by Paul R. Spitzzeri
The featured object from the Museum’s collection for this “Reading Between the Lines” post comprising a letter from Los Angeles real estate agent Frank Herbert Barclay (1854-1913) to Benjamin F. Jones, steel-mill owner and chair of the Republican National Committee, and dated 19 August 1884 is interesting on its face because of the content concerning that year’s presidential election and Jones’ request for Barclay’s involvement in the Committee’s efforts to promote the candidacy of James G. Blaine, who was running against Democrat Grover Cleveland.
In his missive, Barclay acknowledged receiving Jones’ letter of 28 July and replied,
I have contributed to both the County Central Committee and the Young Men’s Republican Club, but [that is] all that I feel able to stand. While I am not in the employe of the Government nor have I been since last October, I would willingly comply with your request if I felt I were able to do so and at some future time I may feel able to comply. I am doing all I can to aid in the election of Blaine & [vice-presidential candidate, former Civil War General and current United States Senator John A.] Logan.
Repeating that he was involved in the Young Men’s Republican Club and was a first lieutenant in a drill corps comprising 250 members, Barclay further informed Jones that “it would be unjust and beyond your desire” to attempt to honor the unstated request, so he was “compelled to withhold my mite,” a phrase from Jane Austen’s Mansfield Park. Blaine lost the 1884 election to Cleveland by just a half of a percentage point in the popular vote and the electoral county was 219-182.
The reason Barclay was so involved in Republican politics goes back to his father, David. The Barclays were a long-standing family in Kittanning, a town northeast of Pittsburgh. David was born in Punxsutawney, famous for its “Punxsutawney Phil” groundhog who allegedly predicts the weather in late winter and early spring, and was a well-known attorney and legal journal editor. Just after Frank’s birth, his father won election as a Democrat to Congress and served a single term from 1855 to 1857, but the political connections clearly continued, including during David’s years of practicing in Pittsburgh.
It is not clear, though, what Frank meant by having left the employ of the federal government in October 1883, though it is summer 1882 we first find reference to him in Los Angeles as a real estate agent in the former of Corker and Barclay. He followed the migration of other members of his family to the Angel City, likely starting with a brother, Henry, who settled in town in July 1874 as Los Angeles was in the midst of its first boom. Henry Barclay was a lawyer, including with his father in Pennsylvania, and specialized in this region in land cases, both on his own and with partners during his career.
Henry, who had active interests in oil (using his connections to Pennsylvania, the birthplace of the industry in America) in the San Fernando field where F.P.F. Temple prospected, coal mining at Black Star Canyon in Orange County and in other endeavors, also quickly became tied to the Republican Party, which would, after years of Democratic dominance, become more successful with continued emigration from those leaving midwestern and northern states. In 1877, he lost an effort to become district attorney, but, from 1879 to 1884, was acting chair and then from 1884 to 1888 was officially chair of the county Republican Party committee.
Frank undoubtedly worked under the tutelage and leadership of his brother after arriving in Los Angeles, which seems to have taken place sometime in summer 1882. Meantime, his mother and three other siblings, brother Charles (who died of a stroke in 1882 at just age 35) and sisters Sallie and Lenore came out to the area during the last half of the Seventies and settled on 20 acres on the Rancho Rincon de los Bueyes owned by Francisco Higuera, apparently near what is now the Cheviot Hills neighborhood of west Los Angeles.
Another son, David Eric, then migrated out and worked as a postal carrier It is not known whether David Barclay ever came out to live here and he died in Pennsylvania in 1889. His widow, sold the Rincon de los Bueyes land in 1883, may have returned east until after her husband passed away and then come back to Los Angeles, where she died a half-dozen years later in Los Angeles.
Frank Barclay’s first real estate enterprise was with John R. Corker, though this lasted only from August 1882 to February 1883, when the partnership dissolved and Barclay set up a solo agency where his brother’s law firm was situated. It is worth noting here that, after the collapse of the region’s first boom in 1875-1876, with the Temple and Workman bank failing at that time, the regional economy was moribund for the next several years, but, by 1882, signs of improvement were finally felt.
The move was shortly made to an office in the Nadeau Block, completed in the fall of 1883 at the southwest corner of Spring and First streets and which was considered the largest and finest structure built to date in the City of the Angels. An early ad from Barclay noted that he had land to sell in the Midwest, including Iowa, and this became important, evidently, when the great Boom of the Eighties burst forth in greater Los Angeles following the completion of a direct transcontinental railroad line to the region by the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe at the end of 1885 as so many people from that part of the country came to the area.
