his mid-Seventies, told the court that he knew William Workman (the younger Rowland was named for Workman) and affirmed that the rancho, of more than 45,000 (it was closer to 49,000) acres, was divided between his father and Workman in 1868. Rowland, however, stated that this was done “by running a line through it almost due north and south” and that this boundary “crossed the Puente [Valley] boulevard right about where the present Puente depot [on the Southern Pacific line] is.
This actually was not the case, as the owners were careful to partition La Puente evenly by hill and valley lands, which involved assigning sections not straight down the middle but based on these types. In any case, Rowland added that “my father’s house [this 1855 brick dwelling still stands today behind the offices of the Hacienda-La Puente Unified School District] was about a half mile from the home of William Workman, and I visited at the home of William Workman very frequently.” Rowland continue that, “I talked to William Workman very frequently as my father used to send me over there very often to talk with him about matters connected with the ranch [William Rowland helped his father manage the property as a young man.]”
After affirming that he also knew William’s son Joseph, Rowland answered a question by replying,
Yes, Joe Workman did come to me and ask me to secure from his father, William Workman, a deed to a part of this ranch, which Joe Workman stated to me his father had signed, but would not deliver to him. He asked me to speak to his father about giving him the deed to the place, and I told him I would. Joe was then living on the ranch, that is, on the land that was afterwards deeded to him. I do not know how long Joe Workman had been living on the ranch at the time of this conversation that I speak of. It was a good many years ago, and I couldn’t say positively, but I should judge he had been there two or three years [it was about two and a half.]
An earlier part of this post referred to the fact that, in early March 1920, as the first trial was underway before Judge Lewis R. Works, deputy sheriffs were empowered by him to break through the gate to the Malibu ranch and arrest Josephine Belt Workman Parten, Akley’s mother, so she could testify. The report noted that Parten, who was just shy of 70 years of age, was ill, so an affidavit from her was submitted as evidence.
In it, she stated that the deed delivered to her husband in March 1873 and recorded with the county clerk was given to Joseph “by an attorney hired by the said Joseph M. Workman” and “that said Joseph M. Workman paid said attorney the sum of $100 for his services.” Moreover, Parten added that none of her family resided on the 814-acre ranch after 1881 and noted that only Akley was born in Los Angeles, whereas the other children were born at the ranch. In a deposition, Parten said she could not remember exactly when they moved, but said that “we lived there [La Puente] about twelve years.”
As to her father-in-law, Parten said
I don’t know exactly how far he lived from this property, but I think it is about three miles. He visited our home and we visited him wuite [sic] often . . . I cannot tell you when I first saw this deed. I know it was in the house a long time before it was recorded, some time over a year . . . we had a leather trunk in which Mr. Workman always kept his papers. After the deed was received by him it was kept in that trunk until it was recorded . . . I don’t think that I ever had the talk with Mr. Workman’s father [nor her husband] about the deed.
Parten responded to other questions concerning the fact that Joseph “erected the home where we lived and necessary outbuildings and some fencing on the property” and that the dwelling was completed before they moved in it, though the remaining structures were added afterward. She allowed that she likely put the deed, apparently brought home by her husband, in the trunk as she normally did that kind of thing.
Richard Pollard, who knew Joseph from about 1875 until the latter’s death just over a quarter-century later, testified that, “on numerous occasions between 1875 and the year 1893” Workman told him that he “employed a lawyer in the city of Los Angeles who obtained delivery of the deed” on 27 March 1873 for a fee of $100 and that the document was delivered to Joseph’s house, which, however, Pollard said was in San Gabriel, which was certainly not the case. In any case, Joseph told Pollard in these many instances that he immediately changed, hitched his horses to a conveyance and went to Los Angeles in what was “claimed to be the record time” to record the deed.
Margarita (Margaret) Temple Rowland, Joseph’s niece, testified that her uncle told him that he had a life interest in the ranch and that he “immediately caused said deed to be recorded upon receipt of the same.” Her brother, John, who was a decade older, told the court that “after my return from Boston, where I was attending school and in the year 1876,” this also being several months after the failure of the Temple and Workman bank and not long after William Workman’s suicide,” his uncle told him of hiring a lawyer to get the deed for $100 and his immediate recording of the document. John, however, added that Joseph “stated to me that the reason he had it recorded immediately was that he, the said Workman, was afraid that his father, the said William Workman, would take it back from him.”
