Los Angeles County, CA, Biographies

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LUTHER HARVEY TITUS
 
was born at Hamburg, Erie County, New York, October 9, 1822.  His father, who 
was a native of New York State, was of English ancestry on the paternal side, 
and Holland Dutch on the maternal side.  His mother, whose maiden name was 
Carey, was of Puritan extraction: her father, whose ancestry was Scotch, was in 
the Revolutionary army, in which he suffered great hardships, having been 
crippled by having his feet frozen.  Mr. Titus remembers him very well.
            Mr. Titus lived in the vicinity of his birthplace till 1840, when he 
went to Rockford, Illinois, and from thence to the Galena lead mines, where he 
remained four years, when he bought a farm of 120 acres, paying for it from his 
monthly wages.  In 1845 he returned to his native town.  In 1849 he started for 
California, sailing from New York to Galveston.  Proceeding from thence via 
Houston and Austin to El Paso and Dona Ana, he crossed the Rio Grande at the old 
copper mines, where he met David S. Terry, then a young man, who was also on his 
way to California. Titus and party of fifteen came on to the Gila river, where 
on account of a big canon and the difficulty of crossing, etc., and the 
hostility of the Indians, all but three of the party went back.  These three, 
consisting of Titus, Tupper and Salsbury, who were not easily diverted, then nor 
afterwards, from the accomplishment of their aims, resolved to push on through 
the Apache country to California, though it was a very hazardous undertaking.  
They found a way to cross the river, and by ceaseless watchfulness, by doubling 
back on their track when in the bush or cane along the river, to throw the 
Indians off their trail, and by making no fires when they camped at night, they 
at last eluded the savages and reached the country of the friendly Pimo Indians, 
who treated them well, and from whom they purchased supplies.  Here they learned 
that a party of Americans was ahead of them, and they hurried on to overtake 
them.  One evening, about sunset, they camped in the cane on the Gila.  Mr. 
Titus had suffered greatly from the heat, and he was obliged to wear a mask, as 
his face was burnt and sore.  Being short of provisions, and attempting to shoot 
a rabbit, his gun kicked so badly as to knock him over; but he did not mind 
that, as he got his rabbit.  Before reaching the Colorado river they overtook 
the party of twenty-eight Americans, of whom Dr. James B. Winston, afterwards 
for many years a resident of Los Angeles, was the head.
            With this party they crossed the Colorado at Fort Yuma, in a 
Government wagon box, which the Indians used as a substitute for a ferry-boat.  
For this service and for swimming their animals across, they paid the Indians 
with blankets.
            Expecting trouble with the Yuma Indians, they had prepared their 
arms for whatever might turn up, Titus filling his flask full of powder.  Being 
without matches, he kindled a fire one day by taking cotton from his coat and 
gathering dry grass, and putting powder in them, he snapped a cap, and then, 
kneeling down, blowed it into a flame, when his powder-flask exploded, raising 
him off the ground and nearly stopping his breath.  However, the accident did 
not prove fatal, though it was some time before he entirely recovered from its 
effects.  The party, including Mr. Titus, Dr. Winston and others, arrived in San 
Diego, August 13, 1849.  Mr. Titus staid there about a month.  While there a 
soldier picked the grains of powder out of his face with the point of a knife.  
Taking the steamer Oregon, he arrived in San Francisco September 13, and from 
there he went to Stockton and Moquelumne Hill, where he mined awhile, and then 
went to Calaveras, where he and his partner, Salsbury, made about three and 
one-half ounces of gold per day, till they worked out their claim, when they 
returned to San Francisco. From there Mr. Titus went to making shingles, which 
were then worth $32 a thousand, in the redwoods just north of the Golden Gate.  
While at work there he caught several salmon which he sold in San Francisco for 
$5 each.  Deer were also very plenty, and in two consecutive days he shot ten, 
and sold them for $18 each.
            In February, 1850, he went to Feather river, and he and others 
undertook to turn Deer creek; but he sold out for $600, and went out prospecting 
in the mountains on the old �Emigrant Trail.�  At one place they found wagons, 
dead mules, etc., and also the body of a man with one arm gone, probably eaten 
by wild animals.  He then took up the Sacramento valley, and crossed the river 
below Shasta.  After prospecting above Shasta, he returned down the valley to 
Marysville with what was then called the �Trinity fever,� where he was some days 
out of his head; but he was carefully nursed by a friend, and Englishman, to 
whom he thinks he owes his life.  From thence he went to San Francisco, and as 
soon as he was able took a sailing vessel for Panama, and home, where he arrived 
in the latter part of 1851.
            In 1869 Mr. Titus came again to California, and to Los Angeles, 
where he concluded to settle, as he was at once greatly pleased with the 
country, and he has never since had occasion to change his favorable opinion.  
He went home, and the next year, with his daughter and her husband, Captain J. 
C. Newton, he came back to Los Angeles County, where they have made their home 
ever since.  They went on to a place which he bought, near the Mission San 
Gabriel, and engaged in citrus fruit culture on an extensive scale, and with 
great success.  Mr. Titus also devoted some attention to raising grapes and to 
breeding fine horses.  He brought in 1870 from the East the stallion �Echo,� 
sired by Rysdick�s Hambletonian, one of the best horses ever brought to this 
coast.  �Echo� is the sire of many fast and game trotters.
            Mr. Titus is a man of great force of character, fertile in 
resources, and whatever he undertakes he is very apt to carry through.  Finding 
that water was exceedingly valuable in Southern California, he devised a machine 
for molding cement canals for economizing its use, the canal being formed on the 
ground where used; thus, in an inexpensive manner, making a limited quantity of 
water irrigate three or four times as much land as when run in ditches in the 
soil.  He invented and patented a ladder on wheels, for picking fruit; also a 
three-notch board for planting trees; both of these are now in general use in 
Los Angeles and adjoining counties.  He has lately invented an ingenious 
hand-shears for cutting and picking fruit with the same hand.  Mr. Titus was the 
first to use in Los Angeles County a portable apparatus for spraying fruit trees 
infested with pests.
            Mr. Titus married Maria Benedict in 1845. Two daughters resulted 
from this marriage:  Mary H., wife of Captain J. C. Newton, and Clara R. Titus; 
the latter is now a sister of the order of �the Immaculate Heart of Mary,� known 
as �Sister Clara,� and is a teacher in the Cathedral school of the city of Los 
Angeles.
            The family remained on their San Gabriel orchard about seventeen 
years.  Mr. Titus sold his orange crop from sixty-five-acres in 1887, for 
$15,000, on the trees.  During that year he sold his place, consisting of 230 
acres, most of which was highly improved.
            He has since planted a new place north of the old one.  This is 
mostly planted to peaches for shipping East by cold storage.  He has set out 
2,500 trees of the Salway variety, and 1,000 Honey Clings.  He also has besides 
some olive, pear and apple trees.
            Mr. Titus, during his twenty years of residence in Los Angeles 
County, has done much to develop its resources and capacities in many 
directions.  Indeed he is universally accounted to be one of Los Angeles� most 
useful citizens.  Being a man of the strictest probity and honor, he is held in 
the highest estimation by all who know him.
 
An Illustrated History of Southern California:  Embracing the Counties of San 
Diego, San Bernardino, Los Angeles and Orange, and the Penninsula of Lower 
California, from the Earliest Period of Occupancy to the Present Time.... - 
Chicago:  The Lewis Publishing Company, 1890.
p. 766-768
Transcribed by Kathy Sedler