In April of that year, bank cashier Felix C. Howes and Sherman Page, a former lawyer, judge and police chief who settled in Orange in 1882 for his wife’s health, but may have known Howes when both were in Minnesota, purchased a portion of the Rancho Tujunga, a 6,661-acre land grant to brothers Francisco and Pedro López, at the base of the San Gabriel Mountains, some twenty miles north of Los Angeles—later owners included Francis Mellus, David W. Alexander and Agustín Olvera until attorney Andrew Glassell (who represented Temple and Workman and was a founder of Orange) purchased Tujunga in 1875.
Howes and Page called their subdivision Monte Vista and there were some sales of lots on the tract until at the end of June 1886, the property was sold for $66,500 to Barclay, Sacramento flour mill owner Charles McCreary and Iowa siblings Benjamin Franklin, a doctor, and banker George Washington Kierulff, natives of St. Croix in what became the U.S. Virgin Islands and who were among a group of folks from Marshalltown who migrated to Los Angeles during the era. The quartet then launched the Monte Vista Land and Water Company.
By this time, the boom was growing and, by late October, advertisements were taken out in Los Angeles newspapers for Monte Vista, which, like so many of the boomtowns (those that have survived and many that quickly faded away), promoted itself as “The Most Attractive Colony in Southern California,” with “A Perfect Climate!” “The Best of Soil!” “The Greatest Abundance and Purest of Water!” and “the Most Delightful Situation of Any Tract of Land on the Coast!”
The 2,300-acre tract included what the promoters claimed were “1300 acres of first-class irrigable land,” with water drawn from the Big Tujunga Creek, while 500 acres of hill land had much area that was considered “capable of cultivation” and these areas divided mainly into 20-acre lots. Of the remainder, over 400 acres was deemed rough land, suitable only for forest trees, while 80 acres was set aside for the “Village of Monte Vista” at the west end of the tract. It was claimed that there were “innumerable springs of pure water,” which, “with a little trouble” could make owners of these free of the water supply from Tujunga Canyon.
In the midst of the village was what the ad called “the famous live-oak grove which for more than a half-century has been known as TUJUNGA PARK” and which was to be improved by the developers, who “intend to make it one of the loveliest spots in the State.” This kidney-shaped section on the original townsite map is part of today’s Sunland Recreation Center, where, at the east and northeast portion of the park oaks are still found in abundance.
A separate section on the park insisted that, “forty years or more ago, the old Spanish don overtook his beautiful daughter and her lover in their flight, and, despite her pleadings, put him to the sword,” while the famed bandidos Joaquin Murrieta and Tiburcio Vásquez “here had their rendezvous and here buried vast sums of money, which is believed to be here still.” Not only that, but it was claimed that “so famous is the grand old park as a HEALTH RESORT that it has for fifty years been visited by the Spaniards, who credit it with being the adobe of the Lady of Mercy.”
The reverie went on, seemingly carrying on the spirit of the immense popular novel, Ramona, by Helen Hunt Jackson and which was published two years earlier:
Spanish maids weave fanciful fairy tales of it for their charges, old men recall it as a scene of many a merry-making, and the señoras laugh as they relate again the conquests beneath the old trees whose shadows yet greet the advent of tender spoons and give grateful rest to the tired invalid. Handsome fountains will soon add new charms, where beautiful flowers will brighten the somber hues and gladden the eyes.
As was often the case, Monte Vista was touted for its healthy climate, as so much of the foothill communities along what was then largely known as the Sierra Madre Mountains claimed, and the ad continued that:
If there is a cure for disease in pure, dry air, pure, clear, soft mountain water, warm, sunny days, cool, delightful nights, delightful surroundings, good accommodations, excellent care and attention, then Monte Vista should be the Sanitarium of the World.
As for agriculture and the abundance of water, it was stated that oranges, lemons, limes, figs, raisin and wine grapes, deciduous fruits (apples, peaches, plums and the like), almond and olives—a large grove of the latter was planted on forty acres in the tract and Olive Grove Avenue appears to be a remembrance of that orchard—would thrive there.
Another ad claimed that Monte Vista was the only place in Southern California suitable for raising cherries (though Cherry Valley near Yucaipa and Beaumont in Riverside County was developed soon after), while this one claimed that the “PERFECT CHERRY” would be grown and be worth three times the orange, five times the grape and ten times deciduous fruits.
Improvements cited included three miles of roadway to the San Fernando Valley, this perhaps being Foothill and Sunland boulevards or Wentworth to Sheldon streets, along with fourteen miles of townsite streets; new furnishings for an existing hotel; 50,000 feet of lumber on the site for a new Monte Vista Hotel “which will equal anything in the State in comfort for its guests, excellence of the table, etc.”; $2,000 subscribed for a church; a half-dozen cottages to be finished by winter; and more.
