Quote:
Originally Posted by tovangar2
This next one's huge, but one couldn't read it otherwise.
Howard Metcalf
Los Angeles 1871. Bunker Hill looks more riven with canyons in this view than it does in photos. The town curves around it with the cemetery in isolation on Bunker Hill overlooking Ft Moore Hill.
I wonder what they did with the bones when Bunker Hill was built over.
The Nickel is farmland.
Drawing based on the 1929 Women's University Club of LA map
http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/...64l+pm000231))
Correction: The above map shows an incorrect location for the cemetery. It was actually on top of Fort Moore Hill, not on Bunker Hill. |
A couple of things I found interesting about this map posted a while ago by
tovangar2:
1) It shows Weller Street as a dominating factor in early LA streets;
2) lists the Bella Union Hotel as the old Mexican government offices -- I didn't know it was a Mexican era building. It started me wondering if there were other multi-storey Mexican era buildings;
3) shows the Protestant cemetery on the East side of Fort Moore hill;
4) lists a church at the Eastern base of Pound Cake Hill as the first Protestant Church in the city. I've seen photos of a small church at the base of the High School stairs but I wasn't able to find them now to post here -- I'll keep looking.
Here are some quotes I pulled from Harris Newmark, Sixty Years in Southern California regarding the city cemetery:
"Two cemeteries were in existence at the time whereof I write: the Roman Catholic—abandoned a few years ago—which occupied a site on Buena Vista Street, and one, now long deserted, for other denominations. This cemetery, which we 104 shall see was sadly neglected, thereby occasioning bitter criticism in the press, was on Fort Hill. Later, another burial-ground was established in the neighborhood of what is now Flower and Figueroa streets, near Ninth, many years before there was any thought of Rosedale or Evergreen."
"For years, such was the neglect of the Protestant burial ground that in 1860 caustic criticism was made by each newspaper discussing the condition of the cemetery: there was no fence, headstones were disfigured or demolished, and there was little or no protection to the graves. As a matter of fact, when the cemetery on Fort Hill was abandoned, but few of the bodies were removed."
"Elsewhere I have indicated the condition of the public cemetery. While an adobe wall enclosed the Roman Catholic burial-place, and a brick wall surrounded the Jewish resting-place for the dead, nothing was done until 1863 to improve the Protestant cemetery, although desecration went so far that the little railing around the grave of poor Mrs. Leck, the grocer's wife who had been murdered, was torn down and burned. Finally, the matter cried to Heaven so audibly that in January, Los Angeles Masons appropriated one hundred and fifty dollars, to be added to some five hundred dollars raised by popular subscription; and the Common Council having appointed a committee to supervise the work, William H. Perry put up the fence, making no charge for his services."
The question of the City Cemetery is of particular interest to me. It was never an official cemetery which may account to the lack of an exact boundary, especially before the land boom of the 1880s. After that, there was an attempt to register the graves in order to demarcate most of the hill and cemetery for housing development. The registers clearly however clearly listed far fewer people than had actually been buried there. From memory, I think the city register listed less than 200 people as buried there, but even just recently scores of bodies were disinterred for the construction of the current High School for the Arts at Fort Moore Hill.
I remember reading somewhere that in the early years following the Mexican American War Protestant people didn't want to bury their kin with the Catholics in the their cemetery by the plaza, but often had no choice. There are stories of people digging up the bodies and reinterring them on the hill.
Another noirish story I remember reading in old newspaper clip c. 1920 was about an effort to get rid of whatever was left of the cemetery. It complained about "miasma" from the graves harming the students at the adjacent high school. There was also an article about student using the neglected mausoleums as a public sex environment.
There were many notable graves at this unofficial cemetery, most of them moved to one or another of the local cemeteries. Many are at Evergreen and Rosedale. Robert Carlisle, who died in front of the Bella Union after crashing a society wedding party, was reinterred at Rose Hills.
On Robert Carlisle, also from Harris Newmark:
"While these festivities were taking place, a quarrel, ending in a tragedy, began in the hotel office below. Robert Carlisle, who had married Francisca, daughter of Colonel Isaac Williams, and was the owner of some forty-six thousand acres comprising the Chino Ranch, fell into an altercation with A. J. King, then Under Sheriff, over the outcome of a murder trial; but before any further damage was done, friends separated them.
About noon on the following day, however, when people were getting ready to leave for the steamer and everything was life and bustle about the hotel, Frank and Houston King, the Under Sheriff's brothers, passing by the bar-room of the Bella Union and seeing Carlisle inside, entered, drew their six-shooters and began firing at him. Carlisle also drew a revolver and shot Frank King, who died almost instantly. Houston King kept up the fight, and Carlisle, riddled with bullets, dropped to the sidewalk. There King, not yet seriously injured, struck his opponent on the head, the force of the blow breaking his weapon; but Carlisle, a man of iron, put forth his little remaining strength, staggered to the wall, raised his pistol with both hands, took deliberate aim and fired. It was his last, but effective shot, for it penetrated King's body.
Carlisle was carried into the hotel and placed on a billiard-table; and there, about three o'clock, he expired. At the first exchange of shots, the people nearby, panic-stricken, fled, and only a merciful Providence prevented the sacrifice of other 348 lives. J. H. Lander was accidentally wounded in the thigh; some eight or ten bystanders had their clothes pierced by stray bullets; and one of the stage-horses dropped where he stood before the hotel door. When the first shot was fired, I was on the corner of Commercial Street, only a short distance away, and reached the scene in time to see Frank King expire and witness Carlisle writhing in agony—a death more striking, considering the murder of Carlisle's brother-in-law, John Rains. Carlisle was buried from the Bella Union at four o'clock the next day. King's funeral took place from A. J. King's residence, two days later, at eight o'clock in the morning.
Houston King having recovered, he was tried for Carlisle's murder, but was acquitted; the trial contributing to make the affair one of the most mournful of all tragic events in the early history of Los Angeles, and rendering it impossible to express the horror of the public. One feature only of the terrible contest afforded a certain satisfaction, and that was the splendid exhibition of those qualities, in some respects heroic, so common among the old Californians of that time."
I understand that Carlisle had a diamond in each of his front teeth and that grave robbers broke into his tomb and stole his face off. Grave looting, and Carlisle's tomb, in particular, were cited in a news article as another reason for the permanent removal of the cemetery.
As to where those recently discovered remains found under the new high school ended-up is a very intriguing question to me. The question is even more noir when I consider that it's probably tied-up with the price of real estate.
Seriously, though, I'd like to know where the bodies ended-up. Any help is welcome.
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Interesting GatoVerde. I like the part where the guy had his face ripped off for his gold teeth. 
ouch!
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