The Tournament of Roses Parade and
Rose Bowl football game are two of the longest running, best known annual
events on the American pop-culture calendar.
But it did not start primarily as a parade or a football game.
There was a football game at the
first Tournament of Roses in 1890; it was the final event of the day. But it was a minor tussle between two local
teams that were both less than three months old, and one of the teams was a
high school team, so it wasn’t quite the spectacle that it is today. The Tournament hosted its first East-West
game of collegiate teams in 1902, which resulted in a lopsided victory for
Michigan over Stanford. They would not
host another until 1916, and the tradition has continued without interruption
since, and has been known as the “Rose Bowl” since 1923 with a new bowl-shaped
stadium in the Arroyo Seco canyon in 1923.
For more on the first “Rose Bowl”
game, see my earlier post, A History of the First “Rose Bowl” –
1890, 1902, 1916 or 1923.
The first Tournament of Roses did not
have a parade as such, although participants decorated their carriages and they
awarded prizes for the best decorated vehicles.
A parade held during a similar sports tournament day a few months after
the first Tournament of Rose proved popular, so they brought it back for the
second annual Tournament of Roses in 1891, establishing the familiar annual tradition.
A history of the Tournament of Roses
would not be complete without a history of the group that organized the first
several Tournaments, the Valley Hunt Club of Pasadena. The club was a “social outdoor” which was
“organized to encourage outdoor sports.”
To that end, the early Tournaments of Roses all offered public
participation in athletic events, including track and field, cycling and
equestrian events.
But the particular interest of the
Valley Hunt Club, or “Valley Hunt” as it was commonly known, were group hunts with
packs “scent hounds” (typically foxhounds) working in concert with “sight
hounds” (dogs that hunted by sight, typically greyhounds, stag hounds and
kangaroo hounds), with the scent hounds flushing out the game and the much
faster sight hounds chasing it down.
The Valley Hunt Club was organized to encourage outdoor
sports, especially cross-country riding after the hounds for fox, wildcat,
coyote and rabbits, and has had notable success in this direction, there being
much more horseback riding now than previous to the club’s organization. The club meets once a month during the
season, and after the sport the members adjourn to some cañon or attractive
spot for luncheon. Members of the club
own some of the finest hunting dogs in the country, among which the pack of
stag and greyhounds belonging to J. de Barth Shorb, the Bandini foxhounds, the
Campbell-Johnston fox-terriers are worthy especial mention. The club also owns a pack of nine foxhounds,
presented by Dr. F. F. Rowland, formerly of the Rosetree Hunt of
Pennsylvania. Among the game killed last
year were wild cat, fox, coyote and hare, the two last making especially good
sport. C. F. Holder is president of the
club.
Los Angeles Times, October 25, 1889, page 7.
The “sport” for the human participants
lay principally in the thrill of the chase on horseback, and being close to the
kill, which more often than not was inflicted by the hounds, not by gunshot;
exercise, excitement, a nice picnic lunch, and if they could eradicate a few
dangerous predators and pesky varmints along the way, so much the better. Coincidentally, one of the places they
frequently pursued game was in the Arroyo Seco, the home of the Rose Bowl stadium
since 1923.
An account of one of their hunts by
the famous naturalist and nature writer, C. F. Holder, a member of the Valley
Hunt Club and a moving force behind establishing the Tournament of Roses, gives
us a taste of the hunt.
AFTER
WILDCATS.
A Day with
the Pasadena Hunt Club.
Pasadena, July 20. – Occasionally at early dawn the melodious
notes of a horn coming through the orange groves awaken the sleepers in the
crown of the San Gabriel valley. You
will hear it in town, along the unfrequented avenues, with the occasional bay
of a hound. Hard sleepers rouse
themselves here and there, and perhaps at 6 o’clock, when the dew is still
glistening on the alfalfa, a gay company will be seen winding their way down
into the deep arroyo. . . .
The Pasadena Hunt Club is taking an outing, and under the
inspiriting leadership of Don Arturo Bandini, the famous hunter, is about to
indulge in a wildcat hunt, a novelty to Easterners and a never-ending delight
to the patrons of field sports in Southern California. The hunt is made up twenty or thirty mounts
(ladies and gentlemen) and a pack of from twelve to fifteen hounds, while
several greyhounds follow behind to pick up any, stray coyote that may be
started.
The moment the gay cavalcade descends into the arroyo the
music of the dogs is heard, baying in melodious repetition, now long, again
short, rising on the morning air – a chorus so inspiriting that it causes the
pulse to quicken, and even the horses feel its influence and long to be away.
The Bandini hounds are famous for their prowess. Hundreds of wildcats, coons and coyotes have
fallen before them, and they waste no time.
“After Wildcats,” C. F. Holder, San Francisco Chronicle, August 19,
1888, page 8.
This article is one of a series of
articles that appeared in popular magazines and newspapers across the country, bringing
attention, visitors and new residents to Pasadena as the town swelled from what
had been several dozen families of the “Indiana Colony” (or more properly, the
Orange Grove Association) in 1873 to a growing city of national prominence hosting
an the famous Tournament of Roses in the 1890s.
Many of the articles were written by people directly involved in the
Pasadena hunting scene and the Valley Hunt Club, including C. F. Holder, Helen
Elliott Bandini and F. F. Rowland.
The Valley Hunt Club was founded on
November 3, 1888, barely one year before the first Tournament of Roses. But the history of the Valley Hunt Club did
not start there; it has deeper roots in local hunting traditions and earlier
hunting clubs. The article above about
the wildcat hunt in the Arroyo Seco, for example, mentions the Pasadena Hunt
Club, a predecessor organization founded about a year before the Valley Hunt. The San Pascual Hunting and Coursing Club had
been organized a decade earlier.
The Valley Hunt Club also had
connections to a hunt club near Philadelphia, Pennsylvania with a name strongly
suggesting more than a passing connection to the name of the Tournament of
Roses. An original member of the Valley
Hunt Club, Dr. F. F. Rowland, had been a longtime member of the Rose Tree Hunt in
Media, Pennsylvania before coming to Pasadena, and he donated a “pack of fine
foxhounds” from “the same strain as the Rose-Tree hounds”[i]
to his ne club.
The history of the Valley Hunt Club and
its predecessors bridges the history of Old California and New California. Early members like Arturo Bandini, J. De
Barth Shorb, C. F. Holder and F. F. Rowland , connect the Tournament of Roses
to early Spanish families, early American settlers of California, the “Indiana
Colony” that founded Pasadena, and later newcomers.
San Pascual Hunt Club
One of the earliest reports of an organized
hunt by someone from the San Gabriel Valley involved Colonel Benjamin Davis “Don
Benito” Wilson, although it took place near his business interests near the
wharves in Wilmington,[ii]
not his home in the San Gabriel Valley.
A couple of “old boys,” Col. B. D. Wilson and F. M. Buster,
had some rare sport yesterday running rabbits with greyhounds.
Los Angeles Herald, June 19, 1875, page 3.
B. D. Wilson was a fur-trapper from
Tennessee who became stranded in California on his way to China. He stayed in California, eventually acquiring
large swathes of the Rancho Jurupa in Riverside and San Bernardino Counties and
much of the Rancho San Pascual in San Gabriel County; with the Rancho San
Pascual largely encompassing what are now the towns of Pasadena, South
Pasadena, Altadena and San Marino.
Wilson married Ramona Yorba, daughter of Bernardo Yorba, who owned the
Rancho Santiago de Santa Ana, covering much of northern Orange County. He is also General Patton’s grandfather,
through a daughter with his second wife, Ruth.
Wilson died in 1878, but the local
pack-hound hunting tradition was carried on by an Old Californian, Arturo
Bandini, along with some newcomers, many of them members of the original
“Indiana Colony” that established the city of Pasadena. Years later, Bandini would organize the
sporting events at the first Tournament of Roses, and carried off the laurels
of the equestrian events himself.
Bandini and others organized a
“hunting and coursing” club for their group hunts, which were more organized,
much larger, and perhaps a bit more chaotic than B. D. Wilson’s hunt in
Wilmington a few years earlier. The
sport of “coursing,” a style of rabbit hunting, was less about taking the
kill-shot, and more about being close enough to witness the dogs as they administer
the “death bite.”
 |
| “Nearing the Finish,” St. Nicholas Magazine, Volume 17, Number 1, November 1889, page 6. |
The San Pascual Meet.
