Workman–Temple family

TheWorkman–Temple familyrelates to thepioneerinterconnected Workman and Temple families that were prominent in: thehistoryof colonialPueblo de Los Angelesand AmericanLos Angeles;theLos Angeles BasinandSan Gabriel Valleyregions; andSouthern Californiafrom 1830 to 1930 in MexicanAlta Californiaand the subsequent state ofCalifornia,United States.

William Workman

England

William ('Don Julian') Workman (January 15, 1802–May 17, 1876) was born in Temple Sowerby,Westmorland,nowCumbria,England, to Thomas Workman (1763–1843) and Nancy Hook (1771–1830). When William was eleven years old, his father inherited a substantial home and property in nearbyCliftonfrom a childless aunt and uncle and relocated his family there. In 1814, the Workmans issued cash bequests upon their three sons, with the eldest,David Workman,using half his money to migrate to America in 1817. David settled in the new town ofFranklin, Missouri,the virtual western end of the country, in 1819. There he opened a saddlery, returning to England three years later to retrieve the remainder of his bequest. In the process, David convinced William to join him, and the two brothers sailed fromLiverpooland landed atPhiladelphia, Pennsylvaniain September 1822.

New Mexico

William Workman stayed in Franklin for three years, working for his brother, before joining an early caravan on theSanta Fe Trail,which opened in Franklin, Missouri in 1821. He traveled toSanta Fe de Nuevo México-New Spainin the spring of 1825. He settled inTaoswhere he did some fur trapping, opened a store, and, in partnership with AmericanJohn A. Rowland,manufactured liquor. Taos was popular among fur traders who wintered in the town and enjoyed their liquor after months in the back country.

Workman family

William Workman had a common-law marriage with Maria Nicolasa Urioste de Valencia (April 19, 1802–February 4, 1892), (Pueblo), for more than a decade. After they migrated to Pueblo de Los Angeles in 1844, they had a church marriage at the nearbyMission San Gabriel Arcángel.The couple had two surviving children, Antonia Margarita (1830–1892) and Joseph Manuel Workman (ca. 1833–1901.)

While a success as amerchantanddistiller,Workman was embroiled in the difficult local politics of the period in Nuevo México. He and his partnerJohn A. Rowlandwere forced to swear loyalty to rebels in theTaos Revolt,who assassinated the departmental Mexican governor in 1837. After a counter-revolt squashed theTaoseñorebellion, Workman and Rowland were arrested forsmuggling.A few years later, when the independentRepublic of Texasand its president,Mirabeau B. Lamar,sought to extend its boundary to theRio Grande,thereby anne xing the principal towns of New Mexico, Workman and Rowland were named agents of the Texans in New Mexico. Although it is unclear whether they sought the position, and they were soon replaced, they decided to leave forAlta Californiaearly in 1841.

Southern California

In September of that year, a group of up to sixty-five or so members, including Americans, Europeans and New Mexicans, left New Mexico and took theOld Spanish Trailto the Los Angelespueblo.The 1,200-mile (1,900 km) journey was completed by late fall, when John Rowland presented a letter of recommendation from New Mexico's American consul and a list of expedition members to the authorities in Los Angeles.

TheWorkman-Rowland Partywas long considered the first American wagon train to Los Angeles. But in fact the party could not use wagons because of the difficult Old Spanish Trail route, nor were they solely Americans.Workman commemorated his arrival inSouthern Californiawith a glass plaque (still in family hands) that dated his landfall as November 5, 1841,a British national holiday calledGuy Fawkes' Day.

Rancho La Puente

Early in 1842,John A. Rowlandobtained aMexican land granttoRancho La Puente,at that time 18,000 acres (73 km²), from GovernorJuan Bautista Alvarado.The Rancho was in theSan Gabriel Valleyabout twenty miles (32 km) from Los Angeles. William Workman was not officially an owner at that time (possibly because he had not yet become a naturalized Mexican citizen), but he received an official document allowing him the privileges of an owner in settling on therancho.In July 1845, GovernorPío Picoamended the La Puente grant, adding Workman's name officially as owner and expanding the rancho to the maximum allowable under Mexican land law, eleven square leagues, or almost 49,000 (48,790.55) acres, 48,790-acre (197 km²). A portion ofRancho La Puentelater was developed as the city ofLa Puente.Workman occupied the western portions of the rancho and built anadobe homeon the property in 1842.It was expanded by 1856 and significantly remodeled by 1870.

