3/15/22 Chatsworth Historical Society - Chatsworth Hills Homesteaders Part 3 1
Chatsworth Hills Homesteaders - Part 3
Chatsworth Hills Homesteaders Part 3
•This is Part 3 of a three part presentation, as we share the history of some of
the 45 Chatsworth Homesteading Families. Topics we will cover tonight:
•Homesteading Overview
•Research Tools supporting this presentation
•Homesteading History in California
•Homesteading Requirements
•Overview of Chatsworth Hills Homesteaders
•Part 3 - Homesteader Families in the Simi Hills, south of Plummer, west
of Valley Circle, and north of Roscoe. Includes Schweikhard, Domec,
Woolsey and Dayton.
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3/15/22 Chatsworth Historical Society - Chatsworth Hills Homesteaders Part 3 3
Online Research Tools used in this Presentation
•Online Census Data, and supplemental Genealogical Websites, i.e. Ancestry.com
•Online Township Master Title Plats from California Bureau of Land Management
(BLM)
•Online US Dept. of Interior BLM, listing Names and Doc numbers of
Homesteaders, and any other transfer/sale of public lands to private lands
•Google Earth, allowing us to plot Homesteader parcels as an overlay
•Earth Point, allowing an overlay of the Federal townships and sections on Google
Earth.
•As a background, a township is 36 square miles (6 miles to each side). A township
is divided into 36 sections of one square mile each (1 mile to each side). Each
section is 640 acres, a quarter section is 160 acres.
•A special thanks to Rich Krugel and Ken Ditto, who helped us compile the Homestead
Data
Research Tools and Homesteader Overlay
For those of you who are interested in the sources we used for this
presentation, email us at
chatsworthhistory@gmail.com
We will email you the online links, plus a
Chatsworth Hills Homesteader file
that you can open up as an overlay on
Google Earth.
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3/15/22 Chatsworth Historical Society - Chatsworth Hills Homesteaders Part 3 5
Homesteading History in California
•Spanish Rule 1542-1821
•1542 - Cabrillo anchors his ships off the shore of Santa Monica.
•1769 - Spanish Colonization and the Mission Period begins.
•1781 –Pueblo de Los Angeles is founded. Spanish pioneer colonists are given land grants after
five years.
•1795 –Rancho Simi and Rancho Encino established. In 1797, the San Fernando Mission is
established, and Rancho Encino gives up much of its land for the use of the Mission.
•Mexican Rule 1821 –1848
•1834 –The Mexican government dissolves the Missions, allowing Mission lands to be granted to
individuals.
•1845 - Rancho Encino is regranted to three Tongva Native Americans, and El Escorpion is granted
to three Chumash Native Americans. In 1846, Rancho Ex-Mission de San Fernando established.
•1848 –the Treaty ending the Mexican-American war provides that land grants will be honored.
•American Rule 1848 –
•1862 –The Homestead Act gave an applicant ownership of government land of up to 160 acres.
Requirements were that the homesteader needed to live on the land for five years, and improve it by
building a 12’ x 14’ dwelling and growing crops.
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Homesteaders Overview –Spanish Land Grants in 1848
3/15/22 Chatsworth Historical Society - Chatsworth Hills Homesteaders Part 3 7
45 Homesteaders pioneer the Santa Susana and Simi Hills
•The orange section is the area between Rancho
Simi and Rancho Ex-Mission de San Fernando,
that became federal land after the Mexican
American war in 1848.
•Some Homesteaders arrived as early as the
1860’s and 1870’s, although most did not file for
their homesteads until the mid 1890’s
•Chatsworth Park (in blue) was originally a part
of Rancho Ex-Mission de San Fernando. It was
founded in 1888, about the same time as many
homesteaders settled in the area. The railroad
came in 1893.
•Notice that Chatsworth Park was bordered by
Andora, the Mission Road (Rinaldi), Mason and
DeSoto, Roscoe, and Fallbrook.