Last Saturday was a field day at Pasadena, being the occasion
of the first meet of the San Pascual Hunting and Coursing Club. By 4 o’clock in the afternoon a crowd of some
fifty or more ladies and gentlemen on horseback and in vehicles had gathered at
the edge of the patch of brush lying near the base of the mountains, to the
northeast of the colony.
The hunters were, the Messrs. Winston, Edwards, Wallace and
Townsend, with their fine fox hounds, and Bandini, Watts and Baker, with their
grayhounds. The rest of the crowd having
no dogs to claim their attention, added much to the gust of the chase by their
enthusiastic encouragement of the hounds, and the recklessness of their
riding.
. . .
Mr. Bandini’s four grayhounds, as well trained as a regiment
of expert soldiers, played into each others hands in a way that astonished the
spectators, seldom failing to catch, after once sighting, a hare, and carrying
off the honors of the day . . . .
Much admiration was expressed by the lookers-on at the fine
tactics displayed by Mr. Bandini’s kangaroo hound, “El Chico,” who devoted his
energy to keeping the hare from the brush, leaving the work of catching to the
rest of the pack. After a long chase, in
which all the equestrians joined, the hare was finally caught by the grayhound
“Roe,” several fox and grayhounds helping to give the death bite; all in sight
of the occupants of carriages and wagons, thus giving every one a full view of
the sport. . . .
With such enthusiastic successful hunters as Winston,
Edwards, Bandini and Wallace, backed by their fine hounds, much may be expected
in the future from the Hunting and Coursing Club of San Pascual. . . .
In spite of the danger however, the ladies as well as the
gentlemen rode bravely into the thick of the fray as eager as any to be in at
the death. May the sport of Saturday
afternoon be often repeated and the San Pascual Hunting and Coursing Club soon
be an established feature of Los Angeles County.
Los Angeles Express, September 11, 1878, page 3.
 |
| “In at the Death,” The Californian, Volume 1, Number 2, January 1892, page 7. |
Group sport hunting with packs of
hounds appears to have remained a regular pastime in Pasadena over the next
decade, although I could not find any more references to the “San Pascual
Hunting and Coursing Club” (by that name) after the report of its initial
meeting.
Pasadena was not the only place in
California where hunting rabbits with packs of greyhounds, “coursing,” was a
popular sport. California was the “Home
of Coursing.”
 |
| “A Jackrabbit Drive in Southern California,” Harper’s Weekly, Volume 32, October 27, 1888, page 813. |
CALIFORNIA,
THE HOME OF COURSING.
“There is but one State in the Union,” says the Turf, Field
and Farm, “where any attention is paid to coursing, and that is
California. The clubs there are
numerous, and each controls about one hundred dogs. The principal coursing grounds are at Merced,
Sacramento and Modesto. The plains are
immense, and there is nothing to interfere with the run. The hares are large, muscular and very fleet,
and the dog which catches one of them not loaded with fat may be set down as of
good quality.
The Pacific Bee
(Sacramento, California), April 22, 1882, page 1.
“Coursing” for sport was not the only
use for greyhounds and other “sight hounds” (dogs that hunt by sight and not
smell) in Southern California. They also
served more practical goals, like protecting livestock from predators. Bandini’s hounds were even called into
service to protect a sheep ranch far from Pasadena, at the “Laguna Ranch,” in
or near what are now the towns of Lake Elsinore and Wildomar in Riverside
County.
 |
| “Death of the Coyote.”[iii] |
Mr. Arturo Bandini
informs us that it will be impossible for him to allow his hounds to enter in
the chase arranged at Pasadena next Friday afternoon owing to the fact that
they have been hunting coyotes in the Laguna Ranch for some time past and are
badly cut up. He would not think of
taking them out before the last of next week or the first of the week
following. The hounds have done good
execution in the laguna, killing some eight or nine coyotes. The kangaroo hound caught one fellow who had
been depredating in the flock for months past, killing, all told, some two or
three hundred dollars’ worth of sheep.
He had eluded every attempt to capture or shoot him and only succumbed
to the dog after a desperate struggle.
Los Angeles Evening Express, January 5, 1881, page 3.
But even if the hunt had an
underlying purpose of protecting livestock or people, it was still considered a
form of “amusement.”
 |
| The Wild Cat Treed.[iv] |
One of the popular amusements of the sportsmen of Pasadena is
hunting wildcats. Mr. Arturo Bandini has
a pack of hounds, and once or twice a week a hunt is arranged, in which a
number of friends engage with him, and they usually bring down their game. Last Saturday night a party were out nearly
all night on the hunt, and for once they failed of bagging their game, on
account of the dryness of the atmosphere.
Los Angeles Times, October 1, 1882, page 3.
 |
| “Cornering the Wildcat in the Arroyo.”[v] |
Arturo Bandini
Mr. Arturo Bandini has a pack of
foxhounds whose music is as sweet as any in the land, and that has a remarkable
record of wildcats, foxes, coons and coyotes.
Los Angeles Times, October 6,
1889, page 7.
 |
| “Pioneer Spanish Families In California,” The Century Illustrated, Volume 41, Number 3, January 1891, page 377. |
Arturo Bandini was a local bon vivant and character. He played the flute,[vi]
owned a silver-mounted revolver,[vii]
a “topaz watch seal, heavily set in gold in an antique pattern” once owned by
Commodore Robert F. Stockton and engraved with his initials,[viii]
and a sword, replete with a rhinoceros horn handle mounted in gold plate and
guard ornamented with the heads of stag and boar, said to have been “looted
from some of the palaces of Paris during the time of the Commune, a Frenchman
leaving it to Mr. Bandini at his death.”[ix]
Bandini also had direct connections
to Old and New California. His father
was Don Juan Bandini, who sold portions of the Rancho Jurupa to “Don Benito” Wilson,
and whose family was involved in raising the first Mexican flag in Mexico and one
of the first American flags in California.
Arturo’s father, Don Juan Bandini, first
came to California with his own father, Captain Jose Bandini, who had been “an
officer of the Spanish navy and commander of the Spanish man of war La Reina at
the battle of Trafalgar.”[x]
“Old Captain Jose Bandini was the first
to raise the Mexican flag in Mexico, which he did on the ship Reina, at San Blas, in 1821.”[xi]
Captain Bandini’s son, Don Juan
Bandini, and his wife played a role in another historic flag-raising event,
decades later; but this time it would be an American flag. At the time, Don Juan Bandini was a major
landowner in San Diego, and also owned property further south in Mexico (his
home still stands in Old Town San Diego, where it is now known as the
Cosmopolitan Hotel and Restaurant). The
incident may explain why the Bandini family came into possession of Commodore
Stockton’s engraved topaz watch seal.
Like many colonists, especially those of Spanish birth, he
had long felt irritated at Mexico’s treatment of California, he, therefore,
when war came saw with satisfaction the success of the Americans, to which,
indeed, he contributed generously. When
in 1846 Commodore Stockton arrived in San Diego he found himself almost in a
state of siege, suffering for supplies and being also in need of horses and
oxen for land operations.
It was then Don Juan came to the rescue, and taking a strong
force down to his rancho of Guadalupe, he furnished our soldiers with five
hundred head of cattle, two hundred horses, and eight carretas drawn by
oxen. Upon the return Mrs. Bandini and
family accompanied the party. During the
journey the officer in command discovered that he had neglected to bring a flag
to grace his entry into San Diego, and Mrs. Bandini made from the clothes of
her little ones – their hasty departure not giving time to gather other luggage
– the first American flag made on this Coast.
That night Dona Refugio was serenaded by the full bands of the Congress
and Savannah, and the next day the commander and his officers called to thank
her for her gift, which is now preserved in Washington among the relics of the
Mexican War.
“Our Spanish American Families,”
Helen Elliott Bandini, The Overland
Monthly, Series 2, Volume 26, Number 151, July 1895, Page 22.
 |
Don Arturo Bandini, The Capital
(Los Angeles), Volume 15, Number 1, January 4, 1902, page 2.
|
Arturo Bandini’s sister Arcadia
married and survived two husbands, both of whom were among the wealthiest men
in Los Angeles, Don Abel Stearns and Colonel R. S. Baker. Stearns built his fortune with a warehouse at
the port in San Pedro, a stage line between San Pedro and the Pueblo de Los
Angeles, and flour mill in the Pueblo that would later become the city of Los
Angeles.
