by Paul R. Spitzzeri
The first half of the 1870s was a period of major growth in greater Los Angeles with the population doubling or more, according to which estimates are perceived as more accurate (the official tally in the 1870 census (these are almost always undercounts) was about 5,700, while, by the beginning of 1875, the Los Angeles Herald reported a two-year jump from 8,000 to 13,000 and forecast that, by the end of the year, there could be 20,000 persons in the Angel City.
This not only did not take place, but a financial panic emanating from San Francisco hit the Angel City in late summer and, among other ramifications, included the failure of the Temple and Workman bank. Amid the national Long Depression that began in 1873, the city and region went into an economic downturn that continued through the end of the decade.
As Calvary Cemetery reached thirty years of existence by mid-decade, media references to it were somewhat scanty, though All Souls’ Day, a Roman Catholic day of remembrance of the dead each 2 November, following All Saints’ Day on the 1st, dating back to the end of the 13th century (Halloween, of course, has widely overshadowed these since the late 19th century).
The first located mention of All Souls’ Day in Los Angeles is from the Los Angeles Star of 3 November 1870, with it reported that the prior day included “beautiful and solemn ceremonies” during which “the people express their remembrance of the merits of deceased relatives and friends,” as well as “breathe forth a prayer to the Great Ruler of the Universe for the peace of the departed.” It was added,
A large number of the devout assembled at the cemetery, and decorated with flowers the last resting place of the dead. Lighted tapers [candles] were placed over the graves, typical of the triumph of life over death, by which man enters upon a glorious immortality. Prayers were recited by the Fathers in the Church, and the oil of consolation was poured upon the troubled waters of many mourning souls.
There were a few other brief mentions of the marking of All Souls’ Day in subsequent years, including 1874, 1875 and 1877, with the Los Angeles Express of 2 November in the last of these observing that “the Catholic churches celebrated masses throughout the day for the repose of the dead,” there being the recently completed St. Vibiana’s Cathedral, as well as the Plaza Church, for these solemn rites, “and the graves of the Catholic cemetery were decorated by loving hands.”
Otherwise, there was a report in the Express and Herald from May 1875 of, noted the first of these papers, “a strange story . . . of a great mass of honey having been found in a vault in the Catholic Cemetery, where the bees have for years been storing their treats.” The latter went into more detail, basing its coverage on the fact that “one of our friends was taking a stroll through the Catholic Cemetery in company with his wife” when they came across “a wheelbarrow smeared with fresh honey” and saw “a man in a disused burial vault, busy shoveling out honey.”
Apparently, that was the third such load of the condiment and the paper thought it amusing enough to conclude,
Our friend took a look into the cavity and saw festoons of honey, falling in beautiful folds from the roof and sides of the depository for the dead. The deserted vault had become a safe resort for the bees, and for years they had stored their sweet deposit, to at last become the prey of man. After such an occurrence, surely no one will be disposed to question that California is a land overflowing with milk and honey.
Another surprising discovery was reported by the Herald in its 7 October edition, as it noted that City Marshal (this title becoming Police Chief at the end of 1876) Juan José Carrillo, father of the well-known actor Leo, “deserves credit for his recovery of a lot of photographic material which was stolen some time ago from the Sunbeam gallery” recently acquired by Francis Parker, and with the short piece concluding that “the plunder was discovered hidden in the Catholic cemetery.”
The 1 December number of the Express provided, through real estate transaction listings, the origin for the acquisition of the cemetery property as it was shown that Manuel Requena, a prominent figure since his arrival in 1834 from Yucatán, México, including service as an alcalde (mayor) shortly after settling in the pueblo and later as a board of education member, county supervisor, and multiple terms on the Common (City) Council, filed a “Quit-claim of Catholic Cemetery, other than grantor’s family lot.” This was suggestive of his original transfer of the tract to the Church in 1844, with the quit-claim, or waiving of any interest or right, leaving the family lot, in which Don Manuel was interred six months later, when he died at age 74.
