by Paul R. Spitzzeri
As we continue to mine the remarkable contents of the “Loose Leaves from the Family Tree” binder, compiled by members of the “Los Angeles branch” of the Workman family, with Mary Workman Dugan’s copy donated recently to the Homestead by her grandson, Vincent Hurteau and his family, we return to transcriptions, made from originals by the late David A. Workman in 1973 of letters sent by Mary Workman, living in Clifton, England to her brother David and a nephew in 1849 and 1852.
Though there is a gap of close to 15 years in the set of letters that were, a half century ago, owned by Conrad Krebs, it does not appear that there was a total lack of communication between the Workmans of the old country and those of the “new world.” The 3 December 1849 missive from Mary to her older brother began with the comment of “how happy are we all to hear from you and your family again and that your prospects are a little more promising.”
This reference to financial issues is interesting, as David’s future daughter-in-law, Maria (pronounced Mar-aye-uh) Boyle Workman, recalled in 1919 that her husband, William Henry, “did not know his father until he was seven years old,” that being in 1846, because David, who’d long owned a saddlery business in central Missouri where he settled in 1819, was absent for very long periods as a trader, transporting and selling merchandise in New Mexico, where his brother, William, owned a store at Taos, and México proper.
There was a national depression in 1837 that may have been partly responsible for economic problems experienced by David and one wonders whether his situation was improved by the Mexican-American War of 1846 to 1848 in terms of selling goods for the military. Just as the war came to an end and nearly half of México was seized by the United States, gold was discovered in northern California and David ventured west to investigate conditions there. He may well have returned home to Missouri not long before this letter from Mary was received.
Moreover, William left Taos with his common-law wife, Nicolasa Urioste, and their children, Margarita and José, taking the Old Spanish Trail to greater Los Angeles, where they settled on the Rancho La Puente with the family of John Rowland and Encarnación Martinez. William became a cattle rancher and was involved in political conflict internally within Mexican Alta California, as well as a negotiator between the Californios and the invading Americans during the war. With the onset of the Gold Rush, he benefited handsomely from the demand for beef from hordes of miners and migrants thanks to his large stock of cattle at La Puente.
Notably, the letter was addressed to “Arrow Rock, Boonville, Cooper County” although the latter town, where the Workmans long resided, is some 20 miles southeast of the former, which is actually in Saline County, but which was an important spot, as was Boonville, along the Missouri River for travelers heading west, including to California for the Gold Rush. It may be that David was engaged in trade at Arrow Rock to take advantage of the opportunities presented there by mass migration.
Whatever the situation, Mary made reference to receiving a drawing from a nephew, meaning one of David’s three sons, 17-year old Thomas, 14-year old Elijah or 10-year old William Henry, praising it as possessing “considerable merit.” She also remarked on the poor health of sister Lucy, who died the following year, while saying she and brother Thomas were in good condition. She also informed her brother that there were hopes of hosting on Christmas Day the saddler to whom David was apprenticed as a young man so that “we will drink your health and that of [your] family, at the same time, that you do ours.”
Mary also commented on the fact that, in a staircase window at the family house, which still stands at Clifton, instead of the toys of her youth, there were “the handiwork of the aborigines of more than one foreign country” and she added that she was “very proud of any little [additions to the collection] that either you or my brother William has sent to me of curiosities.” More notable is that she informed David that “we occupy the new addition to our old house,” that latter, including the staircase window, being rented and she, a very talented artist, offered to send “a view of tour old home, as it is now in the alteration.”
It sounds as if renting part of the residence had some financial necessity attached to it, as Mary wistfully added, “we have never known such peace as when the premises were entirely in our own hands.” Another problem was that, while “with regard to the orchard all the fruit it produces are entirely at your service,” it was noted that “it is very much deteriorated since you knew it” three decades prior because a storm in 1835 “did considerable damage, uprooting all the principal trees,” while fir trees on the property contributed “considerably to the deterioration of the fruit trees.”
Returning to David’s economic situation, Mary wrote that “you can drawn on my brother Thomas safely for thirty pounds at any time,” but spoke of a Dr. Headlam, who appears to have served in the role of a trustee, likely after the 1843 death of the Workmans’ father, Thomas, though she noted that he wanted to be “releaved” of that duty of managing some 500 pounds that looks to have been in trust for the surviving siblings (Lucy, David, William, Thomas and Mary—a sixth, Agnes, died in 1848.)
Also mentioned was property owned by their late mother, Lucy (who died in 1830), and which was located in her native town of Godalming, situated in Surrey some 30 miles southwest of London. The tract was “only part of a field” and, while there was some income periodically, there were also expenses for maintenance as well as for putting in a legal claim on it, which, apparently, David, as the eldest surviving male, pursued.
