Misión Vieja and the 1880 Federal Census

A circa 1870 view of a portion of the Temple Ranch at Misión Vieja, southwest of today's intersection of San Gabriel Blvd. and Durfee Avenue just east of Rosemead Boulevard.  The 1850s adobe house is at the left of the water tower in the center.  Later, a brick residence was added.  By 1880, the Temple family's wealth had vanished in a disastrous bank failure and fifty acres including the area seen here were sold back to the family by Elias J. "Lucky" Baldwin.  Courtesy of Phillip Nathanson, from an original stereographic photograph in his collection.

In the ten years since the 1870 federal census, significant changes occurred at Misión Vieja and the broader Los Angeles region.  The first half of the decade had seen an economic boom accompanied by a significant population growth throughout the county.  Mining activity in the deserts of Inyo and San Bernardino counties brought mineral ore through Los Angeles.  Agriculture was growing rapidly, including viticulture and wine-making and the developing orange industry.  Immigration, largely fueled by migrants from the eastern American states and Europe, swelled Los Angeles' population, but also that of established and newer towns in the county.  During the early 1870s, new communities like San Fernando, Artesia, Downey, Pomona, and Orange, among others, arose.  Transportation improvements were also notable, at the crude harbor at San Pedro, the new competing wharf at Anaheim Landing (Seal Beach), and new railroads, such as the Los Angeles and San Pedro line from the city to the port and the construction of local branch lines of the Southern Pacific Railroad, which finally made a direct connection to San Francisco in summer 1876.  The boom, however, came to a spectacular crash in late 1875 and early 1876, as silver mine speculation at Virginia City, Nevada engulfed San Francisco banks and the panic rode the telegraph lines to Los Angeles.  There, the bank co-owned and managed by Old Mission resident F. P. F. Temple, foundered.  With a loan from San Francisco capitalist, Elias J. (Lucky) Baldwin, the bank reopened, but only long enough for depositors to close their accounts and withdraw the borrowed cash, forcing the bank to close for good.  As collateral for the loan, Temple, his father-in-law William Workman of Rancho La Puente, and Juan Matias Sanchez, Temple's co-owner at Rancho La Merced, put up much of the land in and around Misión Vieja and then lost it to Baldwin after he foreclosed in 1879, just before the following year's federal census. 

When A. J. Howard, the census enumerator, came through Old Mission in mid-June 1880, he found many of its long-time residents still there.  As a small farming and ranching community, it did not likely change as much as Los Angeles or some of the bigger outlying settlements, like Los Nietos to the south or El Monte to the north.

The first recognizable name he came upon was Maria Duarte, this being Maria Inez Alvitre, daughter of Jose Claudio Alvitre and Asención Valenzuela.  Maria (really, Inez) was only 40 years old, but was already widowed three times, as she was listed without a spouse and with one son, Antonio, and four daughters, three under 18 and one, Maria, who was in the household with her husband and son.  Inez Duarte had outlived first husband Julio Duarte, who died in 1867. She then married Vicente Aragón, but he died shortly afterward.  Finally, she wedded Luis Reyes in 1870, but he obviously passed away within the decade.

Next was the household of Mexico native Juan Mora, whose wife Petra had been previously married, given that the rest of the family consisted of Mora's step-children with the surname of Silvas.  After this was a family of seven Manzanares brothers and sisters, orphaned, it seems, after their parents Cristobal Manzanares and Inocencia Alvitre, sister of the Inez mentioned above, seemingly passed away during the preceding decade.  The children ranged from 23-year old Victor to six-year old Trinidad, so the earliest either parent could have died would have been about 1874.

Then comes José Yorba, son of Teodosio of the notable Orange County ranchero family and his mistress and then wife, Inocencia Reyes.  José had been married to Eziquia Lopez in 1862 and she lived with him in 1870, but in 1880 he had a new wife, Francisca.  Also in the household were five children from two to sixteen years, consisting of a son and four daughters.  Unique among other men captured in the census from the neighborhood is José's occupation: gambler!

