by Paul R. Spitzzeri
Andrew Boyle’s 1858 purchase from Petra Varela de López (she’d been subject to an early 1854 sheriff’s sale of part of the land because of a default on a loan to merchant and ranch owner Henry Dalton) of a portion of Paredon Blanco, a section of Los Angeles east of the river and which contained vineyards, orchards, an adobe house and other elements, took place during a period of economic decline in the Angel City following the end of the Gold Rush and a national depression the prior year.
He soon opened a boot and shoe store, in partnership with someone only known as Brooks, with the first located mention of the enterprise coming in February 1859. It was located on the aptly-named Commercial Street, which went east from Main Street and a portion of which still exists east of Alameda and terminates at the west bank of the Los Angeles River.
Otherwise, Boyle kept a low public profile and built both his business and his agricultural enterprises at Paredon Blanco, while he enrolled Maria in the School of the Immaculate Conception, run by the Sisters of Charity, a Roman Catholic order of nuns. In 1860, he vacated the Esteban López and moved into a new house on the bluff and which was said to be the first brick edifice on the east side of the river.
The 1860 federal census enumerated Andrew, age 41, and Maria, 13, with his late wife’s sister, Charlotte Dardier, also 41 years old and two Mexican farm laborers at Paredon Blanco. Boyle listed her real estate as worth $10,000, while he declared $1,000 in personal property. Among the neighbors was Francisco “Chico” López, son of Esteban and his family and laborers, with that household residing north of Boyle, as well as Tomás Rubio, whose family long held property in the area.
Boyle sold grapes from the López vineyard to markets in San Francisco, according to the 1901 biographical sketch referred to in the first part of this post, but, in 1862, began to manufacture wine. The Los Angeles Star of 31 January 1863 ran the first located advertisement, by agent Ralph Leon from his Main Street office across from “Temple’s Block,” where City Hall now stands, for his venture and it proclaimed the Paredon Blanco, which Boyle soon sold on his own, was a “NEW BRAND OF CALIFORNIA WINE!!” The ad continued,
Mr. BOYLE, for the first time, offers his Wine for Sale, having preferred to wait until it had attained a mature age. He now offers the vintage of 1860, which will commend itself to all connoisseurs.
It was added that the wine was “to be sold in lots to suit purchasers,” who were asked that “all orders [be] left at BOYLE’S SHOE STORE, Main street, near Commercial, [and] will meet prompt attention.” His bio remarked that “as a wine merchant he met with success,” and, although the quality of the product produced from the Mission grape was generally considered poor and would have been considered about as tasty as something served from a boot in Boyle’s store, it was added “the quality of his manufacture was the best, hence his sales were limited only by the quantity of his output.”
The Star, in a separate short piece commending readers to the advertisement, commented,
This is a dry, full flavored, well matured wine, of a most agreeable aroma, partaking somewhat of the flavor of genuine Madeira. We have frequently tasted the wine in the cellars, and are satisfied there has been no adulteration, nor any attempt to impart a foreign flavor. It is no disparagement to the old brand [that of López or of Boyle’s earlier attempts?], to say, that this will bear a favorable comparison to them.
Visitors to his winery and the Boyle house were, as his bio stated, subject to “many pleasant gatherings, for he was of a most hospitable nature and was never happier than when friends sought his comfortable home.” Notably, the house, or portions of its, stood for over 130 years, though heavily remodeled by descendants in the Workman family and as part of Jewish and Japanese retirement facilities occupying the site from the 1920s until very recently. The last vestiges of the Boyle house were apparently torn down after the 1994 Northridge earthquake.
Wine statistics from the Star of 12 February 1862 and 14 November 1868 showed that he produced 3,500 gallons for the first period and 13,000 for the second—by comparison William Workman, whose winery buildings were directly south of his residence and about where the Homestead Gallery is now, generated 6,000 and 11,000, respectively. These totals were typical of smaller producers, with such major players as Charles Kohler and John Frohling, Maurice Kremer, Benjamin D. Wilson and the colony at Anaheim issuing much larger amounts.
