The flood and drought combination not only ravaged the region and the Misión Vieja community, but was even worsened by a smallpox epidemic that occurred in 1863. While specific information on deaths in Old Mission is lacking, local rancher F. P. F. Temple paid for coffins for those who succumbed to the highly-contagious disease.
Meanwhile, Temple, his father-in-law, William Workman and their compadre Juan Matias Sanchez were consolidating their ownership of most of the land in the Old Mission area as the economy led owners to sell their land to the trio. Between 1857 and 1863, the ranchos Potrero Grande, Potrero de Felipe Lugo and Potrero Chico were acquired by combinations of the three men. Later, however, they would be on the other end of a similar consolidation of land by San Francisco capitalist Elias J. "Lucky" Baldwin.
Population changes are also important to note. Misión Vieja was part of the El Monte township and, in 1860, the Spanish-surnamed population of the larger El Monte area numbered near 500. But, a decade later, that total dropped to below 400, a 20% decline. At the same time, the proportion of American and European residents climed about 15%, from about 750 to over 850 persons. While this growth of "Anglos" was actually the smallest in the county (Los Nietos, which bordered Old Mission to the south, saw an astounding 4650% increase in Americans and Europeans, from only 24 to over 1,100), it still represented a change that would only accelerate in coming decades.
So, in late July 1870, when assistant census marshal Horace Allanson, a resident of San Gabriel, ventured into Old Mission, he encountered a transforming community, as he would have anywhere else in the county where he conducted his enumeration. As with 1860, the census included the listing of real estate and personal estate values, which were provided by the head of household and may have been under or overcounted according to what the person wished to be known. Unfortunately, while the 1860 enumerator, James MacManus had poor (or no) command of Spanish names, but clear writing, the case was largely the reverse with Allanson: he seems to have done better with the names, but his legibility is somewhat challenging for viewers of the original sheets.
One of the first families he found in the neighborhood was that of Francisco and Ramona Estrada, natives of Mexico, who resided with seven children, all born in California. Two households down was Cristobál Manzanares and his wife Inocencia (enumerated as Ygnacia) Alvitre, daughter of the José Claudio Alvitre and Asunción Valenzuela, whose deaths in 1861 were explained in the last post. The household included five children from one to fifteen years of age.
A few households below the Manzanares family was that of Diego Nieto. The son of Antonio Nieto (son of Jose Manuel Peréz Nieto, grantee of the massive Rancho Los Nietos, later divided into several smaller ranches like Los Alamitos, Los Cerritos, Las Bolsas, Los Coyotes and Santa Gertrudes, and Teresa Morrillo) and Josefa Cota, Diego was born at Las Bolsas, which has father had received when the Los Nietos division happened. In 1864, Diego, at 40 years old, married Isabel Yorba, the widow of Felipe Santiago Duarte, who had married Isabel in Summer 1860. A daughter, Josefa, age six, resided with the couple.
Adjacent to the Nietos was Isabel's brothers, Jose and Bautista Yorba. All three were the children of Teodosio Yorba of the famed Orange County-area clan, who died in 1863, and his long-time mistress and then his wife, Inocencia Reyes. Jose Asención married Esiquia Lopez in August 1862 and the couple had one son, Jose, aged one year. Bautista, then 23 years old, was single and living adjacent to his brother, but in April 1873 married Maria Antonia Rowland of the prominent family that owned much of Rancho La Puente to the east.
Next was Inocencia's brother, Fecundo (a.k.a. Secundino), who was widowed (his wife Maria Dolores Verdugo, having died sometime in the previous decade) and living with his two sons, a daughter, and Clara Cota, mother of Inocencia and Fecundo who was listed as 90 years old, but was actually a decade younger.
Nearby were members of the Pérez, Duarte and Archuleta families, the latter almost certainly connected to the household of Juan Matias Sanchez, a major figure in the area as noted above, given his half-ownership of Rancho La Merced and 1857 acquisition of Rancho Potrero Grande. Sanchez declared $30,000 as the value of his real estate and $15,000 for his personal property, making him far wealthier than anyone in Misión Vieja with one exception, noted below. Sanchez presided over a household including his wife María Luisa Archuleta and six children ranging from 3 to 18 years of age.
