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.)
While alluding to court interpreters and the general use of Spanish
during at least the first decade after I came to California, I am
reminded of the case of Joaquín Carrillo, who was elected District
Judge, in the early fifties, to succeed Judge Henry A. Tefft of Santa
Bárbara, who had been drowned near San Luis Obispo while attempting to
land from a steamer in order to hold court. During the fourteen years
when Carrillo held office, he was constantly handicapped by his little
knowledge of the English language and the consequent necessity of
carrying on all court proceedings in Spanish, to say nothing of the
fact that he was really not a lawyer. Yet I am told that Carrillo
possessed common sense to such a degree that his decisions were seldom
set aside by the higher courts.
Sheriff Burrill had a brother, S. Thompson Burrill, who was a lawyer
and a Justice of the Peace. He held court in the Padilla Building on
Main Street, opposite the present site of the Bullard Block and
adjoining my brother's store; and as a result of this proximity we
became friendly. He was one of the best-dressed men in town, although,
when I first met him, he could not have been less than sixty years of
age. He presented me with my first dog, which I lost on account of
stray poison: evil-disposed or thoughtless persons, with no respect
for the owner, whether a neighbor or not, and without the slightest
consideration for pedigree, were in the habit of throwing poison on
the streets to kill off canines, of which there was certainly a
superabundance.
Ygnácio Sepúlveda, the jurist and a son of José Andrés Sepúlveda, was
living here when I arrived, though but a boy. Born in Los Angeles in
1842, he was educated in the East and in 1863 admitted to the Bar; he
served in the State Legislature of the following winter, was County
Judge from 1870 to 1873, and District Judge in 1874. Five years later
he was elected Superior Judge, but resigned his position in 1884 to
become Wells Fargo & Company's representative in the City of Mexico,
at which capital for two years he was also American _Chargé
d'Affaires_. There to my great pleasure I met him, bearing his honors
modestly, in January, 1885, during my tour of the southern
republic.[3] Sepúlveda Avenue is named for the family.
Horace Bell was a nephew of Captain Alexander Bell, of Bell's Row; and
as an early comer to Los Angeles, he joined the volunteer mounted
police. Although for years an attorney and journalist, in which
capacity he edited the _Porcupine_, he is best known for his
_Reminiscences of a Ranger_, a volume written in rather a breezy and
entertaining style, but certainly containing exaggerations.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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