by Paul R. Spitzzeri
Winning one of two local seats in the California Assembly in the 1 September 1875 election, Frederick Lambourn headed to Sacramento in early December, about the time the Temple and Workman bank co-owned by his former boss, William Workman, secured a loan from “Lucky” Baldwin to reopen after being closed since the election.
The Los Angeles Express of the 15th published a report from Sacramento, including Lambourn’s resolution requesting a committee to look into the printing of books used in the state’s schools. By contrast, John R. McConnell, the other local member of the Assembly, quickly offered four bills for consideration. The next day’s edition noted that Lambourn was assigned to the committees on counties and county boundaries, public buildings and grounds and the “culture of the grape,” while he was appointed chair of the agriculture committee.
Not surprisingly, the legislator introduced bills or resolutions during the four-month session, which terminated on 3 April 1876, including one of the latter calling on Congress to rescind a federal tax on brandy and a former example to carve out a new county out of the southeastern portion of Los Angeles County, with this to be called Santa Ana. Among other authored bills was one relating to county road improvements, banning trespassing on enclosed lands, and setting fees for county officers.
Lambourn was praised by the Los Angeles Herald of 16 January (this was a few days after the Temple and Workman bank failed) for sending the texts of bills relating to an authorization for the city of Los Angeles to issue bonds for irrigation improvements within the municipality and for the same method to raise funds for building a new court house and jail (the existing edifices dating to 1857 and 1853, respectively).
When it came, however, to the county division proposal, the paper, in its edition on the last day of February, firmly informed its readers that its legislative reporter stated that “the entire delegation from this county is opposed to the creation of the new county” and that “this is the sense of nineteen-twentieths of the voters and tax-payers of Los Angeles county.”
The Express of the 10th, meanwhile, cited a speech by Anaheim resident William R. Olden, agent of the Los Angeles and San Bernardino Land Company, formed to manage the vast holdings in that section of the late Abel Stearns, who was said to have remarked that “he believed county division to be the only panacea for the ills of which he complained.” Moreover, it was noted,
To cap the climax to this absurd method of urging a measure, he stated that [former] Gov. [John G.] Downey and old Mr. Workman . . . were warmly enlisted in favor of the project; also, that Mr. Fred. Lambourne [sic], one of our representatives in the legislature, had been in the employ of Mr. Workman for fourteen years, and that that gentleman (Workman) had stated that Mr. Lambourne was untrammeled on the question—which office seekers have been agitating for the last ten years—of county division. What inference can be drawn from this gratuitous insult thus offered to the integrity and intelligence of Mr. Fred. Lambourne? Only this: That because “Mr. Lambourne has been in the employ of Mr. Workman for the last fourteen years” that he owns him body and soul, and that he will do as he is bidden by his master, regardless of the wishes of his constituents . . . we do not believe that Governor Downey, Mr. Workman nor any one of influence . . . will endeavor or has promised to do anything to thwart the wishes of the people directly interested in the question.
In fact, the question of a new county, long advocated by some, as noted in the quote, was left unanswered for another thirteen years until Orange County was established in 1889. The idea of any undue influence Workman had on Lambourn is certainly an interesting one, though the legislator’s former employer had far more pressing matters to deal with following the collapse of his bank and the legal issues that followed—in fact, Workman committed suicide a little more than four months later.
Lambourn was also introduced a bill “for the better protection of public treasuries,” amended to deal specifically with Los Angeles County. This was unquestionably directed at the fact that the bank’s other owner, and president, F.P.F. Temple, Workman’s son-in-law, was elected the county treasurer and was to assume office in March, a full half-year after the vote, even though his business was wiped out (and he soon filed for personal bankruptcy.) Despite calls for his resignation, Temple insisted on serving his two-year term, although a deputy handled the day-to-day business of the office.
While he was criticized for supporting a bill to regulate fees and charges by railroads that was not felt to be strong enough for Los Angeles-area residents chafing under the regional monopoly held by the Southern Pacific Railroad—which, in September, completed its main line from the north to the Angel City, Lambourn was generally praised for his service.
A banquet at the St. Charles Hotel on Main Street was tendered to he and his fellow legislators after their return from the session at Sacramento, with the Herald of 22 April recording that McConnell said of his Assembly colleague that “it is to him that we are indebted that many unpleasant laws were not passed,” while his public buildings committee work included “the investigation of Napa Insane Asylum frauds” and that there were only two issues, left unstated but which were the county division and railroad fees matters, on which they disagreed.
The evening’s chair was Governor Downey, who proposed an inaugural toast to “Our Invited Guests” from the legislature, followed by two more on railroads and Los Angeles. When Downey offered the fourth toast on “Our Agricultural Resources,” Lambourn provided the response and was paraphrased as having “placed the agricultural interests of our State at a point of importance greater than the gold of California in her palmiest days.”