Homesteaders South of
Plummer and north of Roscoe
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Names and dates of arrival:
•Francesca Domec 1854 (born)
•**Edwin Brown 1896
•** Elizabeth Murray 1896
•August Schweikhard 1897
•** John Coleman 1898
•Charles Woolsey 1899
•Clyde Dayton 1902
•** Annie Gallow 1911
•** William Henderson 1911
•** John Cole 1912
•** Monroe Groshong 1914 (purchase)
•** Louisa Lee 1914 (purchase)
•** Alva Fairchild 1914
•** Henry Elliott 1916 (purchase) ** limited records and information on these people
August Schweikhard
•Katherine and August
Schweikhard arrived in
Chatsworth in 1897 or earlier.
They had 4 children, Rosa,
Emma, George and Stella.
•They homesteaded 37 acres
at Valley Circle Blvd. just east
of today’s Chatsworth Lake
Manor.
•In 1912 August and Katherine
sold their homestead to the
City of Los Angeles for the
Chatsworth Reservoir and
moved into town.
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Today, the three acre Chatsworth Oaks Park, located at 9301
Valley Circle Blvd., is on the Schweikhard parcel. The DWP
still owns all 37 acres.
•An article in our archives tells a fun and fascinating story
about the Schweikhard family. It is a story told by August’s
son George, and reprinted from an article regarding
“Misinformation that is Current in Southern California” by
Don Meadows.
•In 1897, a drought caused the family to find extra forage
for the stock. They noticed that the pigs liked the acorns
under the oak trees, so August suggested that the horses
would eat them too if the shells were broken. They tried it
out and it worked just fine.
•Then Dad got the idea that a feeding basin of rock would
work just fine for a feeding trough, so with a dull hatchet
we cut out a nice big trough in the horse corral.
•We kids would gather up acorns in buckets and put them in
the trough and mash them up for the stock.
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August Schweikhard
•After 1912, when the City bought the ranch for the
Reservoir, a truck came up to the ranch looking for the old
Indian water trough. August’s son-in-law, Roy, didn’t know
anything about a water trough, but he did steer the crew to
the old feed rock. The boys in the truck said that was what
they were looking for, and with a lot of trouble they got the
rock loaded to carry away.
•Next thing anyone knew we saw our old feeding trough on
Olvera Street with a sign on it saying it had been made by
Indians more than a hundred years ago.
•A bronze marker formerly read: WATER TROUGH HEWN
BY THE MISSION INDIANS IN THE YEAR EIGHTEEN
HUNDRED AND TWENTY. PRESENTED BY THE
DEPARTMENT OF WATER AND POWER OF THE CITY
OF LOS ANGELES. 1930.
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August Schweikhard
•Today, the bronze marker reads:
SANDSTONE TROUGH USED
FOR FEEDING LIVESTOCK,
HEWN IN 1897, BY THE
SCHWEIKAND FAMILY ON
THEIR SAN FERNANDO VALLEY
RANCH. PRESENTED IN 1930
BY THE DEPARTMENT OF
WATER AND POWER OF THE
CITY OF LOS ANGELES.
•The sandstone trough still exists
today, at the north end of Olvera
Street.
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August Schweikhard
•Today, the Department of Water owns the
entire 37 acre parcel, and Chatsworth Oaks
Park is on three of those acres.
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August Schweikhard
•Francesca Domec, eldest daughter of Pierre Domec, was
granted a 148 acre homesteaded in 1901 in what is now
Chatsworth Lake Manor.
•There is a three part backstory to this homestead:
• Francesca’s mother, Maria Dolores, was the daughter
of Odón Chihuya, a Chumash Native American who
was a grantee of Rancho El Escorpion.
• Francesca’s father, Pierre Domec, an industrious
1844 French immigrant, was a cooper in 1850, a lime-
burner in 1860, and a stock raiser in 1870.