Afterwards is Ramon Rosas and his wife Ramona Alvitre, daughter of Jacinto Alvitre and Lugarda Moreno.  While the couple had no children, there were several people in the household including Francisco Alvitre, probably a cousin of Ramona, and his wife, three sons and a daughter.  Ventura Bermudez, cousin to Ramona (listed, however, as aunt) was also in the household.  She had long been widowed, her husband having been José Antonio Bermudez, and her children were grown.  José Antonio Bermudez's sister, meanwhile, Rita, lived next door to the Rosas clan and she resided with her daughter Ramona Gonzalez, whose father was Raymundo Alvitre.  Gonzalez had six children from ages seven to seventeen living with her and was widowed\, as her husband, musician Feliz died in 1873.

Next to this was Juan Jesus (listed as John J.) Davis, saloon keeper at the general store owned by his neighbor and cousin, Rafael Basye.  Juan Jesus and his brother, José, were the New Mexico-born sons of Martin Davis and Josefa Sanchez, a sister of Old Mission area  rancher Juan Matías Sanchez.  Another Sanchez sister married Rafael Basye's father in New Mexico, as well.  Juan Jesus married Guadalupe Alvitre and the two lived with a young son, Antonio, and Guadalupe's mother, Celestina Alvitre.  As for Basye, who also married an Alvitre, Maria Antonia, he was listed as a retail grocer and he and his wife had three sons and a daughter from a year to ten years old.

The next three households included Ramon Lopez and Juan Castillo, who were married to sisters.  Then was the large household of Juan Manriquez and his wife, Maria, which included three sons, two of them with wives and six children, for a total of twelve in the residence.  Following was Fecundo Reyes, long widowed from his wife Maria Dolores Verdugo, and his two teenaged children, as well as his 90-year old mother, the oldest resident in the community, Clara Cota.  Clara's daughter and Fecundo's sister was Inocencia Reyes, mentioned earlier as the mistress, then wife of Teodosio Yorba.  Another Manriquez son, José, resided nearby with his wife and five children from one to seventeen years of age.

Then came Tomás Alvitre, his wife Francisca Verdugo and their large clan of seven daughters and three sons, ranging from a year to twenty-six years, although the remarkable part of this is that Francisca was listed as age fifty and would have had a child at age 48 or 49!  Next door was another unusual occurrence for the time period, a divorcee.  This was Michaela Alvarado, age 42, living with her three year old daughter, Margarita and a 16-year old girl, listed as a cook, named Juana Temple.  There was the prominent Temple family elsewhere in the census, but it may be that Juana was an adopted member of that family, since it is known that she was not a birth child of that clan.

A few households down is that of Juana Bermudez, age 79, and her son-in-law Ramon Alvitre, son (14th child, in fact!) of Juan José Alvitre and Tomasa Alvarado.  His wife, Francisca, daughter of Juana, and their five children, from one to sixteen years old, were listed, as well.

Two residences down was Antonia Margarita Workman de Temple, whose husband, failed banker F. P. F. Temple (mentioned at the top), had died of a stroke less than two months prior.  Though Lucky Baldwin had foreclosed on thousands of acres of Temple and Workman land, he did sell 50 acres of the Rancho La Merced surrounding the Temple homes (and 1851 adobe and a later brick house) to Mrs. Temple.  In significantly reduced financial circumstances, she lived with a daughter and two sons, Margarita (14), Walter (12) and Charles (9), as well as an eight-year old girl, Andrea, listed as a daughter, but probably adopted (as was noted earlier with the Juana Temple who was a cook in the residence of Michaela Alvarado.)  Also in the Temple household was Mrs. Temple's mother, Nicolasa Urioste de Workman, age 74, two female Indian servants listed as a cook and laundress and "boarder" Julia Montigue.  This latter was Julia Davis, long attached to the Temple family and whose mother, Venancia Peña de Davis, resided next door with another daughter, Carmel, and three sons, Peter, Francis and Thomas.  Venancia's husband, José Davis, mentioned above in connection his brother, Juan Jesus, and who was likely an employee of the Temple family, died in 1875 in an accidental fall.

After the listing of another family, the Rangels, the census moved on northward to El Monte.  Our ability to track the future of the Misión Vieja community gets complicated by the fact that almost all of the 1890 federal census, including the California sheets, was destroyed by a fire decades ago.  Moreover, the population of the neighborhood began to decline, as will be seen in future posts touching on later censuses.

Contributed by Paul R. Spitzzeri, Collections Manager, Workman and Temple Family Homestead Museum, City of Industry