DIVISION ONE — PRE-PASADENIAN. I7 



DIVISION ONE — PRE-PASADENIAN. 



CHAPTER I. 



The Pre-Pasadenian Aborigines. Early writers. — Hugo Reid, the Scotchman, and 

 his Indian wife. — Sixteen Indian villages by name and location. — Pasadena's very 

 first name and people — their government, medicine, food, etc. — The Indian re- 

 ligion. — Mission incidents. — Pascual el Capitan and the Pascual Indians. — Indian 

 Sweat House at Sheep Corral Springs. — Indians after the Mission daj^s. — Indian 

 horse-eaters kill two white men in the Arroyo. — Helen Hunt Jackson's work. — Why 

 no Indian graves found. 



INDIAN EVENTS IN PASADENALAND. 



When the Spaniards first took possession of this region of country, which 

 was in 1769-70, they found it occupied by native Indians who then had 

 twenty-seven or more village settlements within what is now Los Angeles 

 county, and the Spaniards called them rancherias.* Each village had its 

 local chief ; and some clans had a group of villages with one hereditary or 

 patriarchal chief over all, he bearing the clan name with the suffix " ic " to 

 indicate his office. The writings of padres Crespi, Junipero Serra, Boscana, 

 and others of the earliest missionaries here, besides records left by Governor 

 Fages and many officers and soldiers of the first occupancy, give us in- 

 formation of the Indians of South California in general ; but the one writer 

 who devoted himself to local details concerning the Indians of Los Angeles 

 county was Hugo Reid. He wrote from his own studies and investigations, 

 made over sixty years after the Spaniards commenced their rule here, and of 

 course did not get everything — yet he is the chief authority, and most often 

 quoted by later writers in this particular field. Hence I give here a con- 

 densed sketch of his life, as a part of the local history of Pasadenaland. 



HUGO REID AND HIS INDIAN WIFE. 



Hugo Reid was born in Scotland in 181 1 ; came to New Mexico in 

 1828 and resided there six years. Came to California in 1834 and engaged 

 in mercantile business at Los Angeles. In 1839 he became naturalized as a 

 Mexican citizen, having married a native Indian woman at San Gabriel and 

 settled on the rancho Santa Anita comprising three leagues of land, which 

 was finally granted to him by Mexican authority in 1841 and 1 845.1 '^^' 

 burcio Lopez (a son of the historic Claudio Lopez of San Gabriel) had 

 lived upon it and claimed it before, but somehow Reid got it; and in 1847 

 he sold it to Henry Dalton for $2,000. [The same land was sold in 1874 



*In July, 1769, Father Junipero Serra wrote : " We found vines of a large size [wUd] and in 

 some cases quite loaded with grapes. * * We have seen Indians in immense numbers they con- 

 trive to make a good subsistence on various seeds, and by fishing. The latter they carry on by means 



of rafts orcanoes made of tule (bulrush) All the males go naked ; but the women and temale 



children are decently covered from their breasts downward." 



t" Hartnell aided him |Reid] in getting the land, against the efforts of J. A. Carrillo in behalf of 

 the Lopez {a.mi\y."—Bis/. Cal. Vol. 5. p. 6gi. This Hartnell was visitador general of Missions, under 

 Governor Alvarado. 



