“One of the Best Friends That Southern California Ever Had”: Some History of Leonard J. Rose, 1827-1899, Part One

by Paul R. Spitzzeri

John Marnell’s fascinating recent post on the overland migration of Leonard John Rose, known commonly as L.J., his family and others to Los Angeles, after a harrowing first attempt was halted by indigenous people at the Colorado River near modern Needles and a second one that subsequently succeeded, was an inspiration to delve into Rose’s forty years in greater Los Angeles, using several artifacts related to him in the Homestead’s collection as featured objects for this multi-part post.

Rose was born on 1 May 1827 in Rottenburg, Bavaria, Germany, about 30 miles southwest of Stuttgart and not far from the borders with France and Switzerland, to Ferdinand and Wihelmina Rose. Rose’s biographer and namesake son stated that the family migrated to America when Rose was eight years old, but other sources, including an 1889 Los Angeles County history, for which information was likely provided directly by Rose, gave the date as 1839.

After a brief period in New Orleans, where Rose’s father was a merchant, the family headed north up the Mississippi River and stopped at Waterloo, Illinois, in the southern part of the state and south of St. Louis. He was educated 50 miles to the north in Alton at Shurtleff College, a Baptist institution, and then went to work in his father’s store. Apparently, his father’s “eccentricities,” the word used by the Leonard, Jr., who said his grandfather was known as “The Crazy Dutchman,” as well as battles about how to run the business, led L.J. to go out on his own, including a brief stay at Quincy, another river town 150 miles north.

In 1848, Rose settled in Keosauqua, Iowa, on the Des Moines River in the southeastern part of the state and ran a store. In March 1851, he married Amanda Markel Jones and, a half-dozen years later, having a surplus of some $30,000, the merchant, according to his son, “saw the successful realization of his life’s dream of a race-horse breeding ranch in California as a possibility,” and began that difficult migration to the Golden State. Notably, L.J., Jr, added that his father was “always inclined to be a plunger” into projects and schemes, which would be more than obvious during the rest of the elder Rose’s life.

After the migration, which John detailed in his post, the Rose family arrived at the mission town of San Gabriel at the end of 1860, where L.J. rented an adobe house formerly resided in by John D. Woodworth, whose son, Wallace, was the subject of a recent post here. It may be that this was recommended by Isaac Williams of the Rancho Santa Ana del Chino, who, as with many migrants, offered shelter to the Rose family at the end of their long journey and whose sister, Samantha, was married to John Woodworth. That couple lived in the same Iowa county, Van Buren, as Rose, so that seems an obvious connection and may have led Rose to come here.

Rose then traveled through Los Angeles, Kings, San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara and Ventura counties looking for a place to purchase, but, his son wrote, “the farther he got from San Gabriel Valley the less attractive were conditions, and he returned to the land of his first love.” He acquired 1,300 acres for not more than a dollar an acre, along the eastern boundary of the Rancho San Pasqual and also bordering on the west the Rancho Santa Anita in what was public land once associated with the Mission San Gabriel (and granted in 1846 to William Workman and Hugo Reid by Governor Pío Pico, though this was invalidated by the U.S. Supreme Court in spring 1864.)

After a brief stay at the Woodworth house, Rose found another spot, which his son was occupied by a squatter named Andrew J. Courtney, son-in-law of Michael White, a long-time friend of William Workman. The junior Rose recorded that “Father finally disposessed Courtney by paying him a small sum,” though it was added that the latter “assumed a menacing attitude” and a lengthy court battle ensued, though finally adjudicated to Rose’s benefit after a decade. The Roses, while remaining in the Woodworth place, used an adobe section for storage and outbuildings were also part of the complex. An acre was set aside for the future ranch house and a 25-foot long half-mile drive lined by rows of pairs of orange trees set twenty-five feet apart—see the featured photo for this post, taken in the late 1870s by famed photographer Carleton Watkins.

Even though he did so without irrigation, L.J. planted vineyards using the Mission grape, which was the variety brought by the Spanish missionaries in the 18th century. He started with 60 acres and then planted 100 more each of the next couple of seasons and, because he did no use irrigation, his son observed, “the grapes were of a deeper color and much sweeter than those on irrigated lands,” such as on the vineyard of William Workman south of his house at Rancho La Puente, where water was brought in from the adjoining San José Creek. The difference was in smaller yields for what Rose was doing.