Mexican American War

The Workman Housecourtyard,at theWorkman and Temple Family Homestead Museum.

The mid 1840s were a tumultuous period because there were two closely timed military actions occurring: the struggle between the Californios and Mexican appointed leaders from outside California, and the occupation and annexation of California by US forces and migrants following its victory in the Mexican-American War. In early 1845, William Workman was appointed captain of a cadre of Americans and Europeans serving with GovernorPío Picoin his standoff with appointed GovernorManuel Micheltorenaat the battle at Cahuenga Pass of theMexican–American War,northwest of Los Angeles. Although the battle that ensued was limited to minimal gunfire and no casualties, Workman, his lieutenant John Rowland,Benjamin Davis Wilson,and James McKinley from the Pico side worked out a surrender option with Americans and Europeans on the Micheltorena side. The former Mexican governor was allowed to leave California by ship.

Pico assumed the governorship. He relocated the Alta California capital fromMontereyto Los Angeles. Together with his plan to move the customs house toSan Pedro Bay,among other issues, this roused northerner José Castro to mount a challenge to Pico's authority. Workman was appointed to lead the defense of Los Angeles against an incursion by Castro's forces. At the same time he learned that the United States army was ready to invade the department of Alta California for other actions in the Mexican-American War.

William Workman played an important role in subsequent events during theMexican–American War.A group of Americans, including Benjamin D. Wilson and Rowland, were seized in late summer 1846 at theRancho Santa Ana del Chinohouse ofIsaac Williams.Workman and neighboring ranchero Ignacio Palomares worked to free the prisoners, who were held at Paredon Blanco (later Boyle Heights.) After the nativeCalifornios,in theSiege of Los Angeles,were successful in expelling the American force left to guard the town after the initial conquest by U.S. forces, another American invasion was being led by Commodore Robert F. Stockton. Workman met Stockton atMission San Juan Capistranojust after New Year's Day 1847 and arranged an amnesty for all Californios who would resist the American retaking of Los Angeles.

When the last battle of the war on California soil was fought in theSan Fernando ValleyinCahuenga Passon 9 January 1845, Workman and two others brought out the flag of truce the following morning atCampo de Cahuenga.Notably, the legislature of Alta California ordered Governor Pío Pico to go to Mexico (based in Mexico City) and request assistance. When Pico returned to Los Angeles in 1848, he spent some time at Workman's residence. When the ex-governor refused to present himself toJonathan D. Stevenson,the US military commander at Los Angeles, Stevenson raged that Workman was complicit in this defiance. He said that Workman was "ever hostile to the American cause."Suspicion by the US military was also cast toward the motives of ranchero and major landownerHugo Reid,who had settled in California after immigrating fromScotland.

Nine days before theTreaty of Guadalupe Hidalgowas ratified by the Mexican Congress,James W. Marshalldiscovered gold atSutter's Millon 24 January 1848. The resultingCalifornia Gold Rushbrought a huge economic windfall to Workman, whose hide-and-tallowtrade activities with his cattle ranching paled compared to the need for fresh beef and other supplies in the gold regions. The wealth generated allowed Workman to expand his ranching enterprises, enlarge his house, build acemeteryandchapelon his grounds, and acquire real estate.