The greatest detail about the transfer of the document, however, came from Parten’s sister, Lola McNish, who told the court,
In 1870 I was present at La Puente Ranch, the home of William Workman, where he used to live, when William Workman and Joseph Workman were together. In the room were Fred Lambourne, Josephine and Joe Workman, Mr. Davis [she later said she did not know who this was other than that “he was the old gentleman that stayed with William Workman all the time”] and myself. Mrs. Knight [Mary Workman] was present at that time. She was a baby in my arms [McNish then noted that the child was born at the end of 1870 and was about three months old when this event took place, so it would have been probably in January or February 1871] . . . Well, I had the baby in my arms, and the old man was in very good humor that day. Old William, that was what we called him . . . he came up where I was standing and he says, “Joe . . . I am going to give this baby 2000 head of sheep and the land . . . that you have got is for the children.” That was what the old gentleman, old Mr. William Workman, told me . . . it was not in the first place given to Joe Workman. It was given to the children.
Angelo K. Maropolous, a New York City native and merchant who said he came to Los Angeles in 1879, testified “I got acquainted with Joseph Workman along in—between 1882 and 1883, I think,” this being about the time that the move from La Puente to Boyle Heights took place, and added, “the folks were coming in and patronizing us.” There were also some unexplained business dealings between the merchant and his customer.
Maropolous then said that, in 1886 or 1887, he and Joseph were standing under the entry of a downtown Los Angeles business building when Joseph “told me that his father was sick, or something of that sort, and he sent somebody to him, some sheep man or cattleman,” but then the witness changed direction and said “no, he sent somebody to him and told his father—wanted him to try to get the deed for him for the land at Puente—El Monte,” with Maropolous then saying he was confused over where the ranch was. The sheep or cattle man was apparently an employee of Joseph who hitched up the team when the deed arrived and was taken for recording.
Charles D. Goold, Louis A. Pollard (Richard’s brother—the two lived with Mary Workman and Jesse Thornton prior to their divorce and her remarriage to Augustus Knight and were horse trainers for his horse trading business) and Alexander D. Patterson, all testified, albeit with somewhat jumbled recollections about the receipt and recording of the deed, including the purported record time of Joseph’s ride into town. Mary Knight and Agnes Stoll also were on the stand, but only really acknowledged their identities and relation to their father, while William Joseph Workman did not offer much of substance as it seemed he was not in much contact with his father or knew much about the ranch.
It was another in-law, however, who offered more fascinating detail, as Jesse J. Thornton told the court that, having “had a great many conversations with Mr. Workman concerning the deliver of the deed to him of 814 acres,” he specified that, in 1888, as he was courting Mary, he was at the Boyle Heights residence. Others, including Agnes and Lucille and several non-family members were present and Thornton related that “Mr. Workman was feeling pretty good that evening and was very talkative.”
Moreover, the witness continued, Joseph related that “Mr. [William] Rowland told him to hire an [unidentified] attorney, a friend of his father’s, and send him out to his father’s ranch and get him to talk the old gentleman into giving him the deed to the property so that he could have it recorded.” When the lawyer arrived at the Workman House, the recollection went on,
The man stayed two or three days, visited with his father and finally brought the subject up about the deed to Joe’s property and told him that Joe had quit drinking, wasn’t so wild and didn’t gamble much and that he had a family and that he ought to have the deed to his property so that he could go ahead and feel like improving it like he owned it and he said the old gentleman went into his room, got the deed, took it and threw it at the man’s feet, and said, “Joe sent you over didn’t he?” The gentleman told him no; that he was a friend of both of them and that he thought Joe ought to have the deed.
Thornton observed that Joseph paid the $100 “that his wife had saved up from butter and eggs that she had been selling” to the lawyer and then “drove to town just as fast as he could, that he beat the record; he made the best trip, the fastest trip that ever was made from Puente to Los Angeles.” With Joseph residing with the Thorntons for around a decade, this tale was retold, and it was added that, in 1893, Joseph and Josephine Workman separated, but never divorced.
Some of this testimony, especially by McNish and Thornton, are quite interesting and revealing as to the relationship between William and Joseph Workman. As to the aftermath, Charles N. Bassett lived another two decades after the final decision in the ranch case, serving as president of the El Paso bank for 22 years before his death in 1922. One of the few local mentions of him after the case involved his friendship with the disgraced former Secretary of the Interior Albert Fall of the notorious Teapot Dome scandal of the Twenties.
Josephine Workman Akley receded quietly from the spotlight with both her film career and her prospects of a small fortune relating to the ranch over. She divorced Frank Montgomery not long after the 1924 end to the litigation, married a Monrovia banker, divorced him after several years, and remarried Montgomery in 1937. He died seven years later and she remained alone in their Silver Lake apartment until her death in 1977. It remains amazing that some of her film career photographs and a few other items survived for another 45 years before being donated to the Museum.
Aside from its rare insights into the Workman family, their legal issues during some three decades from the mid-1890s through the mid-1920s, there is also a bit of the history of the unincorporated Bassett community and its founders and namesakes, Oscar and his son Charles, that this post reveals.