by Paul R. Spitzzeri
As Calvary Cemetery, situated along the lower portions of the Elysian Hills below the modern Dodger Stadium and located on the grounds of today’s Cathedral High School, neared a half-century of existence by the mid-1890s, a movement was undertaken to establish a new Catholic burial ground. Before we get to that, a notable incident took place at the old grounds on 28 October 1891, as reported by the Los Angeles Herald the following day.
Griffith J. Griffith (1850-1919), a native of Wales who lived in Pennsylvania and San Francisco before migrating to Los Angeles not quite a decade prior, was the husband of Christina Mesmer, daughter of the well-known Angel City businessman, Louis Mesmer. Griffith, from 1882, was the owner of Rancho Los Feliz, just over 3,000 acres of which he and Tina donated in 1896 to the City of Los Angeles for what became Griffith Park.
In this account, however, it was noted that the couple were at Calvary to leave flowers for Tina’s mother, Catherine, who died at the beginning of October. Their carriage stopped in front of the house of the sexton (caretaker) adjacent to the entrance gate and Tina proceeded to the Bernard family vault where her mother’s remains were temporarily interred, this just beyond the newly completed and ornate Briswalter Chapel (Tina was an heir to significant property in the will of Andre Briswalter), while Griffith remained inside the vehicle.
Another buggy pulled up about 15 feet behind the Griffith conveyance and a blast from one barrel of buckshot from a double-barreled shotgun burst out, hitting Griffith in the right side, shoulder and back of his head. Partially falling and partially jumping, the wounded man ran through the gate and behind the sexton’s residence, but, at 50 feet, the other barrel was discharged and hit Griffith in the back, barely missing the infant son of the sexton, Bernard Roach.
The assailant, Frank Burkett, drove just a short distance and then stopped, took out a pistol, and committed suicide. The Griffiths returned to the United States Hotel downtown and a doctor was summoned to remove the No. 4 pellets from his body, with the injuries not deemed serious. It was revealed that the attempted murder grew from a land dispute between Burkett, a retired wine dealer from London, and Griffith involving a lease from the latter to the former for some Los Feliz land, including for an ostrich farm that was briefly operated there.
In the bust that followed the recent Boom of the Eighties, Griffith sued for nonpayment of the lease and non-fulfillment of the contract and Burkett, of course, nursed a bitter grudge that culminated in his effort to kill his adversary and take his own life. At his hotel room, Griffith recounted the incident and noted that his heavy overcoat saved him and it was also revealed that Burkett was considered an expert marksman who “could beat nearly every one in that locality [Los Feliz] in shooting with a shotgun.”
Not quite a dozen years later, on 4 September 1903, Griffith, reportedly a closet alcoholic despite his very public teetotaling stance and deeply paranoid when in his cups, shot Tina in the right eye in their luxury suite at the Arcadia Hotel in Santa Monica, though the bullet fragmented, which likely saved her life. She got up from the floor, ran to a window and leapt out, landing on a roof the floor below and was taken into the suite below hers. Griffith was convicted on a charge of assault with a deadly weapon and sentenced to two years at San Quentin State Prison, serving 20 months, and a $5,000 fine. The couple divorced, but Griffith went on to be lionized for the donation he and Tina made, while she lived in seclusion until her death in 1948.
Concerns about Calvary culminated in the city’s Board of Health ordering in June 1895 that the health officer, Dr. Frank W. Steddom, “be empowered to confer with the proper authorities regarding the abatement of Calvary Cemetery as a burying ground.” This was less than a year, for example, after the interment of Pío Pico in his iron tomb while other burials continued during this period. In early August, Steddom reported that “Calvary Cemetery will soon be permanently abandoned as a burying place by the Catholics.”