Expansion and agriculture

One such acquisition came in 1850 when Workman, who had loaned money to grantee Casilda Soto de Lobo, foreclosed on theRancho La Merced.He gave the property to his ranch foreman, Juan Matias Sanchez, and his daughter, Margarita, and her husband,P. F. Temple,Francisco P. Temple - F.P.T.Subsequently, with his son-in-law F.P. Temple and Juan Sanchez, Workman acquired neighboring ranchos, includingRancho Potrero Grande,Rancho Potrero de Felipe Lugo,and Rancho Potrero Chico, in the area generally known asMisión Viejaor Old Mission, around the first site of Mission San Gabriel atWhittier Narrows.Workman later had interests in what are today'sBeverly HillsandGlendale.He also had a claim to theLytle Canyonarea nearRancho CucamongaandCajon Pass.

By 1861 Workman was engaged predominantly in livestock raising, holding 3,000 head of cattle and 600 horses. He had a ten-acre vineyard and fruit trees (apple, fig, peach, pear and pomegranate). His ornamental garden of about 90 square feet at the back of the house was stocked with tropical fruit and flowers. The chapel was being built with brick made on site.Workman provided horses to the US government during the Civil War.Although the cattle industry was buffeted by the decline of the Gold Rush and battered by the importation of better breeds from Texas, environmental disasters decimated it as a mainstay of the regional economy. The dual disasters of flood in 1861-62 and drought from 1862 to 1865, caused the loss of much stock. Fortunately for Workman, his friend,William Wolfskill,found water and grass in theMojave Desert,in today'sApple Valleyarea. He invited Workman and John Rowland to send their herds there. Even after losing 25% of his cattle herd, Workman still maintained an inventory of thousands of head into the 1870s.

Still, after 1865 he moved quickly to expand and diversify his agricultural production. He had raised wine grapes since the 1840s, and now built three wine-making and storing structures of brick. He had d some 60,000 vines on about 100 acres (0.40 km²) ofvineyards.He also had 5,000 acres (20 km²) of wheat on the "Wheatfield Ranch" north of his home, and built agrist millnear theSan Gabriel River.During the Civil War, he had experimented successfully with cotton, when the southern states were losing crops and market share. Finding transport to Eastern markets to be too difficult, he abandoned this crop.

Land development and banking

By 1870, Los Angeles was growing rapidly and Workman joined his ambitious son-in-law, F. P. F.(Francis Pliny Fisk) Temple, in the emerging business arena of the nascent city. The two men invested in real estate subdivisions, notably:Lake Vineyardin today'sAlhambraandSan Marinoin theSan Rafael Hills;andCentinelanear theCentinela Adobearea inRancho Aguaje de la Centinela-Rancho Sausal Redondo,in the present dayLos Angeles International Airport-LAXarea; some of the firstoil speculatingin theSanta Susana Mountainsnear present-daySanta Clarita,and others.

The two men invested in earlyrailroadstoo, such as theLos Angeles and Independence Railroadproject fromSanta MonicatoPanamint Cityand thePanamint Rangemines. To finance these projects, the two joined forces with young merchantIsaias W. Hellmanand formed the second bank in Los Angeles: Hellman, Temple and Company (1868-71.) When Temple and Hellman split over disagreements, Workman being a silent partner, Hellman formed Farmers and Merchants Bank with ex-Governor and pioneer L.A. bankerJohn G. Downey,while Temple and Workman went on their own.

The banking house of Temple and Workman (1871–1876) was popular, but largely for the wrong reasons. Temple's lending policy was liberal and the bank was poorly managed by head cashier Henry S. Ledyard. Further, the bank's investments in a wide range of projects were dangerously depleting cash reserves, especially after the state economy collapsed in a silver mining stock speculation fever at theComstock LodeinVirginia City, Nevadain late August 1875. When news of the crash atSan Franciscoreached Los Angeles by telegraph, a panic broke out. Unable to meet the demand for cash by customers, Temple and Workman suspended business for thirty days and desperately needed an infusion of cash to stay open and stave off bankruptcy. After over three months, the bank finally reopened with a loan fromElias J. "Lucky" Baldwin,a San Francisco capitalist who precipitated the Virginia City crisis by selling off huge amounts of stock and who was investing in Los Angeles area real estate. Baldwin's demands for the loan were virtually impossible to meet, but Temple and Workman accepted nonetheless. With confidence in the bank irrevocably shaken, depositors quietly drained the institution dry of the borrowed funds and Temple and Workman closed on 13 January 1876.