• Pierre Domec’s 1865 homestead claim for 160 acres
conflicted with the final boundaries of Ex Mission de
San Fernando in 1871. He built a second adobe on
government land, which would become Francesca’s
eventual homestead.
3/15/22 Chatsworth Historical Society - Chatsworth Hills Homesteaders Part 3 14
Pierre Domec and wife Maria,
from the Leonis Adobe archives
Francesca Domec
Francesca Domec
•The 148 acre
homestead to the right
was at the northern end
of Chatsworth
Reservoir.
•The boundary to the
north is Rancho Simi,
today County Line
Road.
3/15/22 Chatsworth Historical Society - Chatsworth Hills Homesteaders Part 3 15
•From 1797, the Chatsworth Reservoir area, south to Ventura Blvd, was in the domain of
the San Fernando Mission and was a cattle, sheep and horse ranch.
Rancho El Escorpion
•In 1797, The San Fernando Mission is
established. That same year, a Chumash Native
American, Odón Chihuya, is born. He marries
Eusabia, and they have four children. Two of
their daughters, Maria Dolores and Espiritu, will
marry two Frenchmen, Pierre Domec and Miguel
Leonis.
•In 1836, Odón moves to Rancho El Escorpion
property at the mouth of Bell Canyon, and the
site of the Chumash village known as Huwam.
•In 1839, at the age of 42, Odón receives his
Decree of Emancipation from the San Fernando
Mission.
• By 1843, Urbano and Urbano’s son Manuel join
Odón at El Escorpion.
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El Escorpion today is known as Castle Peak,
located at Vanowen and Valley Circle Blvd,
just south of Bell Canyon.
There is a 3 acre El Escorpion Park at the site.
Rancho El Escorpion
•In 1845, the three Chumash Native Americans,
Odón, Urbano, and Manuel petition Governor Pio
Pico for two leagues of land, close to 9,000 acres.
•In that year, Governor Pico makes the grant for one
half of a square league. Juan Sepulveda, the Second
Alcalde (mayor) of Los Angeles, surveys off a parcel
that was actually only a quarter of a league (1,110
acres), even though it was ratified as half a square
league. It was accepted by Odón and Urbano.
•Up to 1870, Odón and future partners of El Escorpion
dispute the boundaries, occupying and using all 9,000
acres of land at various times.
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To the right, El Escorpion of 1,100 acres is outlined in red. The purple outline is representative of the
9,000 acres of land used by the grantees of El Escorpion, reaching north to include the Chatsworth
Reservoir, and east to Topanga Canyon.
Rancho El Escorpion
•The area to the south was known as Escorpion Viejo.
The area to the north was known as El Escorpion de las
Salinas (salt marshes), later known as Chatsworth
Reservoir/Nature Preserve.
• Chief Odón’s daughters marry two Frenchmen.
•By 1849 - Pierre Domec marries? Maria Dolores
Odón, and lives north of El Escorpion in today’s
Chatsworth Nature Preserve. (red star)
•1859 - Miguel Leonis enters into a common-law
marriage with Espiritu Odón and lives at El
Escorpion ranch headquarters. (green star)
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To the right is a portion of the 1871 Plat of the Ex Mission de
San Fernando finally confirmed to Eulogio de Celis, courtesy of
the Huntington Digital Library.
The horizontal line on the map was the 1869 dividing line of Ex
Mission lands, later to become Roscoe Blvd.
Rancho El Escorpion
•Pierre Domec arrives in Los Angeles in 1844 at the
age of 24. He works as a cooper, and is in charge of
the wine cellars of his compatriot Jean Louis Vignes.
•By 1849, 29-year old Pierre has established a
lime-burning operation at El Escorpion. More on
Pierre Domec later……
•Miguel Leonis was a Basque sheepherder born in the
French Pyrenees, arrives in Los Angeles in 1854.
•By 1859, 35-year old Miguel begins sheepherding
operations at El Escorpion ranch headquarters.
Miguel leases El Escorpion Viejo from Odón and
Urbano for grazing and farming for 10 years at
$40 per year.
