American politician from California (1811–1878)

Benjamin Davis Wilson (December 1, 1811 – March 11, 1878), commonly known as Don Benito Wilson, was a politician, fur trapper, and ranchero of California. Born in Tennessee, Wilson eventually settled in Alta California, became a Mexican resident, married into a prominent Californio family and acquired Rancho Jurupa. Following the American Conquest of California, Wilson served a term as Mayor of Los Angeles.

Contents

• 1 Life in California
  • 1.1 Rancho Jurupa
  • 1.2 Big Bear Lake
  • 1.3 Political activities
  • 1.4 Rancho San Pascual
• 2 Legacy
• 3 References
  • 3.1 Bibliography

Life in California

Rancho Jurupa

Wilson came to California with the Workman-Rowland Party in 1841 seeking p*age to China.

In 1842, Wilson bought a key portion of Rancho Jurupa from Juan Bandini, a section that was later named Rancho Rubidoux. Encomp*ing most of present-day Rubidoux, California, as well as a significant portion of downtown Riverside, Wilson became the first permanent settler in the Riverside area. In 1844 he married his first wife, Ramona Yorba, whose father Bernardo Yorba, was the prominent Spanish (Mexican) landholder of Rancho Cañón de Santa Ana.

Wilson gained esteem and was often asked to *ist with Native American affairs. Wilson accepted by becoming Justice of the Peace of the Inland Territory.

Big Bear Lake

In 1845 he was asked to pursue a group of Native Americans led by a man who escaped from the San Gabriel Mission, who stole horses from the local ranchers. The Indians drove the horses, numbering in the thousands, up to the high desert near Lucerne. In his pursuit, Wilson sent 22 men through the Cajon P* and led another 22 into the depths of the San Bernardino Mountains. According to Trafzer, the resident Serrano let Wilson p* through their territory in pursuit of the raiders. Wilson later sent his 22 men in pairs on a bear hunt, gathering 11 pelts. On their return trip to Jurupa, they gathered another 11 pelts. He named the place Big Bear Lake. The lake today is known as Baldwin Lake, after Elias J. "Lucky" Baldwin, while the name Big Bear Lake was re-applied to a reservoir built nearby in 1884.

Political activities

In 1850, Wilson was elected to the Los Angeles Common Council, and a year later he became the second elected mayor of Los Angeles after California was made a state. He also served as a Los Angeles County supervisor (1853, 1861–64). He was elected to three terms of the California State Senate.

Rancho San Pascual

In 1854 Wilson established Lake Vineyard, his own ranch and winery near modern-day San Gabriel, California. He came into possession of adjoining Rancho San Pascual (present day Pasadena) through a series of complicated land deals, which began with his lending money to the Rancho's owner Manuel Garfias in 1859. In 1863 Wilson and Dr. John Strother Griffin, who had also lent Garfias money – and with whom Wilson undertook many business deals in early Los Angeles, including railways, oil exploration, real estate, farming and ranching – bought the entire rancho property outright, and diverted water from the Arroyo Seco up to the dry mesa via an aqueduct called the "Wilson Ditch."

In 1864 Wilson took the first expedition to a high peak of the San Gabriel Mountains, which was later named Mount Wilson. He hoped to harvest timber there for the making of wine vats, but he found the wood inadequate. The Wilson Trail became a popular one or two-day hike to the crest of the San Gabriel Mountains by local residents for years to come.

Wilson about 1850

In 1873, Wilson and Griffin subdivided their land (with Griffin getting almost 2/3 of the property, but Wilson retaining some better land (east of current Fair Oaks Avenue), near his Lake Vineyard property). Griffin then sold 2,500 acres (10:km2) of his property to the "Indiana Colony," represented by Daniel M. Berry. In 1876, after the Colony had sold most of its allotted land and established what became the City of Pasadena, Wilson began subdividing and developing his adjacent landholdings which became the eastern side of the new settlement.

Legacy

He gave several acres of property to his son-in-law James de Barth Shorb which he named San Marino, and developed other parts of the land as Alhambra, where he is enshrined as a statue in Renaissance Plaza. Wilson's first wife died in 1849, after which time he married the widow Margaret Hereford. They had four children, of whom one daughter Ruth married George Patton, Sr. and had a son who became the World War II General George S. Patton, Jr. The Pattons later purchased Lake Vineyard. Wilson died at the ranch in 1878 and was buried in San Gabriel Cemetery. The last of his land holdings in the downtown Pasadena area were bequeathed to Central School on South Fair Oaks Avenue.

Mount Wilson, a metromedia center (television and radio transmission towers) for the greater Los Angeles area, is the most famous monument to Benjamin Wilson. Wilson Avenue in Pasadena and Don Benito School of the Pasadena Unified School District also honor his name.

References

Bibliography

• Kielbasa, John R. (1998). "Flores Adobe". Historic Adobes of Los Angeles County. Pittsburg: Dorrance Publishing Co. ISBN:0-8059-4172-X.
• Read, Nat B. (2008). Don Benito Wilson: From Mountain Man to Mayor: Los Angeles 1841–1878. Angel City Press. ISBN:978-1-883318-83-3.
• Google Bookshelf, The Pattons
• Wilson, Benjamin D. (1852). Indians of Southern California in 1852, ed. John W. Caughey (San Marino: Huntington Library, 1952).