Arcadia Bandini Stearns married R. S.
Baker in 1875, four years after Stearns’ death in 1871.[xii] Colonel R. S. Baker parlayed an initial
investment in 500 sheep at the Tejon Ranch into 30,000 sheep. Using the proceeds from his wool, he
purchased the Rancho Santa Monica and moved his sheep there, which immediately
made him one of the wealthiest men in Los Angeles County. He then sold 2/3ds of his rancho to John P.
Jones, a U. S. Senator and silver millionaire from Nevada, which they were
already developing into the “embryo town”[xiii]
of Santa Monica at the time of his marriage, in conjunction with their other
project, the Santa Monica Railroad.
How Sheep
Made a Man Rich.
In a list of names of rich men of Los Angeles we note that of
R. S. Baker, who is rated at $500,000.
Mr. Baker came to Kern county fourteen years ago with a small flock of
sheep, and located on the Tejon Ranch which he took in charge. Upon the settlement of his partnership with
General Beale three years ago he found himself the possessor of 30,000 sheep
which he had improved to a high grade.
Their product in wool alone made him a rich man, and with the proceeds
he purchased a large Mexican land grant in Los Angeles county, paying
$65,000. He distributed his flocks upon
it and ranked immediately among the wealthiest men of Southern California. Last fall he sold two-thirds of his land to
Senator Jones for $250,000 and now takes the lead in management and ownership
of the new harbor of Santa Monica, twelve miles from Los Angeles, and the
railroad leading from that place to Los Angeles city. Many who have enjoyed the courteous
hospitality of the Tejon will remember the story told by Mr. Baker of his
misfortunes in business at the North, his purchase of 500 sheep with money
loaned him by a friend, his herding them himself, and his patient waiting for
the great results he has now obtained.
The Daily Alta California (San Francisco), April 9, 1875, page 1.
R. S. Baker also helped pioneer oil
production in southern California, as a partner in the Pico Canyon oil fields near Newhall,
California.[xiv] He was also Vice-President of the Los Angeles
County Bank.[xv]
Decades later, following the death of
his sister Arcadia, Arturo Bandini led the Baker/Bandini relatives in a fight
over his sister’s inheritance with relatives of the Stearns family. Arcadia Bandini Stearns Baker had died
without a will and without children, so her relatives expected the estate to go
to them. But the Stearns relatives, many
of them still in Boston, invoked a technicality in California law under which
the estate of a widow who dies without a will would revert back to her deceased
husband’s family, not her own.[xvi] In the end, however, California courts ruled
that her second marriage nullified her status as widow, negating operation of
the rule. The Stearns clan settled for
about $750,000 in exchange for not filing an appeal. Thirty-five members of the extended
Baker/Bandini family shared what remained of the $7 million estate, with
brother Arturo and another sister taking the largest share at a million each,
and a nephew in San Francisco received $750,000.[xvii]
The name “Arturo Bandini” is perhaps
best known today as the name of a character in John Fante’s
semi-autobiographical novel of depression-era Los Angeles, Ask the Dust, which Chinatown
screenwriter Robert Towne called, “the best novel ever written about Los
Angeles.”[xviii] It is not known whether the real Arturo
Bandini inspired Fante to use the name, or whether it was just one of those
interesting coincidences. But Arturo
Bandini’s name was in the news on occasion during the period in which Fante
wrote, so it is not impossible.
One of the reasons Bandini’s name was
in the news in the 1930s related to another dispute over another estate
connected to yet another early Californian, “Santiago Arguello, a wealthy
Spanish don, who owned the land on which Agua Caliente, famous Mexican resort,
now stands.”[xix] The case was complex and Byzantine, hinging
in part on a belated birth certificate filed in 1931 for Arturo’s son, Elliott
Bandini, to establish his status as an heir to the Arguello estate in Agua
Caliente. No birth certificate had been
filed because Elliott was born at home, on the “last of the Bandini acreage . .
. located at the intersection of San Pasqual street and South Michigan Avenue”
in Pasadena, which is now located smack-dab in the middle of Cal Tech. I was not able to determine what happened
with the litigation.
In addition to his sister’s
connections to New California, Arturo Bandini had his own connections to the
founders of Pasadena, hinted at by his son’s first name, Elliott. Arturo Bandini married a woman named Helen
“Nellie” J. Elliott, in 1883.[xx] Helen’s father was Dr. Thomas B. Elliott, the
President of the original “Indiana Colony” that had planned to colonize the San
Gabriel Valley. He was also a member of the
colony’s successor, the “San Gabriel Orange Grove Association,” which founded
the city now called Pasadena in 1873.
Elliott is also credited with giving Pasadena its name.
Thomas B. Elliott was born in
Brockport, New York, and was a graduate of Hamilton College and the Jefferson
Medical College of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
He started his career as a physician at the Indiana Insane Hospital, but
later turned to business, becoming “one of the most prominent and successful
grain merchants” in Indianapolis. He was
actively involved in public education, serving for twelve years on the city’s
Educational Board and serving as its President, and was chiefly responsible for
ensuring for free public school education for the city’s African-Americans.
Owing to ill-health in his family, in 1874 he removed to
California, being one of the originators of then “Indiana Colony,” since merged
into the Orange Grove Association. We
are largely indebted to his measures and means for this beautiful location, of
which we are no so justly proud, and also for its euphonious name. Being acquainted with a gentleman connected
with an Indian mission, he asked for an Indian name meaning “opening” or “key
of the valley;” among others sent the name Pasadena was adopted.
Los Angeles Evening Express, August 18, 1881, page 3.
The Indiana Colony
Brief discussions of the history of
Pasadena generally credit the city’s founding to the “Indiana Colony,” a group
of investors from Indiana who pooled their resources to purchase a large plot
of land, with the intent of emigrating to California to develop the land. But this thumbnail sketch glosses over, or completely
misses the fact that the original “Indiana Colony” corporate entity went bust
in the financial panic of 1873. It was
quickly replaced, however, by a second entity, the “San Gabriel Orange Groove
Association,” which involved many of the same people, with some new investors and
a new name.
The thumbnail sketch also misses the
fact that the “Indiana Colony” that intended to colonize California’s San
Gabriel Valley was not unique; there were several “Indiana Colonies” that each,
separately, organized to move out West to seek their fortunes. Most of them were not as successful as the
ones who survived the initial collapse to join the Orange Grove Association.
The town of Colony, Kansas (current
population about 400) was settled by one such “Indiana Colony.” In January of 1872, the “Indiana colony sent
its picket guard out . . . for the West.”[xxi] Within just a few weeks, reports came back
that “the Indiana Colony has had a Post Office located at Colony, Anderson
county, Kansas. The lands will not be
divided until the first of April.”[xxii] Those in the vanguard were joined a couple
months later by “a party of nineteen persons, a portion of the Indiana Colony,
[who] left the city today, via the Vandalia and North Missouri Roads, for King
City, Kansas.”[xxiii]
The “Vallonia Colony,” organized in
Jackson County, Indiana in February 1873, also had high hopes.
The object of this Association shall be to emigrate and form
a settlement in one of the Western or South Western States or Territories,
hereafter to be determined by agents elected and instructed by the Colony at a
regular meeting. A majority vote, either
in person or by proxy,[xxiv]
of all the members of the Colony being necessary to a choice.
The Brownstone Banner (Jackson County, Indiana), February 26, 1873, page 1.
But they did not fare so well. Although at least one report suggests that
some of the colony headed to Kansas as early as March,[xxv]
the corporation appears to have dissolved by July. The last mention of it in the local newspaper
is an attempt to collect a bad debt owed by the colony.[xxvi]
The “Indiana Colony” whose efforts
resulted in the founding of Pasadena, California (current population about
150,000) fared much better, despite the collapse the “Colony’s” corporate
entity during the financial panic.
Families
Coming to Southern California.
Indianapolis, August 3. – A colony of one hundred and fifty
families have organized with a view of settling in Southern California. Their plans are to purchase not less than
10,000 acres of land, good for farming, lay out a town in the midst of it, and
then allot each member a farm and a block 300 feet square in the town.