•In 1880 Leonis moves to Calabasas where he
becomes a wealthy rancher and land owner.
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Las Pilitas
•Miguel Leonis was a sheepherder and an
opportunistic man. In 1862, he surveyed two 160
acre parcels 4 miles north (as the crow flies) of his
home in Bell Canyon, just 1 year after the
Stagecoach Trail road was completed.
• The parcel marked J. Leonis (Juan, Miguel’s
brother) is historically significant. It included the old
Indian landmark Las Pilitas (the Fountains), which
would be a natural place to make a trail going
west over the Simi Hills to Simi Valley. It once
served as a sheep camp for Mission San Fernando.
• Juan Menendez, Miguel Leonis’ stepson, stated in
his 1917 interview with JP Harrington that he spent
part of his childhood at Las Pilitas.
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•The Pilitas area is identified to the right on the
1871 Plat of Ex Mission de San Fernando finally
confirmed to Eulogio de Celis.
•Those fountains/springs became two cisterns
that were a part of the 1861 stagecoach swing
station, and were later expanded by Bannon in
1893 as a part of the Chatsworth Park Quarry.
•During the 1899-1904 Southern Pacific tunneling
project to the Simi Valley, the aquifer that fed the
wells and springs of the area was pierced, to the
point that water needed to be trucked up to Box
Canyon residents. Perhaps as a result, the
springs at Las Pilitas are no longer active.
•The two cisterns still exist today in the Santa
Susana Pass State Historic Park.
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Domec’s second adobe
just north of Ex Mission
Lands in 1871.
Las Pilitas
Pierre Domec
•The map at right puts in
perspective where Pierre
Domec lived from around
1854 to 1869.
•The red section is
Chatsworth Lake Manor,
and identifies Francesca
Domec’s 148 acre 1901
homestead.
•The green section is Pierre
Domec’s 160 acre 1861
parcel map. The white
section is the Chatsworth
Limekiln.
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Pierre Domec
•Pierre Domec and other Frenchmen operated
limekilns at El Escorpion. Lime had a ready
market in Los Angeles, for mortar in brick
construction, for the process of tanning
cowhides, and in sanitation.
• In 1860, Domec’s partner sued him for breach
of contract. Leboubon had been Domec’s
partner for a full year, making lime. Domec
refused to show the account books, and he
gave no money to Leboubon. The jury
awarded damages against Domec of $2,250.
•Also in 1860 (and 1861, 2, 3 & 4), Andres Pico
(who was managing Ex Mission lands for
Eugenio de Celis) filed suit against Domec for
rent of lands at $300 per year.
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An 1861 sketch of a parcel map for Pierre Domec
courtesy of the Huntington Library. The area is just
south of Chatsworth Lake Manor and includes the
limekiln near Woolsey Canyon.
Pierre Domec
•A formal survey of
the parcel sketch
was completed in
1865. It is rotated
45 degrees from
the sketch to align
to north/south.
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The above 1865 formal survey by Frank Lecouvreur,
Deputy County Surveyor of Los Angeles County, was for
160 acres. Unfortunately, in 1871, much of it was
determined to fall on Ex Mission San Fernando lands.
1861 sketch –notice Domec,
Odón and Bernabel adobes.
Marcelina Odón and Bernabel
were Odón’s children.
Pierre Domec
•When the 1871 Plat of the Ex
Mission de San Fernando was
published, the Domec, Odón
and Bernabel adobes were not
on the map.
•A new house/adobe was
marked on the 1871 map,
located on government land, to
the west of the creek at the site
of today’s Chatsworth Lake
Manor Church.
•It appears that Domec built a
new adobe by 1871 on
government land.
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The green lines mark Domec’s 1861/65 parcel. The white lines
mark the limekiln. The portion of the green parcel southeast of
the red lines was on Rancho Ex Mission lands.
Pierre Domec
•This 1935 photo from
the Autry museum is
identified as a
photograph of the ruins
of “Pierre Domec
Adobe, Chatsworth
Lake.”
