At Our Leisure With “Grizzly Bear Hunting in Southern California” from Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper, 21 August 1858, Part Two

by Paul R. Spitzzeri

Concluding this post featuring a remarkable engraving, titled “Grizzly Bear Hunting in Southern California” and showing Californios lassoing their preying from the 21 August 1858 edition of Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper, we continued our coverage of media accounts mentioning the creatures in greater Los Angeles for about two decades from the mid-Fifties and mid-Seventies.

As part one, sightings were reported throughout the region, though there could be some question as to whether these were always accurate, either mistaking brown (often called “cinnamon”) bears for grizzlies or allowing imaginations to run amok for whatever reasons. We noted, for example, an 1871 tale that seemed to mock the idea of “bar” encounters in the area.

Another possibility is exaggeration, of which no small amount can be discerned in media in virtually all places and times. The 17 October 1872 edition of the Los Angeles Star, for example, cited a report in the San Diego World that “a grizzly weighing fourteen hundred pounds, was shot in the Santa Margarita Ranch the other day.” Santa Margarita was at the northwestern corner of San Diego County adjoining San Clemente in modern Orange County, but the question of whether that extraordinary weight was accurate can be compared to the fact that the heaviest grizzly bear ever recorded was one in Alaska that weighed 1,600 pounds.

The 14 September 1874 issue of the Los Angeles Express quoted the San Bernardino Guardian for a report that a man only known as “O’Conner” was in the San Jacinto Mountains near today’s Idyllwild and Palm Springs and “had a desperate, and nearly, to him, fatal fight with a grizzly.” The hunter “encountered a monster grizzly, which, startled at his near approach, instantly attacked him” and “O’Conner shot and hit his bearship, but not fatally” for the enraged creature was said to have “rushed on him, and striking him in the ribs, several of which he broke, knocked him down and seized his arm, which he crushed fearfully.”

What apparently saved the hunter was his little dog, which “catching the bear by the hind leg, hung on to it with true bulldog pertinacity.” The bruin released O’Conner to turn its attentions to the dog when the hunter fired another shot, though this failed to take full effect, and the bear returned to strike at O’Conner with injuries to the head in which, it was said, “with one blow of his paw he all but scalped the gallant mountaineer.” This was in addition to serious wounds to the shoulders and “mashing his left arm into a shapeless mass.” The account ended with the statement that O’Conner, “knowing his knife that last chance,” stabbed the creature, which bounded away.

The Express of 5 November noted,

We saw a splendid large grizzly bear skin deposited in front of Newmark’s this morning, and on inquiry of the teamster about the animal it once enveloped, he told us that it was killed about two weeks ago at Temescal by a couple of paisanos. The skin indicated a bear that would have tipped the beam at 800 pounds.

Harris Newmark, one of the most prominent Jewish merchants in Los Angeles, ran his wholesale business at the corner of Aliso and Los Angeles streets, very close to where U.S. 101 runs through that area now. The location of the killing was Temescal Canyon in Riverside County, south of Corona, while the “paisanos” were Spanish-speaking Californios. The paper ended by apparently joking that the same bear was seen by hunters in northern Los Angeles County, but the creature “heard they were there and went south.”

Yet, the sightings sometimes took on hysterical and comical dimensions, such as was the case with a report in the 15 October issue of the Express, in which the paper stated that “a friend of ours, in going home at the close of business yesterday” was surprised to see the women of the house on the porch in an animated state. He observed that the doors leading to the dining room and kitchen were locked and

the agitation of the ladies was soon explained to him in the assurance that a grizzly bear had entered the kitchen, and held entire possession of that portion of the house. The thing seemed impossible, but the agitation and confusion he witnessed showed that there must be some serious cause for so extraordinary a state of affairs, so he at once set at work to probe the subject. It was not light matter to encounter a grizzly, so he proceeded cautiously. Carefully opening the door leading to the kitchen, he peeped through the crack and saw a very large and handsome [rac]coon, sitting in the sink, and helping himself to food.

