by Paul R. Spitzzeri
The Homestead was recently glad to receive a donation of a love seat, or settee, by Joan Hedding, a great-great-granddaughter of William Wolfskill (1798-1866), and we’re looking forward to displaying it at the Workman House as part of rotating exhibits there in the not-too-distant future. As to the piece of furniture, distant past, it may well have belonged to Wolfskill, who, in 1830, migrated on the recently opened Old Spanish Trail from New Mexico to Mexican Los Angeles and became a prominent citizen.
Wolfskill was perhaps best known for establishing, in 1841, the first commercial orange grove in California on his extensive property southeast of the Plaza, where he built a substantial adobe house, this and the orchard being the focus of a prior post here. Married first to María de la Luz Valencia, with whom he had three children and then who left him for another man, Wolfskill then was wedded in January 1841 to María Magdalena de Jesús Lugo (1804-1862), whose family were early Spanish-era colonists in Alta California.
The couple had six children, one daughter dying as a child, and those living to adulthood being Juana Josefa (1841-1863), who married Henry D. Barrows and died in childbirth; María Francisca (1843-1923), who will largely be the focus of this post; José Guillermo (1844-1928); María Magdalena (1846-1930), who was the wife of Francisco Sabichi; and Luis María, also known as Lewis, (1848-1884).
While William Wolfskill achieved success as the pioneer orange orchardist, he also had substantial landholdings in greater Los Angeles, including large ranches in what became Orange County. A contemporary and friend of William Workman, founder of the Homestead on Rancho La Puente, Wolfskill demonstrated the close tie when, during the terrible droughts of 1862-1864, during which huge numbers of cattle starved and Workman had to slaughter some 2,000 head, he discovered water and grass in, of all places, the northern edge of the San Bernardino Mountains near modern Apple Valley and Hesperia and invited Workman, John Rowland and Workman’s son-in-law, F.P.F. Temple to pasture their herds with his, saving many animals.
Just four years after the death of Magdalena, William passed away on 3 October 1866, at age 68. Remarkably, as his faded, his family persuaded him to have a portrait taken by local photographer and painter, Henri Penelon. Wolfskill was carried from his deathbed out to the front corridor of the adobe for the sitting and, while most published versions of the photo were edited, the original shows a woman standing behind the frail, dying man to support him. Perhaps it was one of his two surviving daughters living with him, Francisca or Magdalena, if not a nurse.
In any case, William left a substantial estate, including the house and half of the orchard left to Joseph, and the other half of the orchard as well as four vineyards, separate land “and her wardrobe and piano.” Magdalena, recently married, received two vineyards, a store building, a house and lot north of the Plaza Church “and a wardrobe and piano,” and Luis was given an eight-day clock and the ranchos Santa Anita and Azusa de Duarte. Bequests were made to other family members, while the children were given equal shares of cattle, horses and sheep and Joseph, Francisca and Magdalena a store building in Main Street and a mill property in San Bernardino. There was no dollar value assigned in what was published in the Los Angeles News of 9 October.
In any case, while the previous years of the 1860s were rough ones with the drought, preceding floods, smallpox outbreaks and other issues, the rest of the decade resulted in greater Los Angeles’ first boom, modest compared to later ones, with growth benefiting the family. In fact, when the 1870 census was taken, Francisca, whose age was erroneously listed as 19, when she was 27, self-reported her wealth as comprising $8,000 in personal property and $52,000 in real estate. She was undoubtedly one of the wealthiest women in the city.
She also conducted her own business transactions, such as the sale in February 1869 of 25 acres of the family property to her sister Magdalena Sabichi for $100 an acre, and the purchase in September 1871 of a lot on Main Street from the prominent merchant and later banker, Herman W. Hellman, for $1,200. Francisca and Lewis also, as their father had done before them foreclosed early in 1876 on a mortgage to Leonardo Cota and his wife Inez Yorba and took possession of land on the Yorba family’s Rancho Cajon de Santa Ana.
As for orchard property, the Los Angeles Star of 18 September 1873 published a description of the growing burg by an unnamed visitor from Buffalo, who remarked that “the new city of Los Angeles is being fairly built upon the ruins of the old” and compared the adobe buildings of the days of yore with the more attractive brick structures of recent vintage, “notably the Temple Block and the Pico House [hotel],” which were on par with anything else in California.
The writer continued that “escaping from the business streets and those occupied by the poorer Spanish population, one finds his way into the garden of Southern California, where grow in luxuriance the orange, the lemon, the lime, the grape” and much else. It was added that “the orange groves undoubtedly attract the most admiring attention of the visitor, for anything more charming than these cannot be easily conceived . . .” Moreover, the account went on,
The handsomest orange grove in the city is owned by Miss Francisca Wolfskill, and boasts of between 1,500 and 1,600 trees. The greater proportion of these are sixteen years old [meaning from about 1857], and should bear, according to the calculators, an average of 1,400 oranges to the tree.
The 30 May 1874 edition of the Los Angeles Express featured a reprint of a lengthy of an article by ex-Governor and bank president John G. Downey, which was published in the newest issue of The Overland Monthly, a San Francisco magazine, on orange growing. In identifying William Wolfskill as an early grower, though not stipulating his role as the first commercial orchardist, Downey added that a Dr. Halsey, along with Mathew Keller (who was best known for his extensive vineyards and wine-making), acquired seeds from Central America and Hawaii and planted next to the Wolfskill place.