San Francisco Examiner, August 4, 1873.
At the time, land was plentiful, but
ambitious people with capital to develop the land were relatively scarce, so
several towns vied for their business.
The Anaheim Southern
Californian wants the Indiana colony, recently mentioned in The Union, to consider the attractions
of the Santa Ana Valley. . . . The San
Bernardino Valley also offers very great inducements; and the San Jacinto
Valley in this county, has just as good farming land as either Santa Ana or San
Bernardino.
The San Diego Union, July 29, 1873, page 3.
An Indiana colony is preparing to come to California. Fifty men, all heads of families, are already
enrolled in the expedition. San Diego
and Santa Barbara both want them.
Daily Evening Herald (Stockton, California), August 1, 1873.
In early August 1873, the Colony’s
advance team prepared for departure.
D. M. Berry, General Kimball, John H. Baker and A. G. Ruxton,
avant couriers of the Indiana Colony, will start in a few days for San Diego,
California.
Indianapolis News, August 5, 1873, page 4.
The financial panic of 1873 struck in
September, killing off the “Indiana Colony” as a corporate entity, but not
killing off the dreams of all of its subscribers.
On the 18th inst., articles of incorporation of
the San Gabriel Orange Grove Association – organized for the purchase of a
large tract of land in the county of Los Angeles, and the subdivision of the
same among the shareholders, and providing generally for the cultivation of
grapes and semi-tropical fruits – were filed in the office of the Secretary of
State. Capital, $25,000, in shares of $250 each. Directors Benj. S. Eaton, W. T. Clapp, Calvin
Fletcher, A. O. Briston. Thos. F. Craft, D. M. Berry and W. Clancy.
Los Angeles Herald, November 23, 1873, page 2.
An article published a few weeks
later detailed the transition from the “Indiana Colony” to the “San Gabriel
Valley Orange Grove Association,” and how they wound up in the San Gabriel
Valley instead of San Diego, Santa Barbara or another suitor. Their prospects may have been saved by the
fact that they sent an advance party out before the financial panic took hold
in September.
Indianapolis, Ind., Nov. 20.
Before the panic a company of Indianians, mostly of this city, about one
hundred and fifty in number, determining to seek homes in the milder climate,
in the neighborhood of San Diego, Southern California, sent Mr. D. M. Berry, of
this city, as agent to examine the country and choose a good location for the
colony. Mr. Berry, assisted by Gen. Kimball, the recently appointed
Surveyor-General of Utah, finding objections of drouth and other evils to San Diego
county, Santa Barbara, and other places examined by them, chose 2,800 acres on
the end of the San Pasqual rancho, four miles from the city of Los Angeles, for
which ten dollars per acre was asked. But
the money panic upset the calculations of most of the members making it
impossible for them to fulfill their intentions and agreements.
The land has just been secured, however, by some fifteen only
of the original intended colonists, of whom Dr. Thomas B. Elliott is President,
and by gentlemen of Cincinnati, Boston, and other cities, some of whom are now
on the ground, making preparations for improving the same. . . .
News to-day from Los Angeles says the owners of the Indiana
purchase have formed themselves into an association called the “San Gabriel
Orange Grove Association,” naming it after the river and valley in which the
land is located. – [Cor. Cincinnati Gazette].
Los Angeles Herald, December 7, 1873, page 2.
Pasadena Hunt Club
The “Pasadena Hunt Club” was
organized in December 1887, along nearly the same lines as the “Valley Hunt
Club” a year later. Its stated
objectives were to “encourage out-of-door sport, with an occasional dinner.” An account of its first meeting also referred
back to the “old hunting club,” perhaps a reference to the San Pascual Hunting
and Coursing Club of a decade earlier.
First Meet
of the Pasadena Hunt Club.
Mr. Bandini and Mr. Winston were masters of the hunt, and
took charge . . . Both gentlemen belonged to the old hunting club which hunted
wildcats over what is now the city of Pasadena.
. . . The new organization is a gentlemen’s club, and each member is to
contribute a small sum monthly to keep the dogs in good condition, while meets
are to be had whenever desired, and an occasional hunt dinner at the Carlton or
Raymond. The object is to encourage
legitimate out-of-door sport. Wildcat
hunting, fox hunting, coyote running with fox-hounds, and coursing with
gray-hounds will be the principal sport.
Objection is often made that such sport is cruel, and in this connection
it should be said that the wildcats are a positive menace to the settler, and
one killed on this hunt had a remarkable record as a chicken stealer.
Los Angeles Times, December 11, 1887, page 13.
The string of articles about hunting
in and around Pasadena which focused national attention on Pasadena began
during the year between founding of the Pasadena Hunt Club in December 1887 and
the later founding of the Valley Hunt Club on November 3, 1888.
I heard the melodious bay of the dogs rising from the deep
cañon, and it was followed by a sharp yelp that told of a hot scent. Then a Winchester below me began to play, and
a few moments later I brought my own rifle into action. Off darted the game, fairly skirting the
precipitous wall of rock on the opposite side of the cañon, finally falling
beneath a bay-tree, where it was found later.
While making the descent to secure our game, we came suddenly
to a huge rock that projected from the mountain, extending toward a like mass
on the opposite side of the chasm. On
reaching it, the old hunter uttered a cry of precaution, and pointed across the cañon. There, in its sanctuary stood, in
strong relief against the rock, the great cat of the Sierras, the mountain
lion, its head raised in a listening attitude.
The whole position was so noble and impressive, that it was some seconds
before the rifles cracked and the fierce yell of the wounded animal broke the
stillness.
“In the Heart of the Sierra Madre,”
C. F. Holder, The American Magazine,
Volume 7, Number 4, February 1888, page 394.
One month later, a poetic description
of a hunt during a prolonged camping trip, written by Arturo Bandini’s wife
Helen Elliott Bandini, appeared in another magazine. The dogs killed a mountain lion and a
raccoon, and a hunter brought down a treed fox; all before 9 AM when it became
too hot to continue the hunt. Her
account gives a sense of the romance, thrill and danger of the hunt.
After the
Hounds in Southern California
Whir! Whir!! Whir!!!
You awake with a start, wondering what is the matter and
where you are. In a moment you pull
yourself together, and know alas! That the noise is the gentle call of the
alarm clock. The time – four in the
morning. Place – a tent in the wildwoods
of California.
Drip, drip, sounds the fog. – Where else in the world does
fog have sound? It is dark, and the cold
is penetrating. No couch was ever so
inviting as your bed of boughs; but it is your turn to follow the hounds. . . .
The hounds are yawning and stretching at their chains, the
younger ones frisking a little, but none giving voice save old Ranger, who,
though the very bone and sinew of the pack, the veteran hero of an hundred
hunts, still labors under the delusion that he is only a nonentity, and will be
left behind if he does not remind us of his presence by a constant reproachful
howl.
. . . Shortly his horn
rings out three jubilant blasts. We
gallop off, and as we round a bend in the road hear again the music of the
pack. “Treed! Treed!” shouts the
master. We urge our horses up the rocky cañon to the foot of a trai leading to a small mesa where we know the game is at bay. A moment to tighten cinches, then up, up, up,
we go like Jack’s bean stalk, and nearly as perpendicularly. Our horses are sure-footed, and we feel
tolerably certain that we can ride where they can carry; nevertheless it is a
relief to horse and rider when the top is gained.
Round a sycamore the hounds are grouped, their cries growing
more energetic as we join them. High up
in a crotch of the tree we see the game – a large gray wildcat, stretched
gracefully at full length. He is gazing
down at his clamorous foes with fierce eyes, feeling all the anger and majesty
of the lash of lion or tiger as he wriggles his absurd stub tail. Perhaps he imagines it full length.
The small boy, armed with a sharp-pointed stick, is already
in the tree, climbing steadily toward the enraged animal. We shiver and wish he would not run such
risks, but the youngster knows no fear of animals wild or tame, and one and all
they own his sway. . . .
It is nearly nine o’clock now, almost too hot and dry for the
dogs to trail. We bethink ourselves of
the breakfast that awaits us at camp, of the hammocks under the oaks and the
unfinished novel, and gladly acquiesce in the mandate, “No more hunting
today.” The dogs are gathered in, then
comes a two-mile ride, and with peal of horn and clatter of hoofs we gallop
with a grand flourish into camp.
