Vandell Morgan Griffith

Other Events and Attributes:

• Residence: 1861, Bettws, Glamorganshire, Wales
• Arrival: 1870
• Residence: 1900, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California, USA

Notes:

Griffith Jenkins Griffith Life Story
Birth: Jan. 4, 1850 Death: Jul. 6, 1919
Philanthropist. He was the founder of Griffith Park in Los Angeles. Born in Bettws, Wales, he came to the United States in 1866 and studied mineralogy in New England and San Francisco. As a journalist for the Daily Alto Californian, he covered the West's growing mining industry and used insider tips to invest in newly-discovered Mexican silver mines. He was a millionaire by age 30. In 1882 Griffith settled in Los Angeles, which was on the verge of becoming a major city, and spent the next two decades trying to buy his way into local society. Soon after his arrival he purchased the Rancho Los Feliz and made another fortune selling its acreage and water rights. He also married into money, taking as his wife Christina Mesmer of the noted Verdugo Family, despite their religious differences (he was a Protestant, she was a Catholic). On December 16, 1896, Griffith secured his claim to fame when he donated 3015 acres of his property to the city as parkland; this gave Los Angeles a public recreational area five times the size of Manhattan's Central Park. Griffith's largesse was welcome but the man himself was scorned as a pompous upstart by L.A.'s upper crust, who derisively called the diminutive Welshman "The Midget Egomaniac". He dressed like a dandy, bribed people to listen to his long-winded speeches on everything from prison reform to prohibition, and insisted on being called "Colonel Griffith" even though he had no military record to speak of. He refused to run for public office, he claimed, because popular demand would then force him to seek the Presidency. Heavy drinking exacerbated his already eccentric behavior and he grew obsessed with the delusion that the Catholic Church was out to get him and his money as part of a plot to overthrow the government. On a rest cure in Santa Monica in September 1903, Griffith suddenly went beserk, accused his wife of being a spy for the Pope, and shot her in the eye. Mrs. Griffith miraculously survived and The Colonel served two years in San Quentin for attempted murder. As a symbol of his downfall the name of his park's highest point was changed from Griffith Peak to Mount Hollywood. In prison he appeared genuinely remorseful for his crime, refusing preferential treatment and time off for good behavior. Upon his release in 1906 Griffith returned to Los Angeles, still wealthy but shunned and alone. Only a handful of people attended his funeral at Hollywood Memorial Park. But Griffith was not through leaving his mark on his adopted city. In 1912 he had offered to donate $150,000 for the construction of an observatory and an ampitheatre on the park grounds, but the City Council, mindful of his unpopularity, stalled in accepting. He then set up a trust fund for this purpose, the money to be used after his death. The Colonel's dream projects, the Griffith Observatory and the Greek Theatre, were finally completed in the early 1930s. Today Griffith Park remains the largest municipal park in the United States. Its other attractions include the Los Angeles Zoo, the Autry National Center Museum, and the world-famous Hollywood Sign.

Originally a part of the Spanish land grant, Rancho Los Feliz, the park was named for its former owner, Colonel Griffith J. Griffith. Born in Glamorganshire, South Wales, Griffith immigrated to the United States in 1865, eventually, making a personal fortune in California gold mine speculation. In 1882, Griffith settled in Los Angeles, and purchased a 4,071-acre portion of the Rancho Los Feliz, which stretched northward from the northern boundaries of the Pueblo de Los Angeles. On December 16, 1896, the civic-minded Griffith bequeathed 3,015 acres of his Rancho Los Feliz estate as a Christmas gift to the people of Los Angeles to be used as parkland. The enormous gift, equal to five square miles, was to be given to the city unconditionally - or almost so.

It must be made a place of recreation and rest for the masses, a resort for the rank and file, for the plain people," Griffith said on that occasion. " I consider it my obligation to make Los Angeles a happier, cleaner, and finer city. I wish to pay my debt of duty in this way to the community in which I have prospered."

This is nice, but not really “cursed-worthy” material. Luckily, the truth of Col. Griffith Jenkins Griffith is bit more sordid than LAcity.org would like you to believe.

