by Paul R. Spitzzeri
It’s a modest little piece of correspondence, including nothing more than a request to send silk hats in three sizes, from Los Angeles hatter Daniel Desmond to the San Francisco manufacturing firm of Meussdorffer and Company, but this 10 December 1876 letter, simple as it is, comprises a rare early artifact from the Angel City’s first purveyor of chapeaus and whose story is an interesting one during the first growth boom in the history of the town and its environs.
Desmond was born in County Cork at the southern end of Ireland, being baptized on 3 August 1833 at Inniscarra, west of the city of Cork, though obituaries stated he was born three months later. In any case, these accounts stated that he migrated to America at age 18 and soon ended up in Methuen, Massachusetts, though he resided longer at adjacent Lawrence, both near the New Hampshire border north of Boston and some fifteen miles north of Reading, where the Temple family long resided.
An 1855 state census at Methuen recorded the 21-year old as a laborer and, in the federal census five years later, not long after marrying Ellen Daley, also an Irish native, the couple and their first child were at Lawrence with Desmond’s occupation given as hatter. Three years later, he became an American citizen. In the 1865 Massachusetts enumeration, the family had grown by three more children and Desmond was in partnership with two brothers, Jeremiah and Cornelius, but a fire destroyed their hat business, which was managed by him.
The siblings all migrated to California, but, whereas the other two settled in San Francisco and worked in the trade, Daniel headed south to Los Angeles and was said in his obituaries to have arrived on 14 October 1868 and immediately opened his store. Newspaper accounts, however, show nothing until a year later, with the 2 October 1869 edition of the Los Angeles News reporting:
A new hatters establishment is to be opened in the brick building on Los Angeles street, near Commercial, by Desmond & Co. Mr. Desmond leaves for San Francisco to-day, and will expeditiously return with a large and stock choice of goods. Thoroughly conversant with their business, being practical hatters, these gentlemen will supply a want long felt in their community.
While there was clearly some form of partnership, perhaps with Daniel as the local representative, given that felt need, and one or both brothers involved from San Francisco, the enterprise was identified solely with Daniel from this point forward. There was, however, a delay in opening as the News of 17 November observed that only some of the goods he acquired in the northern metropolis arrived by steamer, the rest remaining in San Francisco.
This gave the paper an opportunity to highlight “outrageous charges” by the steamship company, as well as the common annoyance of items left there for long periods. It reiterated that Desmond’s store was “seriously inconvenienced and damaged” by the circumstances while “we yearn for the establishment of a new line, which will have some regard for the wants and necessities of this section.”
The News of the 24th commented that Desmond’s store was finally open for business “and customers can be supplied with all of the latest styles of hats at fair prices.” Moreover, because he was a “practical hatter,” Angelenos “who desire hats made to order, can have them put up in the highest style of the art.” Again, it was celebrated that this was the first haberdashery in town and “we bespeak for the proprietor a liberal patronage.”
The Los Angeles Star three days later also remarked on the grand opening of the business, informing readers,
He has opened up an elegant stock of goods, from the high-toned, fashionable “stove-pipe” to the most free and easy wide-awake. He has hats of all kinds, and will renovate and improve such as may suffer from wear and tear—if not too much worn and torn. There was an opening for such an enterprise here, and Mr. Desmond has supplied the want in such a manner that all work in the hatting business can now be performed here.
The first advertisement for the “New Hat Store!!” was issued on the 25th and promoted “Hats and Caps of Latest Styles and Finest Quality” and available at “City Prices,” presumably like those found in San Francisco. Desmond exhorted that “gentlemen will find it in their interest to purchase their goods at a first class hat store” and that readers should “examine my goods before purchasing elsewhere” as others sold hats as part of their general merchandise stores.
Desmond proved adept at eye-catching ads and other promotional tactics in his early years, with the News of 17 December noting that “we are becoming a ‘metropolitan’ people” because of “the appearance of a perambulating sign, carried by a stalwart youth, who has been started on his travels by the coin of Desmond, the enterprising hatter.” The paper praised “the imaginative artist who laid on the colors” of the sign, which seems to have prefigured the common usage of these devices today on street corners.
A year later, the News ran an ad in which it was proclaimed that “the hat does not make the man, but the man being made looks better for wearing a fine hat.” Moreover, it was assured that “Desmond can furnish the most fastidious and so transform the man with a ‘shocking bad hat’ that he will require an introduction to himself.” Lastly, it was stated that “it is unnecessary, perhaps, that Desmond may be found in Temple’s block,” he having moved the prior spring to the 1857 brick two-story structure, constructed by Jonathan Temple, that comprised the first part of what became four buildings in the Block—the hat store was on the Main Street side.
It appears that Desmond came out to California without his wife and children because the August 1870 enumeration of the federal census found him with his family at Lawrence, though they soon look to have made the migration together to Los Angeles. Over succeeding years, the Desmond brood grew to eight surviving children of ten born to Daniel and Ellen, and there must’ve have been some financial success in the hat store to support such a large family.
As to other memorable advertising, the 27 June 1871 edition of the Star ran one that stated that at a recent meeting, which included Desmond, to plan an Independence Day celebration “a motion was not made, but should have been, that every one on that occasion should wear a new HAT” and that the owner “is prepared for the emergency.” It was added that each steamship brought new hats “for old gentlemen . . . for middle aged gentlemen . . . for staid, fashionable and effervescent young gents” and for adolescents in every style.