When Halsey left Los Angeles, Isaac S.K. Ogier, a federal judge, took possession and then “sold the nursery for a song to William Wolfskill, whose place was adjoining, and the orchard, now the property of Miss Francisca Wolfskill, is the result.” Strikingly, Downey added,
It is a very pretty property—perhaps the largest bearing orange orchard in the United States. At least, I have not seen any as large in Florida, Louisiana, or in Cuba. It is a pleasure to look at, is a source of great profit, and could not be in better hands.
A remarkable story about how William got into the orange growing business appeared in the Express of the last day of 1877 and quoted from the current issue Hall’s Land Journal, a Los Angeles publication by 23-year old Charles Victor Hall, who was dealing in real estate and later was an oil prospector. At that tender age, Hall could only have gotten his version from hearsay, but he claimed that Wolfskill
happened to be in San Francisco many years ago, and one day while strolling along the wharves he observed a schooner alongside discharging a cargo of oranges from the Sandwich Islands [Hawai’i]. Many of the boxes were in a damaged and unmarketable condition and were being cast overboard. This casual observer conceived the idea of using them for seed and immediately purchased them for a mere trifle. These damaged boxes he shipped to Los Angeles, placed some of the seed in his own orchard and sold the balance to his neighbors. Thus the orange groves of Southern California sprang into existence.
The Express informed readers that the general understanding was that oranges were introduced to California by the Spanish missionaries of the last third or so of the 18th century, but remarked “perhaps history in this, as in the heroic episode recounted of William Tell [of apple fame], is wrong,” while it noted that Hall’s story “may be true.”
Whatever the origins, Francisca Wolfskill enjoyed substantial wealth, including a healthy income, while she was also a dedicated Catholic, supporting the Ladies’ Fair for the orphanage of the Sisters of Charity, as well as being a major contributor, along with the likes of Thomas W. Temple, son of F.P.F. Temple and grandson of William Workman, to the building of St. Vibiana’s Cathedral, which began construction in 1871 and was completed five years later.
Her wealth apparently provided the means for her decision in spring 1876 to contemplate a trip to Philadelphia for the upcoming celebration of the American Centennial and, when she headed north, she decided, in her early thirties, which was very late for marriage in those days, to wed, on 6 June 1876, Charles J. Shepherd (1845-1905) in a San Francisco ceremony conducted by Catholic Bishop Joseph Alemany. The couple then proceeded east for the celebration and returned in October.
Although the 1900 census states that Shepherd was born in Ohio and that his parents were also from the Buckeye State, he actually hailed from Michigan and of English parentage. His mother Rebecca Dawson and his father James Simpson Shepherd, who was a homeopathic physician, were from Lincolnshire in the center-eastern portion of that country. The couple had five children, of which Charles was the only son, and they long resided in Racine, Wisconsin, situated on the shore of Lake Michigan just south of Milwaukee.
While James was part of the hordes who came to California during the Gold Rush and practiced medicine for a time at Oroville, he returned to Racine, though the family migrated to California in December 1863 and settled in Petaluma, in Sonoma County, north of San Francisco. There the doctor continued operating his practice, also specializing in delivering babies, while also maintaining business interests.
It is not known when Charles flew from the family nest and the earliest that could be located of his whereabouts for this post was when he was working as a telegraph operator in Los Angeles by November 1871. It may be that he met Francisca through her brother, Luis/Lewis, who was rising in prominence in the Angel City, especially after selling the Rancho Santa Anita in 1872 for some $85,000, a handsome sum, to merchant Harris Newmark (who, three years later, sold it to Elias J. “Lucky” Baldwin for $225,000).
Lewis Wolfskill became a friend and partner of F.P.F. Temple and William Workman, owning the western two-thirds of Rancho San Franciscquito, near both Santa Anita and the Azusa de Duarte and which was previously owned by Henry Dalton of the Rancho Azusa, whose daughter Luisa married Lewis in 1872. Shepherd and Lewis Wolfskill joined Temple in a Board of Brokers formed in 1875, while both were also delegates for the county convention of the Independent Party, basically Republicans, and from whom the only successful candidate in that September’s county election was Temple as treasurer.
Shepherd had just over $1,000 deposited in the Temple and Workman bank and, when that institution failed in mid-January 1876 and creditors met shortly afterward to decide how to strategize and recover their funds, he was named secretary of one of the first such gatherings. Then came the marriage to Francisca, their Centennial excursion and the return home that fall. Shortly afterward, the couple bought a property on First Street on Bunker Hill and built a fine residence there—it may be that the settee was from the Wolfskill Adobe or it might have been purchased for the new house. In any case, it is known that it belonged to the couple
With his wife’s substantial estate and ownership of half of the famed Wolfksill orchard, Shepherd established himself as a fruit dealer and built a packing house on Main and 15th streets, later moving, as the Angel City grew, to Main and 40th, this latter now Martin Luther King, Jr. Boulevard. There may have been some marital trouble early on as the 1880 census finds Shepherd living on Bunker Hill with his sister Clara Hutchins and her family, while Francisca resided on the orchard property in the household of brother Joseph.
The Shepherds, however, welcomed their only child, daughter Mary, in spring 1883 and as the city and region continued to grow, including with the great Boom of the Eighties, which most occurred during the administration of Mayor William H. Workman, their fortunes rose. Sadly, however, little Mary succumbed to diphtheria in November 1891—two years later, the couple donated a stained glass window at St. Vincent’s Church (now at Adams and Figueroa in an ornate structure paid for by oil magnate Edward Doheny, hence it being the church built with “holy oils”) in Mary’s memory.
We will return tomorrow with part two of this post, so be sure to join us then!