To begin, the “colonel” was a fake title, like “Blogger” or “Administrative assistant.” Self-inflicted by a man whose only true military title was “Major of Riflery Practice with the California National Guard.” His weaponry skills, however, do come in handy later in life. But let’s start at the beginning. Mr. Griffith did come to America as a Welsh Immigrant 1866, but the story of how he made his money is what we nowadays call “illegal”, more specifically, insider trading. After teaching himself a bit about mining and mineralogy he received a job as a reporter covering the mines for the Daily Alto California, a San Francisco newspaper. Meanwhile, he was writing confidential mining reports and selling them to rich investors. But before he doled out the reports, he just happened to invest in these same mining operations himself. Probably not a coincidence, seeing that it made him a millionaire. In 1882 he cashed out and moved down to Los Angeles, buying the 4071 acre Rancho Los Feliz. You may be saying to yourself, ‘That must have cost a big chunk of money back then, even for him.’ It was, which is why, two years later he sold some of its water rights to the city two years later recouping his investment. In your face, doubter. According to one reminiscing reporter, “He was a sensation...He wore the longest of cream-colored overcoats in an age when overcoats usually came to the heels, and he carried a gold-headed cane and wore moss agate cuff buttons, big round ones.” I assume that gold-headed canes were the tiny designer dogs of their day, because Griffith became known as one cocky fella. Dissed by locals as a “roly-poly, pompous little fellow” with “an exaggerated strut like a turkey gobbler” and a “midget egomaniac”. He even created an Ostrich farm on his property. Usually, Ostrich farms were used for making women’s hats, however Griffith only used it to lure in and awe local residents. One story tells of the “col” performing a favor for a young entrepreneur by agreeing to walk arm in arm with him down the street, so that he may be seen with Griffith and thereby helping his stature. Purportedly, he also refused to run for local public office, afraid he would then be begged to run for president of the United States. And back then if you weren’t Grover Cleveland you didn’t have a very good chance of being elected.

Back to the facts, on January 27th, 1887 Griffith married into more money, and respect, wedding the daughter of the owner of the hotel where he was residing. The daughter was Mary Agnes Christina Mesmer. A sidenote: while researching this piece I found that depending on the publications of the day she was better known as “Tina” or “Tena”, which brought up a variety of questions. Like, did editors of old newspapers not know how to spell? Or did reporters have so little accountability they never had to check any facts? Maybe from 1887-1913 were some newspaper’s “i” or “e” broken, depending on the publication? Or is Tena an antiquated version of Tina that evolved over time in some form of Darwinian etymology where Tena was killed off because it’s weak “e” couldn’t facilitate a heart on top, leaving Tina to rule. Either way, to get back on track, Ti/ena and the “Col” were the joining of “two immense estates” and they went on a European honeymoon that was “the most extensive ever contemplated by any bridal party in Los Angeles.” Things seemed to be going well and being seemingly legitimately civic-mindedly on Christmas week in 1896 Griffith donated 3,105 acres to the city for a “great park” so that Los Angeles could become a great city (read B.S. LAcity.org quote from above).

However, as he became more rich and powerful Griffith also became more paranoid and crazy. According to his manicurist he compulsively bit his nails. I wonder how much the TMZ of the day paid for that bit of highly coveted information? He BIT his NAILS? Who cares? Fine, biting your nails isn’t crazy enough. How about drinking? No, how about drinking, on average, two quarts of whiskey a day while being publicly aligned with the city’s strong temperance movement. His lawyer would later call him a “sneak drinker.” He sneaks two quarts a day? That’s impressive, I think that’s officially a magician. Still not convinced he’s nuts, that maybe he’s just a neurotic, hypocritical drunk? Here ya go… As things worsened he began switching his and his wife’s food and drinks, believing that his Catholic wife was in league with the Pope and that they were trying to poison him for his money. Boom! There’s your crazy.