The resulting inventory of the bank's affairs by the assignees revealed an unmitigated management disaster. Though Temple and Workman were worth several million dollars, most of that wealth was tied to land mortgaged to Baldwin. Workman, bewildered by events he had no hand in shaping, was visited by a court receiver named Richard Garvey, also an associate of Baldwin, on 17 May 1876. That evening, an ailing Workman took his own life at his home on his beloved rancho. He was 76 years old.

Workman's death was a shock to a jittery community unnerved by the economic paralysis that plagued the community for the remainder of the decade and well into the next and the population of the city and county dropped for the only time since 1865. As a failed banker, Workman is little known today, though his home at theWorkman and Temple Family Homestead Museumis open for visitation by those who want to know more about the remarkable life he lived in the Los Angeles area from the 1840s to the 1870s.

Temple family - the next generation

The first marriage in Los Angeles city history in which both persons had"Anglo"surnameswas in September 1845, of William Workman's daughter Antonia Margarita Workman (July 26, 1830–January 24, 1892) toPliny Fisk Temple(Francisco P. Temple or F.P.T ) - February 13, 1822–April 27, 1880.) The Temples had eleven children, eight living into adulthood.

Pliny Fisk Temple-F.P.T was named for a Congregationalist missionary inPalestine,was born to Jonathan Temple and Lucinda Parker inReading, Massachusetts,nearBoston.After completing his education, he took ship aroundCape Hornto California in January 1841, hoping to meet his half-brother,Jonathan Temple,who was twenty-six years older. Jonathan had left for the Sandwich Islands-Hawaiian Islandsin the early 1820s before Pliny was born, then relocated toPueblo de Los Angelesin 1828 and opened the town's first store. He became a prominent citizen. After six months sailing around the horn of South American to Monterey and then traveling south, Pliny arrived at Los Angeles around the first of July 1841. A visit with Jonathan turned into a permanent relocation and Pliny returned home just once, in summer 1870, to enroll two sons at Harvard and M.I.T. in Boston.

Pliny worked as a clerk in his brother Jonathan's store and, when the first small discovery of gold in California was made inPlacerita Canyonin theSan Gabriel Mountainsnorth of Los Angeles in Spring 1842, he shipped gold dust to a brother in Reading who then sent it on to the nationalPhiladelphia Mint.Perhaps it was at the Temple Store that Pliny met Margarita Workman.

The Antonia and Pliny Temple family lived inLos Angelesuntil 1849, while Pliny worked in Jonathan's store, and then left his employ for a brief sojourn in the northerngold fields.This was followed by F.P.Temple's return to Los Angeles, around which time William Workman granted them half of the 2,363-acre (9.56 km²)Rancho La Mercedin the Whittier Narrows near today'sSouth El Monte, California.The Temples built a single-story adobe house, said to have measured 70 x 110 feet (34 m), and which later had a second floor of wood and was accompanied, by the 1870s, by a two-story FrenchSecond Empire (architecture)-style brick dwelling. The Temple ranch had vineyards,orchards,a grist mill, and was stocked with cattle, horses and other animals. Temple also was among the first in Los Angeles County to raisethoroughbred horses,starting in the early 1860s. He also was the owner of much property outside the county, including: horse grazing land inAlameda County, California;thousands of acres inMadera CountyandFresno County, California;lumber mills in San Antonio Canyon in the San Gabriel Mountains above modernClaremont, Californiaand atRancho San Jacinto y San Gorgonionear today'sIdyllwild, California;and cattle ranch lands, aslaughterhouseand abutcher shopinSpringfield, CaliforniaandColumbia, CaliforniainTuolumne County's famed gold centers.

F.P.Temple was also politically involved, serving as Los Angeles City Treasurer in 1851–52, on the first Los Angeles County board of supervisors in 1852-53 and as Los Angeles county treasurer in 1876–77. He was a rareWhig/Republican in a county political world completely dominated by Democrats - specifically,Southern Democrats.

