Ogier, a lawyer from Charleston, S. C., came to California in 1849, and to Los Angeles in 1851, forming a partnership on May 31st of that year with Don Manuel Clemente Rojo, a clever, genial native of Peru. On September 29th, Ogier succeeded William C. Ferrell, the first District Attorney; in 1853, he joined the voluntary police; and later served, for some years, as United States District Judge. He died at Holcombe Valley in May, 1861. Ogier Street, formerly Ogier Lane, was named for him. Rojo, after dividing his time between the law and the Spanish editorial work on the _Star_, wandered off to Lower California and there became a "sub-political chief."
Kewen, a native of Mississippi and a veteran of the Mexican War, came to Los Angeles in 1858 with the title of Colonel, after _fiasco_ followed his efforts, in the Southern States, to raise relief for the filibuster Walker, on whose expedition A. L. Kewen, a brother, had been killed in the battle at Rivas, Nicaragua, in June, 1855. Once a practitioner at law in St. Louis, Kewen was elected California's first Attorney-General, and even prior to the delivery of his oration before the Society of Pioneers at San Francisco, in 1854, he was distinguished for his eloquence. In 1858, he was Superintendent of Los Angeles City Schools. In the sixties, Kewen and Norton formed a partnership. Settling on an undulating tract of some four hundred and fifty acres near San Gabriel, including the ruins of the old Mission mill and now embracing the grounds of the Huntington Hotel, Kewen repaired the house and converted it into a cosy and even luxurious residence, calling the estate ornamented with gardens and fountains, _El Molino_--a title perpetuated in the name of the present suburb. Kewen was also a member of the State Assembly and, later, District Attorney. He died in November, 1879.
Gitchell, United States District Attorney in the late fifties, practiced here for many years. He was a jolly old bachelor and was popular, although he did not attain eminence.
Isaac Hartman, an attorney, and his wife, who were among the particularly agreeable people here in 1853, soon left for the East.
Volney E. Howard came with his family in the late fifties. He left San Francisco, where he had been practicing law, rather suddenly, and at a time when social conditions in the city were demoralized, and the citizens, as in the case of the people of Los Angeles, were obliged to organize a vigilance committee. William T. Coleman, one of the foremost citizens of his city, led the Northern movement, and M. J. Newmark, then a resident of San Francisco, was among those who participated. Howard, who succeeded William T., afterward General Sherman in leading the Law and Order contingent, opposed the idea of mob rule; but the people of San Francisco, fully alive to the necessity of wiping out the vicious elements, and knowing how hard it was to get a speedy trial and an honest jury, had little sympathy with his views. He was accordingly ordered out of town, and made his way, first to Sacramento, then to the South. Here, with Kewen as their neighbor, Howard and his talented wife, a lady of decidedly blue-stocking tendencies, took up their residence near the San Gabriel Mission; and he became one of the most reliable attorneys in Los Angeles, serving once or twice as County Judge and on the Supreme Court bench, as well as in the State Constitutional Convention of 1878-1879.