Quote:
Originally Posted by tovangar2
[...]*Note the future Lacey Park on the map above. Here marked "Kewen Lake". [...]
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And now for my
second wall of text today, heaven help us; see towards the end for connection with San Gabriel: "
Kewen" above is probably Col. Edward John Cage Kewen, on whom I have the following stray notes: ca. 1826-1828, born in Missouri; practiced law in St. Louis, Missouri; California’s first State Attorney General;
Los Angeles Star of December 6, 1856: “Col. E.J.C. Kewen.—We take the following, regarding this gentleman, from the Nicarauguense of Nov. 1st: [‘]This gentleman departs by the present steamer for the United States, on business connected with the Republic of Nicaragua. We beseech ‘Young America’ to give him a hearing in the United States. Col. Kewen is known in California as one of the most eloquent and graceful speakers in that State, and his relations with this country have proved him worthy of all confidence. He is an apostle of Progress, and all we ask of the people of the Southern and Atlantic States is to lend him their ears.[’] The lady of Col. Kewen, has been residing in this city with her father, Dr. White, for some months past, and takes her departure by to-day’s steamer, to join the gallant Colonel at New Orleans”; January 17, 1857, published (
Los Angeles Star): “ […], having arrived from Nicaragua, had addressed a mass meeting of the citizens of New Orleans on the state of affairs in that country. The papers of that city are enthusiastic in their praises of his oration. […] We learn […] that Col. E.J.C. Kewen […] has left New Orleans for Alabama, Mississippi and Georgia to raise recruits for General Walker”; February 6, 1858, published (
Los Angeles Star): “E.J.C. Kewen, Attorney and Counsellor at Law, Los Angeles, Cal., will practice in the Courts of the First Judicial District, the Supreme Court, and the U.S. District Court of the Southern District of California. Office, in Salis’ [
i.e., Celis’] Building, recently occupied by C.E. Thom, Esq.,—opposite the Bella Union”; 1858, city School Superintendent; August 14, 1858, published (
Los Angeles Star): “on the north side of our office [
of the Los Angeles Star], Col. E.J. Kewen has removed his office to the house formerly occupied by Mr. Temple. With him is Mr. Myer J. Newmark, Notary Public”; August 27, 1859, published (
Los Angeles Star): “E.J.C. Kewen, Attorney and Counsellor at Law, Los Angeles, Cal. […] Office, in Temple’s Building, opposite Mellus’s store”; 1860, present in San Gabriel as L.A. District Attorney with savings of $7,000 and real estate valued at $25,000; 1860s, in partnership with Myron Norton; 1862, mentioned as showing support for the Confederacy; October 18, 1862, published (
Los Angeles Star): “He was, as will be remembered, arrested in Los Angeles some time ago, for alleged treasonable language”; mid-1860s, shot Fred Lemberg, not fatally, for a supposed indignity; 1870, present in San Gabriel as a lawyer with savings of $1,000 and real estate valued at $43,000; 1872, listed as present at Mission San Gabriel; 1872, “Col. Kewen was one of those brilliant men of whom we have seen so many, gifted with fine powers of oratory, but who are deficient in that nice poise of judgment which renders their words weighty and decisive when applied to the practical questions of life. He was brave, generous and affable. He could not do enough for a friend, and was the most entertaining of hosts at his fine home, ‘El Molino,’ in the San Gabriel orange belt. He came to California across the plains in 1849 in the same wagon train with Dr. T.J. White, of St. Louis, and family, and on their arrival at Sacramento, he married one of his daughters. This was one of the first weddings, if not the first, celebrated between Americans in that city. Col. Kewen was of a martial spirit, and when General Walker, the great filibuster, took his ill-fated expedition to Nicaragua, he joined him and fought under his banner gallantly to the end. He was the first Attorney-General of the State, filling the office from 1849 to 1851. He died in Los Angeles in 1879” (Ayers, James J.,
Gold and Sunshine, Boston, 1922; pp. 268-269); ca. 1872, as a lawyer, involved in the aftermath of the Chinese Massacre; ca. 1875, lived on 450 acres in what is now the north part of the city of San Gabriel, property including the mission’s decaying old mill, which he converted into a residence; sometime member of the State Assembly and, later, District Attorney; November, 1879, died; distinguished for eloquence; wife Fanny was a daughter of Dr. T.J. White; son Perry; in San Gabriel, a neighbor was Volney Howard.
Edit: But wait! There's more!:
Bonus: The above Col. Kewen was likely the source of the name of Kewen Dorsey. Who was Kewen Dorsey? The son of Hilliard Dorsey and Civility Rubottom, the latter of whom was the daughter of William Rubottom, who not only shot dead his son-in-law Hilliard but also supposedly imported the first possums into California.