Members
(1850–1870)

• Cristobal Aguilar
• David W. Alexander
• David Anderson
• James Baldwin
• Peter Baltz
• Phineas Banning
• John Barre
• Joseph Bayer
• Alexander Bell
• Dionisio Botiller
• Leonicio Botiller
• Narciso Botello
• Andrew A. Boyle
• George Henry Carson
• Samuel Bradford Caswell
• Caro W. Childs
• Ozro W. Childs
• T. B. Collins
• Antonio Franco Coronel
• Ygnacio Coronel
• George Dalton
• Ygnacio del Valle
• Jose Maria Doporto
• Arthur McKenzie Dodson
• John Gately Downey
• Ezra Drown
• James Edwards
• Stephen Clark Foster
• John Frohling
• Ira Gilchrist
• Morris L. Goodman
• John Goller
• Lewis Granger
• John Strother Griffin
• Joseph Lancaster Grant
• Jose Vicente Guerrero
• Vincent A. Hoover
• Alexander W. Hope
• Joseph Huber Sr.
• Arnold Jacobi
• Charles H. Johnson
• John F. Jones
• Wilson W. Jones
• Matthew Keller
• John King
• Solomon Lazard
• Obed Macy
• Damien Marchesseault
• Luis B. Martinez
• Hiram McLaughlin
• Lewis Meinzer
• Francis Mellus
• Jacob Metzger
• William Moore
• Moritz Morris
• Murray Morrison
• Elijah Moulton
• Henry R. Myles
• Myron Norton
• Agustin Olvera
• William H. Perry
• William H. Peterson
• Nehemiah A. Potter
• David M. Porter
• Augustine Poulain
• William R. Rand
• Manuel Requena
• William Whipple Robinson
• Louis Roeder
• Tomas A. Sanchez
• William T. B. Sanford
• John Schumacher
• Juan María Sepúlveda
• Philip Sichel
• Felix Signoret
• Abel Stearns
• Eli Taylor
• Jonathan Temple
• John B. Thompson
• James R. Toberman
• John Turner
• August Ulyard
• Juan C. Vejar
• Collins Wadhams
• Henry Wartenberg
• Jacob Weizel
• John Ozias Wheeler
• George N. Whitman
• Benjamin Davis Wilson
• James Brown Winston
• Wallace Woodworth
• Geronimo Ybarra

Wards
(1870–1889)1st Ward

• Julian A. Chavez
• Bernard Dubourdin
• John Jones
• Thornton P. Campbell
• Oscar Macy
• Julian Valdes
• Joseph Mullaly
• George R. Long
• Jacob F. Gherkins
• Ramon R. Sotelo
• Joseph G. Carmona
• F. Tamiet
• B. Valle
• Cayetano Apablasa
• Ezra M. Hamilton
• Louis Meinzer
• John Schaeffer
• R. L. Beauchet
• William Norton Monroe
• J. G. Bower
• Clinton S. Scheiffelin
• Charles W. Schroeder
• William Thomas Lambie
• James Velsir
• Thomas Goss
• George L. Stearns
• Edward A. Gibbs
• James Hanley
• Newell Mathews
• C. N. Earl
• George O. Ford

2nd Ward

• William Ferguson
• George Fall
• Matthew Teed
• Prudent Beaudry
• William H. Workman
• Jose Mascarel
• Louis Lichtenberger
• Jacob Kuhrts
• Bernard Cohn
• James W. Potts
• John Edward Hollenbeck
• C. C. Lips
• Richard Molony
• Jesse Houston Butler
• John Bobenreith
• H. Schumacher
• Pascal Ballade
• Henry Hammel
• Frank R. Day
• John Frederick Holbrook
• Martin V. Biscailuz
• Michael Thomas Collins
• Thomas J. Cuddy
• John Moriarty
• H. T. D. Wilson

3rd Ward

• Frank Sabichi
• Henry Dockweiler
• William S. Hammel Sr.
• John Osborn
• Elijah H. Workman
• H.K.S. O'Melveny
• William H. Dennison
• Eulogio F. de Celis
• William Osborn
• Charles E. Huber
• Louis Wolfskill
• Thomas Leahy
• D.V. Waldron
• Elisha K. Green
• John S. Thompson
• John H. Jones
• Albert Fenner Kercheval
• Charles Brode
• Simon A. Francis
• S. H. Buchanan
• Edward Falles Spence
• George Gephard
• Andrew S. Ryan
• Robert Steere
• J. B. O'Neil
• Charles G*en
• Charles R. Johnson
• Loring A. French
• Albert Brown
• Levi Newton Breed
• Edward Wadsworth Jones
• Edward C. Bosbyshell
• John F. Humphreys
• J. H. Book
• John Henry Bryant

4th Ward

• William H. Workman
• Samuel J. Beck
• Samuel Marshall Perry
• O. H. Bliss
• Bernard Cohn
• Burdette Chandler
• George Kerckhoff
• Joseph W. Wolfskill
• Alfred Louis Bush
• D. E. Miles
• Frank Sabichi
• Milton Santee
• James D. Bullis
• John Lovell
• Joseph Hyans
• Anthony McNally
• Edward R. Threlkeld

5th Ward

• William B. Lawlor
• Nathan Russell Vail
• James Greer McDonald
• John P. Moran
• Walter Scott Moore
• Otto G. Weyse
• Daniel Michael McGarry
• John B. Niles
• Hiram Sinsabaugh
• Cyrus Willard
• Jacob Frankenfeld
• Horace Hiller
• A. W. Barrett
• Austin C. Shafer

Related articles

• Los Angeles City Council, 1889–1909
• Los Angeles City Council