DIVISION FIVE — NAMKS. 343 



ant a factor of Pasadena as to be little less known than the town itself. Its 

 management has contributed so largely to our growth and prosperity that a 

 brief history of it is in order. J. H. Painter and B. F. Ball, the owners of 

 the tract, are gentlemen whose lives have been intimately blended through- 

 out. Both originally residents of the same town, (Salem, Columbiana 

 county, Ohio,) they both left there long ago and emigrated to the same 

 county, (Cedar,) in Iowa. Mr. Ball left Iowa in 'y^^nd Mr. Painter in '8i, 

 both coming direct to Pasadena. A tract of 2,000 acres of land adjoining 

 Pasadena on the north was then owned by Henry G. Monks, of New York 

 city, a former resident here, and from whom Monks hill was named. Mr. 

 Painter and Mr. Ball wanted about 500 acres of this land, and negotiated 

 for it ; but found that they were likely to lose it through the determination 

 of the owner to sell it " all or none," and that there were parties in the field 

 willing to buy it all. Mr. Painter reflected upon the situation. Something 

 must be done. Dropping his head upon his breast, he said, " If I had a 

 man to go in with me I'd buy the whole tract." This appealed to Mr. 

 Ball personally. The old friends who had been together so long in Ohio 

 and Iowa, ought not to be separated in interest in California. So he says : 

 " I'll take a third of it, if you will find some man for the other third." 

 "All right," says Mr. Painter; " I will take two-thirds myself." They 

 immediately bought the whole tract, 2,000 acres, at $15 an acre, aggrega- 

 ting $30,000. They spent about $20,000 more in watering it ; and they 

 have sold it to 50 or 60 different purchasers for about $150,000, netting a 

 handsome profit on their venture. The tract with its water supply, has 

 been incorporated as the North Pasadena Land and Water Company. It 

 adjoins the old Pasadena tract on the north, and is now bounded by Villa 

 street on the south and the Woodbury, Banbury and Giddings tracts on the 

 north, while its east and west lines are Lake Avenue and the Arroyo." 



Monks Hill Tract. — Of this Judge Katon writes : 

 " Mr. Monks, a young Bostonian [or New Yorker (?)] came here about 

 1868, and purchased from Griffin & Wilson about two thousand acres of 

 land, including the "red hill" [Monks Hill] as it used to be called. With 

 this tract he also acquired all the waters flowing in the canyon [Millard's] 

 above its mouth. Griffin & Wilson had alread}' constructed a ditch from 

 the water source to a point back of Monks Hill, with a view of impounding 

 a large supply of storm water there. The work was done by a Frenchman 

 named Dargue, who had previously been tunneling into the hills at Lincoln 

 Park for hydraulic lime — the same place where the old Padres obtained all 

 their lime for their cement masonry at the different Missions. It had such 

 virtues as a cement plaster that it is said the missionaries hauled it in Mexi- 

 can carretas with ox teams even as far north as Monterey." 



Marengo Tract. — Called also "the Bacon ranch," 800 acres, com- 

 prised what is now the P^aymond Hotel grounds, the Raymond Improve- 

 ment Company's lands, and the oak timber lands south of Monterey road 

 and east of lower Fair Oaks Avenue. Its chain of title is a long story, it being 

 parts of Ranchos San Pasqual and San PasquaHta. It was bought in 1855 

 by J. L. Brent, afterward a General in the Confederate army-'- and who was 



*"At a place called Big Cane [Louisaua, February, 1865,] a former citizen of Los Angeles, a Con- 

 federate brigadier, J. I<. Brent, commanded a small force of Confederate cavalry," etc. — See ''Reminiscences 

 oj a Ranger,'' by Major Horace Bell, page ^j 2. 



