Los Angeles County, CA, Biographies

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SOLOMON LAZARD, 
 
who has been a resident of Los Angeles for thirty-seven years, is a native of 
Lorraine, France, where he  was born April 5, 1827. He came to New York in 1844, 
and to California, via New Orleans and the Isthmus, in 1851, and to Los Angeles 
in 1852. He was engaged in mercantile business, on the corner of Aliso and Los 
Angeles streets, from 1852 till 1867�about fifteen years�when he moved to Main 
street, northeast of the Downey Block, where he carried on a large dry-goods 
business, under the name of "The City of Paris," till 1874, when he sold out to 
Eugene Meyer & Co., who afterward removed that extensive emporium to its present 
quarters on Spring street. In 1868 S. Lazard, P. Beaudry and Dr. J. S. Griffin 
bought of J. L. Sainsevaine and D. W. Alexander their lease from the city to lay 
pipes and supply water, etc., with the understanding that the city would renew 
the lease for thirty years, and the new lessees would lay iron in place of the 
wooden pipes with which the city was then being supplied with water. A joint 
stock company was formed, of which the original members were: Lazard, Beaudry, 
Griffin, Meyer, Sainsevaine, C. Lepan and ex-Governor John G. Downey. The 
original water pipes laid for the city by Mr. Sainsevaine and D. Marchessault 
were made of logs of pine from the mountains of San Bernardino, bored and fitted 
end to end together. The cost of iron pipes was then thought to be beyond the 
reach, financially, of our primitive city. Of course, soft sugar-pine logs could 
not be made into very durable water pipes, and, as a consequence, they were 
continually bursting, and springs of water were constantly making their 
appearance in. our streets wherever these wooden pipes were laid. Workmen were 
compelled to clamp them with iron bands; but the leaks were too many for them. 
Mr. Marchessault, who had formerly been mayor of the city, and who was 
superintendent of these wooden water-works, committed suicide one morning in the 
old city council room, in the adobe on the site of the present Phillips Block, 
on Spring street. Whether discouragement at the hopelessness of stopping these 
perennial leaks had anything to do with driving him to this desperate deed is 
not certainly known. Mr. Sainsevaine, who died a month or two ago in this city, 
offered these water-works to the administrators of the William Wolfskill estate 
for about $9,000, which, though he truly characterized them as "magnifique," 
they declined. The City Water Company, to whom he sold the franchise later, have 
now a magnificent and very extensive iron pipe system, with an annual income 
running up into the hundreds of thousands of dollars, thus making true to the 
letter the words of good Don Louis Sainsevaine that, in view of its future 
value, he was offering fur a mere nominal price something that was really 
"magnifique." Mr. Lazard, who had the nerve and the foresight to take hold of 
this great enterprise, has been a stockholder and director of the company from 
the first organization of the same till the present time. On July 5, 1865, Mr. 
Lazard married Miss Carrie, daughter of Mr. Joseph Newmark, long a resident of 
this city, but now deceased. Mr. and Mrs. Lazard have six children�three boys 
and three girls. The eldest daughter is married to Louis Lewin, of the firm of 
Michel Levy & Co. In 1861 Mr. Lazard visited France, when he was arrested on the 
pretext that, though he was a naturalized citizen of the United States, he owed 
military duty to his native country. He was promptly tried by court-martial and 
sentenced to six days' imprisonment, which he served, when he was taken to the 
barracks of his regiment. The matter was finally settled by his hiring a 
substitute, when he was released. Our Minister, Mr. Faulkner, took much interest 
in the matter; but he could do very little, as France insists that every 
native-born Frenchman owes seven years' military service to his country, and 
that absence or expatriation does not annul that obligation, and if he ever 
returns he must perform it. Formerly, French law provided that if the subject 
paid a certain amount (3,500 francs), which was the amount. Mr. Lazard paid, the 
Government would undertake to supply the substitute. But that law has been 
abrogated, and now if an expatriated Frenchman owing military duty sets foot on 
French soil, he is compelled to serve out his time in prison.
 
An Illustrated History of Los Angeles County, California �  Chicago, The Lewis 
Publishing Company, 1889   Page 534
Transcribed by Kathy Sedler