[p. 125] Topanga Malibu
The first land grant in this vicinity was that known as Topanga Malibu made in 1805 to Don José Bartoleméo Tapia. A deed executed in 1845 and recorded in the country records states that July 12, 1805, the "Governor of[?] Loreto," then Governor of California decreed that certain "passjes" which are called Malibu, Topango, Suttome, Simi and Sequit, be granted to José Bartoleméo Tapia. This deed further states that April 18, 1824, the property passed into hands of Señor Tapia's heirs, Tomaso, Fernando, Juan Antonio and Tiburcio Tapia. The property is described as bounded on the north by the "Sierra Mayor, on the south, El Mar Oceano Pacifico; the east by Rancho Santa Monica and the west by el Rio de San Buena Ventura." In 1848 it passed into the pos- [p. 126] session of Maria Villeboso and Victor Leon Prudhomme for "cuatro cientos pesos"-four hundred dollars.
The Malibu grant, with its almost impassable mountain ranges, extending into the very ocean, its inaccessibe canyons, its hidden mesas and wildernesses, has always been a land of mystery and many romatic stories of smuggling, of buried treasure, of robbery and murder have been connected with it.
The first grantee, José B. Tapia, must have stocked the place, as he willed it with its "ganado" or cattle, to his heirs. His son Tiburcio occupied the place, probably during the twenties and thirties and it is said buried a couple of chests of his abounding coin somewhere on the ranch. Tiburcio Tapia [1789-1845] was one of the most interesting characters of earlier Los Angeles history. Born in San Luis Obispo, where his father was then acting as Alcalde, in 1789, he became a soldier. In 1824, he was a corporal of the guard at the time of an Indian uprising which threatened the massacre of the entire Spanish population. With four or five men, Tapia defended the families and the padres during the night and only surrendered when the powder gave out. It is said that the rebels offered to spare Tapia, if he would give up his arms, but he declined the proposition.
[p. 126 Topanga, 1908b]
Soon after this he must have removed to Los Angeles, where he was one of the earliest merchants. Alfred Robinson says of him, "We stopped at the house of Don Tiburcio Tapia, the Alcalde Constitutional (Constitutional Judge) of the city, who was once a common soldier, bu who, by honest and industrious labor has amassed so much of this world's goods as to make him one of the wealthiest inhabitants of the place. His strict integrity gave him credit to any amount with the trading vessels, so that he was the principal merchant and the only native one in "el Pueblo de Los Angeles."
Don Tiburcio filled many positions of trust. In 1827, which must have been soon after his location to Los Angeles, he was chosen with Juan Bandini, Romualdo Pacheco and four other prominent citizens to act as vocale or member to represent the southern district in the territorial diputacion [sic] which convened [p. 127] at Monterey, the legislative body of that time. Don Tiburcio was made a member of the committee on police regulations, which must have been one of the most important subjects under consideration in those days. His record makes it appear that Señor Tapia was something of a politician, or so it would seem now-a-days; but we are assured that in the early days of Los Angeles the office had to seek the man and sometimes went begging for an occupant, so we must put Señor Tapia down as one of the most self-sacrificing and public spirited citizens Los Angeles ever had. He was re-elected vocale twice. In 1831 he was alacade (mayor) of Los Angeles; in 1833 he was "sindico," (recorder); in 1835 "encargado de Indians"; 1836, alcalde-second alcalde-it took two mayors to keep things moving; In 1839 he was alcalde again and was also confirmed in the grant of the Cucamonga Rancho by governor Alvarado. In 1840 he was one of the five substitute judges elected by the junta, or superior court. In 1844 he again served the city as alcalde.
He must have been a busy man, as the leading merchant of the town and as one of the owners of the Topanga Malibu and, at the same time he was making extensive improvements on the Cucamonga Rancho, where he built a residence. It is said that as rumors of the American design upon California became rife, Don Tiburcio became alarmed for his store of coin, which was unusually large for that period. He is said to have carried much of it to Cucamongo and buried it, and there are also stories of other chests of it hidden on the Malibu. Whatever treasures of silver and gold he may have stowed away, did him no good, for he died suddenly in 1845 and it seems to have been lost to his family. He left one daughter, Maria Merced, who later marries Leon V. Prudhomme, one of the early French settlers of Los Angeles, and who is still living in the city.
