All the Right Notes: A Cancelled Promissory Note from William Workman to Isaias W. Hellman, 23 June 1866

by Paul R. Spitzzeri

It would be hard to overstate the abilities and influence of Isaias Wolf Hellman (1842-1920), who came to Los Angeles as a teenager, built a substantial career as a merchant, rose to be the growing city’s preeminent banker and left in his late forties to rise even higher in the financial world at San Francisco, where he lived the last three decades of his long, fruitful life. He was one of a first wave of European Ashkenazi Jews who migrated to Los Angeles in the decade after the Gold Rush burst forth and found opportunities there not available to them in their homelands.

He was the eldest of the seven children of Wolf Hellmann and Sara Fleischmann, who were natives of Isaias’ hometown of Reckendorf, a town of about a thousand, with 30% of the population being Jews, in Bavaria northwest of Nuremberg. Wolf Hellmann was a weaver with his brother, but economic issues in the 1840s were mitigated by a dowry and a house that Sara brought to the marriage. Other families, including the Haas and Walter clans, were tied through marriage and some of them came to America and California, as well.

Isaias’ obvious aptitude in his early education led his parents to send him to Marktbreit, close to 90 kilometers to the southwest, to a college run by a Jewish educator, with bookkeeping being among the practical subjects imparted to the 12-year old when he arrived there in 1854. Having completed his education, Isaias and his younger brother Herman (born in 1843), following a typical “chain migration” process traveled north through what was not yet a united Germany (that happened in 1870) to the port of Hamburg.

There, the siblings took the steamer Hammonia to Southampton and then on to New York, where they arrived at the end of March 1859. From there, another steamship carried the brothers to Central America for an overland crossing and then another sea voyage north to San Francisco. Finally, another ship was taken to rudimentary port of San Pedro for stagecoach ride to Los Angeles.

Herman stayed in the port town to work for a while, while Isaias took employment as a clerk in the store owned by their cousins Samuel and Isaiah M. Hellman and known as Hellman and Brother or Hellman and Company. When the two owners split, Isaias and Herman, who joined the firm, continued working for Samuel, who specialized in books and stationery. Herman left acrimoniously, but Isaias departed when an opportunity arose to operate his own store.

This was formerly owned by Adolph Portugal, another of Los Angeles’ Jewish mercantilists, and was located at the corner of Main and Commercial streets in what was basically the business hub of the small town. The year was 1865 as the Angel City was emerging from a brutal two-year drought, which followed a devastating drought and which occurred during a period of grasshopper infestations and smallpox outbreaks.

Not quite 23, Isaias took out his first advertisement in the Los Angeles News of 15 April—that was the day that President Abraham Lincoln, shot the night before in Washington, died—and it noted that he was a “Dealer In Dry Goods, Clothing, Hats, Caps, Trimmings, Ribbons &c, Boots and Shoes, Gentlemen’s Furnishing Goods” as well as “A fine assortment of Ladies’ Bonnets & Hats, Together with a Well Selected Stock of the Finest Dress Goods ever brought to this market.” The young merchant added, with the confidence of an experienced vendor,

I am now opening my new stock, received per the last steamer, and which will be replenished on the arrival of each and every vessel in our harbor. I would solicit a call from old patrons and those wishing to OBTAIN THE BEST, before purchasing elsewhere. CALL AND SEE FOR YOURSELVES. It is no trouble to show goods. Having purchased my stock at reduced rates, I will sell at the LOWEST CASH PRICES!

Portugal added a subscript in which he recommended that his customers call on Hellman and continue to give him their business. As noted here previously, though, Portugal, who returned to Europe for an extended period, came back to Los Angeles and resumed the mercantile trade, including in F.P.F. Temple’s last addition to the Temple Block.

In short order, Hellman not only provided customers with the goods he described in some detail in that ad, but he offered informal banking services. Notably, the California Constitution of 1849, which forced Congress to finally admit the territory as the 31st state in the Union the following September, did not permit the legislature to issue banking charters, though companies could accept gold and silver deposits, nor could anyone issue currency under the guise of banking because of the checkered history of so-called “wildcat banks” in America. Paper currency was also forbidden, which was not an issue (!) because of the obvious prevalence of gold and silver.

Incorporated savings-and-loans arose in San Francisco by the end of the Fifties, but it was not until 1867 that corporate charters for banks were issued there and in such places as Oakland, Sacramento and Stockton. Meanwhile, Hellman had his informal banking establishment in his store and the Homestead is fortunate to have in its collection a document that is from this operation, with respect to the loaning side of his business.

Dated 23 June 1866 and in Hellman’s hand, the promissory note was issued to William Workman, co-owner of Rancho La Puente and founder, with his wife, Nicolasa Urioste, of what is now the Homestead. Hellman wrote, above Workman’s signature,

On day after day without [a] grace [period], for Value received, I promise to pay to the order of Isaias W. Hellman the sum of Two thousand Dollars, bearing one and on half percent (1 1/2%) Interest per month until paid. I furthermore promise to pay said principal and Interest in Gold Coin of the United States of America.

The witness was Frederick Lambourn, who began his association with Workman about the time that Hellman arrived in Los Angeles and was the teacher at a private school in the Workman House for the Temple grandchildren of William and Nicolasa. He moved up to became ranch foreman, holding that position until the mid-1870s.

Later, Lambourn and William Turner, who was the operator of Workman’s mill, opened a store there and, after Turner and his wife were attacked by a robber, who was then lynched by Lambourn, Walter Drown (whose guardian was Workman and who was raised by the Temple family) and El Monte merchant Jacob Schlessinger, ran a very successful wholesale mercantile business in Los Angeles for many years.