A notable report was issued in the Express of 15 July 1876 as it printed the “mortuary report of our city for the month of June” and the paper remarked that “it is gratifying to state that there were seventeen less deaths . . . than the preceding month, showing that the healthfulness of our city is greatly on the increase.” Of 32 instances, more than half were “zymotic,” that is, diseases that were contagious, endemic, epidemic or infectious and which were widely common during that era. Eight cases were of “local diseases,” or specific to a part of the body rather than the whole, while three were from “other cause,” and one each were constitutional, developmental disease and from violence. As for interments, 14 were in the City (or Protestant) Cemetery on Fort Moore Hill, where the Cortines school for the arts is now, and 18 were at the Catholic burial ground.
Moving to the 1880s, one of the more notorious incidents in Los Angeles during the early part of the decade was the sensational March 1881 shooting death of Francisco P. Forster by Lastenia Abarta, which has been covered in depth on this blog. Forster’s mother, Ysidora, was a sister of Don Pío Pico, the last governor of Mexican-era California and a compadre of William Workman, so it was not surprising to find that Forster was interred in the vault installed in the Catholic Cemetery in 1854 after the death of Pico’s wife, Ignacia Alvarado.
The following year, Forster’s parents, including father John, died and his remains were reported to have been placed next to those of his son, while Ysidora’s burial location was not specified, but almost certainly were reposed in the tomb. Later, the remains were taken to a Forster family vault in the cemetery of the Mission San Juan Capistrano—in the area where the clan owned large tracts of land and were very prominent figures.
Another sepulcher at Calvary and one that outdistanced all others in cost and ornamentation was the chapel endowed by Andres Briswalter (1831-1885), a native of the Alsace region of France who settled in Los Angeles in 1853 and amassed a large estate during over two decades, including substantial property south of downtown and his residential place in what is now South Los Angeles that was subdivided as the Briswalter Tract. In his will, this latter substantial property was left to Christina Mesmer, daughter of close friend Louis and who went to marry Griffith J. Griffith and was nearly killed by him in a notorious 1903 shooting.
A substantial bequest of $11,000 was made to the Rev. Pedro Verdaguer of the Plaza Church, while Briswalter added, “I direct my executors to erect a monument over my remains in the Catholic Cemetery, to cost $25,000.” Those responsible for serving in that role were banker Isaias W. Hellman and Briswalter’s longtime friends, Andrew H. Denker and Henry Hammel, who were gifted 15 acres where the latter long worked on a massive hotel project that never came to fruition.
The Briswalter Chapel, measuring about 31 by 70 feet, with brownstone block exterior finishing and marble floors, was designed by the prominent Angel City architectural firm of Kysor, Morgan and Walls. It’s thick arched entrance with a circular window over it and surmounted by a tower with a rounded roof and a large cross at the top stood out at the southeast corner of the cemetery facing Buena Vista Street, soon to be rerouted as North Broadway. It was completed in 1890, though the cemetery was already in a rapid decline and unable to handle the massive population growth that was accelerated by the recent Boom of the 1880s. We’ll go into the Chapel’s later history in a subsequent part of this post.
An interesting historical tidbit was reported on in the 12 January 1882 edition of the Los Angeles Times, which was launched just over a month prior and concerned the period of the great flood twenty years prior, during which, the paper noted, “it was rumored that rich gold beds had been discovered within half a mile of the city, on the hill between the Jewish and Catholic cemeteries, and a rush was made for the grounds by every man, woman and child in town.” While it was added that “a number of claims were located,” no substantial deposits were found. Several months later, the Times of 19 July informed readers that it “has repeatedly suggested the advisability of utilizing the city property in the vicinity of the Catholic Cemetery for a public park and zoological garden.” Later in the decade, the site became Elysian Park.
The commemoration of All Souls’ Day was remarked upon on occasion during the Eighties, including the Los Angeles Herald of 31 October 1884 briefly noting that “this evening will be Halloween,” the earliest local mention was from a half-dozen years prior, “and tomorrow will be All-Saints Day,” while two days later was “All-souls Day, a solemn feast to supplicate for the souls of the faithful dead.” Nothing, however, was specified about pilgrimages to the Catholic burying ground.
A good deal more detail, however, was provided in the 3 November 1887 number of the Times, which recorded that,
The faithful of the Catholic Church spent yesterday in prayer at Calvary Cemetery on Buena Vista street. The graves were elaborately decorated with flowers, and during the entire previous night [All Saints’ Day] candles were kept burning encircling the graves. These candles and flowers were provided by the immediate relatives of the deceased.