It turned out that the critter was a pet of a nearby woman and, as to the damage wrought by the critter, it was said that three dozen eggs were consumed and smeared on the walls, a large jar of water spilled on the floor, and a large quantity of broken dishes strewn about. The destruction was such that “the poor housewife finally cried with rage” and it was quite some time before order was restored in the residence, with the paper’s friend getting “an unusually late and unusually spare supper . . . on account of the unwelcome visit of that pet coon.”

Accounts from 1875 included one in the 11 April edition of the Herald, which cited the Anaheim Gazette for a report that, in the Santa Ana Mountains two men named Carter and Watson came into “a terrific combat” with “a noted bear known as ‘White Face,’ which has long been the scourge and terror of the Santiago mountains,” as the chain was sometimes known. It was stated that the pair were looking for grass for their sheep,

when they suddenly came upon the huge grizzly, which immediately attacked Carter, knocking him down before he could draw and cock his pistol. The bear made two terrible bites at his breast, tearing his flesh in the most horrible manner, and immediately pursued Watson, who had retreated in order to procure time to prepare his rifle for action.

As O’Conner found in his conflict, shooting a bear only enraged the animal and it charged after three firings, but, the account continued, Watson peeled off another shot “and succeeded in sending a ball through the skull just above the eye, which stretched the monster at his feet.” Carter was taken to his house and was expected to recover, while “White Face” was said to have “caused much trouble in the mountains, and has destroyed many sheep belonging to the San Joaquin Company.” The Herald concluded, “they will, doubtless, be pleased to hear of his capture by the Angel of Death.”

At the other end of Los Angeles County (Orange not formed for another fifteen years), Charles Maclay, former state senator and founder of the new town of San Fernando along the Southern Pacific Railroad being constructed north from the Angel City, wrote for the 10 June edition of the paper that “the gayest hunting party that Los Angeles county has ever turned out,” though how recent arrival Maclay would know that is a question, “passed here this morning.”

He continued that “they expect to bring back from the Liebra [the Rancho La Liebre, at the northwest corner of Los Angeles as well as part of Kern counties] grizzly bears, doves, rabbits, linnets, and all other birds not forbidden by law and the rule of truth.” After some tangential meanderings from Maclay about the Bible and its moral teaching “which has saved me from a thousand troubles, both in single and married life,” he concluded with, “Mr. Editor, we shall send you a bear’s paw.”

On the 22nd, the Herald printed a “Letter from Liebra [sic] Ranch] with the correspondent identified only as “MacG,” which apparently was not Maclay, though the missive began with “I send you the congratulations of our hunting party and the paw I promised you.” The writer than told the paper,

The grizzly was a fine fellow and showed fight to the last. He died game—showed pluck which I admired, but his judgment I could not, for him to show fight and breast Spencer and Henry rifles in the hands of such experts as Eulogio de Celis and Romulo Pico. E de Celis and your humble servant were some distance off—a case of doubtful bravery. The huntsmen are gay and jolly. You ought to see what we have captured—everything from a grizzly to a rabbit.

Eulogio de Célis, Jr. was the owner at one time of half the Rancho ex-Mission San Fernando and sold that northern section in 1874 to Maclay and his partners, cousins Benjamin and George Porter, and who developed the town mentioned above. The southern half of the ranch was sold by de Célis’ father to Andrés Pico, hero of the Californio resistance to the American invasion of 1846-1847, and his son, Rómulo, resided on a portion that was not sold to Andrés’ brother, former governor Pío, and then to Isaac Lankershim in 1869, and, in 1873, moved into and renovated a mission-era adobe house that still stands on Sepúlveda Boulevard in Mission Hills. Others in the party included California’s Governor Romualdo Pacheco; lawyer Edward J.C. Kewen; Thomas W. Temple, cashier of the bank owned by his father F.P.F. Temple and grandfather, William Workman; and, of course, Maclay.

