by Paul R. Spitzzeri
As has been oft-noted here, the Homestead is fortunate to have a cache of documents and photographs donated by members of the Workman and Temple family that help us better understand them and the place and time in which they lived here in greater Los Angeles during our interpretive period of 1830-1930.
In this “Reading Between the Lines” series, we’ve shared letters written and sent to and from Massachusetts between members of the Temple family and which are generally remarkable for their contents on multiple fronts. Speaking of the series name, many of these missives are from Reading, home of the Temple family for the better part of three centuries and the birthplace of the brothers Jonathan and Pliny, who ended up as prominent persons in the Los Angeles region for much of the 19th century.
Today’s entry in the series is a letter written to Pliny (who adopted the baptismal name of Francisco immediately before his September 1845 wedding to Margarita Workman and, with his middle name of “Fisk”—Pliny Fisk was a well-known Congregationalist missionary in Palestine around the time he was born—his moniker became F.P.F.) by his brother-in-law, John H. Bancroft on 2 March 1858.
A previous post here covered a missive written on 2 August 1856 by Bancroft to Temple and gave some information about him and his wife, F.P.F.’s older sister Clarinda, while another pertained to a letter by her to her brother on 18 January 1857. The first mainly concerned the shipment of seeds for fruit trees and garden plants, as well as a book, by Bancroft to his brother-in-law, something that was done on occasion since not long after F.P.F. settled with Jonathan in Mexican California in the early Forties. The second was about the recent death of Cynthia, sister of F.P.F. and Clarinda and who lived with the latter, after a long period suffering with tuberculosis.
In this case, Bancroft’s letter refers to several topics, including one that had a remarkable geopolitical connotation to it, as well as context for the economic conditions of the period. First, he acknowledged receipt of F.P.F.’s letter of 20 January to Clarinda and, as was very common for the time, stated that “it found us all in good health.” Bancroft added “we were glad to hear the books arrived in good condition, for we were afraid that they were not put up [properly packed and/or shipped] as they had ought to have been for so long a voyage.”
Next, F.P.F. was informed that,
Brother J[onathan] and wife arrived at Reading on the 9th of last month, and stoped [sic] with us till last saturday [sic] the 27th of February, when they left for New York to meet Don Gregorio & his family, from thence they expect to sail on the 6th inst. for France.
Bancroft added that he and Clarinda considered traveling down to the Big Apple before the departure so that they could see their grand-nephews and nieces, the children of Francisca Temple (daughter of Jonathan and Rafaela Cota) and Gregorio de Ajuria. He continued that “we had a very pleasant visit from Brother J & wife, & if our lives are spared we hope to see you, your wife and Boys [Thomas, age 12 later in the year; Francis, 10; William, 7; and John, soon to be 2] at Reading before many years.”
It would be a dozen years before some of this transpired, as F.P.F. and the three younger of those sons made the trip out to Massachusetts with the three brothers enrolled at various schools (the Massachusetts Institute of Technology for Francis, Harvard Law School for William, and John attending Reading High School and the Bryant and Stratton Commercial School in Boston).
As for the sojourn of Jonathan and Rafaela, this was largely in the context of economics and exile. Gregorio de Ajuria, a native of Bilbao, Spain, was a young merchant in México when he visited Los Angeles in 1845 and got to know the Temples. Three years later, he married Francisca, an only child, and the personal ties became business ones, especially when de Ajuria became a supporter of Ignacio Comonfort, a key figure in a revolt against Mexican President and dictator Antonio López de Santa Anna that led to his overthrow in 1854.
Comonfort was Minister of War under the short-lived administration of Juan Alvarez, but disorder which largely characterized Mexican politics since its independence from Spain more than three decades later, led to further infighting among politicians and military officials, and Alvarez resigned with Comonfort succeeding as president in December 1855.
The ties with de Ajuria, who owned as paper factory and newspaper in México City, and Temple began when Comonfort was the customs official at Acapulco and included a $60,000 loan when Comonfort was part of the movement to remove Santa Anna from power. This was followed, after Comonfort became president, with a half-million dollar loan from Temple—whose wealth was far above and beyond almost anyone in Los Angeles—with the result that the lease to the Mexican national mint was assigned to de Ajuria and French merchant Alexandre Bellangé, the latter formerly having the lease.
Because of Temple’s substantial loan, however, the mint lease was effectively his. The same year, 1856, he closed his Los Angeles store, the first in town when he opened it nearly thirty years before, and devoted his time to his Mexican interests, as well as developments in the Angel City. The latter included the two-story brick commercial building that was the first of four that comprised the Temple Block, the other three structures built by F.P.F. from 1868-1871 after he acquired the tract from his brother’s estate. In 1859, Jonathan erected the Market House, patterned after Boston’s Fanueil Hall, but the structure, with market stalls on the first floor and the town’s first true theater on the second, was soon turned over for the county courthouse city hall during a period of an extended financial depression.
Returning to Comonfort, revolts erupted throughout the nation, already tenuous relations with the powerful Catholic Church ruptured, and a new constitution was written and ratified, but he was unable to retain power for too long and resigned on 21 January 1858. The 12 February edition of the New Orleans Delta recorded that arrivals at the Crescent City’s port by steamer from Veracruz included “Presidente Comonfort, daughters and servants” and “Gregorio de Ajuria, lady and children,” along with other exiles from México. Comonfort, after a few years in Texas, was permitted to return to México, joined the defense against the French invasion and was killed in 1863.
