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.)
Kewen, a native of Mississippi and a veteran of the Mexican War, came
to Los Angeles in 1858 with the title of Colonel, after _fiasco_
followed his efforts, in the Southern States, to raise relief for the
filibuster Walker, on whose expedition A. L. Kewen, a brother, had
been killed in the battle at Rivas, Nicaragua, in June, 1855. Once a
practitioner at law in St. Louis, Kewen was elected California's first
Attorney-General, and even prior to the delivery of his oration before
the Society of Pioneers at San Francisco, in 1854, he was
distinguished for his eloquence. In 1858, he was Superintendent of Los
Angeles City Schools. In the sixties, Kewen and Norton formed a
partnership. Settling on an undulating tract of some four hundred and
fifty acres near San Gabriel, including the ruins of the old Mission
mill and now embracing the grounds of the Huntington Hotel, Kewen
repaired the house and converted it into a cosy and even luxurious
residence, calling the estate ornamented with gardens and fountains,
_El Molino_--a title perpetuated in the name of the present suburb.
Kewen was also a member of the State Assembly and, later, District
Attorney. He died in November, 1879.
Gitchell, United States District Attorney in the late fifties,
practiced here for many years. He was a jolly old bachelor and was
popular, although he did not attain eminence.
Isaac Hartman, an attorney, and his wife, who were among the
particularly agreeable people here in 1853, soon left for the East.
Volney E. Howard came with his family in the late fifties. He left San
Francisco, where he had been practicing law, rather suddenly, and at a
time when social conditions in the city were demoralized, and the
citizens, as in the case of the people of Los Angeles, were obliged to
organize a vigilance committee. William T. Coleman, one of the
foremost citizens of his city, led the Northern movement, and M. J.
Newmark, then a resident of San Francisco, was among those who
participated. Howard, who succeeded William T., afterward General
Sherman in leading the Law and Order contingent, opposed the idea of
mob rule; but the people of San Francisco, fully alive to the
necessity of wiping out the vicious elements, and knowing how hard it
was to get a speedy trial and an honest jury, had little sympathy with
his views. He was accordingly ordered out of town, and made his way,
first to Sacramento, then to the South. Here, with Kewen as their
neighbor, Howard and his talented wife, a lady of decidedly
blue-stocking tendencies, took up their residence near the San Gabriel
Mission; and he became one of the most reliable attorneys in Los
Angeles, serving once or twice as County Judge and on the Supreme
Court bench, as well as in the State Constitutional Convention of
1878-1879.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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