DIVISION FIVE — NAMES. 335 



THE FOUR OLD CANNON. 



In 1877, less than a year before his death, Mr. Wison prepared a sketch 

 of his life, which has never been published in full. In this he mentions that 

 he was present when Don Andres Pico, the Mexican general, first met Com- 

 modore Stockton after having surrendered to Fremont, and remarks : 



"Don Andres Pico manifested his good faith by telling the Commodore 

 where the cannon were concealed with which he had fought at the action of 

 the 8th and 9th. The Commodore asked me what kind of cannon they were. 

 I told him they were common short heavy cast-iron guns ; to which he 

 answered, they were not worth looking after, and he would not send for 

 them.* I told him then that if he would give them to me I would make of 

 them posts to keep the carretas [clumsy Mexican ox-carts] off from the 

 entrance to my store f He therefore gave them to me ; and being told by 

 Don Andres just where they were, I hired a man with a carreta [nearly 

 three years afterward] to bring them in, and placed them at the head of 

 Commercial street in Los Angeles." [See page 84] 



When the centennial of lyos Angeles city was celebrated, in 1881, two 

 of these historic old cannon were placed on trucks at the north corners of 

 the old court house ; but now, 1895, they are preserved at the west main 

 entrance to the magnificent new court house. 



In 1849 Mr. Wilson was a delegate to a convention of South Califor- 

 nians at Santa Barbara which petitioned Congress that the southern part of 

 the proposed new state might be made a territory by itself, and not be in- 

 cluded in the state of California as planned by the politicians of San Fran- 

 cisco. [A mass meeting for the same purpose was held at Los Angeles in Feb- 

 ruary, 1850.] Their plea was not heeded ; but it is interesting to note that 

 the struggle for "state division" commenced thus early — and it ought 

 never to cease until accomplished. The state was admitted to the Union the 

 same year [September 9, 1850], and Mr. Wilson was elected the first county 

 clerk and clerk of the courts of Los Angeles county, April i, 1850. From 

 January 2d to July 3d, 1850, he was a leading member of the city council, 

 still under Mexican law ; but on the latter date a new and full board of city 

 officers was installed under the American charter passed and approved April 

 4th of the same year. The " Centennial History "• says Mr. Wilson was 

 mayor of Los Angeles in 1854, and adds : "Mayors Hodges and Wilson 

 through tempestuous times held the helm with firmness and foresight." 



September i, 1852, he was appointed U. S. Indian Agent for the 

 southern district, his commission being signed by Millard Fillmore, presi- 



* Mr. Wilson wrote this sketch 30 years after the events, and his memory failed him as to the par- 

 ticular cannon in question. The only cannon which the Mexicans had in the battles of the Sth and 9th 

 were the two brass howitzers which Gen Pico had surrendered to Col. Fremont at Cahuenga on the 

 13th ; and the ones that Pico told Commodore Stockton about were the four old guns lying in the surf at 

 San Pedro, utterly unserviceable, but the only pieces of artillery remaining within reach of the Mexicans. 

 See page 84. At the battle of Cahuenga, in 1S45, Micheltorena's troops had three of these old iron can- 

 nons, and Pico's men had the other one. 



t "During all this time he [Wilson] had been heavily engaged in merchandising in Los Angeles, as 

 well as in cattle ranching at Jurupa." — Lewis's Hist. L. A. Co., p. 118. 



