Living in San Bernardino was a customer of ours, a celebrity by the name of Lewis Jacobs. He had joined the Mormon Church and was a merchant of worth and consequence. Jacobs was an authority on all matters of finance connected with his town, and anyone wishing to know the condition of business men in that neighborhood had only to apply to him. Once when I was in San Bernardino, I asked him for information regarding a prospective patron who was rather a gay sort of individual; and this was Jacobs's characteristic reply: "A very fine fellow: he plays a little poker, and drinks a little whiskey!" Jacobs became a banker and in 1900 died on shipboard while returning from Europe, leaving a comfortable fortune and the more valuable asset of a good name.
In referring to Alexander & Mellus and their retirement from business, I have said that merchandise required by Southern Californians in the early days, and before the absorption of the Los Angeles market by San Francisco, was largely transported by sailing vessels from the East. When a ship arrived, it was an event worthy of special notice, and this was particularly the case when such sailing craft came less and less often into port. Sometimes the arrival of the vessel was heralded in advance; and when it was unloaded, the shrewd merchants used decidedly modern methods for the marketing of their wares. In 1855, for example, Johnson & Allanson advertised as follows:
Direct from the Atlantic States, 112 Days' Passage.
Samples of the Cargo at our Store in the Stearns Building; and the entire Cargo will be disposed of cheap, for cash.
Goods delivered at San Pedro or Los Angeles.
From the above announcement, it must not be inferred that these Los Angeles tradesmen brought to this port the whole shipload of merchandise. Such ships left but a small part of their cargo here, the major portion being generally consigned to the North.
The dependence on San Francisco continued until the completion of our first transcontinental railway. In the meantime, Los Angeles had to rely on the Northern city for nearly everything, live stock being about the only exception; and this relation was shown in 1855 by the publication of no less than four columns of San Francisco advertisements in the regular issue of a Los Angeles newspaper. Much of this commerce with the Southland for years was conducted by means of schooners which ran irregularly and only when there was cargo. They plied between San Francisco and San Pedro, and by agreement put in at Santa Bárbara and other Coast places such as Port San Luis, when the shipments warranted such stops. N. Pierce & Company were the owners. One of these vessels in 1855 was the clipper schooner _Laura Bevan_, captained by F. Morton and later wrecked at sea when Frank Lecouvreur just escaped taking passage on her; and another was the _Sea Serpent_, whose Captain bore the name of Fish.