Monterey County CA Archives History - Books .....Chapter XXV Concerning One Of The Earliest American Settlers In California 1893
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Book Title: Memorial And Biographical History Of The Coast Counties Of Central California.

CHAPTER XXV.

CONCERNING ONE OF THE EARLIEST AMERICAN SETTLERS IN CALIFORNIA.

THE following interesting facts concerning one of the earliest American pioneers
of California, are contributed by Mr. S. C. Foster, of Los Angeles, who obained
[sic] them direct from his father-in-law, Don Antonio M. Lugo, who was an actor
in the events recounted; and also from a brother-in-law, who well remembered
that the events occurred "en el ano de los Insurgentes" (in the year of the
Insurgents), or of the "Pirate Bouchard."

  A man by the name of Juan Groem, or Graham, came with Malaspina's expedition
to Monterey in 1791; whether he was an American or not is uncertain. He shipped
at Cadiz.

  The sketch of Mr. Foster was written and first published in 1876, the
centennial anniversary of our national independence, in a Los Angeles journal.
As it gives the sequel of the famous attack of "Bouchard, the Pirate," on
Monterey, it is reproduced here. Mr. Foster's narrative reads as follows:

  One day, in the year 1818, a vessel was seen approaching the town of Monterey.
As she came nearer she was seen to be armed, her decks swarming with men, and
she was flying an unknown flag. Arriving within gunshot, she opened fire on the
town, and her fire was answered from the battery, while the lancers stood ready
to repel a landing, if it should be attempted, or cover the retreat of the
families, in case the effort of repulse should be unsuccessful; for Spain was at
peace with every maritime nation, and the traditions of the atrocities committed
by the Buccaneers at the end of the seventeenth century, on the Spanish main,
were familiar to the people. After some firing, the strange vessel appeared to
be injured by the firing from the battery, and bore away and disappeared. The
alarm spread along the coast as fast as swift riders could carry it, and all the
troops at every point were ordered to be on the alert. The strange craft next
appeared off the Ortega ranch, situated on the seashore above Santa Barbara, and
landed some men, who, while plundering the ranch, were surprised by some
soldiers from Santa Barbara, and before they could regain their boats some four
or five were captured. She next appeared off San Juan Capistrano, landed and
plundered the mission, and sailed away and never was heard of more. All that is
known of her is that she was a Buenos-Ayrean privateer, and that her captain was
a Frenchman named Bouchard.

  As to those of her crew she left behind, the circumstances under which they
were captured might have justified severe measures, but the commandante was a
kind-hearted man, and he ordered that if any one would be responsible for their
presentation when called for, they should be set at liberty until orders were
received from Mexico as to what disposition should be made of them.

  When the alarm was given, Corporal Antonio Maria Lugo (who, after seventeen
years of service in the company at Santa Barbara, had received his discharge and
settled with his family in Los Angeles in 1810), received orders to proceed to
Santa Barbara with all the force the little town could spare. (He was the
youngest son of Private Francisco Lugo, who came to California in 1771, and who,
besides those of his own surname, as appears from his will, dated at Santa
Barbara in the year 1801, and still in the possession of some of his grandsons
in Los Angeles county, was the ancestor, through his four daughters, of the
numerous families of the Vallejos, Carrillos, De la Guerras, Cotas, Ruizes,
besides numerous others of Spanish and English surnames.) Don Antonio, the son,
lived to be an old man; and he was the same person whose striking form was so
familiar to our older residents, who seventeen years ago (in 1859), at the ripe
age of eighty-five years, died in Los Angeles, honored and respected by all.

  Some two weeks after the occurrence of the events recounted above, Dona
Dolores Lugo (wife of Don Antonio,) who with other wives was anxiously waiting,
as she stood after nightfall in the door of her house, which still stands on the
street now known as negro alley, heard the welcome sound of cavalry and the
jingle of their spurs as they defiled along the path north of Fort Hill. They
proceeded to the guard-house which then stood on the north side of the Plaza
across upper main street. The old church was not yet built. She heard the orders
given, for the citizens still kept watch and ward; and presently she saw two
horsemen, mounted on one horse advancing across the plaza, toward the house, and
heard the stern but welcome greeting "Ava Maria Purisima," upon which the
children hurried to the door, and kneeling with clasped hands uttered their
childish welcome and received their father's benediction. The two men
dismounted. The one who rode the saddle was a man full six feet high, of a
spare, but sinewy form, which indicated great strength and activity. He was then
forty -three years of age. His black hair, sprinkled with gray, and bound with a
black handkerchief, reached to his shoulders. The square-cut features of his
closely shaven face indicated character and decision, and their naturally stern
expression was relieved by an appearance of grim humor—a purely Spanish face. He
was in the uniform of a cavalry soldier of that time, the cuera blanca, a
loosely fitting surtout, reaching to below the knees, made of buckskin doubled
and quilted so as to be arrow proof; on his left arm he carried an adarga, an
oval shield of bull's hide, and his right hand held a lance, while a
high-crowned heavy vicuna hat surmounted his head. Suspended from his saddle
were a carbine and a long straight sword. The other was a man about twenty-live
years of age, perhaps a trifle taller than the first. His light hair and blue
eyes indicated a different race, and he wore the garb of a sailor.

  The expression of his countenance seemed to say, "I am in a bad scrape; but I
guess I'll work out somehow."

  The senora politely addressed the stranger, who replied in an unknown tongue.
Her curiosity made her forget her feelings of hospitality, and she turned to her
husband for an explanation.

