Los Angeles County, CA, Biographies

This file is part of the California Genealogy & History Archives 
http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~cagha/index.htm


JOSEPH EDWARD PLEASANTS 
 
was born near St. Charles, Missouri, March 30, 1836.  His father, James Madison 
Pleasants, who still lives at Pleasant Valley, Solano County, and after whom the 
valley is named, is a native of Kentucky. His mother's name was Mason; she died 
in 1848. Both parents were of English ancestry. The father and two sons came to 
California in 1849, by way of Goose Lake, entering the Sacramento Valley at 
Redding, with a company of 120 persons, one-fourth of whom died on the way from 
cholera. Edward was the youngest of the party. He and his father and older 
brother mined on Feather River eighteen months; then came to what is now Solano
County and, on the advice of John Wolfskill, settled at Pleasants Valley in 
1851. Bear, deer and antelope were very plenty there then, as also were 
California lions. Eleven bears were counted by the Pleasants at one time. Edward 
worked with his father till June, 1856, when he came to Los Angeles to attend 
the private school of William Wolfskill, living meanwhile in Mr. Wolfskill's 
family, till the last of 1858. He then went to the rancho "Lomas de Santiago," 
then owned by Mr. Wolfskill, to take charge of horses and cattle, on shares. He 
has made his home in the Santiago Ca�on ever since. In 1861 Pleasants and 
William C. Warren, then city marshal of Los Angeles, and the sheriff of San 
Bernardino County, started after a large band of horses which had been stolen 
and taken through the Cajon Pass out on Mojave River. Near Rock Creek they found 
the camp of the horse-thieves and captured two of them, who were afterward 
convicted and sent to the penitentiary from San Bernardino County; a third one 
escaped. A year or two after, he was apprehended for killing John Sanford, and 
brought to Los Angeles and tried and convicted by the court, and hung by the 
people on a cross�beam of a corral gateway, where Lawyer's Block now stands. He 
gave his name as Charles Wilkins, and according to his own confession he had 
been with the Mormons in the Mountain Meadow Massacre, and had first and last 
killed many men, and was a desperado and fiend of the blackest dye. Pleasants' 
party recovered about forty animals, twenty-six head of which belonged to 
Workman and Rowland, of La Puente, and some to Mr. Temple. These rancheros 
subscribed each $100 to fit out the pursuing party. In 1862 Mr. Pleasants was 
shot by horse-thieves in one of his own corrals in the Santiago Ca�on, where he 
found three of them stealing horses. One of the gang, Bonillo by name, under 
pretense of being friendly, approached Pleasants as be entered the corral on 
horseback, as if to shake hands, and suddenly drew his pistol; Pleasants threw 
up his arm, knocking away the pistol. This shot, however, disabled Mr. 
Pleasants' right hand, and he commenced shooting with his left hand, wounding 
Bonillo, who, when all his six shots were fired, ran. Every one of these shots 
hit Mr. Pleasants, his saddle or his horse. Three of them hit Mr. Pleasants, who 
only fired five shots (all with his left hand), which were all he had, as he had 
previously fired off one; but the robber supposed that Mr. Pleasants had one 
shot still in reserve, and as his companions had made off at the commencement of 
the m�l�e, he fled too. And thus Mr. Pleasants, in a left-handed fight of one 
against three, remained master of the field and of his own corral. Cattle and 
horse thieves long ago concluded that Santiago Ca�on was an unhealthy locality 
for their vocation; and now it is one of the most peaceful and quiet, as it is 
one of the most picturesque mountain valleys in Southern California. Mr. 
Pleasants has had much success in raising Cashmere goats, of which he has now 
about 1,000 head. They are easily raised and can live wherever a common goat 
can. He has also engaged in bee culture successfully, and cattle-raising. He 
made a very creditable exhibit of bees and honey, for which he received the gold 
medal at the New Orleans Exposition. July 15, 1868, Mr. Pleasants married Miss 
Mary Refugio Carpenter, who died in this city, January 26, 1888. A sister of Mr. 
Pleasants, Mrs. W. S. Reavis, is a resident of Los Angeles.          
 
An Illustrated History of Los Angeles County, California �  Chicago, The Lewis 
Publishing Company, 1889   Page 597
Transcribed by Kathy Sedler