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| A photo from about 1870 of members of the Temple family, residents of the Misión Vieja area for sixty-five years. At center is Antonia Margarita Workman de Temple (1830-1892), wife of F. P. F. Temple, who is not in the photo. On her lap is daughter Margarita (1866-1953) and flanking her are, left, son Thomas (1846-1892) and, right, Francis (1848-1888.) Directly behind Mrs. Temple is her son John (1856-1926), while at the back row far left is daughter Lucinda (1860-1928.) Seated at far left is Julia Davis (1851-1917), an Old Mission resident and a goddaughter of the Temples. The young woman, standing second to the left, might be Margarita Burke, listed a few households away at Old Mission from the Temples in the 1870 census as a house servant, probably for the Temples. The identity of the man seated at the far right is not known and the man standing at far right might be Mrs. Temple's brother, José Manuel Workman (1833-1901). Photo courtesy of Bette Temple from the Workman and Temple Family Homestead Museum. |
Two households down from Sanchez is that of Feliz Gonzalez, a native of Mexico and a 38-year old musician, who married Ramona Alvitre, daughter of Raimundo Alvitre (son of Juan Jose Alvitre and Maria Tomasa Alvarado and grandson of family patriarch Sebastian) and Rita Maria Bermudez, whose parenets were Juan Hilario Bermudez and Ana Maria Lugo. The Gonzalez family had nine children and there would be another daughter born in 1871 named Laura, who married Walter P. Temple of another Old Mission family.
Adjacent to the Gonzalez family was Rafael Basye, who was a nephew of Juan Matias Sanchez and had been in his uncle's household in 1860. Basye had, in February 1869, married Maria Antonia Alvitre, daughter of Anastacio Alvitre and Eleuteria Verdugo, and they had a three-month old son, James. Constructing an adobe house just west of the Rio Hondo, which had been the San Gabriel River until floods in the winter of 1867-68 changed the course to its current one, Rafael opened a store and there was also a saloon there. Perhaps this is why Feliz Gonzalez resided next door, to provide entertainment in the saloon?! Later, Basye's house, store and saloon passed to the ownership of Manuel Zuñiga who lived there with his second wife, Lucinda Temple. Then, in 1912, Lucinda's brother, Walter (mentioned above) purchased the adobe house and moved his family, including wife Laura Gonzalez and four children into it. While there, a couple of years later, oil was discovered and propelled the Temples into wealth (a future post will detail this remarkable history.)
Amidst these families and others, including the Figueroa and Manriquez clans, there was a rare American or European in the Old Mission community, James Ross, a 28-year old native of New York who was living alone and was listed as a farmer.
There was also a curious household in this grouping, number 231, which appears to have been headed by a "Maria Mesa," although Allanson's scrawl is difficult to decipher. She was shown as a 67-year old native of Mexico, but what was interesting was that there were seven children, all girls, in the household with five different surnames. These included Maria Renteria, age 11; Maria Castro, 7; Librada and Gertruds Quintana, ages 10 and 13; Maria Cerradel, 13; Ramona Alvitre, 7; and Zenobia Yorba, 7. Was this some kind of small girls' school? Could these children have been orphans? Unfortunately, the census does not give any indication. Also of note is that 10 year old Librada Quintana had $150 worth of personal property, a very unusual declaration for a child in a census.
Several households later is that of Tomás Alvitre, the 50-year old son of Jacinto Alvitre and Lugarda Moreno. Tomás was first married to Magdalena Linares in 1849, but she seemed to have died very shortly thereafter, probably in childbirth, because, in 1852, he married Maria Francisca Verdugo. In 1870, the couple resided with five childen, ages 2 to 16. Three households away was Tomás' sister, Ramona, and her husband Ramon Rosas. Notably, a brother of Tomas and Ramona, Felipe Alvitre, was notorious for the 1854 murders of El Monte resident James Ellington and a Peruvian and was executed by hanging at Los Angeles in early 1855. This will also be covered in a future post on this blog!
Next to Ramona Alvitre de Rosas was her cousin, Maria Buenaventura, or Ventura, Alvitre, daughter of Juan Jose Alvitre and Tomasa Alvarado. Ventura was a widow of José Antonio Bermudez, whom she had married in 1832 (Ventura's sister, Benita, had married José Antonio's brother, José Dolores) and was living with three sons and a daughter, aged 18 to 30. Ventura's sister-in-law, José Antonio's sister, María Rita Bermudez, age 42, lived nearby in her own household. Another Bermudez, 28-year old Petra, resided with four others in her household, including Felicita, age 29 (probably a sister) and two boys and a girl, aged 9, 10 and 12.
Another single household was that of 22-year old Francisca Valenzuela, member of the family that, with the Alvitres, were co-grantees of the Rancho Potrero Chico within the Old Mission community.
