DIVISION ONE — PRE-PASADKNIAN. 65 



erly and stateswomanly view of the case, and she had the force of character 

 to carry it out. While Don Manuel Garfias was serving as U. S. consul in 

 Mexico she put her boys into college there, and lived in the City of Mexico 

 herself for some years to give them her motherly oversight. Wm. Heath 

 Davis of San Francisco in his book " Sixty Years in California," p. 312-13, 

 gives the following narrative : 



' ' Dona Luisa Abila de Garfias, a California lady, born in the city of Los 

 Angeles, a relative of two noted families there of great wealth and married 

 to a citizen of Mexico, — was attractive for her remarkably fine personal ap- 

 pearance and superior conversational powers. On Christmas, 1880, she was 

 visiting in San Diego, and I was interested in her account of her life in the 

 City of Mexico, where she had lived for a number of years. Although fifty- 

 six years of age she had not a gray hair in her head. The lady relates that 

 when Juarez was elected president of the Mexican Republic, Miramon with 

 his forces opposed him, and designed effecting his capture, so as to prevent 

 him taking the ofiice. [1858.] Dona Luisa, having large estates in Los An- 

 geles county, plenty of resources and ready money (as had her husband 

 also), proposed to Juarez to furnish him with means, horses, escort, funds — 

 everything needed for him and his family to make a safe retreat to the 

 mountains, where he could remain until such time as his friends should or- 

 ganize a sufficient force to defeat Miramon and his schemes, after which he 

 could safely take the position of president of the Republic. Juarez accepted 

 her proposal, and she actually carried the plans into effect, with entire suc- 

 cess. Subsequently, during the administration of Juarez, her friendly ser- 

 vices in his behalf were duly recognized, and appreciation accorded from 

 Mrs. Juarez also. Don Garfias, the husband, distinguished himself in the 

 engagements of the Californians against Commodore Stockton at San Gabriel 

 [ford] in the winter of 1846-47, having then a command in the native forces. 

 In that fight he behaved bravely. Subsequently he acted as United States 

 consul at Tepic, Mexico."* 



PASADENA'S FIRST BOYS. 



I will now give a sketch of Mrs. Garfias' two sons — the first white race 

 children ever born on Pasadena soil. In 1 869-70 Byron O. Clark, now of Pas- 

 adena, and his father-in-law, B. F. E. Kellogg, bought a 640-acre farm at 

 Anaheim, and the first man they hired to work for them was Manuel E. 

 Garfias, t then [spring of 1870] about seventeen years old, having been born 

 at the Garfias hacienda of Rancho San Pasqual in 1853. On October 29, 

 1870, the Anaheim Gazette newspaper was started by a man named G. W. 

 Barter, and young Garfias went there to learn the printer's trade ; and he 

 was at work in the office when Chas. A. Gardner [now of the Pasadena 



*It isinteresting to note that our Pasadenaland Garfias family was on Ihe right side iu this contest. 

 Miramon led the anti-liberal or clerical party in rebellion against Juarez, the lawful President, in 1S5S to 

 i860. But he was utterly defeated and made his escape to Europe ; there he aided in workuigupthe Max- 

 imilian scheme of Empire, under patronage of Louis Napoleon ; he came back to Mexico as one of Maxi- 

 milian's chief officers, and was captured and shot with that misguided prince in 1S67. So our Pasadena 

 family bore a part in stirring historic events iu Mexico as well as here. By collating some documents 

 which I specially obtained from the City of Mexico, with other records in California, I gather that Gar- 

 fias was a Lieut. -Colonel in the regular Mexican army when he first came to Los Angeles in 1842 ; and he 

 had a brother who was a Colonel in the army in Mexico. 



tHe was then living in the family ;f Theodore Rimpau, whose wife, Francisca, was sister to Mrs. 

 Garfias. 