In August of 1903 Ti/ena suggested he take a break, that a vacation would do him some good. They ended up going to the Arcadia Hotel in Santa Monica to relax for a month. Yeah, vacationing a full 23 miles away outta cure anybody. They checked into the Presidential Suite overlooking the palisades, Ti/ena hoping the cool ocean breeze would fix her husband’s strange behavior right up. And it did, for the entire vacation! Well, almost the entire vacation. On the last day, Sept 3rd, while Ti/ena was packing her things Griffith entered the room holding a Bible in one hand an a revolver in the other. He told her to get down on her knees. She did and asked him if she could pray. Then he shot her. In the face. With the gun, not The Bible. The bullet caught her eye, bloody and terrified, she jumped out the window landing on an awning that saved her life. The papers called her “the society wife that wouldn’t die.” A catchy Lifetime movie title if I’ve heard one. At their divorce proceedings (Oh hells yeah there were divorce proceedings) Dr. Moore explained, “There was a bullet hole in her eyebrow…I discovered that a part of the bullet had been deflected upward into the forehead. She was given stimulants. The next morning she was driven to the California Hospital. The eye was removed and the bullet extracted from the socket.” Neither the bullet nor the eye would ever work again. It seemed like a pretty open and shut case, but never underestimate the rich and crazy. Griffith’s side of the story, at first, was that his lovely wife shot herself and then jumped out of a window...for some reason. So, the Mesmer family procured a team of popular trial lawyers including Henry T. Gage, former California governor. Griffith secured himself Earl Rogers, the most celebrated trial attorney of the time. Rogers set up a case based on Griffith acting under the delusions of “alcohol insanity”, where one moment he would be an average loving husband, but after a few drinks he would turn into a violent monster who didn’t know any better, all inspired by the popular new story Stevenson’s Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Seriously. This defense worked much better than his first idea, using another the new book, “The Tale of Peter Rabbit” explaining Griffith shot his wife for eating his parsley and was just trying to bake her into a pie. Not seriously.

The trial began January 11th, 1904. Rogers wanted a full acquittal; Henry Cage wanted the death penalty. According to the Los Angeles Sunday Times during the trial Mrs. Griffith told the jury how she explained to the hotel manager that her husband shot her and “must be crazy”. Rogers replied with, “You knew, didn’t you Mrs. Griffith, that your husband couldn’t have shot you or tried to kill you if he hadn’t been crazy, drunk and insane from alcohol?” She agreed, and with that Gage ended his cross-examination.

Gage’s one good moment would be overshadowed, however, when later in the trail Cage lifted Mesmer’s veil to reveal her disfiguring scar to the jury and Griffith began grimacing and laughing, causing a ruckus. A ruckus and a losing case. After a parade of witnesses and various “brain disorder experts” the jury was dismissed. They deliberated for two days before finding Griffith Jenkins Griffith guilty, sentencing him to two years in the San Quentin penitentiary with medical attention for his alcoholic insanity.

[A bit of irony to add to this story is that Rogers himself was a big drinker and his daughter tried to have him institutionalized. According to her reports he said to her, “Nora, you don’t believe I’m insane, do you? She responded “No no, Papa, no no — of course not”, and dropped it. Shortly after, Rogers succumbed to his indulgences, and died at the age of fifty-two.]

While incarcerated, Col. Griffith paid his dues. Denied alcohol, he turned down the easier prisoner duties like working in the library for the harshest one like making burlap sacks, which even back then I assume were only used as jokes for when people wanted to dress “poor”. When he was up for parole he refused to apply. Instead, he served out his full two-year sentence. And good for him, spending an entire two years in prison after shooting his wife in the face. When released, in 1906, he was said to be quieter and much less pompous. Living in a concrete room will do that to you, I bet. Even if it is for just a couple years.

Again during Christmas week, his “philanthropy time”, Griffith wrote a letter to the mayor and the city council with an offer of $100,000 to build an observatory upon the former, Mt. Griffith, which had since been changed to Mt. Hollywood, you know, because he shot his wife’s eye off her face. He wrote, “Ambition must have broad spaces and mighty distances.” But the city wasn’t buying it, probably the whole shot-wife-face-drunk thing. The people refused the money. A citizen’s letter in response to Griffith’s offer ran on the front page of a local newspaper reading, “On behalf of the rising generation of girls and boys we protest against the acceptance of this bribe…This community is neither so poor nor so lost to sense of public decency that it can afford to accept this money.” As the official Greek theater website puts it, with no mention of his nasty little two-year incarceration “It was an idea whose time had not yet come”. But the colonel, either actually having fallen in love with astronomy and realizing how small and insignificant his life was in the vastness of the cosmos, as according to much of the literature at the observatory, or not really having changed at all and being desperate for a better legacy and the cities admiration again, pressed on. He offered an additional $50,000 to build the Greek Theater. He even went so far as to start construction on his own, until the park Commission brought suit, forcing him to stop. At this point, Griffith seemed to know there was no chance of him becoming the city’s golden child again. No chance he could win them back and construct his additions. At least…not while he was alive. Booya!