While the letter ended, Mary then added a postscript, explaining,
We are all of us very much afraid of the drawing of these bills as none of us three, have any of us, been engaged in any business, so as to be drawn into any other persons losses. We have not diminished any part of the old premises and the few fields our Father left to us, but had we been engaged in any business we possible could not have helped it. I trust, David, you will not draw upon us without due consideration . . . We would rather have seen you in England to do your own business.
This seems to have been a polite plea for David to be mindful of his siblings’ financial position, a half-dozen years after the death of their father and which seems to have deteriorated, as perhaps reflected in Mary’s remarks about the orchard, as well as the delicacy of dealing with Dr. Headlam in his role, because she also noted that a power of attorney document was mailed to David, but not received.
There was, however, something else of significant in the postscript which remarked on some conflict that arose between David and William and which may have been at least in part created by economic issues, though there is no way to know whether it was business or personal. There may have also been some tension between William and his English siblings. Mary exhorted David:
I wish to hear of your and William’s perfect reconciliation. We have ever strove to keep up brotherly love. We cannot get letters to or from him. If you should communicate with William give to him our very best love to him and his family.
This takes us to the next letter, from Mary to David’s wife, Nancy, and dated 28 August 1852. The reason for this address not being to David was that he was in Sacramento, running a store as he sought to improve his finances while the Gold Rush was still very much in evidence. The missive began with the issue concerning the 500 pounds left to the five surviving Workman children after the 1843 death of their father, Thomas.
David evidently was put out regarding the means by which he could access his share as Mary told his wife that “it would grieve me very much, the bare idea of offending my dear brother David, letting alone in reality wounding his feelings,” but, she added, despite wanting to do anything but cause a rift, “this sum of one hundred pounds was all he could command.” The 1849 letter above mentioned his ability to get 30 of these at one time, though how and why that amount was settled upon is not clear unless it was by the guidance of the doctor who looks to have been trustee of Thomas Workman’s estate.
In any case, Mary added that she’d much preferred to have David visit to receive “a little ready cash for his necessities and comforts” and that she did “wish to deprive him or his family of any one thing belonging to him” because she and her brother Thomas, the surviving members of the immediate family in England following the 1850 death of sister Lucy, was “to add to his store, not diminish.” Consequently, Nancy was encouraged, in the absence of David, to “draw upon my brother Thomas for that sum at any time,” the trustee, or whatever his role was, seeming to have withdrawn from his role.
After discussing the shipment of papers to Missouri, including illustrated ones for the benefit of the three sons of David and Nancy, but explaining that books were prohibited by British law, Mary added that contacting her nephew, John James Vickers, the only child of her late sister Agnes, and a resident of Baltimore (he may have died there in 1855), would be the best way of acquiring whatever books were desired. Here was an admonition to Nancy about her not being “very enthusiastic in the undertaking” regarding the burden of cost and effort, as well as that Nancy could “have assured yourself from your knowledge of the family that nothing disgraceful would have emanated” from the situation, especially because Mary was “not likely to trouble any party, relation or otherways.”
The letter ended with Mary’s reminder that “should my dear brother visit us this ensuing winter, I should be most delighted to see his face once more” and that the portrait of David and Nancy “hung in the lobby of the house” for nearly two decades would be the first item he would see on entering it. David was not able to return to his hometown, however, as he died in summer 1855, while driving livestock to the California gold fields, less than a year after he and his family settled with William and his clan on the Rancho La Puente after leaving Missouri. This happened because, on 2 November 1852, a fire ravaged eight-tenths of Sacramento, where David owned a store, which was consumed by the flames.
This leads to our next piece of correspondence by Mary, to an unidentified nephew, and dated 1 November 1852. She began by observing that she expected a letter from the young man’s father concerning a visit to England and then expressed satisfaction at “the general tenor” of a letter received from the nephew. This included “an absence of vice which is the greatest charm” as well as its excellent penmanship, while she frowned upon “the total disregard to all grammatical arrangement.” She assumed this meant a lack of education, even though “we received accounts of my brother engaging a teacher for you before his departure for California” and the failure to do so meant “he must be very inadequate to his task to inform you no better.”
Mary then wrote that she took it upon herself to revise the missive “and trust you will not take offense at me for so doing” because he reason for this was “from a very good motive, that of your instruction.” The letter to her began by acknowledging receipt of one in August and expressed the nephew’s “pleasure at the news it contained of the safe arrival of my dear Father at his home in good health and spirits; he having promised to write to me as soon as he arrived at home.” Not having received one, however, “I became very much alarmed on his account, fearing some accident had happened to him.”