An interesting tale of an early smuggling episode is also related to Malibu history. According to Bancroft, in 1819, a couple of American vessels, strongly suspected of smuggling intentions, were cruising along the coast of Southern California. One of these ships was signalled off the coast of the Malibu and induced to make a landing. Two men, Antonio Briones, who is stated to have been a claimant for the Malibu grant at one time, and Maximo Alanis, who was later the grantee of the Buenos Ayres Rancho, induced the smugglers to land their goods then seized the sailors and declared that they would turn them over to the authorities unless a ransom of $1000 was paid to them. As their captors had conclusive evidence, the captain was about to pay over his thousand dollars. when one of the guards "celebrated" too soon and in his happy oblivion allowed the prisoners to escape. The booty, however, remained in the hands of Briones and Alanis, who decided to say nothing to the authorities about the little matter and keep the goods to recoup themselves for the ransom they had lost. But the officials of that day seem to have had their eyes open [p. 128] and in some way discovered the mysterious doings on the Malibu coast. Briones and Alanis were arrested, the goods confiscated and these brilliant "promoters" of 1819 were imprisoned for six months in chains. It is to be hoped that somebody finally paid the duty on the consignment.
[p. 128, Don Mateo Keller, 1908b]
In later years, the Malibu was the favorite rendezvous of an extensive band of horse and cattle thieves. The early records of Los Angels county contain many accounts of exciting chases and arrests made in the fastnesses of the Malibu, or Malaga, region. Don Tiburcio Tapia seems to have been a remarkable exception in his family, for the name Tapia appears almost as frequently in the criminal record as did Don Tiburcio's in the potitical records of an earlier day.
In the early sixties, the Malibu grant passed through the tax sale into the hands of Mathew Keller, better known in those days as "Don Mateo." Mr. Keller was born in Ireland and came to America at an early date. After living in Mexico for a time he came to California and was locatd in Los Angeles about 1850, becoming one of its best known and most prominent citizens. He was one of the first to engage in wine-making and to plant out an extensive vineyard, for which he imported stock from France. He devoted a great deal of attention to the cultivation of the grape and was also interested in the early experiments in raising cotton. At one time he had a complete ginning outfit set up in Los Angeles and offered its use to any one who would raise cotton. He made a thorough study of the process of making wines of different varieties and manufactured it in large quantities. He established houses in Los Angeles and San Francisco and was instrumental in introducing California wines in the east on a large scale, having extensive connections in New York for the handling of his own manufacture.
He put up a large ranch house on the Malibu and made improvements there and when he died in 1881 he left that grant to his son, Henry W. Keller, formerly of Santa Monica, who sold it in 1891 to the late Frederick H. Rindge.
Frederick Hastings Rindge [1857-1905] was born in Cambridge, Mass., December 21st, 1857. He was a descendent of the Puritan stock which has furnished so large a portion of the best blood and ablest brains of our country. Among his ancestors were Daniel Rindge, who commanded the Ipswich troops in the campaign which destroyed King Philip, of the Naragansett; Samuel Baker, one of the minute men who marched to the relief of Lexington in 1775, and Daniel Harrington, a resident of Lexington who served through the Revolutionary war with distinction, retiring with the rank of captain. His father, Samuel Baker Rindge was a merchant of very large estate, which he used most wisely. His mother, Clarissa Harrington, was a woman of fine character.
[Between pps. 128 & 129, Frederick Hastings Rindge, 1908b]
Frederick Rindge was the only surviving child of his parents and was left in a weakened state by an attack of scarlet fever in his childhood. His education was conducted with especial care and while a youth he traveled extensively, visiting California in 1870 and during 1871-2 visiting many places of interest in Europe. He completed his preparation for college under Dr. James Laurence Laughlin and entered Harvard in 1875. Owing to illness, he was forced to leave college in his last year; but several years later he was given his degree. Soon after leaving college he succeeded to his father's estate, and at once entered upon an active business career which proved him to possess unusual qualities of good judgment and executive ability; although his character and tastes were strongly inclined to a studious life.
He visited California again in 1880, in search of health, and returned to New England with renewed strength. For a number of years he devoted himself to the managament of his large commercial interests in Massachusetts. As a testimonial of his love for his birthplace, he erected and presented to the city of Cambridge a city hall and, later, built for the city a beautiful public library building. He established there, and for ten years maintained, the Rindge Manual Training School for boys-the first manual training school in the state.
On May 27, 1887, he was married to Miss Rhoda May Knight, of Trenton, Michigan, daughter of James and Rhoda Lathrop Knight. They were the parents of three children, Samuel Knight, Frederick Hastings and Rhoda Agatha.
In 1887, he came to California to make his permanent home. He soon settled upon Southern California as his place of residence. In January, 1891, he purchased property on Ocean Avenue, Santa Monica and at once built a handsome residence. This home was occupied by the family, in conjunction with the ranch house on the Topanga Malibu until they moved to Los Angeles in 1903.
