by Paul R. Spitzzeri
It was around 35 years since a first reading of it, but a recent refresher with California Ranchos and Farms, 1846-1862, edited by Paul W. Gates (1901-1999), a professor widely recognized as an authority on federal land policy, and published in 1967 by The State Historical Society of Wisconsin, proved especially interesting when it came both to Gates’ extensive introduction covering pre-American era land grants, livestock raising, the growing of grain, the cultivation of fruit and wine and irrigation, and its setting the scene for a transcription of remarkable letters of John Quincy Adams Warren as he traveled the Golden State and provided valuable descriptions of the farms and ranches he encountered during his trips from 1860-1862.
Nearly 50 pages of the text concerns Warren’s inspection of greater Los Angeles during the last couple months of 1860 and we’ve previously cited details of his visits to the ranchos La Merced and La Puente and his remarks on the agricultural and stock raising efforts of F.P.F. Temple and William Workman, but now we turn our attention to the other places he saw and what he recorded as what is an invaluable document of life in the region at the end of the 1850s.
When it came to the often massive ranchos granted under Spanish and Mexican rule, Gates noted that this was done for raising livestock, but “the whole situation changed overnight when California became a part of the United States” and the Gold Rush burst forth and the hordes of seekers for the precious metal and other migrants arrived. The land increasingly became more valuable and desired for farm plots, initially more so in the northern sections, and questions about the valid titles of ranches in many cases caused problems for existing landowners as the clamor for more land by new arrivals took place amid the land claims process introduced by legislation from Congress in 1851.
Gates noted that, of 813 claims heard by a three-person commission, almost 200 were dismissed, rejected, withdrawn or were seriously called into question. Regardless of the merits, many ranchos were subject to intrusions by squatters, this, for example, affecting Temple and Workman on commonly-held ranches with their compadre Juan Matias Sánchez in areas near El Monte. The historian observed that the contorted legal tangle of these land claims held development back, though it can be added that the post-Gold Rush financial downturn, the Depression of 1857 and the terrible floods and droughts of the Civil War years were serious issues, as well, in inhibiting growth, but they also contributed significantly to the breaking up of the ranchos as farming supplanted stock raising as the backbone of the economy.
The Gold Rush boom from 1849 to about 1855 made fortunes for cattle ranchers, such as the Workman and Temple family, and Gates noted that the population of these animals skyrocketed from bout 263,000 in 1850 to more than 1.2 million a decade later and 1.8 million in 1863, leading to a glut in the market during dire times as cattle consumption was 200,000 animals fewer than the increase. Sheep were initially of lesser importance, but their numbers also ballooned, rising from some 80,000 in 1852 to nearly 1.1 million by the end of the decade.
The raising of barley and wheat, which the Workman and Temple clan practiced on increasingly larger scales, especially after the Civil War years and the decimation of the cattle industry during the floods and droughts, also increased hugely, with some 190,000 acres and 3.6 million bushels of the former in 1855 and, a half-dozen years later, that leapt to 223,000 and 5.3 million, respectively, and, for the latter from 146,000 to 361,000 acres and 2.9 to 8.8 million bushels.
The California wine industry began in greater Los Angeles with the missions and then local vintners, though the product from the hardy Mission grape (vinis vinifera) was decidedly poor when it came to red wine, moderately better with whites and more successful when brandy (aguardiente) was manufactured, though much of this was due to improper manufacturing techniques. We know that William Workman had grapevines during the 1840s and, as with everyone else, he dramatically expanded his vineyard, directly south of his house, during the Fifties. Statewide, reported Gates, the number of vines shot up from 324,000 in 1855 to 6.7 million just four years later.
With fruit trees of many kinds, deciduous, such as apples and peaches though with smaller numbers of apricots, pears and plums, and tropical, particularly lemons, limes and oranges, expansion was also widespread. The orange would later become heavily identified with greater Los Angeles, though in 1858, there were under 4,000 of these trees—this was more than 80% of the state’s total. With fruit and grapes, an essential component was adequate irrigation, tapping the water of rivers, creeks and washes, and Gates recorded that, before the drought of 1862-1864, there were dry years in 1853, 1854, 1856 and 1859-1860. In Los Angeles, the zanja (open ditch) system was well-established, though there was talk of water works of a more modern type that was experimented with in the early Sixties with major improvements in subsequent years.