For the county elections, which took place in September, Desmond pronounced to readers of the Star of 5 September:
Election day is approaching; candidates to be successful require a NEW HAT, unsuccessful ones would do well to buy a NEW HAT (it is a powerful antidote against bad temper. No charge for this prescription.) DESMOND is equal to the occasion, having just received a large stock of fashionable HATS by the [steamship] Orizaba.
F.P.F. Temple was unable, in that election, to win a seat on the Board of Supervisors, of which he was an inaugural member nearly two decades before, so, whether he took Desmond’s advice, and purchased a hat from him, would certainly be interesting to know.
A Democrat, Desmond took a part in some of the local party machinations, including the campaign to support New York newspaper publisher Horace Greeley in his challenge to incumbent President Ulysses S. Grant in 1872. It was even reported in the Star that attorney Frederick Stanford “has donned one of Desmond’s best Greeley hats,” though the lawyer’s partner, Francisco P. Ramirez, was an early supporter of the Republican Party as a young firebrand owner of El Clamor Público, Los Angeles’ first Spanish-language newspaper, back in 1856. Greeley was unable to defeat Grant and died shortly after the election.
The 1 November 1873 edition of the Los Angeles Herald, which was launched a month prior, included another interesting angle for advertising as Desmond observed that “the tide of immigration” during the region’s first boom, which began about the time he established his store, “is steadily settling in, and the first thing eastern people do is to throw away their New York Hats and buy a new one of DESMOND. They say there is no comparison between the two.”
While Desmond was hardly the only Angeleno business figure to employ humor in creative advertising, his approach was certainly distinctive and distinguishing, but he also quickly became involved in many community enterprises during his first several years in the city. The Star of 9 April 1870 recorded that he was a founding member of the St. Patrick Benevolent Society, set up by Irish residents of Los Angeles to help their fellow Hibernians in need and served as the organization’s first treasurer.
For St. Patrick’s Day celebrations, Desmond was often involved in the planning, starting with the 1870 festivities, which involved a procession from St. Vincent’s College, a Roman Catholic institution founded five years before that instructed boys from grammar through high school levels, to the Plaza Church for a high mass and sermon from the school’s Reverend O’Leary.
A few years later, a grand ball was held, following a much longer procession through town, for the holiday, notably at the German-run Turnverein Hall, with Desmond on the arrangements committee. Proceeds from the dance were to be forwarded for the support of the families of “Irish patriots who are incarcerated in English dungeons” as Ireland was embroiled in warring over independence for the Catholic majority.
An Irish Literary Club was also founded during the first part of the Seventies and Desmond was a member of that, while a meeting to create an Irish citizen militia in Los Angeles included him among its deliberators. though it is not known if the organization was established. When the movement for a new cathedral, which became St. Vibiana’s when completed in 1876, was launched at the beginning of the decade, Desmond was a ticket seller for dramatic and musical performances held at the Merced Theatre on 1 May 1871.
That year, he was also a founding member of the first volunteer fire company formed in the Angel City and worked on the development of hats and uniforms, orders for which were placed through his store. While Los Angeles Fire Company #1 dissolved, Desmond took part in the organization of a successor entity, the 38s, which also included Elijah H. Workman as a member.
In fall 1872, as county voters prepared for an election that proposed a subsidy for the Southern Pacific Railroad as it was mandated to build a line through Los Angeles on the way from the north to the Colorado River at Yuma, Arizona, Desmond was part of a group of “officers” for a mass meeting that urged passage (Temple was a major figure in the negotiations with the railroad company), which was done.
Desmond also became a notable figure in Los Angeles musical circles. Though it was not discovered what instrument he played, he organized and led a 16-piece brass band soon after his settlement in town and it played all manner of events over those first years of his residency, including for St. Patrick Benevolent Society and St. Patrick’s Day events, Mexican Independence Day celebrations, fraternal programs, private parties and more.
Naturally, he continued regular advertising of his store, including one from the Star of 11 July 1874, in which it was stated:
Mr. D. Desmond, the only hatter in the city, has returned from San Francisco with another choice assortment of all the newest and freshest of straw, felt, silk and cloth hats and caps. There is one great advantage to be derived in the purchase of hats and caps of Mr. Desmond, beside uniform cheapness, and that is that you get new styles and fresh goods every month, if you want them.
He also promoted new inventory for the four seasons, as well as the Christmas and New Year’s holidays, and returned to an election theme in October 1876 when he observed that, no matter whether Samuel J. Tilden or Rutherford Hayes emerged as victorious (and it was the latter in the sole example of the House of Representatives deciding the outcome) reform candidates, “there will certainly be a reform in hats in our city next November, and Desmond will furnish the thunder.”
At the start of 1876, the hatter added another notable advertising hook, as he remarked,
The crowning glory of a man is a good hat. It is the distinctive mark of a good gentleman. No matter if his clothes are threadbare, if he has a stylish hat; people don’t look at anything else; in fact, it not only covers his head but the defects of all sorts which would become visible were his hat not perfect. Desmond has the most stylish and perfect articles at his store on Main street, in Temple Block, that can be made.
In fact, Desmond’s career stretched some three decades, including a move from the Temple Block in 1882 and several subsequent relocations, through the end of the 19th century. He stepped down from managing the store in favor of his son Cornelius, who built the business with a flagship store on Broadway just south of 6th Street and several branches, and died in January 1903 at age 69.
We will look to continue the Desmond story in a subsequent post someday, so be on the lookout for that!