Los Angeles herald., 1905-07-30

Agitation about the water question
naturally directs ones attention to the
country through which percolate, and
from which are derived, the waters of
the Los Angeles river, and to some of
the men of note Of those localities.
A generation ago the Rancho Los
Feliz was the home of Leon r.. Row
land, brother OF Gen. John M. Bald
win, deputy sheriff under William r.
Rowland In the early thirties. These
gentlemen belonged to distinguished
family in Georgia, and were both elab-
orately educated and highly gifted.
Leon was the younger and had been
largely trained in Europe, principally
in Germany and France. He was mar
ried to member of the illustrious
Washington family, and there was
probably not more charming house
hold In the United States than his
1t was my privilege to be Mr. Bald
wins guest in the spring Of 1878, and
my recollections Of the visit are most
agreeable. little dreamed, as en-
joyed his hospitality, that his career was
to be SO short and tragic. A few years
after the date named he went down to
Sonora to superintend a mine in which
he was interested as an owner, and was
murdered under circumstances Of great
atrocity. The government of the United
States took the matter UP and exacted
something like an adequate indemnity
IL an indemnity could be adequate for
such loss.
The elder lived in Los Angeles for
a good many years and finally removed
to San Francisco, most Angelenos prob
ably believing that he is dead. I am
happy to be able to assure them, how
ever, that since his removal from this
city he married the widow Of Gen.
Sanford, both Of whom were well
known in this city, and who for years
dispensed in elegant hospitality down
near the Santa Fe springs.
Genesis Of Griffith Park
After Leon Baldwin's death, Los Feliz
ranch passed into the possession of
Griffith ]. Griffith. It was this gentle
man who sold the right of the water
of the Los Angeles river for $4,000,
and who afterward gave the major por-
ton of the ranch to the city for a
park. 1t possesses features Of excep-
tional scenic beauty. To these is added
the attraction, little up the river, OF
q haunted house, which has for years
been pointed to travellers on the South
ern Pacific as one of the sights of the
A notable man about Los Angeles
for years was Eulogis r. de Cells. In
the time of which am writing this
young gentleman inherited a magnifi-
cent estate of fifty thousand acres or
so in the famous San Fernando valley,
from which. and from its watersheds.
much of the water of the Los An
geles river is derived. Eugolis was
caballero Of a resplendent order. He
knew how to burn UP money with great
eclat and for a while he made the
welkin ring.
able, the inexorable day came, and the
mortgage alembics soon reduced De
Cells fortune to nothing. Stripped of
his inheritance, De Cells became editor
of the Spanish paper La Cronica, and
for decades Illuminated his opinions in
that journal. He died short time ago
from paralysis, from which he suffered
for years.
When Maclay Came
In the early seventies the quid-
nuncs Of Los Angeles frightened up
at the news of the arrival of the Hon.
Charles Maclay, who shortly located
himself in this city, preparatory to an
inspection of the lands about San Fer
nando, where he quickly acquired a
large ranch at a preposterously low
figure. Senator Maclay was a great
addition to the society of any commun-
ity. He was politician, a clergyman
and a raconteur, of high grade in all
these lines; but, in the latter, unsur-
passed. He had been the chairman of
the senate judiciary committee of the
late legislature, in which, it was whis-
pered, matters of great interest to the
railways had been satisfactorily de-
cided.
The late Governor Leland Stanford
never forgot a friend, and 1t was gen.
orally understood that the senator's
large San Fernando estate cost him
nothing, unless it were one Of those
notes of which Governor Stanford left