Cascades of Controversy Redux: Sharing History with the San Dimas Historical Society about Puddingstone Falls, 1888-1910

by Paul R. Spitzzeri

The heavy rain abated by the time that tonight’s presentation for the San Dimas Historical Society got underway, but controversy certainly rained down on the rural citrus town back in the early 20th century related to two aspects of the history of the Puddingstone Falls section to the south. A prior post here discussed much of this, but, as a follow up to the presentation this evening, we’ll go into some further details of these “Cascades of Controversy.”

As noted in the earlier post and tonight, Puddingstone Falls bore that moniker at least as far back as spring 1888, when Los Angeles newspapers published a detailed account of the locale, nestled in a portion of the San José Hills in what was formerly part of the Rancho San José and, before that, lands of the indigenous people, whose access of the falls and surrounding areas is outside the scope of written history, but historical nonetheless.

When those articles were written, the Boom of the Eighties was about to go bust and San Dimas was one of the new boomtowns that emerged during the 1886-1888 era (when William H. Workman was mayor of a burgeoning Los Angeles). Two families arrived in the Angel City during this period—the Cannons and the Pearsons—and they came from different regions and backgrounds.

William and Catherine Cannon migrated from Janesville, Wisconsin, among the hordes of immigrants from the middle section of the United States, such that Los Angeles was often said to be more Midwestern than Western. They settled northwest of downtown in what was then called Ivanhoe (after the famed novel by Sir Walter Scott), but is now Silver Lake. Their son, Charles, worked as a shoe salesperson including when the family acquired their first property in San Dimas in the early 1890s.

Benjamin and Sarah Pearson made their journey here from England and also lived in the Silver Lake section. All but one of their eight children took the trek, including Benjamin, Jr., who became the managing superintendent of the powerful (literally) Southern California Edison utility. A daughter, Daisy, sometimes known by her middle name of Sybil, remained in England after her 1885 marriage to Frederick Mayne, but his conviction and 15-month prison sentence (with hard labor) led them to start over in the Angel City, where they had a daughter, Constance, born in 1888.

Fred Mayne, though, also was an alcoholic and, after losing his job at the store of Hans Jevne, he passed off a forged check with Jevne’s name and also tried to sell a horse-and-buggy he obtained from a local stable. This actually followed Daisy’s decision to file for divorce, citing his drinking problem and other issues, with Fred claiming to the press that he committed these crimes because of this legal issue and stating that he wanted to go to prison.

While a jury recommended mercy after convicting him, the judge, offering a lengthy and harsh admonishment to Fred for treating his family as he did, handed down a three-year sentence at San Quentin, which, apparently, stunned the convict, who seems to have assumed he’d get six months in the Los Angeles County jail. Daisy secured her divorce, Fred served two years and then died in Nevada a few years later of pneumonia, and she wedded Charles Cannon. Though Constance took Cannon’s last name, it was later reported that he didn’t want her in the household, so the girl was sent to England to live with Daisy’s sister.

Accounts suggest that Daisy was an attractive and poised woman, who seems to have enjoyed an elevation in status and income with her marriage to Cannon. In 1900, after Daisy returned from England to deliver her daughter to her sister, the couple built a Tudor-style house on the San Dimas property and settled in to a country life that stood out in the community. Whatever wedded bliss existed after almost a decade, however, quickly disintegrated shortly after the arrival in San Dimas of Dr. Walter Stapley.

The England native became a veternarian and made something of a name for himself in that field while residing in South Africa (where the Boer War ravaged that area during this period.) His American wife, Mildred, was an artist who, after their separate and bitter and prolonged divorce in the early years of the 20th century, became, under the name Mildred Stapley Byne, a prominent expert in Spanish art and architecture. She and second husband, Arthur Byne, were affiliated with the Hispanic Society of America in New York, founded by Archer M. Huntington (whose art-collector mother Arabella was the wife of railroad tycoons Collis P. Huntington and his nephew, Henry, the rail and real estate baron and founder of his namesake library, art museum and botanical garden at San Marino).

