Sixty Years in Southern California, 1853-1913: Containing the Reminiscences of Harris NewmarkNewmark, Harris
History
Sixty Years in Southern California, 1853-1913: Containing the Reminiscences of Harris Newmark
Newmark, Harris
California, Southern; Los Angeles (Calif.)
Drown was a lawyer who came here a few months before I did, having
just passed through one of those trying ordeals which might easily
prove sufficient to destroy the courage and ambition of any man. He
hailed from Iowa, where he had served as Brigadier-General of Militia,
and was bound up the Coast from the Isthmus on the steamer
_Independence_ when it took fire, off Lower California, and burned to
the water's edge. General Drown, being a good swimmer and a plucky
fellow, set his wife adrift on a hencoop and then put off for shore
with his two children on his back. Having deposited them safely on the
beach, he swam back to get his wife; but a brutal fellow-passenger
pushed the fainting woman off when her agonized husband was within a
few feet of her; she sank beneath the waves, and he saw his companion
go to her doom at the moment she was about to be rescued. Though
broken in spirit, Drown on landing at San Pedro came to Los Angeles
with his two boys, and put his best foot forward. He established
himself as a lawyer and in 1858 became District Attorney, succeeding
Cameron E. Thom; and it was during his term that Pancho Daniel was
lynched. In 1855, too, Drown instituted the first Los Angeles lodge of
Odd Fellows. Drown was an able lawyer, eloquent and humorous, and
fairly popular; but his generosity affected his material prosperity,
and he died, at San Juan Capistrano, on August 17th, 1863, none too
blessed with this world's goods.
Dimmick, who at one time occupied an office in the old Temple Block on
Main Street, had rather an eventful career. Born in Connecticut, he
learned the printer's trade; then he studied law and was soon admitted
to practice in New York; and in 1846 he sailed with Colonel J. D.
Stevenson, in command of Company K, landing, six months later, at the
picturesquely-named Yerba Buena, on whose slopes the bustling town of
San Francisco was so soon to be founded. When peace with Mexico was
established, Dimmick moved to San José; after which with Foster he
went to the convention whose mission was to frame a State
constitution, and was later chosen Judge of the Supreme Court. In
1852, after having revisited the East and been defrauded of
practically all he possessed by those to whom he had entrusted his
California affairs, Dimmick came to Los Angeles and served as Justice
of the Peace, Notary Public and County Judge. He was also elected
District Attorney, and at another time was appointed by the Court to
defend the outlaw, Pancho Daniel. Dimmick's practice was really
largely criminal, which frequently made him a defender of
horse-thieves, gamblers and desperadoes; and in such cases one could
always anticipate his stereotyped plea:
Gentlemen of the Jury: The District Attorney prosecuting my
client is paid by the County to convict this prisoner,
whether he be guilty or innocent; and I plead with you,
gentlemen, in the name of Impartial Justice, to bring in a
verdict of "Not guilty!"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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