Adding that his father was a voracious student of farming, the junior Rose noted that varieties of grapes were imported from Europe to the extent that nearly three dozen were raised by his father, though only a half-dozen or so were considered suitable for making decent wine. His father would prune the vines in the fall after the grape harvest and plant those cuttings in the ensuing spring and 1,000 vines comprised an acre of vineyard.

L.J., Jr, briefly commented on the indigenous and Mexican laborers, stating that “they fraternized readily and frequently intermarried” while “both were bibulously inclined but rarely indulged in drink other than Saturday nights” before the one day of rest on the Sabbath.” The common-law marriages, he added, were stable and, while there were knife-fights among workers, there was but one involving a death over many years.

The native houses of tule and willow were mentioned and “were proof against rain and were warm and comfortable,” while, in discussing their cooking, he said “these people were scrupulously careful in the preparation of their food.” While he continued, “these simple-minded, goodhearted souls had no thought beyond the moment,” he added that “many of the happiest hours of my young life were those I spent playing with the children of these people.

The younger rose observed that “Father christened his new possession ‘Sunny Slope,'” and this name was first located in newspapers at the end of 1865 when L.J., Sr. checked into the Bella Union Hotel in Los Angeles on 21 December and his place of residence was so identified. The new house was completed towards the latter part of 1862, while the first vintage of Sunny Slope wine was made in 1864. Strangely, L.J., Jr. said nothing about the terrible floods of the winter of 1861-1862 or of the punishing drought that followed for two years.

In addition to getting his start at Sunny Slope with agriculture and horse raising, Rose displayed an early enthusiasm for politics and was an ardent Democrat. While that party ruled the roost in the regional scene through the 1850s, the onset of the Civil War brought a pronounced Union Army presence thanks to the efforts of Phineas Banning and others. Rose was the inspector for the San Gabriel Township in the fall 1861 election and soon won the position of county superintendent of schools, serving in that position for a term before unsuccessfully seeking the assessor’s office in 1865. Four years later, he ran for county supervisor and came up short.

In the later Sixties, with the droughts over, the end of the Civil War followed by a significant uptick in emigration to greater Los Angeles and the resulting first boom coming to the region, Rose began to prosper as his first decade in the area came to a close. The 9 October 1866 edition of the Los Angeles News reported on a gathering of fifty persons at Teutonia Hall, built by German emigres, and with Rose’s neighbor, Benjamin D. Wilson, a prominent orchardist and vineyardist presiding, concerning issues for those engaged in viticulture.

A featured speaker was J. Ross Browne, a prominent journalist and booster of the Golden State, who “had visited Washington, as the agent of some of the grape growers and wine makers of California, to protect their interests in the halls of our National Legislature.” Browne talked about mission and joked that “the Representatives in Congress were not as much affected by good wine as the Senators.” Mathew Keller, a prominent figure in the local wine industry, then still, though not for long, the largest in the state, called for Wilson to appoint a committee to form the Los Angeles County Grape Growers Society.

Wilson named Keller, former Governor John G. Downey, Henry D. Barrows (son-in-law of prominent orchardist and vineyardist William Wolfskill, who’d only very recently died), and Rose, among others to that group. Those who signed their names as inaugural members of the new society were those mentioned above, as well as the prominent wine merchants Charles Kohler and John Frohling, meeting secretary J.J. Warner, Antonio Pelanconi (among the first Italian winemakers in the Angel City), and Californios, Manuel F. Coronel, José Rubio and Pedro Ybarra, along with several others.

In April 1867, another notable movement was reported on by the News of the 23rd concerning a meeting at the courthouse to discuss the formation of a committee for the carrying out of a fair to assist in the relief of persons living in the devastated Southern states in the war’s aftermath. The event was held the first two days of May inside the Arcadia Block, built by merchant Abel Stearns, and Rose served on a committee of contributions to solicit funds. The event prompted the News to call for the establishment of a county fairgrounds and, several years later, Agricultural (now Exposition) Park was created.

As the decade came to a close, the movement toward the founding of the park led to a November 1870 confab at the court house where delegates for an agricultural society convention gathered. Dr. John S. Griffiin was voted president of the meeting and there were appointments of two committees, with one “to report upon a site for fair grounds and cattle show) and including Wilson’s son-in-law James de Barth Shorb, Barrows and Francisco P. Forster (whose mother was Isidora Pico, sister of former governor Pío, and whose father was John Forster, owner of substantial land near San Juan Capistrano).