An early reference to Boyle shipping products from his vineyard and orchard came in the Wilmington Journal, which was launched by the “Port Admiral” Phineas Banning using the press and other machinery from the Star, shuttered several months prior, of 14 January 1865. It was reported that the steamer Senator included four pipe (barrels) of wine and a trio of boxes of lemons. Two others shipped wine including Jean-Louis Sainsevaine, one of the French producers of note in the Angel City.
An ad from the 12 January 1866 issue of the Los Angeles News noted that “Mr. A.A. Boyle offers for sale his Celebrated Brand of Native Wine, presumably meaning from the Mission grape. In March 1867, Boyle advertised Paredon Blanco vintages from two to five years of age at his “depot” situated at Main and Arcadia streets, a portion of this latter paralleling U.S. 101 to the north and just south of the Plaza, and offered “in wood and in bottle.” He also sold “good, new WHITE and RED WINE and AGUARDIENTE (brandy), as cheap as can be had in the city.”
Early in 1869, another ad offered Paredon Blanco wine from two to four years, as well as “old Grape Brandy,” with orders to be left at the store of Thomas Leahy. The 28 January edition of the News reported that,
A.A. Boyle, a well known vineyardist of this city, and the manufacturer of the celebrated Paredon Blanco wine, is erecting a new still for the purpose of manufacturing brandy upon a large scale. The success of Mr. B. is making fine brandy and wines has given his vineyard a reputation second to none in the State, and fully justifies him in the investment of a large amount of capital for the extension of his business to meet the demands of the trade.
Boyle also had a notable political presence in the Angel City, though this largely came to be in his later years. The 31 July 1863 edition of the News, which was then a pro-Union paper as opposed to the Confederate-supporting Star, referred to a primary election for the county convention of the “Dixie party,” which meant the larger composition of Democrats. In summer 1867, he was a vice-president of a Democratic Party rally in advance of an election for a seat in Congress.
Thirteen delegated were chosen to attend the confab, including two Latinos, José del Carmen Lugo and Cristobal Aguilar, both elite Californios. Among the Anglos were County Judge William G. Dryden, a friend of William Workman (who was part of a disaffected Democratic slate for county elections four years earlier); lawyer Alfred B. Chapman; France native Felix Signoret; German-born Augustus Stoermer; and Boyle. The main candidates mentioned were Thomas D. Mott for county clerk (he later would refuse to register Lewis G. Green as the first Black male voter in Los Angeles until so ordered by a court) and Tomás Sánchez, another elite Californio, for sheriff.
The 10 February 1866 edition of the Journal listed Boyle as over 100 citizens, including F.P.F. and Jonathan Temple; former Governor John G. Downey; Benjamin D. Wilson; Ozro W. Childs; Isaias W. Hellman; Dr. John S. Griffin; William Wolfskill; Adolph Portugal: Mathew Kremer; Judge Dryden; and about eight Latinos including Aguilar and Julián Chávez; who signed a petition to the state legislature that the Los Angeles city charter be repealed because of burdensome taxation and a “useless expense of the City Government,” as well as inadequate distribution of water.
With Boyle’s property adjoining the river, the sole source of water for most of the city, this may have been a key reason why, the following municipal election, he, in spring 1867, ran for and won a seat on the Common (City) Council, though his interest in the city coffers was also likely important because, when he was given committee assignments, these were to the ones concerning finance and water.
In 1868, when the Council voted to give the private Los Angeles Water Company a thirty-year lease to distribute all of the water in the city limits, Boyle was the only no vote, along with George Dalton, apparently believing that this service should remain in the control of the municipality. Boyle served until the end of the year, though he returned to the council in a special election in February 1870 and completed the rest of the term in December.
Among his other committee assignments were those concerning water preservation; streets; the city dam; a gas ordinance; municipal indebtedness; tax inquiry; police; city printing; sanitation; city archives; flood control and land sales. Notably, when his death notice was printed in the News, which, by early 1871, shortly before it went out of business, was a Democratic paper, it was stated that Boyle was “impulsive in disposition” and had many close friends, but also “did not fail to secure enemies.” This may also have involved political ones.