According to the official Griffith Park Observatory website “[In December 1912] The City Council accepted Griffith's gift [of $100,000] and appointed him head of a three-person Trust committee to supervise the construction of the observatory…Bogged down by further political debate, the project continued to be delayed.” In reality, it seems more likely that Griffith started a trust himself in hopes the city would use the funds after he died and still name it after him.

Griffith died on July 6th, 1919. Happy day! The city’s rich grandpa was dead and they wasted no time. They immediately started creating blueprints for the amphitheater so they could spend that cash. The first cornerstone for the Greek Amphitheater was finally laid in late 1928 and the project was completed in 1929.

Astronomers were called in to begin the blueprints for the Observatory in 1930, its groundbreaking ceremony was on June 20, 1933 and it officially opened on May 14, 1935. All by using the trust fund of a crazy dead guy, because hey, its still money! I mean, sure he did a lot of bad things, but he was dead now. Sixteen long years was plenty of time for memories to fade and an eye to grow back, right? So, the city let bygones be bygones and re-named the park and the observatory after Griffith, giving a man his posthumous dream; and letting his cursed ghost ride bareback across the land. Booya.

Currently a tangible Griffith Jenkins Griffith, sans the “col.”, stands at the entrance to Griffith Park between Los Feliz Blvd and Crystal Springs Dr. in statue form. He wears his sexy, pompously long big buttoned coat, holding his gold headed cane and the inscription reads: “Public parks are a safety valve of great cities and should be made accessible and attractive where neither race, creed nor color could be excluded.” According to the Griffith park website, “Griffith Park stands today a monument to the dedicated vision of one man--Griffith Jenkins Griffith, Park Commission, civic philanthropist, advocate of parklands, and fervent speaker of recreation for the health of Los Angeles.”

Personally, I like to think of him as he truly was, that guy who paid for the park I try to exercise at, drank two quarts of whiskey a day, went crazy and shot his wife in the face and told people she shot herself, blamed the pope, barely went to jail for it and tried to sucker the city into loving him again, which he did successfully. Oh, and bit his nails—compulsively! In the great words of The Decemberists, “Los Angeles I’m Yours.”

the first!

to sucker the city into loving him again, which he did successfully. Oh, and bit his nailOriOriginally a part of the Spanish land grant, Rancho Los Feliz, the park was named for its former owner, Colonel Griffith J. Griffith. Born in Glamorganshire, South Wales, Griffith immigrated to the United States in 1865, eventually, making a personal fortune in California gold mine speculation. In 1882, Griffith settled in Los Angeles, and purchased a 4,071-acre portion of the Rancho Los Feliz, which stretched northward from the northern boundaries of the Pueblo de Los Angeles. On December 16, 1896, the civic-minded Griffith bequeathed 3,015 acres of his Rancho Los Feliz estate as a Christmas gift to the people of Los Angeles to be used as parkland. The enormous gift, equal to five square miles, was to be given to the city unconditionally - or almost so.
It must be made a place of recreation and rest for the masses, a resort for the rank and file, for the plain people," Griffith said on that occasion. " I consider it my obligation to make Los Angeles a happier, cleaner, and finer city. I wish to pay my debt of duty in this way to the community in which I have prospered."