The 14 August edition of the Express ran a report from Orange where a local known only as “H” wrote that “a party of hunters from this place, while on a hunt in the Temescal Mountains,” these being the low range east of today’s Interstate 15 and where the “paisanos” killed the bear mentioned above, “were attacked in camp by four grizzlies.” In an attempt at humor, it was concluded that “the best shots were made by shooting up the trees” as the hunters climbed up into the branches to escape.

The Herald of 19 September, this being not quite a month after a financial panic emanating from San Francisco and quickly spreading to Los Angeles caused the eventual failure of the Temple and Workman bank and the onset of a long depression in the region mirroring one that started two years earlier in the east, reported that a San Bernardino man was in Swarthout Canyon, at the west side of Cajon Pass north of Lytle Creek and before the long climb to the high desert, and “was severely wounded by a grizzly bear which he had shot” and which died, while the man, known only as Sutton, was under a doctor’s care at home.

It was mentioned in part one that Bear Valley above San Bernardino received its name from the large population of the creatures that inhabited that area and it was where Benjamin D. Wilson, one of the most prominent figures in greater Los Angeles from the time of his arrival in the region with the Rowland and Workman Expedition of 1841, was part of well-known bear hunts in those earlier days.

In the early Seventies, a mining boom took place in that area where Big Bear Lake later flooded the Valley for water storage purposes. The 15 October edition of the Herald briefly noted the desertion of the mining camp and observed that “the bats, owls, wolves and grizzlies will take the place of the mininff [mining] sharp, the festive saloon keeper and the faro dealer.”

It generally seemed clear that, with these mid-1870s reports mainly noting that grizzlies were only found in hinterland areas of greater Los Angeles, the increased population in the region, including hunters, caused the deaths of a great many bears (and other creatures) and forced those remaining further out into outlying locales.

Of course, the relentless blood sports of the late 19th and early 20th century continued and the last of the local grizzly bears was reported to have been killed in shot near Sunland, which was discussed in a recent post here, at the end of October 1916. Notably, it was claimed early in that month by a University of California professor, Walter Taylor, that “there isn’t a single wild grizzly bear left in California” in an article he wrote for Scientific Monthly.

Yet, the account by the Los Angeles Times of 2 November was that,

The bear shot at Sunland last Saturday, which was first announced as a cinnamon, turns out to be a fine specimen of a silver-top grizzly. Cornelius Johnson, who made the capture, brought the belt down to Los Angeles and learned, to his surprise and chagrin, that he had destroyed one of the most valuable specimens that have been found in California in many years.

The chagrin, however, was not derived from guilt but from the information that “if taken alive, the bear would have been worth $1000” and the bones would have fetched $250, but “the bones and meat all disappeared at the barbecue.” The paper reported that there was a silver lining for Johnson as “the pelt alone . . . is worth from $400 to $600, and in this Mr. Johnson feels some compensation.”

A United Press report published in that day’s Long Beach Telegram stated that “the last grizzly bear in California is dead” and that it, weighing some 250 pounds, was caught in a trap and “the trapper clubbed it to death.” Apparently, Johnson was determined to catch a bear invading his property and causing damage to his grape orchard, but, as noted above, thought it was a brown bear. Taxidermist Andy Booth clarified that,

If the trapper had made the animal captive, instead of killing it, he would have made $800. The skin is worth $200, but the live bear would have been valued at $1000 by any zoo in the state. Even if the bones had been saved, the dead animal might have been worth $500.

A notable follow-up to the killing of the Sunland grizzly took place regarding the disposition of the skull. There was, though, one last reported grizzly killing, which took place in 1922 in Fresno County, while a sighting was said to have been made in Sequoia National Park in 1924—this is why the California Legislature, as was noted in the beginning of the first part of this post, declared this year to be the “Year of the California Grizzly Bear.”

Lastly, it should be noted that, in 1933, a group of twenty-eight black bears taken from Yosemite National Park were let loose in our local mountains and, without grizzlies as competition, black bears “became the king of the wilderness—and, increasingly, the king of the suburbs,” as the linked article in the previous paragraph notes.