A section called “Monte Vista the Romantic” highlighted the locale and views, as well as a trail to the highest peak, some 5,000 feet in elevation, and which is known now at Mt. Lukens, while also mentioned were “the rocky and rugged peaks of the Sierras [which] rise in confused masses” as well as “gloomy cañons” where prospectors scoured for precious minerals and “left their homes a prey to the mountain lions and coyotes. Views to as far as Santa Catalina Island, the San Gabriel Valley, San Jacinto and San Diego (?) were also claimed and “present a picture [which] once seen [were] never to be forgotten.”
The 2 1/2 to 3-hour trip could be taken from downtown Los Angeles through Glendale, Verdugo Canyon and “Crescenta Cañada” or through the Rancho Providencia, where Burbank would very soon be established, and to the “right hand road,” probably Glenoaks Boulevard to the Big Tujunga, where after a right turn, a visitor was told to “follow the road east through the valley to Monte Vista,” though its sandy nature in summer was no worse than the Verdugo Canyon route.”
By early 1888, however, as the boom crested and then receded towards the inevitable bust, problems already mounted for Monte Vista. In November, McCreary sold his quarter interest to Barclay for the same price as the original purchase and the Kierulffs, while Benjamin stayed in Los Angeles and opened a medical office, while investing in real estate elsewhere than Monte Vista and serving on the city’s Board of Education, appear to have sold their interests to Barclay during that year.
A New Year’s Day 1889 ad in the Los Angeles Herald was under his name only and it stated that “the owner of Monte Vista is now engaged in planting four hundred acres in fruit with the object of making Monte Vista the most important center for high-grade fruits in California.” Moreover, it was asserted that “it is proposed to have a cannery, crystallizing works and packing houses” and that all fruit produced would be purchased for these operations. Barclay further stated that “in three years it is estimated that it will require 300 people nine months in the year to handle the fruit product, and the quantity being planted is largely increased.”
The economy, however, did not improve. A troubling early sign is that Barclay was delinquent on property taxes at Monte Vista as early as February 1888 and this continued for at least three more years. In May 1890, Barclay’s $1,000 promissory note secured by a mortgage for a Monte Vista property went to a court case for recovery by the lender, H.W. Moore.
In November 1891, he was arrested at his ranch on a complaint of obtaining money under false pretenses when J.W. Woodruff of Los Angels filed that he loaned $2,200 to Barclay, but that his claim that the Monte Vista Hotel was his and could be used as collateral was false. For his part, Barclay told the paper that Woodruff wanted additional security and he refused because the lots were worth double the loan amount.
Woodruff won a civil suit over the dispute, but had to file another case to try and secure an actual seizure of the funds from the judgment—it is not know if this ever happened. In February 1892, the prominent lumber firm of Kerckoff and Cuzner filed a complaint against Barclay for two further promissory notes for nearly $1,100.
Though Barclay remained in the real estate business through much of the Nineties, in partnership with a daughter, Mary Lenore, who then died in a terrible carriage accident in which, as she was driving to Monte Vista from Burbank, she apparently had a seizure and fell into the moving wheels, it does not appear he did well financially. In December 1913, at age 59, he died, with almost nothing said about his passing in the death notice and no obituary.
Barclay’s story as a speculator who dreamed big and aimed high in boomtime real estate in greater Los Angeles, but fell prey to financial disaster is not all that different from many others, including F.P.F. Temple and his son Walter, though these latter had a much larger scale and diversity of operations, including other speculative endeavors like oil and mining.
As for Monte Vista, its 1880s post office, for some reason, was denoted as Sunland and that name remained for the town as a whole and Monte Vista faded out. Annexed to Los Angeles in 1926, the community became part of a neighborhood of the Angel City when adjacent Tujunga, despite playwright and poet John Steven McGroarty‘s best efforts, was also absorbed in 1932. The Monte Vista Hotel, which opened in late September 1887 during Barclay’s tenure, survived until 1964 after use as a boarding house, private residence and retirement facility—it looks like an apartment complex is on the site today.
The 1884 Republican presidential campaign was the focus of the letter featured in this post, with Democrat Grover Cleveland as their election rival. Cleveland’s unique service of two non-consecutive presidential terms has recently garnered renewed interest in light of Trump’s current bid to replicate this feat.
Seeing Cleveland’s name reminded me of a historical bathhouse in Lake Elsinore, Southern California, that I visited many years ago. The Crescent Bathhouse, built in 1887-one year before the city was established and incorporated, claimed that President Grover Cleveland once visited, though it is unclear whether this occurred during his first term (1885-1889), or his second term (1893-1897), or while he was out of office. After the hot spring dried up, the bathhouse went through various ownerships and functions, eventually becoming an antique shop for a while known as The Chimes. This name has persisted to this day for the now-empty but haunted structure.