Griffith married Mary Agnes Christina Mesmer on 27 Jan 1887 in Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California, USA. Mary (daughter of Louis Aloise Mesmer and Catherine Forst) was born on 29 Feb 1864 in Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California, USA; died on 11 Aug 1948 in , Los Angeles, California, USA; was buried in East Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California, USA. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Other Events and Attributes:

• Residence: 1870, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California, USA
• Residence: 1880, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California, USA
• Married: 1886
• Residence: 1900, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California, USA
• Residence: 1930, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California, USA

Other Events and Attributes:

• Residence: 1851, Bettws, Glamorganshire, Wales
• Residence: 1861, Llangynwyd, Glamorgan, Wales
• Residence: 1871, Maesteg, Llangynwyd, Glamorgan, Wales
• Residence: 1881, Cwmdu, Glamorgan, Wales
• Residence: 1900, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California, USA
• Residence: 1910, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California, USA

Griffith married Mary Elizabet Davies on 1 Oct 1854 in Bettws, Glamorganshire, Wales. Mary was born on 21 Nov 1832 in Llangynwyd, Glamorgan, Wales; died on 25 Nov 1902 in Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California, USA. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Other Events and Attributes:

• Residence: 1861, Llangynwyd, Glamorgan, Wales
• Residence: 1871, Maesteg, Llangynwyd, Glamorgan, Wales
• Residence: 1881, Cwmdu, Glamorgan, Wales
• Arrival: 1884
• Residence: 1900, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California, USA

Other Events and Attributes:

• Residence: 1870, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California, USA
• Residence: 1880, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California, USA
• Residence: 1888, , Los Angeles, California, USA
• Residence: 1890, , Los Angeles, California, USA

Notes:

From California and Californians, Vol.4http://search.ancestry.com/search/db.aspx?dbid=3341

Louis Mesmer,who took a leading part in the history of Los Angeles, was born at Surbourg, Canton Sulz, Alsace, France, February 20, 1829, and died at Los Angeles, California, August 18, 1900. He was the son of Joseph and Barbara Merkel Mesmer and was one of a family of eleven children. At the age of fourteen he began an apprenticeship at the baker's trade at Hagenau, and after four years established a bakery at Strassburg, thence to Colmar, thence to Paris and thence to Havre. His success stimulated a desire to see a little more of the world. He sold his business, and traveling in a sailing vessel, landed at New York three months later. He worked at his trade at Syracuse, at Buffalo, at Cincinnati and Dayton, and later established a business of his own at Tippecanoe City, Ohio.

While there he married Miss Catherine Forst in December, 1854, and four years later he left Ohio for California. After some experience without special reward in the gold fields of California and British Columbia, he became post baker for the British troops stationed at Fort Esquimalt, but returned to Los Angeles in August, 1859, where he first purchased the Ulyard Bakery and later the New York Bakery. During the Civil war he had a Government contract to supply bread to the troops stationed at Camp Leighton, southwest of and near Culver City.

Mr. Mesmer had the real spirit of the western pioneer, rugged, strong physically, an indomitable will, always ready for adventure and some new line of enterprise. When these undertakings took him from his business it was Mrs. Mesmer who took up the reins and successfully carried on—rearing her growing family mid the hardships of those early pueblo days. She was responsible for the family making their permanent home in Los Angeles, and to her is due much for the husband's success.

In 1863 Mr. Mesmer sold his business and purchased the United States Hotel.
In 1869, after leasing the hotel, Mr. Mesmer and his family made an extended tour through Europe, and in 1871 he bought the Dr. R. T. Hayes home, which continued to be the family residence for over twenty-five years.

His realty operations were largely in what is now the uptown business district of Los Angeles. He not only exercised good judgment in the purchase of real estate, but the value of these investments was greatly enhanced by the close supervision he gave to every phase of building construction. In 1880 he contracted for the first piece of concrete sidewalk laid in Los Angeles, in front of his Fort Street residence.

His business ability and integrity made his service sought in many directions. In 1874 Rt. Rev. Bishop Thadeus Amat asked him to take full charge of the erection of St. Vibiana's Cathedral. Hardly any public enterprise was launched during the last thirty years of the previous century at Los Angeles in which Louis Mesmer was not interested to the extent of financial contributions.

He was ever loyal to his home community, generous to the call of the poor and those early charitable institutions caring for the orphans and the homeless. Modern Los Angeles owes to him the debt that represents the obligation of the present day generation to the strong and resourceful pioneers of the past.

Mr. Mesmer lost the much beloved and highly respected companion of his early struggles and the mother of his children on October 2, 1891. On July 15, 1893, he married Mrs. Jennie E. Swan, to which union no children were born. Mr. Mesmer's family comprised three sons and two daughters, three of whom are living at Los Angeles, Joseph, Mary Christina Griffith and Lucile A. Whipple, widow of Charles Lee Whipple. Louis Anthony died November 7, 1907. Alphonse J. died September 7, 1925.