With this detailed introduction, Gates presented these remarkable letters, though he noted that “J.Q.A. Warren, as he signed himself, is an elusive figure, not easy to trace.” His father, James, left Massachusetts to be among the Argonauts of 1849, but became a merchant at Sacramento and San Francisco before forming, in 1854, Warren & Son. though J.Q.A. stayed in Boston. That year, James launched the weekly publication, California Farmer, first with a partner and then with his son and Gates heaped praise on it and called James “a prominent and influential figure in the State.”
J.Q.A., when in Boston, also became a book dealer in farming and scientific works, and Gates first locates him in California in 1856 as having sheep in the state fair and running a bookstore, while, three years later, he was an agent for the American Stock Journal. By 1860, he had a publishing and magazine sales enterprise in San Francisco, while also beginning the correspondence with the stock magazine that Gates calls “an insight into farming in California that excels any other contemporary account,” though his East Coast experience with small farms was challenged by the much larger scale of agriculture in the Golden State.
It was added that Warren “was a shrewd collector of information, not just gossip, and knew well how to put it in an effective and useful way” especially as “he gave particular attention to the great ranchos of the south,” likely because so much more was written about points north. Gates lamented that Warren did not get into more detail “about the personality and traits of these men” whom he visited, but noted that “this was not his purpose.” The discussion of livestock was paramount, but agricultural pursuits “were not overlooked in his letters.”
As research is, of course, far easier now with so much more information at our fingertips than was available to Gates six decades ago, we can mitigate some of Warren’s elusiveness. For example, the 1850 census enumerated the 21-year old in Boston as a bookkeeper, but, in June 1852, he was in New York City and a Boston newspaper reported that he “has just received from California, a large collection of annual flower seeds collected by an experienced florist,” though whether this was his father is not known.
In January 1853, the San Francisco paper, the Alta California, published a notice that J.Q.A. was admitted into partnership with his father, though, as noted, he remained in Boston, where, in mid-July he married Anna Louise Lunt—two years later, a daughter, Alice, was born to the couple. It appears his arrival in San Francisco was at the end of 1857 as a card published in the Alta by passengers of a steamship thanked its captain for the speed and comfort of the journey. Warren was among those signing the card, along with E.J.C. Kewen, who’d left Los Angeles to join William Walker’s ill-fated filibustering effort in Nicaragua and was heading home.
In mid-January 1858, Warren was appointed by his father to be associate editor of California Farmer and a few months later, he was praised for his skills by a northern California paper. By October, however, the partnership ended, though the reason is not known. Warren became a cattle and sheep agent for a New York seller, sold fruit seeds and was an agent for such publications as Eclectic Magazine, Scientific American and the American Stock Journal. He also secured a long-distance divorce in 1859, noting that Anna left his household in Roxbury, Massachusetts early in 1856 and refused his entreaties to return to him “and receive the means of support” for herself and their child.
The first of his letters to the Journal, published in its February 1861 number, began with the remark “agreeably to promise, I commence this first in my series of notes, descriptive of a trip to Los Angeles, its vineyards, ranches, &c” and started by reporting that he left San Francisco on 10 November 1860, with stops at Monterey, San Luis Obispo and Santa Barbara before, on an auspicious Friday the 13th, landing at San Pedro. Because the port there was rudimentary, the steamer anchored out a mile and “surf-boats” used to take passengers and luggage to shore.
Warren climbed into one of John J. Tomlinson‘s “fast line of stages” and took the 26-mile trip “over a sandy, level road” while “the ride, barring the dust—which is plenty and thick—was pleasant and exhilarating.” Only an occasional adobe house and corrals were seen, while “the land seemed dry and barren, usual in the dry seasons, but offers good grazing for the stock in the clover bar upon which the stock feed and fatten.” The rainy season, coming later, would, of course, mean that “the plains are covered with fresh, green grass, affording ample supply of feed.” He then wrote,
As we approached the city the adobe buildings were conspicuous, occupied chiefly by [Spanish-speaking] Californians. Passing several large vineyards, of which allusion will be made hereafter, we entered the outskirts of the town, continuing our way through an avenue, somewhat serpentine in its course. The foliage of the trees on either side was thick and interwoven, being a kind of willow fence—foliage of deep green, and drooping. A nearer approach to the town shows in place of this, adobe buildings with court yards built in the old Spanish style; a few moments brings us to the main street of the town, and, with a crack of the whip, the stage drew up in front of the Bella Union, the largest and best hotel in the “Pueblo de Los Angeles.”