The trophies of the morning’s hunt are duly admired by the
stay-at-homes, Trailer [(a puppy)] coming in for more praise, which quite
restores his fallen spirits. We are
famished, but no breakfast for us until the Lady Superior has ladled out for
each hound a dish of new mush, giving to Trailer a double portion which
delights his puppy heart.
“After the Hounds in Southern
California,” Helen Elliott Bandini, Overland
Monthly, Volume 11 (Second Series), Number 63, March 1888, page 305-307.
Another piece by C. F. Holder published
six months later reads like it was made-to-order by the Pasadena Chamber of
Commerce.
A
JACK-RABBIT DRIVE.
Anyone who has seen the sun roll over the snow peaks of the
Sierra Madre from its seeming night in Arizona, and with one burning glance
convert the San Gabriel Valley into a blaze of light, can well imagine why in
the olden days the mission bells were rung at sunrise, and the voices of the
devotees rose in praise. There is a
charm to the country not easily described.
It is the land of out-of-door life, where all the conditions of
existence are particularly happy. The
San Gabriel Valley, in Los Angeles County, the best known of southern
California, compares favorably with the European Riviera that extends along the
Mediterranean, backed by the Maritime Alps.
In San Gabriel we have the Pacific, glistening faintly in deep blues, from twenty to thirty miles away,
while to the north and east rise the Sierra Madre, a ridge of precipitous rock
from four to ten thousand feet in height, its base rising from groves of orange,
olive, and eucalyptus, its isolate peaks gleaming with the snows of winter. So
strange a contrast can be seen nowhere else in America. The winter of the North and a semi-tropical
summer are face to face. . . .
Coursing or riding after greyhounds in chase of jack-rabbit
is a pastime popular in the San Gabriel Valley, and fast finding favor all over
the United States wherever the conditions permit. It possesses all the variety of fox-hunting,
allows as hard riding if one wishes, and is by far the most exciting field
sport on all the list from badger-baiting to taking the gamy wild-cat. There are riders from every Eastern State
from old Virginia to Maine. No scarlet
coats, but top-boots and riding outfits that would have astonished the old
Spanish riders who gathered beneath the live-oaks in the valley years ago at
the winding of the horn. . . .
“A Jack Rabbit Drive,” C. F. Holder, Harper’s Weekly, 1890, Volume 34, Number
1766, October 25, 1890 page 830.
The drawings accompanying this
article were “from sketches made by Mr. Holder of his dog in the field, and
those belonging to the fine pack of J. de Barth Shorb.”[xxvii]
J. De Barth Shorb
Mr. J. de Barth Shorb, Jr., has the
finest greyhounds and staghounds in the country; the former from Australian
stock and remarkable runners. Los Angeles Times, October 6, 1889, page
7.
J. De Barth Shorb has family
connections to Old California through his marriage to the daughter of Don
Benito Wilson and his first wife Maria who was a member of the Yorba
family. Shorb is also personally
responsible for introducing widespread irrigation in the San Gabriel Valley,
built what was at one point the largest winery in the world in nearby Alhambra,
and named the town of San Marino, Pasadena’s even tonier neighbor.
J. de Barth Shorb was born in
Maryland to an old Alsatian-German family; his grandfather left Alsace when it
was ceded to France, bringing several colonies of Alsatians with him, settling
in Pennsylvania. Shorb’s father moved
from Pennsylvania to Emmitsburg, Maryland, but retained large real estate
interests in Pennsylvania and North Carolina.[xxviii] Shorb’s father, Dr. James A. Shorb, was
among the first class of students at St. Mary’s College,[xxix]
near the family homestead.
If J. De Barth Shorb was responsible
for naming the town of San Marino, his father was indirectly responsible,
having named their homestead after the Republic of San Marino. Years later, Dr. Shorb explained the name
“San Marino” to a reporter.
There is a classic beauty in its name, of which the late Dr.
Jas. A. Shorb felt very proud. The
Doctor was a great admirer of the military genius of Napoleon Bonaparte . . . .
When Bonaparte first invaded Italy, he
gave orders to the troops under his command to respect the Republic of San
Marino, to pay honor to its citizens, and in no event to invade its territorial
limits. . . . The people who inhabited
it were quiet wine making and pastoral people, and felt like living under a
government of their own, founded on laws of their own making, and not subject
to the laws of Emperors or Kings. . . .
When strolling in the garden of Malmaison one day, shortly
after the battle of Lodi, with Josephine by his side, the Emperor was in a
religious mood of mond. He heard the
church bell of Feuel toll the Angelus, and prostrating himself on the ground,
improvised a soliloquy addressing the empress:
“There is a God! Jean
Jacques Rousseau once said – ‘Socrates died like a philosopher, but Jesus
Christ died like a God.’ In that brief
expression and the lesson it teaches, and all the inspiration of nature, we
have a living faith that there is a God – the First Great Cause that shapes and
governs all things. . . . When in Italy
I was profoundly impressed when I met the prefect of one of the rural churches
near the Republic of San Marino. The
love of God, the sufferings of Christ in the garden of Gethsemane, the teaching
of the Apostles, and the fixed and unchangeable faith of St. Peter is the Rock
upon which I build; taught me more forcible than ever, by the rural peasantry
of San Marino. We will die, my dear
Josephine, in the bosom of the church in which we were born.”
Catoctin Clarion (Mechanicstown, Maryland), July 4, 1874, page 2.
J. De Barth Shorb’s father, Dr. James
A. Shorb, also played a role in establishing several places in California. Coincidentally, they were all located in
place named for a different “Marino” – Chief Marin of the Licatiut tribe in
California, also known as Huicmuse or Marino.
Like many Americans in 1849, Dr.
James A. Shorb went to California during the Gold Rush, as a member of and
treasurer of the Baltimore and Frederick Mining and Trading Company,[xxx]
which would set up shop primarily in the region that would later be known as
Marin County.
During the early days of statehood, California
was divided into counties in accordance with an act passed in February
1850. Dr. James A. Shorb became the
first Judge of Marin County, and in that capacity, together with a panel of two
associate judges and a clerk in September of the same year, was responsible for
subdividing Marin County into the townships “South Salieto, San Rafael,
Boulinas and Navat.”[xxxi]
J. De Barth Shorb emulated his
father’s adventurous spirit, moving out to California during the Civil
War. Emmitsburg, Maryland was not the
best place to be during the Civil War.
Lying between Antietam and Gettysburg, it was the scene of limited
action during the war, and saw a few skirmishes and a lot of traffic and activity
in town before, during and after the Battle of Gettysburg.[xxxii]
Shorb came to California in 1864 as
the “assistant superintendant of the Philadelphia and California Oil Company,
of which the late Thomas A. Scott of Pennsylvania Railroad fame was president.”[xxxiii] He later put his experience in drilling and
moving oil to a different use, collecting and distributing water to gold miners
in the placer mines in the San Feliciano Canyon near Piru, California.[xxxiv] It was during this time that he married the
daughter of Don Benito Wilson, who owned large tracts of land purchased from
Juan Bandini, and who would later sell much of the land that would become
Pasadena to the San Gabriel Valley Orange Grove Association.[xxxv]
De Barth Shorb later put his water
collection and distribution skills to use on his vast agricultural holdings and
real estate development projects.
During the spring and summer of 1874,
the Wilson and Shorb were busy laying irrigation pipe to bring more water from
more remote agricultural lands, while at the same time the Orange Grove Association
was busy laying water distribution piping to improve its lands.
Extensive
Pipe-Laying.
Messrs. Shorb and Wilson are now laying iron pipe to carry
water to the plains below the Mission.
They have laid about a mile and a half, and will irrigate a large tract
of land which has heretofore been lying idle and unproductive. The land which this irrigation will bring
into cultivation, will be planted with orange trees and vines, and will form
another splendid addition to our fruit belt. . . .
The Orange Grove Association have now laid all their
eleven-inch pipe, and will commence Monday to put down the seven-inch. . .
. They have now divided among the
shareholders three thousand acres of their tract, and each farm will be amply
supplied with water from the distributing pipes of the Association. . . . The shares in this Association have greatly
appreciated in value. We heard of one
sale this week, in which the party realized a profit on his share of $500. That’s a pretty good return for an investment
of $200 in November last.