Separate from his council service, he was one of a committee including frequent mayor Damien Marchessault and surveyor George Hansen tasked in spring 1868 with determining the value of the county courthouse for possible purchase, which action was taken and the structure, built by Jonathan Temple nearly a decade before as a market house, but which was then leased to the city and county for official purposes, remained as the courthouse for another two decades.
He was also part of a meeting in April 1868 for the formation of a taxpayers association, established “to elect good men to office, and purge the ballot-box of fraud,” with Boyle joining Dalton, Henry D. Barrows, John M. Griffith and José Mascarel on a committee of write a constitution. When officers were elected, Pedro Carrillo was chosen president, Barrows was named treasurer, Boyle was picked as vice-president and his son-in-law, William H. Workman, nephew of Homestead founders William Workman and Nicolasa Urioste, became secretary.
An interesting incident took place late in 1867 involving Dr. Vincent Gelcich, the official physician for Los Angeles County, and who undertook a campaign of vaccination against smallpox within the Indigenous community because of the prevalence of the deadly disease within that greatly diminished population.
Gelcich filed a report that asserted that Boyle agreed to provide a quarter for each vaccinated Indian, but Boyle took out a card in the News of 26 November refuting this. Early in 1868, the doctor issued a card apologizing for the misunderstanding as he’d understood from Felix Signoret that Boyle made the offer, but he added “I am however satisfied that attention to vaccination is not only important but imperative, in such a heterogeneous [read: diverse] community as ours.” This statement is remarkable given current views by many about vaccination.
As the 1868 national elections approached, a Democratic Club was launched, with future mayor Joel H. Turner elected president and Boyle and former sheriff Sánchez chosen as vice-presidents (Workman was appointed to a committee to seek funds and find a location for future meetings.) When it was decided to send a delegation to Ventura and obtain future speakers, a committee including future county judge Ygnacio Sepúlveda, Herman W. Hellman, Turner, Elijah Bettis and Boyle was established.
At the end of October, a Democratic Party rally by torchlight was held and preceded a meeting and the marshals who led the planning included Workman and Sánchez. Up to 600 men participated and signs were carried that included such slogans as “Kick the Jews Out of Camp—Grant,” attributing anti-Semitic feelings to the Republican presidential candidate, and winner of the election, Gen. Ulysses S. Grant; “Exchange no prisoners; let them starve—Grant,” which attributed this to the general regarding his purported actions against Confederate captives during the Civil War; and “Libertad, Union y sostener la Constituticion—Viva la Democracia [Liberty, Union and Defend the Constitution—Long Live Democracy].”
Up to 100 of the marchers were Union veterans who affirmed that, while they served under Grant, they would not support his candidacy and they passed pro-Democratic decorations on such commercial buildings as the Bella Union and United States hotels; the Hellman, Temple and Company bank (although partner F.P.F. Temple was a Republican and Unionist, while his father-in-law William Workman was a Democrat); and the Lanfranco Building, home of the saddle and harness business of Boyle’s son-in-law and his brother, Elijah H. Workman. Private residences of Dr. Griffin, Augustus Stoermer, Ephrain Greenbaum and Samuel Foy also were decorated.
When the meeting was held in front of the Bella Union, Turner called the meeting to order and Boyle nominated Benjamin D. Wilson as chair. The selection of honorary vice-presidents included Griffin, Judge Dryden, William Workman, John Rowland, General Andrés Pico, Sánchez, Enrique Avila, Francisco Palomares, Cristobal Aguilar, Prudencio Yorba Felix Signoret, Prudent Beaudry, Henri Penelon, and Boyle.
Boyle’s rise to prominence in Los Angeles during the latter part of the 1860s came during the region’s first boom, with a significant uptick in population, a growing economy based on agriculture replacing that previously based on livestock, and other elements. We’ll return with a concluding part three, covering his last years and, especially, his recitation of his recollections of the Battle of Goliad during the Texas Revolution of 1835-1836. Please join us then!