After a rest, Warren did what many Angel City visitors did, climbing Fort Moore or an adjacent hill and took in the view of “the old but noted city, with its unsurpassed and almost tropical climate,” commenting that “the landscape is beautiful and attractive” and he noted that the Los Angeles River started from the mountains to the north and “rising up in several places, debouching upon the plains [south of town], and passes down about five miles from the city, where it exhausts itself in the quicksands, and is seen no more.” He observed that much of the flow was diverted by those zanjas, while flooding in 1825 deposited sand from the mountains where most vineyards were planted along the west bank and under this layer “may be found a rich, dark soil—which accounts for the rich, and in some cases, extraordinary growth of trees.”
The correspondent continued that “the climate is unsurpassed, and, under the warm and genial rays of the sun, most of the fruits of the tropical countries are produced in abundance,—oranges, lemons, pomegranates, figs, almonds and walnuts.” The olive did well, as did apples, apricots, peaches and pears. Los Angeles County, it was adjudged, was the most agriculturally productive in southern California, and Warren observed that “the days are warm and lovely, the mornings and evenings cool, and the same style of clothing is answerable the year round.”
With regard to a general overview of the city, the author stated, with a clear bias for someone used to Eastern cities like Boston and New York City, much less San Francisco:
LOS ANGELES, or “City of the Angels,”—derived from the old chapel bearing the name—like all Spanish towns, occupies [a] considerable area of ground, the town being laid out in squares, and at intervals plazas. The buildings are principally adobe, but one story, save where American enterprise has been displayed in the erection of fine brick buildings of modern style [these of recent vintage like Jonathan Temple’s Temple Block and the Market House (soon to be the city hall and courthouse)]. Many of the old adobe residences inclose [sic] a court yard or patio, in which are gardens filled with flowers, fountains of water, fruit and ornamental trees—green the year round—displaying much taste in the arrangement. In the lower [southern] part of the town among the Mexican and lower classes, these yards or courts are used for keeping the animals. This class of buildings (adobe) are adapted to the climate, and are generally comfortable, though unmarked by any architectural display. The country affords but few opportunities for the cultivation of any accomplishments, which in more refined society would be indispensable.
The Iglesia de Nuestra Senora La Reina de los Angeles or Our Lady of Los Angeles (or simply, Plaza) Church was said to date from 1810, though most sources state it was 1822 and “was renewed in 1856,” while Warren remarked that “the congregation is mixed, English and Spanish,” though that obviously meant Europeans, such as the French, as well. He added that a new church was being considered, though that would not happen for over 15 years until St. Vibiana’s Cathedral was finished.
The priests’ residence and presbytery were finished about two years prior “being of brick and modern style, though but one story” and an earlier adobe there was for soldiers’ quarters in days of yore. In front was “a beautiful garden, filled with flowers and ornamental trees . . . green the entire year,” while “in the centre a fountain is playing, surrounded by a bank of flowers and shells, tastefully arranged.” Also visited was the Sisters of Charity’s Orphan Asylum, with about 30 girls and a school for day students and boarders, numbering around 175. The brick and wood frame buildings were “in modern substantial style,” while the nuns ran an infirmary, as well.
Promising to go into further detail in more letters “after have more fully examined the subject,” which included “showing where the blame lies, which has attached discredit to those honorably engaged in the business” when it came to winemaking, Warren rushed to get this missive out to the stagecoach carrying the mail, asserting he’d ” be more entertaining” as well as providing details about “the beautiful gardens and vineyards of the city,” he commented,
In the county much of the land is composed of extensive plains, fully capable of cultivation,—at present used as grazing for the numerous bands of stock. The agricultural resources equal any portion of the state. Horticulture (high value fruits and vegetables) and pomology (fruits and nuts) are obtaining rapid strides, and in this county there will be found many new and rare plants and trees growing luxuriantly, which have been introduced within a few years. As to grape culture, it is almost useless to say that this county is destined to become the most extensive in the world; and the wine crop will in a few years before a chief source of wealth in the county.
The latter statement proved to be over-generous, as Napa and Sonoma counties quickly proved better winemaking areas, but Los Angeles County did expand its vineyards for about another quarter-century. We’ll halt here and return with part two tomorrow, so check back in with us then.