The Herald of the 15th informed readers that Bishop George T. Montgomery, who served as co-adjutor when Bishop Francis Mora was badly hurt in a carriage accident, was approached by of its reporters and,
In reply to a question on the subject the bishop stated that no move in the matter would be made immediately; that at the present rate of burials there would be enough space in Calvary for six months yet; but within a year at most, some change would be imperative. What that change will be, or where, the bishop was not prepared to say, but when the change is made the removal of the bodies already lying in Calvary to the new cemetery, wherever it may be, will be optional with those to whom they belong, unless otherwise ordered by the city authorities.
A little over a month later, Bishop Mora, related the Los Angeles Journal of 25 September, told the City Council “that he had decided upon taking that step [of abandoning Calvary] and asking permission to establish a cemetery on a piece of ground belonging to the diocese.”
The paper added that,
This land [containing some 52 acres, according to the article] lies on the eastern boundary of the city beyond [east of] Evergreen cemetery and near the Odd Fellows’ cemetery [the International Order of Odd Fellows is a fraternal society], remove from any prospective improvements.
By early December, as council approval took place, though Ninth Ward member, Evert L. Blanchard, representing the Boyle Heights, was against the move, the Herald of 4 December noted that James McDermott, buried at the old Calvary in June 1893, “probably never thought during life that as the result of his interment a large part of the population of Boyle Heights would some day be up in arms.” This was because it was stated that “the new Catholic cemetery is bounded by Fourth, Fresno and Lo[r]ena streets on Boyle Heights,” just south of Evergreen Cemetery, and was “on the edge of city limits,” as the eastern limit, the sole remaining of the four delineated when the Angel City was established in 1781, is today’s Indiana Avenue, a short distance further east of the designated location.
The remains of McDermott were, on 27 November, the first to be disinterred from the old cemetery and transferred to the new Calvary. It was this ceremony, commented the paper, that constituted “the first intimation that those opposing the new cemetery had that they had probably been asleep.” Blanchard and some Boyle Heights residents tried to get some relief through the Los Angeles city attorney, while the Diocese’s lawyer, former City Attorney Charles N. McFarland remarked:
The new Calvary cemetery has been established by and with the advice and consent of the board of health, as is required by law. That explains our position in a nutshell.
The City Council spent close to two hours addressing the matter at its next meeting, reported the Herald in its number of the 10th, while the city attorney sent a communication affirming that “the city has a general power to regulate burials within its limits in any cemetery, when the same has become prejudicial to health.” With respect to a request from the council to write an ordinance banning “burials in any cemetery in Boyle Heights, excepting the Evergreen and Odd-fellows cemeteries,” it was clarified that the latter was outside the limits of Los Angeles, but, also, it was required that the proposed burial ground was “for some special reason obnoxious,” presumably meaning injurious to health.
For Council member Michael Collins informed the council “that he alone had originally been responsible for the proposed location of the new burying ground on Boyle Heights” because he wanted an electric streetcar line “for a subsidy to be contributed by the various interests congregated in the immediate neighborhood” in which he resided, this being on Stephenson Avenue, now Whittier Boulevard. He added, “in a quivering voice,” that the grave of McDermott “had been desecrated and trampled, and the tombstone had been been broken,” which revelation “horrified all who heard it.”
The agitation among Boyle Heights residents held sway, as it was soon decided to abandon the location at Lorena and 4th streets, and acquire one just over the limits into county territory. Bishop Mora, as we’ll see below, executed a land swap to carry out this hasty relocation. With a new site acquired, this about a quarter mile southeast of Occidental College, work was undertaken to put New Calvary into shape in short order, though there was more notable coverage of the issue.
Returning to the controversy over the new site, the Herald of 11 February 1896 reported that “it was discovered that the matter was beyond the jurisdiction of the council.” Consequently, it was remarked that “the [county] board of supervisors have given consent and approval to the establishment of the new Calvary cemetery on Boyle Heights,” though the use of that Los Angeles neighborhood name was, technically, inaccurate.
Later, the community around the cemetery, said to be 72 acres (it is now nearly double that at 137, though early accounts pegged the acreage at 144) became Belvedere and then East Los Angeles, once Lincoln Heights became the new name of the neighborhood founded in 1873 as East Los Angeles. The article recorded that Bishop Mora filed a request for approval at the end of December.