Because of that August letter, the concern was relieved, while it was added that “I cannot prevent my anxious desire for his safe arrival in Baltimore again, subsequent to our joining you in England,” which, the nephew continued, would be a grant of “my earnest prayers [and] the fulfillment of my wishes.” After sending the regards of a couple in Baltimore, where the nephew was living, as well as those of Frederick Regelien, who was said to be “equally anxious with me for my Father’s safe return and soon on my account,” the young man went on,
Mr. Regelian has been a very good and sincere friend since my Aunt’s death, for I felt myself cast off to the world to provide for myself; a task I found very difficult and heart breaking at the first; but thanks be to God I am now able to provide for myself in a decent, comfortable manner; and have been doing so since my Aunt’s death, not being able to attain the small amount of money left me by her; my cousin, J. Vickers, refusing guardianship for it, though I solicited him for that purpose. I have been compelled in consequence to accept the services of a school fellow, J.F. Falkoner by name, who has since taken the benefit of the insolvents act and defrauded me.
Regelien, who ran a fish house and inn, attempted to intercede with Falkoner at court, but to no avail, though the nephew remarked that “I think eventually it will be safe enough as his securities are bound to pay for it.” This letter concluded, Mary ended her own by stating she would add more comments on another piece of paper, which, apparently, has not survived, and noted that she and brother Thomas were still considering a trip to Baltimore, though “it depends upon my brother’s visit to us.” She then expressed “every good wish for your happiness and welfare and safe journey to England.”
When David A. Workman, who died in 2020 and was an attorney and Los Angeles County Superior Court judge, as well as a family historian, transcribed this letter, he reasonably surmised that the nephew referred to was “probably” Thomas H., the eldest of the three sons of David Workman and Nancy Hook. He further assumed that the missive “suggest[s] that the nephew spent over four years in Baltimore, away from his home in Boonville, Missouri.” He also knew about Regelein because, when Agnes Workman Vickers died in late July 1848, the funeral was held at his residence.
Yet, we now know that, when the 1850 census was taken in mid-August at Boonville, Thomas was enumerated in the Workman household with his mother and two brothers (he and middle son Elijah were employed as clerks), while his father David was in California. Moreover, the reference made by the nephew to being defrauded by “Falkoner” and assisted by Regelien is borne out by references in 1853 and 1855 to the Baltimore County Orphans Court suit John H. Falconer vs. Frederick Regelien. In that proceeding, Falconer, who appears to have been a teacher then lawyer, was the guardian, while Regelien was the “next friend” of “Joseph E. Workman.”
This, then, means that the nephew was Joseph, the son of William, and who we know was living with his aunt Agnes Workman Vickers in Baltimore as early as June 1845 and was likely sent there earlier (Mary’s statement that she’d heard that William as looking at “engaging a teacher for you before his departure for California,” might mean that he looked to do so prior to the migration from New Mexico in 1841). The reason for that June 1845 date is because a notice placed in the Baltimore Sun on Saturday the 28th under the “Wants” section stated,
INFORMATION IS WANTED of a LAD named JOSEPH WORKMAN, aged 11 years, who left the home of his Aunt, residing on Hanover Street, on Monday morning last, and has not since been heard of. [His clothing was described and he was “without shoes or stockings”] . . . [he] has a small scar on his face, from a burn. He is of dark complexion [reflecting his ancestry through his mother, Nicolasa, described as a Pueblo Indian from Taos]. Any information respecting him would be thankfully received, and may be left at the residence of his aunt, MRS. VICKERS, Hanover street, between Lee and York streets, south side.
The Vickers residence on Hanover Street in the Otterbein neighborhood, situated between Baltimore’s Inner Harbor and the Camden Yards ballpark of the Orioles baseball team, may still be standing today.
What is confusing is the dating of the letter to the nephew of 1 November 1852 and Mary’s statement about William “joining you to proceed forward to England.” William had just been in England, as we know he had a permit to leave from the Mexican port city of Veracruz in February 1851, that he was recorded in the Clifton household of his sister and brother as of the end of March and that he was in London in early November, as a receipt from a chemist survives.
Lastly, a letter to William from late June 1852 from a relation of David W. Alexander, his friend and traveling partner to the United Kingdom, clearly indicates that he’d recently been in New York on his way home. Notably, when the sole California state census was conducted in Los Angeles County in June 1852, enumerator Elan Covington recorded Nicolasa Workman with her daughter, Margarita Temple and the latter’s three sons, Thomas, Francis (listed as Joseph) and William.
William Workman, however, appears to have been on his way home, though he seems to have been back in time to file claims, in October, for his land grants, including La Puente, as required by a recently passed federal law. Perhaps he considered, given his son’s issues in Baltimore, to return there and take Joseph to England to live with his aunt and uncle?
As mentioned here before, following the devastating Sacramento fire, David Workman headed south to La Puente and was convinced by David—whether there was a “perfect reconciliation” or not—to go back to Missouri, collect his family and return to greater Los Angeles to live. For Joseph Workman, whose suit filed by Regelien looks to have ultimately failed in April 1855, it was time to come home, as well, and he first went to the Workmans in Missouri and then accompanied them on the trip to California.
We’ll return tomorrow with two more letters, though these are distant from one another by more than two decades, from the “Loose Leaves” volume, so come back and check that out!