With his marriage disintegrated, Stapley, who was licensed in Los Angeles in summer 1903, somehow ended up in San Dimas and practiced as a physician. He became close to the Cannons and too close to Daisy, leading to the affair that scandalized the rural burg and culminating in the illicit lovers heading, in separate trains, to Los Angeles, where they registered in different hotels—apparently to project a sense of decorum that was almost certainly a thinly disguised bit of artifice. Charles Cannon garnered the sympathy of this neighbors, while Daisy and Walter migrated to New Zealand, where they wedded in 1906 and remained together until his death (he was lionized for his work treating “Spanish” flu patients during the terrible pandemic of 1918-1919). Notably, on her tombstone reads “In Loving Memory of My Dear Mother,” affirming that Constance was still alive and close to Daisy before the latter’s 1934 death.

Charles Cannon, who acquired his Puddingstone-area property in 1903, resumed his life in San Dimas, building, in 1905, a new residence on the tract and marrying Ann Priest, who was born in Birmingham, England. A few years later came the reports that Cannon sold large swaths of his property to Dr. Orloff Nikolaus Orlow, a Los Angeles resident who announced grand plans for the property. The previous post observed that Orlow can be traced to Chicago as the 19th century came to a close and added that he was said to be Greek and from a common family, not the scion of a Russian noble house from St. Petersburg, as he long claimed.

Notably, some newspaper references from the late 1870s and early 1880s observed that the names “Orloff” and “Orlow” were actually the same surname, so the idea that the good doctor would be born with one as a first and the other as a last name seems more than far-fetched. Perhaps the gent, whatever his birth names, felt that, on arriving in the United States in 1898 from México City, which he attested in a naturalization petition in 1916, no one would question his new moniker.

Whatever the case, the newly minted Dr. Orlow presented himself in the Windy City as a “psycho-diagnoser of life and diseases” as well as a “reader of vital forces,” while claiming that he belonged to the “Brotherhood of Divine Humanity” in Bombay (Mumbai), India, and was the author of Life and Its Real Meaning. He advertised to readers of the Chicago Inter-Ocean in March 1899 that,

A thorough phycho [sic] examination of yourself as to health and prospects, based upon scientific knowledge of the real basis of human existence, will be given to personal applicants . . . The accuracy of my diagnosis and prospects is beyond question . . . The more difficult it is for you to understand yourself and WHY it is you cannot make headway [is] so much MORE [the] reason there is for you to consult me.

The 1900 census listed Orlow as 63 years old and a lecturer by profession, while the following year, the Chicago Tribune of 26 August quoted from his “Success in Life” lecture at Steinway Hall in which the speaker intoned, “success depends on the view we take of our life. If we realize its limitations and overcome them we gain experience. The right use of these experiences will beget practical knowledge. Practical knowledge will clear our mind and give [the] power to discern.”

Orlow’s ticket to success was based entirely on attracting supporters, who, in turn, bestowed their funds upon him, in a variety of endeavors that generally led to the good doctor’s being sued for a variety of reasons and his pulling up stakes and heading to the next city to attract a new cadre of acolytes to basically repeat the process to the same result. In March 1902, he incorporated the Brotherhood of Divine Humanity and then announced that he acquired almost 4,000 acres near San Francisco for the organization’s scientific farm home for up to 600 indigent children and adults—some of these children were to be those he tutored in his Chicago residence.

By fall 1902, however, Orlow remained in San Francisco, leaving behind his adherents and allies in the Windy City, though still claiming that he was finding homes for this wayward youths of Chicago, with the San Francisco Call of 22 September reporting that hundreds attended a talk on “Right and Wrong,” said to be based on principles of the “New Thought” that swept through America during the period. The doctor, spending each Sunday as a lecturer, was described as the founder of the Orlow Institute and Society of Human Endeavor and the paper remarked,

the object of his principles was to recognize a Divine principle in man; to try to understand life through knowing natural laws; to apply such knowledge in daily life; to establish schools and settlements, especially for poor children, where these principles may be applied and lived, establishing harmony and comfort.