In its issue of the 19th, the Herald informed readers that:
Two deeds were recorded yesterday, one from William H. Avery to Bishop Francis Mora, conveying seventy-four acres of land situated just over the city line in H.W. Mills’ subdivision on a part of the Rancho San Antonio [long the domain of the Lugo family]; the other from Bishop Mora to Mr. Avery, conveying fifty-two acres . . . in the city of Los Angeles. The last mentioned piece of ground was established as a cemetery, to be known as New Calvary, some months ago . . . But immediately thereafter certain persons living on Boyle heights [sic] entered a protest and the council sought to invalidate the permit [issued by the Board of Health].
The transfer gave the church more property for the burial ground, while Avery secured presumably more valuable land, even if it was more than 20 acres less, because it was within Los Angeles limits. The paper interviewed William R. Burke, who was an agent of Bishop Mora in the location of the new cemetery.
Burke told the Herald,
Well, the cemetery affair has been settled at last . . . and I feel certain that the change is a most advantageous one, though the ordeal that the church was forced to pass through was anything but pleasant, and I should state at this time that at no period of the discussion were wither Bishop Mora or Bishop Montgomery desirous of establishing the cemetery within the limits of city . . . some six months ago Bishop Mora expressed to me his desire to purchase a body of land outside the city limits for cemetery purposes as he realized that the old cemetery on Buena Vista street [now North Broadway] was no longer adequate and must soon be dissestablished.
The agent continued that he found it challenging to find a good location at a fair price, but “several gentlemen [presumably including Collins] residing on Boyle Heights who have been working in behalf of an electric railroad line to that section of the city for some time, came to me and pointed out as a most desirable site [lots inside city limits] already owned by Bishop Mora,” though for what purposes was not stated.
Also of note was that these streetcar line advocated told Burke that “[street] railroads always consider cemeteries as large factors in the way of business—besides, they believed the bishop would subscribe liberally to the road,” though whether Mora was anticipated to do this on behalf of the Diocese is an interesting question. When the agent inquired about this with the bishop, however, the reported answer was that Mora was “decidedly averse to locating within the city, saying that he wished to select a spot that would endure for many years and that he desired to avoid the inevitable delay of the city government and many possible annoyances.”
The bishop “was induced to reconsider but only after he had consulted those specifically informed of matters of health” and was satisfied that the site within city limits was both acceptable as to jurisdiction concerning the health officer’s authority as bestowed by the City Council and as to “every sanitary condition.” Moreover, McFarland assured Burke of the unquestioned ability of the officer to make the decision to locate New Calvary on the property inside the limits of Los Angeles.
Burke expressed indignation at the “most inflammatory language” used by Boyle Heights denizens at a council meeting against the health officer and the bishop, while he also pointed out that an 1894 ordinance, which opponents claimed that Mora engineered and which allowed for a change in locating cemeteries within city limits, was determined by the current city attorney to be void because “the board of supervisors alone had power to locate cemeteries in cities.”
Even more grating, the interviewee continued, was that the controversy was contrived to “reach the highest peak of intolerance and inconsistency and absurdity” when the council approved a new ordinance “preventing the establishment of any cemetery within the city limits, traversing a period in the past sufficient to include Bishop Mora, for whom it was, of course, specially designed.” Given all the hubbub and hullabaloo, Burke concluded,
Bishop Mora and Bishop Montgomery concluded to go beyond the city lines where fortunately they have secured a spot that is conveniently situated and fully equal to all the necessities of the case. Work will begin at an early date to render new Calvary cemetery as presentable as possible and within another year it should appear most favorably.
With the New Calvary legally established in county territory after the controversy attending its brief existence within city limits in Boyle Heights, we’ll bring this post to a close, but, we’ll return tomorrow with something of an epilogue post sharing some further history of the Old Calvary and a bit of the new one after 1896, so be sure to check back with us for that!