In 1891, Mr. Rindge purchased the property commonly known as the Malibu ranch, a Spanish land grant originally made to José B. Tapia in 1804, and later belonging to Don Mateo Keller. The original property extended along the coast northwesterly from Las Flores canyon for twenty miles. To this Mr. Rindge added other tracts until he owned a strip of land extending along the sea coast for twenty-four miles. Beautiful "passages" or valleys; fertile mesas, stretches of magnificent beach, lofty peaks and ridges, gave a wonderful variety of scenery and climate to this rancho. Mysterious caves, almost inaccessible canyons, groves of ancient oak and sycamore lent romance and charm. It is not strange that Mr. Rindge, with his poetical tendency of thought and spiritual [p. 130] trend of mind, found here his ideal home and loved this historical rancho-not as property-but as a divine inheritance. He built here a home that was perfect in its adaptation to the environment and he spent here some of his happiest hours. His book, Happy Days in Southern California is largely a tribute to his life upon the Malibu, although it deals with other aspects of California life also.
But while he sought rest and inspiration in the seclusion of his ranch home, Mr. Rindge never shut himself out from active participation in business and public affairs. During the years of his residence in this state, from 1888 to 1905, probably no other man was ever connected with so many and such large and varied interests. His investments were made not only with a view to the increase of his own wealth, but, very largely, for the purpose of developing the resources of this country and thus giving opportunity to men of lesser means. For this reason he was a moving factor in a large number of companies organized to develop water and reclaim land, and in various other enterprises. Among the most important of these was the Conservative Life Insurance Company, of which he was president. Mr. Rindge, believing that a man should make his gifts while living, was a man of large yet unostentatious benevolences. He gave liberally to the Methodist church of which he was long a consistent member, being of a deeply religious nature. He aided many institutions, both in California and in New England, and lent a helping hand to many individuals. He was discriminating in his charities-as a man of great wealth must be-if he is to be a power for good rather than for evil.
While living in Santa Monica, Mr. Rindge closely associated himself with the life of the community. In 1895 he offered to erect and donate a church building to the Methodist society, provided the church would support a pastor and pay all incidental expenses. In consequence, a neat and commodious church, still in use, was built at a cost of $15.000 and dedicated before the end of the year. He took an active personal interest in the campaign which was made by the advocates of temperance and by the better class of business men to rid the town of saloons, speaking at the meetings and offering to indemnify the city treasury for the loss of revenue derived from the saloon licenses. Accordingly, after the "anti-saloon" party carried the election, he presented his check for $2,500 to Mr. Robert F. Jones, then mayor of Santa Monica. He served for several years upon the school board of the town, was president of the Good Government League, and was a member of various local organizations.
In 1903 the ranch house on the Malibu, with all its furnishings, including a part of Mr. Rindge's fine library, was destroyed by fire. About this time the family moved to Los Angeles where Mr. Rindge had erected a handsome house on Harvard Boulevard, in a section of the city he had helped to develop. On locating to Los Angeles, he identified himself with the Westlake M.E. church, to which he contributed liberally. He was also deeply interested in the Young Men's Christian Association, being an active member and aiding largely in lifting the debt which for many years hung over the Los Angeles association. He was one of the originators of the Ocean Park Y.M.C.A. Company, which started the town of Ocean Park.
As a relaxation from his many cares, Mr. Rindge gave much attention to scientific research and the study of the early history of America and of California. He was a member of the New England Historical and Geneaological Society and of the Archaeological Institute of America. His collection of coins and of aboriginal arts was of such value that he was induced to place them in the loan exhibit of the Peabody Museum, at Harvard College, and also in the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. He gathered a large amount of material bearing on Pacific Coast archaeology and his collection of memorials of California history was unequalled among private collections.
In acknowledgement of the honor conferred upon him through his forebears, he became a member of the Society of Colonial Wars and also of the Sons of the Revolution. He was president of the Harvard Club of Los Angeles, from the time of its formation until his death.
The death of Mr. Rindge, which occurred August 29th, 1905, was in one sense, untimely. He was a comparatively young man and was in the midst of an active and useful life. Yet his existence had been a long struggle with weakness and his spirit was full-grown. Death may come at any time to such a man and we cannot say that it is premature. To his family, to his friends-all over the United States, to the public generally, his departure meant a great loss and a great grief. But to himself it was only a passing on to a higher life.
It was well said of his career: "As a business man, as a church leader, as a Y.M.C.A. president, as a consistent worker for the development of the city and the state, Mr. Rindge made himself so useful that no other man can take his place. He was a rich man; but he employed his wealth for the greatest good of the greatest number-not in selfish pleasure nor for personal aggrandizement. He was a man of strong religious convictions; but the grace of humility and a broad understanding prevented his religion from degenerating into religiosity. A staunch, steadfast, unassuming man, with all of his millions, those who differed from him in opinion could admire his fidelity to his ideals; and those not blessed with money could be glad that such a fortune was entrusted to worthy hands."
Knowing intimately the affairs and purposes of her husband, Mrs. Rindge, as executrix of the estate, is carrying forward with a steady hand the large enterprises which her husband had undertaken.