N. A. Potter, a Rhode Islander, came to Los Angeles in 1855, bringing with him a stock of Yankee goods and opening a store; and two years later he bought a two-story brick building on Main Street, opposite the Bella Union. Louis Jazynsky was a partner with Potter, for a while, under the firm name of Potter & Company; but later Jazynsky left Los Angeles for San Francisco. Potter died here in 1868.
Possibly the first instance of an Angeleño proffering a gift to the President of the United States--and that, too, of something characteristic of this productive soil and climate--was when Henry D. Barrows, in September, called on President Buchanan, in Washington and, on behalf of William Wolfskill, Don Manuel Requena and himself, gave the Chief Executive some California fruit and wine.
I have before me a Ledger of the year 1857; it is a medium-sized volume bound in leather, and on the outside cover is inscribed, in the bold, old-fashioned handwriting of fifty-odd years ago, the simple legend,
Each page is headed with the name of some still-remembered worthy of that distant day who was a customer of the old firm; and in 1857, a customer was always a friend. According to the method of that period the accounts are closed, not with balancing entries and red lines but, in the blackest of black ink, with the good, straightforward and positive inscription, _Settled_.
The perusal of this old book carries me back over the vanished years. As the skull in the hand of the ancient monk, so does this antiquated volume recall to me how transitory is this life and all its affairs. A few remain to tell a younger generation the story of the early days; but the majority, even as in 1857 they carefully balanced their scores in this old Ledger, have now closed their accounts in the great Book of Life. They have settled with their heaviest Creditor; they have gone before Him to render their last account. With few or no exceptions, they were a manly, sterling race, and I have no doubt that He found their assets far greater than their liabilities.
In January, 1858, I engaged, in the sheep business. After some investigation, I selected and purchased for an insignificant sum, just west of the present Hollenbeck Home on Boyle Avenue, a convenient site, which consisted of twenty acres of land, through which a ditch conducted water to Don Felipe Lugo's San António _rancho_--a flow quite sufficient, at the time, for my herd. These sheep I pastured on adjacent lands belonging to the City; and as others often did the same, no one said me Nay. Everything progressed beautifully until the first of May, when the ditch ran dry. Upon making inquiry, I learned that the City had permitted Lugo to dig a private ditch across this twenty-acre tract to his ranch, and to use what water he needed during the rainy season; but that in May, when the authorities resumed their irrigation service, the privilege was withdrawn. I was thus deprived of water for the sheep.