History of the Ulyard Bakery

Mr. Ulyard rented an adobe and set up a bakery business, using yeast that his wife brought across the Great Plains to their new home. Ulyard "soon sought a new location on the outskirts of the pueblo, at First and Main Street," later he moved to the southwest corner of Fifth and Main, site of the Alexander Hotel.

Ulyard was the first American-born baker in Los Angeles, naming his shop the American Bakery. He was in competition with Jospeh LeLong who was running his Jenny Lind Bakery and baking French bread. Ulyard made "German and American bread and cake, which soon found favor with many; later he added freshly-baked crakers," which he advertised as "baked in Los Angeles, and superior to those half spoiled by the sea voyage" from San Francisco.

The bakery was taken over by Louis Mesmer and then by James Rowan and his son, Thomas E. Rowan. The building was damaged by fire in December 1869, an event that led to the establishment of Los Angeles's first organized fire company.



Harris Newmark remembers Louis Mesmer

"Louis Mesmer arrived here [California] in 1858, then went to Fraser River [BC, Canada] and there, in eight months, he made twenty thousand dollars by baking for the Hudson Bay Company's troops. A year later he was back in Los Angeles; and on Main Street, somewhere near Requena, he started a bakery. In time he controlled the local bread trade, supplying among others the Government troops here. In 1864, Mesmer bought out the United States Hotel, previously run by Webber & Haas, and finally purchased from Don Juan N. Padilla the land on which the building stood. This property, costing three thousand dollars, extended one hundred and forty feet on Main Street and ran through to Los Angeles, on which street it had a frontage of about sixty feet. Mesmer's son Joseph is still living and is active in civic affairs."

"Judge Walter Van Dyke was here in the early fifties, although it was some years before I knew him; and I am told that at that time he almost concluded a partnership with Judge Hayes for the practice of law. He was Judge of the Superior Court when the City of Los Angeles claimed title—while I was President of the Temple Block Company—to about nine feet of the north end of Temple Block. The instigator of this suit was Louis Mesmer, who saw the advantage that would accrue to his property, at the corner of Main and Requena streets, if the square should be enlarged; but we won the case. A principal witness for us was José Mascarel, and our attorneys were Stephen M. White and Houghton, Silent & Campbell."

Title: Sixty Years in Southern California 1853-1913 Containing the Reminiscences of Harris NewmarkAuthor: Harris Newmark Editor: Maurice H.Newmark & Marco R. NewmarkRelease Date: May 10, 2013



Rancho Ballona and Port Ballona
Port Ballona was situated, from circa 1859 to 1903, near the center of Santa Monica Bay in coastal Los Angeles County, where currently Plaua Del Rey and Del Rey Lagoon is located. The name comes from the Mexican La Ballona land grant. Port Ballona consisted of the current Del Rey Lagoon Park but conceptually embraced including the current Ballona Wetlands State Ecological Reserve. The estuarine river, Ballona Creek flows into the marsh and alongside the marsh within earthen levees that are soft-bottomed wetland soil.

In 1839, the Mexican government granted the Machados and Talamantes families title to Rancho La Ballona In 1857, Benjamin D. Wilson, the first Maryor of Los Angleles, through foreclosure received title to 1/4 of Rancho La Ballona. Later, in 1859, Wilson, for $5000, sold 3,480 acres (1,410 ha) of Rancho La Ballona to George A. Sanford and John D. Young. During the Civil War, US General George Wright ordered troops to secure Port Ballona against any Confederate invasion and by 1862, a large force of 6,000 US troops were at and near Port Ballona. The troop camp was called Camp Latham.

In 1863, Louis Mesmer sold his Los Angeles bakery and purchased extensive land holdings from the Machados, including Port Ballona. In 1887, Louis Mesmer and Moye Wicks made a small port harborr at Port Ballona. Moye Wicks starts the Ballona Harbor and Improvement Company. in 1887, with plans to make the port a major sea port. August 21, 1887, the Town of Port Ballona was developed by Louis Mesmer and Moye Wicks. By 1889, Ballona Harbor and Improvement Company was out of funds to complete the maintain and expand the port, they could not keep the Port open. Louis Mesmer and Moye Wicks sold the port and land around the port to Moses Sherman. Sherman purchased 1,000 acres (400 ha) of land around the Ballona lagoon and the Port Ballona in 1902 under the name, Beach Land Company.