The other committee was to develop the society’s constitution and by-laws and included Warner, Forster, representatives from San Diego and Santa Barbara, as those counties were included in what became known as the Southern District Agricultural Society, as well as Rose. Later, when trustees were appointed for the organization, F.P.F. Temple became one of them and the organization then worked to get Agricultural Park established and annual fairs held—more about that, however, in part two.

The Los Angeles Star of 17 July 1869 concerned the formation of another organization for fruit-growers, but this one to be statewide, with the paper reporting,

The importance of associating together for the promotion of objects of trade, is universally admitted. The fruit-growers of the State have formed an association for the purpose of opening up available markets for the disposal of the surplus fruits of the State, now greatly in excess of the demand, and which will increase year by year.

The paper approvingly pointed out that Rose was appointed one of the directors and “the representative of the southern counties.” It was noted that, with the recent completion of the transcontinental railroad, a core concern was “that an organized effort be made . . . to obtain such a reduction of rates now charged by the trans-continental railroad companies.”

The organization acknowledged that this would not “enable us to place our fruit in market in competition with Eastern growers,” though it was felt that “owing to our peculiar climate, such a reduction [was to be sought] as will enable us to anticipate them, and thus greatly prolong the fruit season to the consumer.”

A month later, the Decatur Republican in Illinois provided a brief description of Rose’s enterprise at Sunny Slope, noting he’d last resided in Iowa and calling his estate a plantation of 2,500 acres, 20% of it under cultivation. The account added that the vineyard was 125 acres and the other half of the developed portion was set out “in fruits of various kinds, including English walnuts, pomegranates, almonds, olives, lemons, limes, figs, and with all the fruits raised in this country, and small grains.” From 300 orange trees, Rose realized $3,000 in profit and had another 2,500 trees not yet of bearing age. Also in 1868, Rose made 11,000 gallons of brandy and 50,000 gallons of wine, while selling $2,750 in cattle during the recent spring.

To promote his expanding production of wine and brandy, the Star of 1 May noted that Rose left by steamer “on business connected with the sale of his wines, several hundred pipes [barrels] of which . . . were dispatched recently for the Eastern market.” As we’ll subsequently see in later parts of this post, Rose made regular excursions to the east for this purpose and grew his enterprise in the hopes of creating a bigger market for his products.

When the 1870 federal census was taken in the summer, an agricultural schedule showed that Rose declared ownership of 2,000 acres at Sunny Slope, with 1,100 improved and the value of his lands pegged at $95,000. Farm improvements were valued at $6,000, while he paid wages of a thousand dollars more than that. His livestock included 45 horses, 10 mules, 8 cows, and 20 cattle with the a total valuation of $8,260. With farm products, he listed 600 bushels of corn, 100 of potatoes and 5,800 of orchard products (fruit and nuts), while there were five tons of hay. The winery generated 81,000 gallons of product and, in all, Sunny Slope’s production value was set at just under $70,000—only Benjamin D. Wilson was of that scale in the San Gabriel area.

As for the horse-breeding operation at Sunny Slope, Rose was in the early stages of what would become a very prominent enterprise. For Independence Day 1870, he served as a timer for races at the track used before the one at Agricultural Park and which opened just before Christmas 1867. Interestingly, one of the four horses was Sunbeam, entered by Daniel Payne, whose brother Henry, owned a photo gallery of the name. This horse was favored by bettors, but was bested by Bay Jim, owned by livery stable proprietor and a future city treasurer George R. Butler.

In early November, at what was called the Los Angeles Trotting Park Course, this being the same track owned by James Thompson as where the Fourth of July races were held. For the three contests on the card, Rose again served as timer along with former stable owner Thomas D. Mott, while one of the judges was County Judge William G. Dryden. This time, however, one of the trio of horses, Beauclay, was owned by Rose and won the first race, while another Sunny Slope competitor, Katy-Did, finished second and third in heats for the second contest.

With the boom only becoming pronounced as the 1870s came to pass, Rose’s involvement in his horse-breeding and racing, wine and brandy-making and other activities would dramatically increase, befitting the frenzied atmosphere of the times. We’ll continue the story tomorrow with part two, so please check in with us then.