As for de Ajuria, he headed for New York City, as Bancroft mentioned, and was joined there by Jonathan and Rafaela. A family reunion was then followed by the trip to Paris, where the de Ajuria family settled. There was brief period of residency in the Union Square section of New York, as well, during which Gregorio was naturalized as an American citizen, but they returned to France and Gregorio died just outside Paris in March 1864, purportedly while he was in an insane asylum. Remarkably, Francisca inherited the Mexican mint lease after her father died in May 1866 and kept that until 1893, when the mint was nationalized under Porfirio Díaz, not quite a decade before she passed in 1902. Meanwhile, Rafaela joined her daughter after Jonathan’s death and lived until 1883.
Bancroft turned next to another very important issue from the era—the state of the American economy—informing his brother-in-law that,
Business continues dull, particularly the shoe trade. Traders from the south and west buy very light and at very low rates, we hope by next year that things will yet [be] regulated so that there will be a better state of trade.
He was long a shoemaker and it seemed that every aspect of business was suffering after 24 August 1857 when, as reported in the Los Angeles Star of 10 October, “a great monetary crisis had taken place in New York, causing the failure of many of the banks, some of the leading mercantile houses, and a host of brokers.” It was asserted that a primary reason was trouble with railroad bonds and stocks “which caused the suspension of the Ohio Life and Trust Company.” A later study found the reason related to currency problems, tax issues and poor management that was assigned as embezzlement.
The Star account continued that the collapse of the institution “was followed by the stoppage of certain well-known bankers and brokers—then by the failures of a large number of country banks” and the collapse of a New York bank after $80,000 was embezzled by a teller. In its edition of 28 November, the paper reprinted a New York paper’s remarks that, on 13 October, “Wall street exhibited a scene . . . which it has not presented since the terrible times of 1837,” the last major depression in the country. It was added that “the banks were literally besieged” to such an extent that police officers were called so that institutions could transact business. Efforts to stymie the panic failed as “depositors found the bank doors closed against them” and news published of more bank suspensions of business, totaling 50 alone in New York City, in just three hours as more than half of funds were withdrawn.
F.P.F. could obviously not have foreseen that he would be part of the next major financial panic, which burst forth in 1873 in the east, though California, riding a Virginia City, Nevada silver mining boom, seemed immune from the downturn. The silver mine stock bubble collapsed 18 years to the day of the Ohio Life and Trust and the Temple and Workman bank was obliged to suspend business and then seek a loan, finally received from “Lucky” Baldwin in late November 1875. This failed to stanch the flow of cash withdrawn by jittery depositors and the institution closed on 13 February 1876, wiping out Temple and leading his father-in-law, William Workman, to commit suicide.
John Bancroft continued his letter by observing that “you speak [in that January missive] of receiving papers, every Mail, from us” and asked that “if you think of any different papers or Periodicles [sic] from those we send you, that you would like, will you please name them in your next letter and we will send them to you.” This is a reminder that, while Los Angeles was far from the centers of media production, some locals were able to have reading material sent to them, albeit quite a bit out of date, through shipment by sea. This meant overland transport through Mexico or Central America, as well.
As for the New England weather, it was reported that it “very pleasant . . . till within about two weeks, it was more like October weather than winter.” It was only the prior day and on the 2nd, that heavy snowfall was experienced, totaling some seven inches. Notably, Bancroft commented that “it has been favourable for the poor, and there has been much less suffering than thare [sic] would have been if the winter had been as sever as the two past ones were.”
The letter ended with the remark that F.P.F. and Clarinda’s sibling Seth was doing well as was Cassandana Temple, the widow of brother Abraham, and her daughters and that a relative recently gave birth to a son before Bancroft asked “please remember us to you[r] wife and little and Haven, and all other friends.” Haven was a nickname for Thornton Sanborn, who was representing his uncle F.P.F. with his property and business interests in the town of Springfield in Tuolumne County, a major gold mining region. Sanborn came to California because of tuberculosis, which ran through members of the Temple family as with many Americans, and remained until his uncle’s financial failure, after which he went back to Massachusetts and was afflicted with typhoid fever and then died of TB.
Those poor business conditions mentioned in the letter continued until the Civil War, but, in greater Los Angeles, the war years were marked by terrible floods and debilitating droughts, with the financial environment leading Jonathan Temple to sell out and move to San Francisco. F.P.F., however, rose to great prominence and wealth during the ensuing period of 1868 to 1875 when the region underwent its first boom, modest as it was compared to later ones, though the aforementioned failure of his bank then occurred in the next depression.
Having letters like these gives us a better perspective on the Workman and Temple family, both with the human qualities that they give us, more than newspapers, official records and other documents, but also with the bigger picture such as the economic and geopolitical issues read “between the lines” of the missive. Look for more “Reading Between the Lines” entries in future posts in this series.
As concluded in this post, personal letters offer valuable insights into individuals from multiple perspectives. I’m not sure if Paul has done this before, but I find it both interesting and beneficial to compile a brief portfolio for each member of the Workman and Temple families, as well as other prominent figures of the same era who were connected to them. These profiles would highlight their distinctive characteristics and personal traits.
I believe this would be highly valuable because much of what we read consists of fragmented events. Most readers, myself included, struggle to synthesize a person’s lifelong actions and behaviors – both vertically and horizontally – to identify the defining traits that shape their fate. For instance, we are uncertain whether William Workman was honest or shrewd, generous or frugal. In other words, I am searching for the underlying framework – the “habitual personalities” – that directly drive an individual’s behavior and, in turn, subtly drive the movements of history.