46 HISTORY OF PASADENA. 



tinuous down slope for dragging the hewed timbers to Los Angeles. The ox- 

 trail, then, led from Millard Canyon down toward Monks Hill, and then 

 nearly on the present line of Fair Oaks avenue clear down to the old Spanish 

 road from San Gabriel to I,os Angeles, where the Southern Pacific Railroad 

 now runs. On reaching the public road the timbers would be loaded onto 

 heavy carts made with wheels chat were simply round blocks sawed or 

 chopped off from the butt end of a log, and thus they would be conveyed 

 across the Los Angeles river and up to the plaza. And in all this work 

 Chapman managed better and accomplished more, and got more work out of 

 the Indians than anyone had ever done before— all of which greatly endeared 

 him to the padres, and also to the old Don who had sturdily withstood the 

 demand for his ignominious execution only one year before. 



The graded spaces in Grand Canyon that have been mistaken for rem- 

 nants of a mysterious ancient wagon road were made by Chapman to get 

 enough straight and level ground for the timber hewers to stand on at their 

 work, with the log resting on blocks. The Indians themselves could only 

 hack a tree down and let it fall where it happened to — and then haggle it 

 into imperfect square shape just where it lay, thus working very slowly and 

 at great disadvantage. But Chapman could chop a tree down and make it 

 fall whichever way he wanted to, which was a marvelous thing to most of 

 the Spaniards as well as the Indians. In their ignorant and superstitious 

 minds it was magic or ' ' black art, ' ' and they called him ' ' Diablo Chapman. ' ' 

 Then by getting his logs up onto blocks along these leveled places, and 

 marking with a bit of burnt wood and a stretched string the lines for the 

 hewers to work by, the work went on easier and better and faster than be- 

 fore. And these were Chapman's Yankee improvements to expedite the 

 work, which won him so much favor with Don Antonio and the padres — 

 for anything that helped along their church enterprises touched their hearts 

 in the tenderest spot ; and all this service was credited to him for pious 

 " good works" — so that on one occasion when others were denouncing and 

 contemning the gringo heretic, old Don Antonio made in his defense this ar- 

 gument: " As to his being a heretic, has not all of his work gone into the 

 church ? How can he get away from that ? * * I know that they [the 

 padres] consider him a good Christian, and a very useful one, too. And 

 then, who can manage the Indians as he can ?" 



It was also objected that Chapman couldn't ride a horse, which was an 

 unpardonable deficiency in Spanish eyes. But Lugo replied; " Yes, he can 

 ride a horse now, without falling off more than twice in one day. " 



The logs having been hewed square up in the mountains, were dragged 

 on different faces alternately so that all sides might be scoured and smoothed 

 alike. And the special necessity for such heavy pine timbers, that would 

 not sag, was to support the great weight of the tile roofs then in use.* And 



*"The rafters, after being cut iu the mountain forests many miles away, were dragged hereby 

 Indians and oxen, each log being occasionally turned upon the way, that all sides might be planed 