An abrupt shift in focus (or grift) came in 1904, when Orlow opened his “United Crafts and Arts” in San Francisco, with the enterprise specializing in the sale of “Old Mission” and “Old Flemish” as well as “everything antique” in furniture. Advising that readers could “Learn How to Make Nooks and Corners, as well as Attics, Attractive,” Orloff added that “THIS IS HIGH ART.” He was clearly seeking to take advantage of the craze in Craftsman furnishings and architecture, but he soon got into an array of legal trouble.

The 25 March 1905 edition of the San Francisco Chronicle reported on a suit filed by an advertising writer who produced a book promoting the crafts and arts endeavor, but not surprisingly, was not compensated entirely for his efforts. The paper remarked that “an attempt was made to show that Orlow was in the habit of borrowing large sums of money from people here [and in Chicago, for that matter] on the representation that he had estates in Russia and great wealth in jewels and art.”

In June, another court battle ensued concerning the value of a disputed “Oriental” rug in which Orlow as a witness, purportedly because of his claimed expertise in the area. When an attorney for one of the parties, however, inquired about Orlow’s doctorate, the answer was that he was “a doctor of philosophy.” Pressed about which specific one, the reply was a complaint that “this is an attempt to bring a different matter into court” and that his avocation was “a matter of my own personal pleasure.” After affirming that he had a diploma, Orlow refused to answer from which institution he purportedly earned his advanced degree.

When the lawyer inquired as to whether he’d founded a church at his Clay Street residence, Orlow rejoined that “he founded a philosophy—the philosophy of Aphnos [Athmos],” for which a publication called Atmos was issued by Orlow’s trinity of organizations mentioned above. Clearly irked by the line of questioning, the philosopher than grumbled, “I thought this was a free country and I might believe as I pleased. I am a man of peace and my only object in this matter is to reconcile the parties.”

The following month, another court proceeding arose when a young Armenian man claimed to not have received his full compensation for work done for Orlow and insisted that his former employer was a spy for the Russian government and had plans for fortifications at the Presidio and other Bay Area installations in his lodgings. Orlow scoffed at such claims, but he was also the target of increased media speculation about his murky origins and mysterious and questionable activities of a wide variety.

The San Francisco Examiner of 27 July, for example, wondered:

Who is Dr. Orloff N. Orlow? . . . Is he a scion of the famous Orloffs of Russia? Is he a relative of the Czar? . . . Is he a graduate of Cambridge University, England? Was he a field officer in the imperial guard of Germany? Does he own mines in Siberia?, a vast private estate near St Petersburg . . .? Does he own one of the most wonderful collections of jewels in the world? . . . Or is he a nobody with an unsavory past in Europe, a spy for the Russian Government, a swindler, a fakir and a charlatan?

The paper provided at least a partial answer, in its view, by detailing his various avocations as “a clairvoyant and magnetic healer,” a doctor, a minister, a teacher, a philanthropist, “as a partner in a get-rich-quick concern, and then as a collector of curios.” In Chicago, it continued, he was arrested for lacking a license to practice medicine and was evicted from dwellings before he decamped to San Francisco in summer 1902 and moved into a mansion, in which the basement became his “chapel” for the promulgation of the philosophy of At[h]mos, while also occupying three other structures.

The Examiner reviewed his various enterprises and legal tussles, including the acquisition of theaters, which it asserted lent an air of legitimacy from which he extracted more money from supporters, mostly well-to-do women, in the form of loans of which he promised very high rates of return through interest. One of the alleged activities involved an “elixir of life” developed by another purported doctor that was roundly criticized by Bay Area media, though Orlow denied all associations. When a reporter was sent to interview the doctor, it was observed,

He is a handsome man, tall, broad, well groomed, polished in manner, wonderfully well educated, with a voice as mellow as the notes from a church organ and the compelling magnetism of a great actor. He looks like all the fine things he says, or is reported to have said, that he is . . . there is no denying that Dr. Orlow is the figure of a man best suited [for all the ornamentation he wore] . . . He looks, in short, like money, money, money, brains, breeding and culture.