Some three thousand of the faithful visited the cemetery during he day, and the sight yesterday afternoon was impressive. At 3 o’clock almost the entire cemetery was filled with kneeling forms, which, relieved by the beautiful flowers and lighted candles, presented a memorable picture . . .
This custom of service at the cemeteries on All Souls’ Day, the 2d of November, has been followed in Los Angeles cine 1880, when, through the energy of Father Peter [Verdaguer] and the approval of Bishop [Francis] Mora, the day of prayer in this peculiar yet beautiful way was first begun and since continued.
Of course, we’ve seen that commemorating All Souls’ Day took place in the Seventies, though apparently with less pageantry than under the auspices of Verdaguer and Mora. It is also notable that the first found reference to Calvary Cemetery for the Catholic burial ground was in late June 1887 and, about a year later, it was also being called Buena Vista Cemetery.
The 1888 All Souls’ Day, notably, was called by the Times “Spanish Decoration Day” as, apparently, a contrast to what we now know as Memorial Day and it was reflection of the dramatic population increase during the boom that was about to go bust that there were up to 6,000 persons at what was called the “Buena Vista-street Cemetery,” though there were no formal ceremonies, though it was added that “in the afternoon the children from the schools came out, when services were celebrated on the high hill in the rear of the cemetery.”
Decoration Day, which began in the East in 1868, a few years after the end of the Civil War, as a remembrance of war dead through decoration of their graves, does not appear to have been commemorated in Los Angeles until 1879 (a prior post here talks about references to it during the Seventies and one next May will go into the Eighties), perhaps because of a large number of Southerners who did not support what was considered a Northern and Union ceremonial day.
By the mid-1880s, however, the observance involved “elaborate preparations,” likely because of demographic shifts with new migrants after the Long Depression largely comprising Northerners more apt to mark the day. The event of 1885 included a mass procession through downtown streets and specific reference to the graves of Union soldiers to be decorated, though there were a few from earlier wars. At Evergreen Cemetery, founded in 1877 on the eastern edge of Los Angeles in Boyle Heights, the Times of 30 May, listed 31 such gravesites, including one Latino, Francisco Ocaño from the First Native California Battalion from the late war.
The City Cemetery was the final resting place of 13 veterans, all, obviously, Protestants and Anglos, while there were seven men listed as buried at the Catholic Cemetery, including John Kelley of the United States Navy and “C. Fitzgerald” of the Army, though this latter was Major Edward H. Fitzgerald, who served for more than two decades, including during the Mexican-American War, though poor health led to a transfer to California and he succumbed to tuberculosis at the beginning of 1860, after which a local camp was named for him. The other five men were, like Ocaño from the First Native California Battalion and included José Antonio Sánchez, Santiago Sánchez, Dolores Elizalde, Hilario Ramírez, and Hilario Varela, most or all of whom were in Company D, highlighted in a post on this blog. In 1887, another Elizalde, Diego, was added to the roster.
For the 1886 ceremonies, two names were added to the Catholic Cemetery list, including John McFadden, a Mexican-American War veteran, and Dr. Vincent Gelcich (1828-1885), a native of Croatia, who, after participating in Garibaldi’s 1848 Italian revolution, migrated in 1850 to San Francisco and, during the Civil War, was a surgeon for the Fourth California Infantry, stationed at Camp Drum at Wilmington. After he mustered out, Gelcich stayed in Los Angeles, married a relation of Pío Pico, and was a druggist and corner, as well as a founder, with F.P.F. Temple, of the Los Angeles Petroleum Refining Company, which drilled a well near modern Santa Clarita.
When Gelcich was buried under the auspices of the Grand Army of the Republic organization of Civil War veterans, its members were denied access because, the Times of 9 June 1885 reported, “the Catholic church does not admit secret societies,” even though Homestead founder William Workman was a Mason (and his 1876 burial at his El Campo Santo Cemetery followed his suicide). The G.A.R. members, who named their post after Gelcich, were angered by this, though, in subsequent years the Post took charge of Decoration Day ceremonies at the burying ground.
It’ll be several days from now, but we’ll return with a sixth part of this post covering the later 1880s and into the Nineties, so please check back in for that.