Page 22 - lareina1929

18 LA REINA LOS ANGELES IN THREE CENTURIES

The first theater the Merced, was opened in 1870, next door to the Pico House which
was built in 1869 cAdjoining the theater is the first Temple
erected by the Masons

A Yankee Priate Becomes a "First Citizen''
HE Buenos Aires raider, in an attack upon the Ortego Rancho near Santa
T Barbara, lost one of its swashbuckling crew and a very good man he turned out
to be. Don Ortego, assisted by Don Lugo and their vaqueros, neatly bagged the
scamp as he leaped from a boat, cutlass in hand, bent upon loot. He was taken
down the coast to Los Angeles and proved to be Joseph Chapman, a Yankee ship-
builder, who had been shanghaied at Honolulu.
As men of his skill were very much needed, he was put on probation, also put
to work in charge of a squad getting out lumber at "Church Canyon," back of
Mount Wilson. Finishing his period of probation, with Yankee adaptability he
became a good Californian, won and married Guadalupe Ortego, and settled down
upon a big rancho near San Gabriel. Here, with his children about him, he was
discovered by Jedediah Smith in 1826, first of the English tongue to locate in
California.
Chapman served his captors well, and died among the people who loved and
respected him. The first water-run grist mill in California, built for Father Zalvidea,
was his handiwork. He also built a schooner for the padres, to be used by them
in their otter hunting. But his most notable achievement was the construction of the
old Plaza Church, standing today- Church of Our Lady the Queen of the Angels.