Adjacent to Francisca was George "Perry," actually Barry, a native of Ireland, who resided in El Monte in 1860 but then married Adelaida Bermudez, daughter of Jose Dolores Bermudez and Maria Benita Alvitre (Adelaida appears to be listed in the mangled 1860 census as "Avalangthum"!) A 16-year old male named Dolores Bermudez lived next door and undoubtedly is a brother or other relation of Adelaida. George and Adelaida then had two children, 2-year old Lucinda and four-month old Santiago or James. Only a few years prior, in 1866, George Barry had been involved in a fight with a man that led to Barry's shooting and killing of his adversary. Although convicted of second-degree murder and sentenced to San Quentin, Barry was able to mount a successful appeal and was freed. More on this incident in a future blog post!
Next to the Barrys was the Cage family. Edward Cage, a native of Mississippi, was married to Macaria, from Guaymas, Mexico, had lived in Sebastopol in Napa County before moving to Misión Vieja and working as a farmer. Three years later, however, his son Robert got into a dispute with Tomás Mianez, who was a sheepherder for the Temple family, over animals entering the Cage property and Robert Cage shot and killed Mianez.
As hinted above, rancher F. P. F. Temple and his family resided next to the Cage clan. Owner of half the Rancho La Merced and portions of the neighboring three ranches: Potrero Chico, Potrero Grande, and Potrero de Felipe Lugo, Temple was also a partner in one of Los Angeles' first banks, Hellman, Temple and Company and was involved in real estate, oil, railroads, mining and other enterprises over the ensuing several years. Indeed, his reported wealth was staggering, especially for Misión Vieja, comprising $180,000 in real estate and over $100,000 in personal property. Temple and his wife Margarita Workman lived with six children ranging from a year to 21 years, including the youngest, Walter, mentioned above.
Over the next several households (and perhaps earlier ones) were employees of the Temple family, including Joseph Davis, a native of New Mexico, who had worked previously for Juan Matias Sanchez. In fact, Davis' wife, Venancia and two of their children had been reported in the Sanchez household in 1860, though Joseph was not there himself. In 1870, however, there were five children from two to 16 years. One of them, Julia, seems to have been a nurse or nanny for the Temples, since she appears in several Temple family photographs. Her sister, Carmel, went on to marry Manuel Zuñiga, who was mentioned above, before dying young. Peter, age 5, was later a carpenter for Walter Temple, when Temple built his La Casa Nueva mansion at what is now the Homestead Museum in City of Industry in the 1920s.
After Davis is Samuel A. Jackson, a native of Vermont, who is listed as "Horse Trainer," a job he held for Temple, who had begun breeding thoroughbred horses earlier in the 1860s. Jackson, his wife and two-year old son lived in their own household. Then came Charles W. Hamilton, a 55-year old Massachusetts native, who was the school teacher at the Old Mission or Temple School, created in the early 1860s on land donated by F. P. F. Temple. Following was Temple's nephew, Thornton Sanborn, son of F. P. F.'s sister, Lucinda. Sanborn, age 45, was born in Reading, Massachusetts, and had worked for about fifteen years for his uncle, both at Rancho La Merced at Misión Vieja and in Springfield in Tuolumne County's gold country, where Temple ran cattle. Another Temple employee was 63-year old Mathews Burke, who was from England, but had been married to a Latina, evidently deceased by 1870. There were three children in the Burke household, ages 14, 15 and 16, one listed as a house servant and who was undoubtedly a Temple employee. Burke is now buried at the El Campo Santo, the Workman and Temple family cemetery at the Homestead Museum.
There were some other families, including the Andrades and two single men, Lucas Rojas and Agustín Guerrero, who were laborers, probably for the Temples. Jesus Andrade has been identified as a partner of Rafael Basye in the construction of the 1869 adobe house and general store that became known as the Basye Adobe. Then, the Old Mission census ended with Henry Fogle, a 28-year old native of Illinois, who conducted dairy operations for F. P. F. Temple, but who also possessed a self-reported $6,000 value of personal property, a significant amount for the day. Fogle resided with his Missouri-born wife, Mary Ann, and their two sons and daughter, between 4 and 8 years old.
The early 1870s was a period of significant growth and great prosperity for the Los Angeles region, which was experiencing its first true land and population boom. While the 1870 census counted a little over 15,000 persons in the county, the next five years saw the population more than double. Like most booms, however, the speculation in land and certain industries became unmanageable and, when the state's largest bank collapsed in San Francisco in summer 1875, the local economy faltered and a bank owned by F. P. F. Temple and his father-in-law, William Workman, collapsed. More on this in a later post!
Meantime, next post will concern the 1880 census.
Contributed by Paul R. Spitzzeri, Collections Manager, Workman and Temple Family Homestead Museum, City of Industry