  "Whom have you here, old man?" "He is a prisoner we took from that
buccaneer—may the devil sink her!—scaring the whole coast, and taking honest men
away from their homes and business. I have gone his security."

  "And what is his name and country?"

  "None of us understand his lingo, and he don't understand ours. All I can find
out is his name is Jose and he speaks a language, they call English. We took a
negro among them, but he was the only one of the rogue's that showed fight, and
so Corporal Ruiz lassoed him, and brought him head-over-heels, sword and all. I
left him in Santa Barbara to repair damages. He is English too."

  "Is he a Christian or a heretic?"

  "I neither know nor care. He is a man and a prisoner in my charge, and I have
given the word of a Spaniard and a soldier, to my old commandante for his safe
keeping and good treatment. I have brought him fifty leagues, on the crupper
behind me, for he can't ride without something to hold to. He knows no more
about a horse than I do about a ship, and be sure and give him the softest bed.
He has the face of an honest man, if we did catch him among a set of thieves,
and he is a likely looking young fellow. If he behaves himself we will look him
up a wife among our pretty girls, and then, as to his religion the good Padre
will settle all that. And now, good wife, I have told you all I know, for you
women must know everything; but we have had nothing to eat since morning, so
hurry up and give us the best you have."

  Lugo's judgment turned out to be correct, and in a few days afterward the
Yankee privateersman might have been seen in the mountains in what is known
among the Californians as the "Church canon," ax in hand, helping Lugo to get
out timbers for the construction of the church; a work which the excitement
caused by his arrival, had interrupted. The church was not finished until four
years afterward, for they did not build as fast then as they do now. Chapman
conducted himself well, always ready and willing to turn his hand to anything,
and a year afterward he had learned enough Spanish to make himself understood,
and could ride a horse without the risk of tumbling off, and he guessed he liked
the country and people well enough to settle down and look around for a wife. So
he and Lugo started off to Santa Barbara on a matrimonial expedition. Why they
went to Santa Barbara for that purpose I do not know, but this much I do know,
that in former times the Angelenos always yielded the point that the Barbarenos
had the largest proportion of pretty women.

  In those days the courtship was always done by the elders, and the only
privilege of the fair one was the choice of saying "yes" or "no." Lugo exerted
himself, vouched for the good character of the suitor, and soon succeeded in
making a match. The wedding came off in due time, Lugo giving the bride away,
and as soon as the feast was over the three started back to Los Angeles. One
fashion of riding in those days, was the following: A heavy silk sash, then worn
by the men, was looped over the pommel of the saddle so as to form a stirrup,
and the lady rode in the saddle, while her escort mounted behind, the stirrups
being shifted back to suit his new position; and in this style Chapman once more
set out on the long road from Santa Barbara to Los Angeles for the second time a
prisoner. But now, in the saddle before him, instead of the grim old soldier,
armed with targe and lance, rode the new-made bride, armed with bright eyes and
raven tresses, for the Senorita Guadalupe Ortega, daughter of old Sergeant
Ortega, the girl who, one short year before, had fled in terror from the wild
rovers of the sea, as, pistol and cutlass in hand, they rushed on her father's
house, and who had first seen her husband a pinioned prisoner, had bravely dared
to vow to love, honor and obey the fair gringo.

  Years afterward, when the country was open to foreign intercourse, on the
establishment of Mexican independence, in 1822, and the first American
adventurers, trappers and mariners found their way to California, they found
Jose Chapman at the mission of San Gabriel, fair-haired children playing around
him, carpenter millwright and general factotum of good old Father Sanchez; and
among the vaqueros of old Lugo they also found Tom Fisher swinging his riata
among the wild cattle as he once swung his cutlass when he fought the Spanish
lancers on the beach at the Ortega ranch.

  Chapman died about the year 1849, and his descendants now live in the
neighboring county of Ventura. I saw Fisher in September, 1848, when I met him
in the Monte. The news of gold had just reached here and he was on his way to
the placers to make his fortune, and he has never been heard from sicne. [sic]
To my readers of Castilian descent, I would say that I have not used the prefix
of Don, for I preferred to designate them by the rank that stands opposite to
their forefathers' names on the old muster rolls of their companies, now in the
Spanish archives of California.

  And in conclusion of my humble contribution to the Centennial history of Los
Angeles, I have only to say, without fear of contradiction, that the first
American pioneers of Los Angeles, and as far as tradition goes, of all
California, were Jose el Ingles, Joseph the Englishman, alias Joe Chapman, and
El Negro Fisar, alias Tom Fisher.

  This concludes Mr. Foster's letter.


Additional Comments:
Extracted from:

Memorial and Biographical History of the Coast Counties of Central California.

Illustrated.

Containing a History of this Important Section of the Pacific Coast from the
Earliest Period of its Discovery to the Present Time, together with Glimpses of
its Auspicious Future; Illustrations and Full-Page Portraits of some of its
Eminent Men, and Biographical Mention of many of its Pioneers, and Prominent
Citizens of To-day.



HENRY D. BARROWS,
Editor of the Historical Department.

LUTHER A. INGERSOLL,
Editor of the Biographical Department.

"A people that take no pride in the noble achievements of remote ancestors will
never achieve anything worthy to be remembered with pride by remote
descendants."-Macaulay.


CHICAGO: THE LEWIS PUBLISHING COMPANY.
1893.


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