Los Angeles Evening Express, May 2, 1874, page 2.
Later that summer, J. De Barth Shorb started
development of the new town of Alhambra, just down the hill from Pasadena.
 |
Los Angeles Express, July 20, 1875, page 4.
|
It is reported that Messrs. Wilson & Shorb are
progressing finely in laying out the site for their new town of Alhambra, in
the Lake Vineyard property. They have
completed a distributing reservoir of the capacity of 1,200,000 gallons.
Los Angeles Herald, August 18, 1874, page 3.
A decade later, J. De Barth Shorb also
laid out and developed the city of Ramona, as President of the San Gabriel
Valley Company.
 |
Los Angeles Times, December 16, 1886, page 7.
|
Shorb also owned one of California’s
largest grave vineyards and what was believed at the time to be the largest
winery in the world.
The San Gabriel Winery is located on a hill in the western
portion of the Alhambra. It is
controlled by the San Gabriel Wine Company, and is the largest winery in the
world. The buildings are constructed of
brick. The carrying capacity of the
cellar, two stories in height and 226 by 146 feet, is 1,500,000 gallons. . . . The
buildings are so arranged on the hill-slope that the grapes are not handled
from the time they are emptied from the boxes until the wine is ready for
shipment, as the needful labor is performed by the force of gravitation.
R. W. C. Farnsworth, A Southern California Paradise (in the
Suburbs of Los Angeles), Pasadena, California, R. W. C. Farnsworth, 1883,
page 29.
De Barth Shorb’s winery died in 1892,
due to blight in local vineyards. He
died in 1896, following five months of home confinement due to heart disease.[xxxvi]
He died young, but at least he lived
long enough to see the fruits of his labors begin to flourish in the growing
communities of Pasadena and Alhambra, and witness the first several Tournaments
of Roses.
The Valley Hunt Club
On November 3, 1888, within days of
the publication of C. F. Holder’s description of a jack-rabbit drive in Harper’s Weekly in late-October 1888, C.
F. Holder and other hunting enthusiasts organized their new club, The Valley
Hunt Club.
The Los Angeles Herald Sunday Magazine, October 8,1911, page 5.
The photograph above is said to be of
the Valley Hunt Club at one of their first meetings in 1888. The day may have been similar to another hunt
a few months later, with a picnic lunch and photographs.
Saturday morning at about 8 o’clock the horn of Don Arturo
Bandini was heard in the vicinity of Monk Hill, and a few moments later the
Valley Hunt wound its way down the slope and spread out over the plain. It was a regular meet of the hunt, and about
thirty riders were in the field, and as many more in carriages. . . .
The plan of the day was to sweep up toward the Arroyo Seco,
to the west; then follow the mountains down to Los Flores Cañon, where luncheon
had been taken in carriages. . . .
At 1 o’clock the hunt discussed a luncheon at Los Flores
Cañon, where photographs were taken by Mr. Buell and Prof. Pickering. . . .
Mrs. Fremont received the trophies of the day from Miss
Elliott, and responded by decorating the winning dog, the fine blue greyhound
of Mr. J. de Barth Shorb, Jr.
The Los Angeles Times, February 11, 1889, page 6.
One of the Valley Hunt Club’s first
big outings was a two-day affair in what is not North Orange County, forty
miles to the south. They stayed in the
Palmyra Hotel in Orange, and hunted coyote and jackrabbit on the hunting
grounds of an Austrian “nobleman” of some sort, Count Jaroslav “Jaro” von Schmidt,
who owned a 300 acre ranch in what is now Tustin, California. Attendees may have seen Von Schmidt’s large-scale
painting of Samson and Delilah (the only known major work of the Czech painter
K. Pavlik, which sold at auction at Christies in 2006 for $31,200), and the
ladies may have purchased some of the Count’s stuffed hummingbirds for their hats.[xxxvii]
 |
Count Jaro Von Schmidt, Los Angeles Times, November 25, 1900, page 25.
|
A Valley
Hunt.
The Palmyra Hotel at Orange is to be the scene of great
festivities during the coming week. The
Valley Hunt Club will meet on the 9th, and will scour the country in
search of the tuneful coyote and long-eared John rabbit. . . . [A]s the
arrangements are in the hands of Count Von Schmidt and the Hon J. de Barth
Shorb, a good time may well be anticipated.
Los Angeles Herald, December 31, 1888, page 1.
 |
C. F. Holder
C. F. Holder and several other members of the Valley Hunt
gave the club’s pack of foxhounds their first outing of the season yesterday,
and the pups their first lesson.
C. F. Holder. Museum curator for the Museum of Natural
History in New York City, well known writer and academic in a variety of
fields. Helped bring attention to
Pasadena through his writings.
Charles Frederick Holder was a
curator at the Museum of Natural History in New York City before coming to
California, and wrote textbooks and dozens of newspaper and magazine articles
about nature.[xxxviii] In 1887, the Los Angeles Times described
Charles Frederick Holder as, a “nationally-known writer on common sense natural
history, whose contributions to leading magazines and scores of the best news
papers in the country – including The Times – are so widely enjoyed.”[xxxix]
He was also an avid rider who enjoyed
hunting with the hounds in and around Pasadena.
He was the Vice President of the Valley Hunt Club when it was founded in
1888, and President when they staged the first Tournament of Roses in 1890.
With the new club underway, C. F. Holder
continued his public relations campaign promoting the region, aided by
illustrations from the famed artist of the American West, Frederick
Remington.
 |
| Frederick Remington, Antelope Killing a “Rattler.” |
It is not generally appreciated that we
have in southern California, Arizona, and the adjacent country an antelope that
in its speed, beauty, and other qualities that appeal to the sportsman is equal
to many of the other forms. . . .
The view of this antelope region, or a
portion of it, from the summit of San Antonio is one of the most singular in
the country. We are eleven thousand feet
above the Pacific, that, miles away, gleams and shimmers in the sunlight. To the west we look down upon a series of
valleys, bedecked in green, orange, lemon, and lime, with a floral carpet of
infinite hues.
Harper’s Weekly, February 2, 1889,
Volume 33, Number 1676, February 2, 1889, page 87.
The Valley
Hunt did not always make a kill. In one
of their very first hunts, for example, the Los
Angeles Herald reported that, “The Valley Hunt Club had a long hunt and a
merry time last Wednesday. . . . All
were happy and enjoyed themselves hugely although they did not capture any
game.”[xl] But the kill was not really the point; the
thrill was in the chase.
But even
when they did make a kill, at least in the case of a rabbit, C. F. Holder
assures us that it was not cruel.
 |
| “The Dog Inserts Its Long Nose Beneath the Hare, and Tosses Him into the Air.” |
No charge of cruelty
can be brought against coursing where the animal is faithfully followed. In shooting rabbits and hares they will often
escape badly wounded, but death by the hounds is instantaneous.
The death of the hare
is not considered an important feature, the pleasure being derived from
watching the movements of the dogs, their magnificent bursts of speed, the
turns and stops, their strategy in a hundred ways, and especially from the
enjoyment of riding over the finest winter country in the world.
“Coursing with the Greyhounds in Southern California,” C. F. Holder, St. Nicholas Magazine, Volume 17, Number
1, November 1889, page 8.
And as people watched the dogs, the dogs watched for rabbits.
 |
| “The hound could jump upon the horse, and so look around for a jack-rabbit.” |
C. F. Holder described the beauty and excitement of the hunt;
Frederick Remington captured the drama. It
wasn’t always jackrabbits; sometimes the Valley Hunt Club went after coyotes –
the “wily coyote.”
 |
| Frederick Remington, “Running a Coyote with Hounds in Southern California.” |
A Day with the Staghounds.
To ride through
golden-yellow eschscholtzias and violets, to beat down the rich green grass
beneath your horse’s feet, and see the hounds deep in growing grain, while the
snow-banks of winter gleam and scintillate in your face, is the privilege of
the cross-country rider in the San Gabriel Valley. The lowland is clothed in summer greens, and
a wealth of flowers covers the plain and mesa; yet the Sierra Madre peaks – San
Antonio, San Jacinto, and the rest – are mounds of gleaming snow, tempering the
air and presenting a wondrous contrast. . . .
