128 HISTORY OF PAvSADENA. 



Berry, good naturedly said to him, " Berry, you will never be able to make 

 a corner on sand and boulders in your settlement, as you and Elliott used to 

 make on corn and wheat back East." 



When our local paper noticed the fact that this same sand and boulders 

 of which he had spoken so derisively was worth twenty-five cents per load, 

 "as it lay," Mr. Fletcher was reminded of his little joke by the report of 

 the totally unexpected rise in the value of these waste-land commodities.* 



E. W. GIDDINGS. 



Our families consisted of E. W. Giddingsand wife, with their children, 

 married and unmarried, as follows : Oldest daughter Elsie, and her hus- 

 band E. H. Royce, with their daughters Jennie and Florence Roycc. Eugene 

 IV. Giddings ; Mary, and her husband Calvin Hartwell. Laura Giddings, 

 J. Reed Giddings, Jr., and Grotius L. Giddings. 



We all came with our own teams from Sacramento, and arrived at Pasa- 

 dena November 4, 1874. We did the breaking or first plowing on much of 

 the colony land ; but finally settled on the bench of land at mouth of Mil- 

 lard canyon, commonly called " Giddings Heights, "f 



As to wild game, I have taken all sorts, from rabbits or quail to grizzly 

 bears. I have always kept hounds — have six on the ranch now, and 

 scarcely a week passes that I don't get at least one or two foxes. Once I 

 was hunting near Devil's Gate, when my hound treed four big wildcats in 

 one tree. I shot two of them ; the third one jumped and the dog grabbed 

 him — then the fourth one sprang on the dog, but he never let loose his grip. 

 One got away after being wounded, but " Cash," the dog, and I got three 

 to carry home as trophies — though he was laid up for some time with the 

 bites and scratches the cats gave him. This was the same dog with which 

 I got thirty-seven deer within two miles of home, one year. Once I shot a 

 young buck ; he fell, and I ran to him, laid down my gun and grasped his 



*From a biography of Judge Katon prepared by Mrs. Carr for the I<os ."ingeles Co. Historical So- 

 ciety, I gather a few main poiuts, as follows : Benj. S. Katon— born December 20, 1823. at Plaiufield. 

 Conn. Hoth of his grandfathers were soldiers in the revolutionary war ; and his father was in command 

 of Fort Trumbull in the war of 1S12. Young Benjamin taught district school in Southbridge, Conn , 

 and Oxford, Mass. Studied law at Newbury, N. Y., and Ellington, Conn. Graduated from Harvard 

 I^aw School in July, 1846 In spring of 1S47 was married at Liberty, Missouri, to Miss Helen Hayes of 

 Baltimore, Md., sister to Benjamin Hayes who afterward served twelve years as Judge of Los Angeles 

 county, Cal. In 1847-48 published a newspaper at Weston, Mo. In 1850 came to California with ox teams 

 7>ia Salt Lake to Sacramento, and engaged in newspaper work. In iSsi went gold digging. In 1852 

 came to Los Angeles because his brother-in-law. Judge Hayes, was living there. In 1S53 was elected 

 District Attorney. [See Chapter 11 for list of public offices "held by him.] In December this year his 

 family came here 7'/a Isthmus of Panama. In December, 1S58, he came onto Rancho San Pasqiial with 

 livestock. In May, 1859, his wife died in Los Angeles. In 1S60 he went back overland to Plainfield, 

 Cont\., to visit his mother, then eighty-four years old. In Kebrriary, 1861, was married to Miss Alice 

 Taylor Clarke, at Plainfield. and returned to Los Angeles about May ist. In February, 1865, settled at 

 Fair Oaks, on Rancho San Pasqual ; hut while residing here was employed in superintending construc- 

 tion of ditches, flumes, canals, reservoirs for supplying water to the hill portions of Los Angeles. His 

 work on the Rancho, and his part in the original colony settlement are given elsewliere. State Engineer 

 Wm. H. Hall, in his official report for 18S8, p, 502. says: "The Orange Grove Association's original 

 works, planned and carried out under the supervision of Hon. B. S. I'aton, were the first constructed in 

 Southern California wherein water was conducted and distributed for general horticultural irrigation by 

 means of iron pipes and under pressure." [This is a mistake, for B. D. Wilson and J. De Barth Shorb 

 had done the same thing at .'Mhambra two years earlier. — Er>.] 



tl,. W. Giddings died September 23, iSgi ; and the Daily S/ar of next day said : "He had been 

 sick about a year. He is of a historic family, being a nephew of the great abolitioni,st, Joshua R. Gid- 

 dings. He was born in Ashtabula county, Ohio, sixty five years ago last June ; and seventeen years ago 

 he came to Pasadena, settling on the mesa near the foot of the mountains, whence he was only removed 

 two and a half months ago to lEHis street in this city for convenience of treatment " 



