| John Albert Rowland | |
|---|---|
| Born | April 15, 1791 Cecil County, Maryland |
| Died | October 13, 1873 Rancho La Puente |
| Resting place | El Campo Santo Cemetery |
| Known for | early San Gabriel Valley settler |
| Spouse | María Encarnación Martínez, Charlotte M. Gray |
John A. Rowland was an early settler and rancher of the eastern San Gabriel Valley area of Los Angeles County, California. He and his family were very prominent in the region's early development and the unincorporated community of Rowland Heights, California is named for him.
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John Albert Rowland (April 15, 1791–October 13, 1873) was born in Cecil County, Maryland. There is some dispute as to whether he had a middle name and, if so, whether "Albert" is factually known. His birthdate is also uncertain, as his tombstone indicated his age as 82 years, but no date and month were given. Most census listings indicate a later 1790s birth year. Finally, there is some speculation that he was born in southeastern Pennsylvania, across from that portion of Maryland where he is said to have been born. For example, the 1850 census listed Rowland as a native of the former state and the following two censuses indicate the latter.
At an early date in the 19th century, the Rowland family migrated to Morgan County, Ohio, roughly between Wheeling, West Virginia and Columbus, Ohio along a heavily-traveled westward route for many in the Eastern states in the first decade or two of the century. As a young man, Rowland, presumably, followed the Ohio River to the Mississippi and then to St. Louis. From there, he would have traveled along the Missouri River to the town of Franklin at the western edge of the United States. In 1823, using the new Santa Fe Trail, he migrated to New Mexico.
Rowland, said to have been trained as a surveyor, moved to San Fernando de Taos, Nuevo Mexico, a territory of Mexico, and become a fur trapper for a time, though he later operated a flour mill. In 1825, Rowland became a Mexican citizen and married María Encarnación Martínez [1].
In Taos, Rowland established a friendship with William Workman which developed into a business partnership with the manufacture of "Taos lightning," a whisky popular with fur trappers returning to winter in the town after long spring, summer and fall months of trapping. Workman and Rowland occasionally were embroiled in problems during their long residency in Taos. For example, a Taos-based revolt seized the government of New Mexico and the two were forced to swear loyalty to the rebels, who were, however, soon overthrown. The new governor, Manuel Armijo, was in office when Rowland and Workman were arrested for smuggling. This was a common pastime, but the arrest may have been retribution for their alleged loyalty to the Taoseño revolt.
In 1840, Texas president Mirabeau Lamar announced plans to peaceably annex all territory to the Rio Grande, including all the principal towns of New Mexico. His representative, William G. Dryden, named Rowland and Workman agents of the Texas government in New Mexico, although they were soon replaced and may have had little, if any, active role in promoting the scheme. Still, the two men decided to leave New Mexico, as the annexation scheme became an outright invasion, albeit a poorly planned and executed one that failed miserably.
Before the Texans straggled into New Mexico and were routed, Rowland and Workman, along with about two dozen other Americans and Europeans, had left New Mexico for California via the Old Spanish Trail in early September 1841. On September 6, 1841, some 25 New Mexican immigrants joined the group and left Abiquiú, New Mexico, north of Santa Fe. Due to desert conditions the trip was made in the Fall when there was feed for the animals to graze on, as well as water-holes along the trail. Because of the size of the caravan, they did not receive attack from Native Americans when crossing the native homelands. Although the expedition has often been referred to as an "American wagon train," the Old Spanish Trail never could accommodate wagons and, moreover, there were Europeans and, more importantly, New Mexicans, many of significant Indian ancestry, in the group. According to Workman and others, the so-called Workman-Rowland Party arrived in southern Alta California, on November 5, 1841.[2]
In 1842, Rowland (usually referred to as "John Roland" or "Juan Roland" in the land grant records) received a grant, in his name only, of 11,740-acre (48 km2) to Rancho La Puente. While Workman remained at La Puente, Rowland returned, in April 1842, to New Mexico to retrieve his wife and children. They and other immigrants traveled to California and arrived at Los Angeles in December. By the next summer, Rowland constructed an adobe home about a mile east of the one built the previous year by Workman. The two stocked their ranch with cattle and engaged in the hide and tallow trade.