Yet, the interview, though “stately, courteous, [and] full of high-sounding phrases,” was also deemed to be “circumlocutory and rather barren of information,” while Orlow serenely observed, “why should I betray my dignity by entering into an argument to disprove assertions . . . by persons of no credit anywhere.” When questions were posed about his origins, however, the paper ended its article by informing readers that “the doctor became non-committal to the verge of taciturnity” and “the atmosphere became a little strained,” so the reporter “made his best bow, received another warm handclasp and escaped.”

Perhaps because of the chaos and turmoil amid the 1906 earthquake and fire that ravaged San Francisco, Orlow was basically outside media coverage for a time, though his “Crafts and Arts” inventory was auctioned to pay debts, but, in April 1907, another lawsuit was filed against him, this for unpaid rent for the building housing his arts and crafts enterprise. This proceeding continued for a few months and it was revealed that he had debts above $25,000, but a friend and attorney arranged a plan to deal with these monies, though Orlow largely reneged on his responsibilities.

By fall, another relocation was effected—this time to Los Angeles, where Orlow secured a permit to build a 20-room edifice, at Washington Boulevard and Grand Avenue, where Los Angeles Trade Technical College stands today, described as an apartment building, then a “queer bungalow” notable for its exotica. The doctor was said, by the Los Angeles Express of 4 November, to be a native of Russia, but educated in India and his unusual domicile led the paper to comment, “much comment has been excited among passers-by in regard to the destiny of the building, and some very wild guesses have been made as to its intended use.”

The structure, in fact, was later described as a sanitarium, run by a nurse Orlow knew in Chicago, but who, of course, later sued him concerning her role in its operation. As 1908 dawned, the Puddingstone deal was announced, this described in detail in the previous post. The collapse of that transaction was followed by another prosecution, this for embezzlement of an “Oriental” rug, and then bankruptcy proceedings. In 1910, Cannon sold his Puddingstone-area ranch to Howard Huntington, whose father, Henry, built the Pacific Electric Railway line that passed above it, thereby enhancing the land’s value. With their actual realized windfall, the Cannons soon moved to Redondo Beach, where Charles died in 1923.

Once more, Orlow left his various troubles behind and headed to Seattle, where he suddenly became an expert on Japanese art, sought naturalization (though he claimed in the 1900 census to have become a citizen in 1897—even as 1916 application stated he arrived from México the following year) and was investigated for pro-German leanings just as the United States was poised to enter the First World War.

He largely disappeared from public view after moving to New York City, but, after his death there in March 1924, he had one more shape-shifting claim to offer. Namely, he claimed to be the Archduke Johann Salvator of Austria, who vanished more than three decades before while traveling in South America. Once again, he had adherents who believed this assertion, including a woman, said to be his ward, who killed herself, along with a dog, a pair of parrots and all documents pertaining to Orlow.

The Victoria [British Columbia] Times of 21 April, however, asked “Did He Hoax Them?”, citing a New York World article that reported Orlow “told a number of sadly conflicting stories of his family origin and associations,” including how he long claimed to be Russian and then suddenly decided he was the Austrian archduke—notwithstanding the fact that had abundant hair, while Johann Salvator had quite a bit of hair loss. The piece concluded,

People like to believe far-fetched things which have to do with mystery or romance. If Orlow, who claimed to be both a Hapsburg and a Romanoff, had said he was also a Bourbon or Braganza, he would have had still another group of believers. Curiously enough, those who will accept as gospel hoaxes which will not stand a few moments [of] investigation will promptly ridicule truths that are readily obvious.

Charles Cannon, who was, perhaps, gullible with respect to Daisy Mayne, certainly was so with Dr. Orloff Nikolaus Orlow, though, of course, he was hardly the only such example in the latter’s long career of what pretty clearly seems one built on successive deceptions and grift. This applied not just to denizens of little San Dimas, but those in the supposedly sophisticated metropolises of Chicago, Los Angeles, New York City, San Francisco and Seattle, as well.