A dollar and a half worth of revenue stamps, with the initials “W.W.” and the date of “June 23, 1866” are affixed to the document because of Internal Revenue Service requirements. On the reverse in Hellman’s hand and above his signature is “Rec’d, Los Angeles, December 8th, 66, Two thousand Dollars in a Cert. of Deposit on Parrot & Co. on the within Note.” John Parrot of San Francisco long operated his bank on which the CD was presented and the lines written through the text and signatures indicated that the note, having been redeemed, was thereby cancelled.

It would be great to know why Workman borrowed the $2,000, which is not an insubstantial sum. Perhaps it was for improvements on this ranch and/or the Homestead, such as the construction of his mill, though it might also have been used for legal fees as he and John Rowland were in the latter stages of getting their 15-year land claim for Rancho La Puente completed—a federal patent was issued in 1867. Whatever the reason, the 66-year old Workman and the 23-year old Hellman established an informal business relationship that soon translated into something far more formalized.

After ex-Governor John G. Downey and James Hayward followed the incorporation trend noted above and established Los Angeles’ first bank, Hayward and Company, which opened its doors early in February 1868, Hellman, Workman and the latter’s son-in-law, F.P.F. Temple, pooled their resources and, in September, opened their bank of Hellman, Temple and Company, with Hellman shuttering his store. The institution was located near Hellman’s store on Main Street, just north of Commercial, in a new two-story brick edifice erected by former Governor Pío Pico.

The partnership seemed to be a particularly promising one. Workman and Temple, residents of more than a quarter-century, were among the region’s wealthiest citizens and were well-liked and respected. Hellman, the managing cashier, was regarded as a brilliant business figure and, had he been left to operate the bank as he saw fit, it is intriguing to think what would have happened if Temple had not pushed for more involvement in how Hellman, Temple and Company was run.

After not much over two years, however, Hellman wanted out. His assessment was blunt:

Mr. Temple’s only qualification in a borrower was that he must be poor. I saw that doing a banking business on that basis would soon leave me poor also, so I dissolved the partnership.

Hellman bought out Temple and Workman and continued on briefly as Hellman and Company, until Downey, whose bank with Hayward was shuttered, came on board and the institution was reconstituted as The Famers’ and Merchants’ Bank of Los Angeles. Under Hellman’s steady hand, the institution prospered quickly, including the region’s first boom period which peaked in the mid-Seventies, and he was its guiding force for nearly a quarter-century.

Undaunted, his former partners went on their own and opened their Temple and Workman bank in November 1871 in that Temple Block addition mentioned above with respect to Adolph Portugal. While it seemed popular and prosperous, Hellman’s assessment proved to be all-too-correct when an economic panic struck in late summer 1875, following a national depression that burst forth two years prior. Hellman was able, through prudent guidance, to weather the financial storm, but Temple and Workman could not, despite a loan from San Francisco capitalist, Elias J. “Lucky” Baldwin, and it failed early the next year.

For about fifteen years, Hellman, who married Esther Newgrass and had two daughters and a son, grew his bank, including during the much larger Boom of the 1880s, which hit its heights during the mayoral administration of Workman’s nephew, William Henry, who, with Hellman and John Lazzarovich, developed the Los Angeles subdivision of Boyle Heights. In fact, Hellman amassed substantial landholdings throughout greater Los Angeles, including the famous Rancho Cucamonga and its vineyards, as well as the Rancho Santa Ana del Chino.

In 1890, he purchased the struggling Nevada Bank and revived it with such success that, in 1905, it was merged with Wells Fargo, one of those early pre-incorporation banking enterprises, as well as an express service. While Hellman moved to San Francisco to carry out these endeavors, he continued as president of Farmers’ and Merchants’, though a schism with his brother Herman led to the latter forming his own bank and the brothers never fully reconciled. Moreover, working closely with the Southern Pacific Railroad, he developed a relationship with Henry E. Huntington, who oversaw the transportation giant’s streetcar enterprises in San Francisco.

After Huntington was cut loose when the SP was taken over by rail tycoon Edward H. Harriman and moved to Los Angeles, where he quickly made his mark with his Los Angeles Railway and Pacific Electric Railway streetcar systems as well as real estate development in many areas, Hellman was a key partner, obviously on the financial side, and their connection was often referred to as the Huntington-Hellman syndicate.

Hellman was long a leader in Los Angeles’ Jewish community, including with the Hebrew Benevolent Society and Congregation B’nai B’rith, but he was also a founder of the University of Southern California, an active member of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows fraternal society, and a regent of the University of California, among other charitable activities in the Angel City and San Francisco.

By all accounts, Hellman was one of the wealthiest citizens of the Golden State and the Pacific Coast, worth millions of dollars (if Workman and Temple had let him work his financial magic, perhaps they, too, would have enjoyed such wealth). He remained active until nearly the end of his remarkable life, but the critical illness of his namesake son, who worked closely with him, led to Hellman’s death in early April 1920 (Isaias, Jr. followed about a month later.)

In a tribute, the Los Angeles Express wrote, in its 10 April edition,

The death of Isaias W. Hellman marks the passing of one of the builders of the state, for he was one of the great bankers of California, who, through the long years of development, worked constructively . . . his entrance upon banking was an event of Los Angeles occurrence as far back as 1868. The city was then but a little village . . . There was no promise in the Los Angeles of that day of the metropolis of this, but the Hellman family had faith in its future—faith that held through the years . . . [He] was ever the city’s friend in the lean years . . . His death, breaking one of the few remaining bonds that link Los Angeles with its early history, is as much a loss to Los Angeles as to San Francisco. The whole state, indeed, must mourn the passing of one more of the builders who built his greatness.

To better understand the life and career of the remarkable Isaias W. Hellman, check out Towers of Gold by his descendant Frances Dinkelspiel, which authoritatively and compellingly tells his story.