The horse of the
master of the hounds has taken the bit in his teeth and rushed at it, tripped,
and gone to earth, landing on the other side of the fence, it is true, but so
tangled and bound by the treacherous wire that it lies, feet in the air,
utterly powerless to move. The master of
the hounds lands upon his feet, while the coyote has deftly slipped under the
lower wire, followed by two dogs, and is scaling the Puente Hills! Wily coyote!
“A Day with the
Staghounds,” C. F. Holder, Harper’s
Weekly, Volume 34, Number 1766, October 25, 1890, page 832.
Hellen
Elliott Bandini and C. F. Holder were not the only members of the Valley Hunt
Club to write glowing reports of the club’s activities in magazines with
national reach.
The frontispiece of the Californian for
the holiday, or January, number shows an incident in cross-country riding in
California in midwinter, where the horses beat down flowers instead of frozen
snow-crust. Two horses are shown going
over a hedge and ditch, with the greyhounds between them. The sketch is by Mr. Harmer, the illustrator
of Capt. King’s novels, and is an actual incident in the experience of the
Valley Hunt club. Dr. F. F. Rowland,
master of hounds of this fashionable club, and a well-known member of the
Philadelphia Rose Tree Hunt, gives a spirited and handsomely illustrated
article on cross country riding in California.
The Saint Paul Globe (Saint Paul,
Minnesota), December 28, 1891, page 6.
Dr. F. F.
Rowland contrasted the dreary winter hunting conditions on the East Coast with
those on the West Coast.
To the admirer of the beautiful in
nature and the lover of a good saddle-horse there is no more ideal spot to
enjoy both than in Southern California during that season very inappropriately
called winter; for, as a matter of fact, winter may be said to be unknown here
except what is seen and experienced on the distant snow-crowned peaks of the
Sierra Madre Mountains. . . .
To the one who for the first time is
experiencing the brilliancy and beauty of a midwinter day’s outing in Southern
California comparisons arer truly odious.
It requires a positive mental effort to make one believe that probably
at the identical hour Eastern hunting clubs are taking “worm” and four-railed
fences, galloping over hill and field with avidity if the dogs are in full-cry,
wading creeks filled with floating ice, or plunging through snow-drifts, or
facing a cutting norther.
“Cross-Country
Riding,” Francis Fenelon Rowland, California Magazine, Volume 1, Number 2,
January 1892,
F. F. Rowland
 |
| Francis Fenelon Rowland (right) with Mayor Martin Weight (left). Los Angeles Herald, January 2, 1902, page 4. |
“Dr. F. F. Rowland has presented to the Valley Hunt Club a
pack of thoroughbred hounds.” Los Angeles Times, July 26, 1889, page
6.
“They came from the famous Rose Tree Hunt in Media, Pa.” Los Angeles Times, January 1, 1890, page
7.
Dr. Francis Fenelon Rowland
(sometimes “Frank;” usually F. F.) was born in Media, Pennsylvania in
1847. He studied medicine at the
Jefferson Medical College in Philadelphia (the same school where Thomas B.
Elliott had studied) and interned at Guy’s hostpital in London, England. He was a relative newcomer to Pasadena,
having arrived in Pasadena in 1887 as a physician for the Pacific Electric,
Salt Lake and Santa Fe Railways. His
brother, Dr. Ward B. Rowland, moved to Pasadena at about the same time, where
he became an assistant state veterinarian in California, and sometimes served as
“master of the hounds” for the Valley Hunt Club.
Before moving to Pasadena, Dr. F. F.
Rowland was for many years an active participant in the “Rose Tree Hunt,” a
hunt club in Media, Pennsylvania.
Rose Tree Hunt
The Rose Tree Hunt is the oldest organization of its kind in
the United States.[xli] It was formally organized as a hunt club
after English models in the year 1850 . . . .
For nearly half a century the Rose Tree has flourished with a
vigorous growth; its roots of fox hunting go back far into the history of the
county. And thus firmly implanted in the
manners and economy of the people it is in no danger of decay. It stands first and foremost as a
thorough-going and thoroughly American fox-hunting club.
“The Rose Tree Hunt Club,” Alfred
Stoddart, Outing Magazine, Volume 19,
Number 1, October, 1891, page 44.
In addition to the recreational fox
hunts for members, the club hosted semi-annual horse racing events, which drew
large crowds and money to the town.
The first races held by the club were in 1877 and semi-yearly
since, in May and October, the race track by the Rose Tree is thronged with the
wealth, fashion and beauty of Philadelphia and adjoining counties to witness
the gentlemanly struggles for the prizes donated by the club.
The Times
(Philadelphia, Pennsylvania), August 23, 1885, page 2.
In 1885, the club moved the races to
the Elwyn Agricultural Society fairgrounds, demonstrating the races’ profit
potential.
The Rose
Tree Hunt and Its Future Brilliant Prospects.
Media, October 8. – The charming October day, the large crowd
of fashionables present and the perfect good order preserved throughout the
meet has made the fall races this year of the Rose Tree Hunt at Elwyn fair
grounds memorable, and it is safe to say that hereafter the “Annuals,” at
least, will always be held at the new grounds, so much better suited are they
for an occasion of this kind. The races
of Thursday, which drew a crowd of 5,000 people, among them the most ultra fashionable
of the race and sport attending-people of the city, have set the heads of the
club and Agricultural Society people wagging and a semi-union of the two
looking to an improvement of the races is suggested.
The Times
(Philadelphia), October 9, 1887, page 15.
The “Tournament of Roses”
Nearly two decades later, Rowland’s
experience and familiarity with the events staged by the Rose Tree Hunt in
Media were remembered as having contributed to the successful organizing of the
original Tournament of Roses in Pasadena.
At that time Dr. F. F. Rowland had but recently arrived in
Philadelphia, where he had been an active member of the celebrated “Rose Tree
Hunt.” And was thoroughly familiar with the plan there used in a similar
entertainment. . . .
Long Beach Tribune (Long Beach, California), January 2, 1907, page 6.
And the Rose Tree Hunt races were specifically
mentioned as a model for the event during the run-up to the first Tournament of
Roses.
Tournaments of a similar character are frequently held in
some of the Eastern States. The Rose
Tree Hunt races are famous in Pennsylvania, as are also the fall races of the
First Troop, Philadelphia City Cavalry.
These occasions, however, only include horse-racing, and are devoid of
many of the interesting features the Valley Hunt Club proposes to introduce
here on New Year’s Day.
Los Angeles Times, December 19, 1889, page 7.
The tournament which the club gives is simply following out
this idea, and to afford the people, old and young, some holiday amusement, and
establish something permanent in this line.
The custom is one which finds place among all the hunt clubs of the
East, and from the interest taken is evidently going to be a success here.
Los Angeles Times, January 1, 1890, page 7.
A largely forgotten aspect of the
original Tournament of Roses which directly bears on the original meaning of
the name is that competitors were expected to wear colored roses, of different
colors, to distinguish themselves from one another.
The colors of the riders and contestants of all races will be
roses of different hues and kinds . . . .
It will be called the “tournament of the Roses,” because the
contestants in the various events will be designated by the color of the rose
they wear.
Los Angeles Times, December 19, 1889, page 7, col. 1 and 3.
On the day of the first Tournament of
Roses, for example, Mamie Gertrude Pierce, a favorite in the “little girls’
pony race, was to ride “the famous Bob, and her rose is the Marechal Niel”
(Marechal Niel is a yellow rose).[xlii]
 |
| Childe Hassam, Maréchal Niel Roses, 1919, oil on canvas, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of John Gellatly, 1929.6.58. |
On the day of the 1892 Tournament of
Roses, the Los Angeles Times listed
the “entries, owner and ‘colors or roses’” for the scheduled horse races. The roses, listed for the most part by
popular name of the rose instead of color, included, “La France,” “Sunset,”
“black and orange,” “Castilian,” “Paul Neyron,” “Nankin,” “Eliza Savage,” “La
Marc,” “Ragged Robin,” “Her Majesty,” “Gold of Ophir,” “Boudon d’Or,” and “La
France.”[xliii]
And finally, at the 1893 Tournament
of Roses, C. F. Holder’s greyhound, “Mouse” reportedly wore “a huge collar of
red geraniums (the ‘colors’ of the club to which she belongs),” on the day she won
a challenge race against a horse named Daisy.[xliv]
The practice of designating
competitors by type of rose may not have been fully embraced even at the time,
and seems to have passed by the wayside fairly quickly. These few references to the practice are the
only ones Early Sports ‘n’ Pop-Culture History Blog was able to find.