It is interesting to observe remarks made someone only known as “W.H.” and obviously from the north in the Express of 9 February regarding the 38-year old Lambourn:
He is short of stature, and is possessed of a pleasant, florid, clean-shaved face (except the moustache) and bears the evidence of early piety on the top of his broad cranium [apparently meaning he was balding!]. He came to California in 1859 from Illinois, and has resided many years in the southern country. He has acquired a good knowledge of the liquid language of the natives; but I should judge not from any of the fair señoritas with which that portion of the state is said to abound, or he would not yet be laboring alone in the vineyard of life. Mr. L. is a very painstaking legislator, and devotes a great deal of time to his desk.
Obviously, it was not known, or carefully concealed, concerning his relationship with María Claudio Duarte and their four children, and one wonders whether there would have been any outcry or demand for disqualification if that was made public. In any case, Lambourn returned to the area and had predetermined plans for his next stage.
The 27 October 1875 number of the Los Angeles Star reported that architect W.J. Graham presented plans for a “fine brick block about to be erected on Aliso street, between Los Angeles and Alameda, east side [actually north], for Messrs. Lambourn & Co..” The two-story edifice, measuring about 90 feet wide and 60 feet deep, was to have for stores of 1,200 square feet each on the ground level and 19 living spaces on the top floor “arranged en suite, with kitchen, dining room, closets, bath rooms, etc.”
Moreover, the paper continued, “the front of the building will make a handsome display, being of pressed brick, tuck pointed, with arched windows and door-ways.” At a total cost of about $13,500, some 40% in the masonry and the rest with carpentry, the account concluded with the note that “the new building will be quite an ornament to that section of the city, and will doubtless stimulate other similar enterprises.” An awning had a inscription reading, “Eureka! Choice Articles for the Inner Man bought, sold and exchanged” and a single-story addition was made in 1882 adjacent to the edifice, reflecting the growth of the business.
The reference to “Lambourn & Co.” actually concerned the new wholesale grocery business of Lambourn and Turner, with a reunification with former Workman Mill partner William F. Turner. Their enterprise lasted for three decades and made them comfortable livings. The Star of 2 April 1878 informed readers that,
Messrs. Lambourn & Turner, Aliso street, near Alameda, have one of the finest stocks of groceries in the city. Everything in their [is] line sold at the lowest market prices, and goods delivered to any part of the city free of charge. In the produce line, Messrs. Lambourn & Turner buy and sell immense quantities, and farmers should give them a call when they have anything to sell or desire to buy.
On 30 November 1876, nine months after María Claudio Duarte gave birth to their daughter Margarita, Lambourn wedded Georgia A. Morrison, a Texas native and resident of El Monte. The couple had two sons, Frederick and William (probably named for William Workman) and a daughter Georgia. Again, his previous relationship with Duarte was never publicly acknowledged or mentioned (the 1880 census recorded the children under the name of Martinez after María Claudio married), though, when his daughters Victoria and Margarita married, the Lambourn name appeared in the notices.
Lambourn became an active member of several professional organizations, including the Board of Trade, the Los Angeles Grocers Protective Association, and the Produce Exchange, while he was also part of the Taxpayers’ Protective Union, the planning committee for La Fiesta de Los Angeles and was involved with a masonic lodge in the Prospect Park section of Boyle Heights where he and his family long resided.
Though never again holding public office, Lambourn remained a prominent Democrat and announced as a candidate for county treasurer in 1879 but the county convention chose another figure. In 1884, he was promoted as a possible mayoral candidate, but withdrew his name at the convention. He sought a seat on the Board of Education eight years later and lost by just 50 votes. Still, he regularly attended party conventions and occasionally served as an election inspector. In 1878, he served as foreman of the county Grand Jury and his report to the Board of Supervisors was published in the paper, as was generally the case.
The mercantile establishment did well enough that Lambourn had his comfortable home in Boyle Heights and a vacation cottage on Terminal Island near the Port of Los Angeles, where many Angelenos enjoyed the cooler summers and the sea air before the island became home to fishing enterprises, including by the Japanese.
When Lambourn decided to retire in 1908 after his health started to suffer at the onset of the 20th century, he bought land in Los Nietos, southwest of Whittier, and ran a walnut grove. It seems more than a coincidence that the former student at Judson College in Illinois lived on Judson Street in Boyle Heights and then Judson Road, this is now South Norwalk Boulevard, north of Washington Boulevard in Whittier. In any case, he lived quietly on his ranch and died there in December 1914 at age 77.
Lambourn’s story is an interesting one relating to his deep ties to the Workman and Temple family, as a tutor/teacher and ranch superintendent, while his work as a member of the state assembly and a prominent merchant, as well as his political involvement, made him a well-known Angeleno. His role in the lynching of Jesús Romo and the circumstances of his relationship and family with María Claudio Duarte are reminders of how very often there is a more complex and nuanced part to the lives of many people than we realize.