By the time Los Angeles experienced its first significant growth after theUnited States Civil War,F.P.Temple dove headlong into business projects that were intended to ride the wave of the boom. As discussed above in the section on William Workman, the silent partner in the partnership Temple spearheaded, the wave eventually crashed and ruined the fortunes of the Temple and Workman families by 1876. Temple's personal popularity among his fellow citizens spared him the wrath that might otherwise have been directed to the president of a failed bank, although he suffered the first of a series of strokes within months after the closure of the bank. Largely confined to a small portion of his Rancho La Merced, Temple died at age 58 of another stroke, then calledapoplexy,though claims by some writers seeking to romanticize the story further than warranted claimed he died in a "rude sheepherder's hut" on a corner of the rancho.

Later generations

The tenth child of F. P.F. Temple and Margarita Workman, Walter P. Temple (June 7, 1869–November 13, 1938) brought a resurgence of his family in regional affairs through oil, real estate, construction, andphilanthropyin the 1920s. In 1903, Walter Temple married Laurenza Gonzalez, a member of an earlyCaliforniofamily, who was born and raised just a stone's throw away from Temple in theMisión Vieja(Old Mission) community in present Whittier Narrows. The two had five children, four living to adulthood, and the family lived on a 50-acre (200,000 m²) parcel inherited from Walter's mother after her death in 1892. With longtime friend, Milton Kauffman, however, Temple acquired 60 acres (240,000 m²) to the west at the corner of the Montebello Hills that had belonged to his father before the 1876 failure of the bank of Temple and Workman and sold the former Temple Homestead. Living in an 1869 adobe built by Rafael Basye, the Temples ranched and farmed on their new holdings when their eldest child, Thomas, discovered oil in Spring 1914. After leasing the tract to Standard Oil Company of California, which brought in the first producing well in June 1917, the Temples were the beneficiaries of some two dozen wells drilled over the next several years, including a few major gushers.

William Workman's son José Manuel Workman (February 10, 1833–March 13, 1901) married Josephine Belt (December 19, 1851 – July 1, 1937), a native of Stockton in January 1870 inSan Francisco.José and his wife had seven children. Their daughter Josephine Workman becamesilent movieactressMona Darkfeather(January 13, 1883–September 3, 1977), who portrayed American Indian women in films.

Legacy

The historic "Workman House", the originaladobefrom 1842, with brick additions and a thorough remodel by 1870; "La Casa Nueva," the 1920sSpanish Colonial Revival architectureresidence of Walter Temple and Laura Gonzalez,; the 1850s "El Campo Santo Cemetery"Cemetery, a private family burial ground. All are at the Workman and Temple Family Homestead Museum.

Workman and Temple Family Homestead Museum

The historicWorkman and Temple Family Homestead Museum,city owned and funded, is located in theCity of Industry,a mile north of thePomona Freeway — SR-60at 15415 East Don Julian Road, just west of Hacienda Boulevard.

It has:

• The Workman House - adobe
• La Casa Nueva
• El Campo Santo

Free public guided tours are given Wednesday through Sunday from 1 to 4 p.m. There are large festivals, weekendliving historytours, and other public events year-round.

See also

• Workman and Temple Family
  • Juan Temple
  • Francisco P. Temple(February 13, 1822–April 27, 1880)
  • Josephine M. Workman–Mona Darkfeather(January 13, 1883–September 3, 1977)
• Boyle-Workman family
  • William H. Workman(January 1, 1839–February 21, 1918)
  • Boyle Workman(September 20, 1868–December 25, 1942)
• Workman and Temple Family Homestead Museum
  • El Campo Santo Cemetery
  • Evergreen Cemetery,Los Angeles

References

• "The City That Grew", byBoyle Workman;(a history of Los Angeles)

External links

• OfficialWorkman House at the Workman and Temple Family Homestead Museum website
• Homestead Museum's history Blog
• Historic Adobes of Los Angeles County: The Adobes of Rancho La Puente