There is no direct evidence that
Rowland or others chose the rose them and name, “Tournament of Roses,” as a
specific nod to the “Rose Tree Hunt.”
Moreover, reminiscences written just over a decade later credit Holder
and Rowland equally with establishing the tournament, and C. F. Holder alone
with naming the tournament.
It is to Charles Frederic Holder and Dr. Francis Fenelon
Rowland that Pasadena owes her Tournament of Roses . . . .
Many eastern hunt clubs were in the habit of giving annual
race meets, devoting at least one day to a tourney comprising various sports,
and it was suggested that this would be an admirable custom for the Valley Hunt
to establish, particularly as it might be enjoyed in mid-winter. . . .
An all-day fete was planned and named by Mr. Holder, “The
Tournament of Roses.”
The Capital
(Los Angeles), Volume 15, Number 1, page 12.
But F. F. Rowland’s connections to an
eastern club called the “Rose Tree Hunt” clubs, and his influence in planning
the original “Tournament of Roses,” suggests the possibility that it could have
influenced the name, even if the name was decided upon by someone else.
 |
| J. W. Wood, Pasadena, California, Historical and Personal, Published by the Author, 1917, page 437. |
[i] San Francisco Chronicle, January 26,
1890, page 8.
[ii]
Wilson was a partner, with his son-in-law J. DeBarth Shorb, in a furniture
factory in Wilmington, conveniently located near the wharves in what is today
called Los Angeles Harbor, and with railroad connections to the interior. Shorb liquidated the company shortly after
Wilson’s death in 1878. See, Los Angeles
Herald, June 13, 1878, page 3.
[iii] Los
Angeles Times, November 29, 1889, page 7.
[iv] “Hunting
the Wild Cat in Southern California,” Helen Elliott Bandini, Overland Monthly, 1892, page 283.
[v] Los Angeles Times, November 29, 1889,
page 7.
[vi] Los Angeles Times, August 27, 1882, page
4 (“The readings of Mrs. Carr and Miss Nellie Elliott, the banjo solo of Geo.
P. Clark, flute solo of Arturo BAndini and instrumental solo by Miss Freeman
were also highly appreciated.”).
[vii] Los Angeles Herald, February 10, 1876,
page 3 (“Mr. Arturo Bandini came near furnishing us yesterday with a brilliant
accident. His beautiful silver-mounted
revolver got on a tear and insisted on shooting somebody. The result was a charming bullet hole through
his coat-sleeve, before the frisky firelock could be subdued.”).
[viii]
Los Angeles Evening Express, July 26, 1876, page 3.
[ix] The Los Angeles Times, December 11,
1887, page 13.
[x]
“Our Spanish American Families,” Helen Elliott Bandini, The Overland Monthly, Series 2, Volume 26, Number 151, July 1895,
Page 22.
[xi]
“Pioneer Spanish Families in California,” The
Century Illustrated, Volume 51, Number 3, January 1891, page 379.
[xii] Los Angeles Herald, April 30, 1875, page 2
(“In this city, April 29th, R. S. Baker to Mrs. Arcadia B. de
Steaqrns, all of this city. The couple
left on the overland train for San Francisco.”).
[xiii]
Los Angeles Evening Express, April
15, 1875, page 3 (“Mr. C. W. Moor, a gentleman who runs three banks in Idaho,
went out to Santa Monica with Col. R. S. Baker yesterday. He was delighted with that beautiful section,
and was very anxious to purchase some property there.”).
[xiv] Los Angeles Evening Express, March 29,
1876, page 3 (Colonel R. S. Baker returned today from a visit to the Pico oil
wells, which he owns and is now developing.
He has three wells there, and they have already been sunk to a depth of
about one hundred and fifty feet. One of
these wells is now yielding at the rate of twelve barrels of very superior oil
a day.”).
[xv] Los Angeles Herald, April 9, 1876, page
4 (“Los Angeles County Bank, President J. S. Slauson, Vice-President R. S.
Baker.”).
[xvi] The Boston Globe, September 27, 1913,
page 2.
[xvii]
Arizona Republic, June 4, 1915, page
1.
[xviii]
The Guardian (London), June 10, 2000,
Saturday Review, page 10.
[xix] Los Angeles Times, March 19, 1931, part
2, page 3.
[xx] Los Angeles Times, May 22, 1883, page 4
(“Marriage licenses were issued yesterday to . . . Arturo Bandini and Nellie J.
Elliott.”).
[xxi] The Indianapolis News, January 13, 1872,
page 3.
[xxii]
The Indianapolis News, February 10,
1872, page 3.
[xxiii]
The Indianapolis News, April 3, 1872,
page 3.
[xxiv]
It is not clear whether Samuel Hunsucker, who sat on the financial committee, ever
exercised his proxy – his Hunsucker
proxy.
[xxv] The Brownstone Banner (Jackson County,
Indiana), March 26, 1873, page 1 (“A portion of Vallonia Colony have already
started for Kansas. Success to them.”).
[xxvi]
The Brownstone Banner (Jackson
County, Indiana), July 30, 1873, page 5 (“Our claim of $4 against the Vallonia
Colony still remains unpaid, with a very fair prospect that it will remain so
indefinitely.”).
[xxvii]
Los Angeles Times, November 2, 1888,
page 3.
[xxviii]
“Shorb-White Marriage at San Gabriel,” San
Francisco Chronicle, September 20, 1894, page 3.
[xxix]
J. Thomas Scharf, History of Western
Maryland, 1898, page 591 (“The first students were John John Lilly, of
Conewago, James Clements, of Littlestown, Rev. John Hickey, of Frederick, and
Dr. James A. Shorb.”).
[xxx] The Washington Union (Washington DC),
April 26, 1849, page 2.
[xxxi]
J. P. Munro-Fraser, History of Marin
County, California, San Francisco, Alley, Bowen, 1880, pages 197-199.
[xxxii]
“Emmistburg: The Pivotal Crossroad of the Civil War,” John Allen Miller,
Emmitsburg Area Historical Society. http://emmitsburg.net/archive_list/articles/history/civil_war/short_history_of_civil_way.htm
[xxxiii]
San Francisco Chronicle, April 17,
1896, page 1.
[xxxiv]
San Francisco Chronicle, September
20, 1894, page 3; according to a report on water rights in Southern California
in the San Francisco Chronicle of
August 15, 1886, page 2, J. De Barth Shorb still owned water rights from Piru
Creek, together with a partner named William McKee, decades later.
[xxxv]
San Francisco Chronicle, September
20, 1894, page 3; The Sacramento Bee, June 14, 1867, page 3 (“Marriages . . .
In Los Angeles, June 4th, J. De Barth Shorb to M. J. Wilson.”).
[xxxvi]
Los Angeles Times, April 17, 1896,
page 7.
[xxxvii]
“Remember the Main Attractions of Old Tustin,” Benjamin Epstein, Los Angeles Times, September 1, 1994
(“Residents of the Hews House built in 1881 (350 South B St.) included Count
Jaro von Schmidt, who hired boys to kill hummingbirds that he then stuffed for
ladies’ hats.).
[xxxviii]
“Past on Parade: The Man Behind the Valley Hunt Club,” Pasadena Daily News online, December 12, 2010. https://www.dailynews.com/2010/12/12/past-on-parade-the-man-behind-valley-hunt-club/
[xxxix]
Los Angeles Times, August 29, 1887,
page 5.
[xl] Los Angeles Herald, December 28, 1888,
page 2.
[xli] The
Rose Tree moved to York County, Pennsylvania in 1960, and still exists today,
as the Rose Tree-Blue Mountain Hunt. https://www.rosetree-bluemountain.com/about_us
[xlii]
Los Angeles Times, January 1, 1890,
page 7.
[xliii]
Los Angeles Times, January 1, 1892,
page 7.
[xliv]
“A Tournament of Roses,” Charles Frederick Holder, St. Nicholas, Volume 20, Number , March 1893, page 279.
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