In 1845, the Mexican land grant was extended to 48,790-acre (197 km2) and made permanent in both Rowland and Workman's name. Strangely, Rowland claimed that Workman was inadvertently left off the 1842 grant, although Workman received, at that time, a document giving him all the rights and privileges to use La Puente as if an owner. It is more likely that Workman's reputation in New Mexico preceded him in California and it was decided for him to lie low. Notably, just before Pico's new grant, Workman, as captain, and Rowland, as lieutenant, had assisted in February 1845, by leading a contingent of Americans and Europeans, Pico in assuming the governorship by force at a battle against Governor Manuel Micheltorena.
Rowland was a successful cattle rancher and farmer for over thirty years at La Puente and moved into the lucrative Gold Rush beef trade after 1848. In 1847, he built the first private grist mill in the Los Angeles region, not far east of his home. He also had vineyards and many crops, which were expanded after the decline of the Gold Rush, a poor economy, competition from better imported cattle breeds, and flood and drought decimated the cattle industry by 1865. Undaunted, Rowland quickly expanded his agricultural focus and developed a thriving and fertile array of field crops, orchards, and vineyards.
About 1851, he and Workman informally decided to split their property, with Rowland taking about 29,000-acre (117 km2) on the east and Workman receiving the 20,000-acre (81 km2) on the west. Their land division was made official in 1867, when the two men received a federal patent for their land, resulting from a 15-year protracted struggle to legitimize their land claim as required by the 1851 California land claims act. Indeed, Rowland contacted Henry W. Halleck, Abraham Lincoln's Chief of Staff, who had served as California Secretary of State and who had submitted one of the two reports to Congress about the viability of California land claims, for advice on obtaining his patent. Halleck's 1865 response was brief, but to the point: "hire a lawyer and give him plenty of money." This Rowland did, hiring attorney Henry Beard, who prepared a published synopsis of the land claim in 1866 and who was successful in securing the patent.
Luis Arenas and Rowland were granted Rancho Los Huecos by Pío Pico in 1846.[3] Rowland also claimed eleven square leagues, situated on the banks of the Stanislaus River and San Joaquin River, by Pío Pico in 1846, but the claim was rejected.[4][5]
Rowland retained most of his La Puente holdings until his death, after which the tract was divided amongst his second wife and his children. In the 1880s, the railroad boom towns of Puente and Covina were created from the Rowland portion of the rancho and oil was discovered in the Puente Hills on a section left to youngest son, William R. Rowland, who formed the highly-successful Puente Oil Company. Today, heirs of Rowland through his namesake great-grandson, John Rowland IV, still own over a hundred acres in the City of Industry and Rowland Heights which are leased out for commercial purposes, though a ca. 1900 ranch home, an older barn, and a later dwelling were recently razed for commercial development that has not yet taken place.
John and Encarnación Rowland had ten children, of which 2 sons, John and Thomas, married daughters of Bernardo Yorba of the Rancho Cañón de Santa Ana. A third son, William R. Rowland, married, Manuelita, a daughter of Isaac Williams, owner of Rancho Santa Ana del Chino, and would also go on to be a two-term Sheriff of Los Angeles as well as an oil company president with the Puente Oil Company, drilling wells on his land in the Puente Hills after 1885. Encarnación Rowland died in 1851.
In 1852, Rowland married Charlotte M. Gray, a widow with three children. In addition to Charlotte's three children from her first husband, John B. Gray, they had a daughter, Mary Agnes Gray, married General Charles Forman, who would go on to establish Toluca Lake.[6].
John Rowland died in October 1873 and is interred at El Campo Santo Cemetery located on the grounds of the Workman and Temple Family Homestead Museum.[7]
The John A. Rowland House, built in 1855 for Rowland's second wife Charlotte, is the oldest surviving brick structure in southern California, is located on Gale Avenue in the Hacienda Heights, California, and is owned by the Historical Society of La Puente Valley, which has recently begun initial restoration efforts and intends to start some public programs there late in 2010. Just east of Hacienda Heights is the unincorporated community of Rowland Heights, which contains John A. Rowland High School.
Paul R. Spitzzeri, "The Workman and Temple Families of Southern California, 1830-1930," Dallas: Seligson Publishing, 2008.
Donald E. Rowland, "John Rowland and William Workman: Southern California Pioneers of 1841," Los Angeles and Spokane: Historical Society of Southern California and Arthur H. Clark Company, 1999 [new printing forthcoming from Gibbs Smith]