Port Ballona rail depot was built at the port and serviced by the California Cental Railroad opening in September 1887; this line later became the Santa Fe Railway.

Sherman and Clark renamed the port and land around the port to "Del Rey" in 1903. Port Ballona, in 1903, was renamed Playa Del Rey by Sherman and Clark.

In the 1880s and 1890s, parts of Venice, Playa Vista, Culver City, and Mar Vista were also part of Port Ballona.

Louis married Catherine Forst in Dec 1854 in Tippecanoe, Harrison, Ohio, USA. Catherine (daughter of Joseph Andre Forst and Salomé Schumpp) was born on 28 Oct 1833 in Dieffenbach-lès-Woerth, Bas-Rhin, Alsace, France; died on 2 Oct 1891 in Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California, USA; was buried in East Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California, USA. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Other Events and Attributes:

• Residence: 1860, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California, USA
• Residence: 1870, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California, USA
• Residence: 1880, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California, USA

Other Events and Attributes:

• Residence: 1851, Bettws, Glamorganshire, Wales

Morgan married Margaret Williams on 15 Dec 1811 in Bettws, Glamorganshire, Wales. Margaret was born about 1793 in Bettws, Glamorganshire, Wales; died on 13 Apr 1862 in Bettws, Glamorganshire, Wales. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Other Events and Attributes:

• Residence: 1851, Bettws, Glamorganshire, Wales

Joseph married Barbe Merkel on 23 Jan 1810 in Surbourg, Bas-Rhin, Alsace, France. Barbe (daughter of Ignace Jean François Merkel and Marie Anne Mosser) was born on 8 Jun 1792 in Surbourg, Bas-Rhin, Alsace, France; died on 9 Nov 1857 in Surbourg, Bas-Rhin, Alsace, France. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

Died:
https://archives.bas-rhin.fr/detail-document/ETAT-CIVIL-C483-P1-R67404#visio/page:ETAT-CIVIL-C483-P1-R67404-1807407

Joseph married Salomé Schumpp in 1831 in Dieffenbach-lès-Woerth, Bas-Rhin, Alsace, France. Salomé was born on 6 Dec 1803 in Lobsann, Bas-Rhin, Alsace, France; died on 16 Oct 1855 in Dieffenbach-lès-Woerth, Bas-Rhin, Alsace, France. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Gaspard married Marie Eve Stulb on 5 Sep 1785 in Surbourg, Bas-Rhin, Alsace, France. Marie (daughter of Jean Gaspard Stulb and Dorothée Marie Daentzler) was born on 4 Nov 1762 in Surbourg, Bas-Rhin, Alsace, France; died on 13 Aug 1838 in Surbourg, Bas-Rhin, Alsace, France. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Ignace married Marie Anne Mosser on 27 Apr 1789 in Surbourg, Bas-Rhin, Alsace, France. Marie was born on 16 Mar 1763 in Surbourg, Bas-Rhin, Alsace, France; died on 8 Dec 1813 in Surbourg, Bas-Rhin, Alsace, France. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Michel married Marie Elisabeth Kuhn on 21 Feb 1757 in Surbourg, Bas-Rhin, Alsace, France. Marie was born in 1730 in Woerth, Bas-Rhin, Alsace, France; died on 2 Feb 1807 in Surbourg, Bas-Rhin, Alsace, France. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Jean + Dorothée Marie Daentzler. Dorothée was born on 3 Jul 1735 in Wingen, Bas-Rhin, Alsace, France; died in Surbourg, Bas-Rhin, Alsace, France. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Andreas married Susanna Jobst on 26 Apr 1717 in Surbourg, Bas-Rhin, Alsace, France. Susanna was born on 28 Apr 1694 in Kutzenhausen, Bas-Rhin, Alsace, France; died on 24 Jul 1765 in Surbourg, Bas-Rhin, Alsace, France. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]