•We are not certain of
the exact location of this
adobe, but it may be
one of several that were
near the limekiln,
identified on his 1861
sketch map.
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Adobe
• Pierre Domec’s second adobe, from the
Los Angeles Public Library archives
identified as taken in 1959.
•Skyline rock features of the 1959 and
2014 photos identify the adobe location
very near today’s Chatsworth Lake Manor
church.
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Top photo taken 1959.
Bottom photo taken 2014, standing in the vacant
lot to the west of Chatsworth Lake Manor Church,
looking north.
Pierre Domec Adobe
3/15/22 Chatsworth Historical Society - Chatsworth Hills Homesteaders Part 3 28
Pierre Domec
Limekiln
2014 photo of Limekiln, known as Chatsworth Calera Site, designated in
1975 as L.A. Historic Cultural Monument 141
The limekiln can be seen
today looking east at the
intersection of Woolsey
Canyon and Valley Circle.
Excerpts from a Google translation of a January 1883 article in L'Union
Nouvelle, organe de la population francaise du sud de la californie)
3/15/22 Chatsworth Historical Society - Chatsworth Hills Homesteaders Part 3 29
Pierre Domec
•M. Pierre Domec, who died last Monday at the age of 63 was a pioneer of
Los Angeles when he arrived in 1844. He was soon given the direction of the
cellars of his compatriot Jean Louis Vignes.
•Later he created lime furnaces and in 1863 he was appointed director of the
liquidation of Don Abel Stearns, a position he held three years.
•Then he conceived a project to ship a convoy of 3,500 horses across the
Rocky Mountains to Omaha where they were sold to the army of the United
States. He then went to Texas where he bought 4,000 cattle to take back to
California. His return was disastrous; he struggled against Indians and
drought across unknown lands and deserts. In short, he lost in this campaign
most of his fortune.
•Since that time P. Domec could not recover from this disaster and he
succumbs to both moral and physical sufferings, but he is remembered as
one of France’s most enterprising citizens of this country.
Obituary
•Pierre died in 1883, and his wife Maria Dolores died
in 1884.
•Francesca and her sister Celedonia never married.
The daughters filed a homestead claim in 1896, and
in 1901, Francesca received the 148 acre
homestead.
•By 1880, their younger sister Maria Antonia Domec
had married Francisco Moore and they had a
daughter Marie Irene Moore born in 1882.
•In the 1940 Chatsworth census, Marie Moore is
living with her son Henry Acosta (20) at 23144 Smith
Road in Chatsworth Lake Manor.
•In 1952 Henry dies, leaving a wife Frances and two
children John (12) and Yolanda (2).
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Francesca Domec
Francesca (31?) and Celedonia (24?), 1885?
Leonis Adobe, unidentified pictures,
Domec Trunk collection
•A 1952 newspaper article has John Acosta in the 6th grade at Chatsworth Elementary
and active in the Scout Pack from Chatsworth Lake.
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•By 1927, the P.D.
Estate Company
was formed, with
shares distributed to
sisters Francesca
and Caledonia and
their niece Maria
Moore.
•Cabin sites were
sold in the 20’s and
30’s, giving rise to
the Chatsworth Lake
Manor that we know
today.
Francesca Domec
The Story below as remembered by Rayborn (Ray) Phillips, past
president of the Leonis Adobe Association.
3/15/22 Chatsworth Historical Society - Chatsworth Hills Homesteaders Part 3 32
Pierre Domec Trunk Story
Around 1980, an antique dealer was driving down Melrose Ave. in
Los Angeles and saw some old trunks sitting by the curb waiting for
trash disposal; recognized them as mid-19th century Chinese
painted trunks so popular in early California and “rescued” them.
Apparently the last owner had died.
The dealer found them full of items relating to the Pierre Domec
family; toys, books, photographs, documents, letters, etc. A man
connected with our Adobe heard about them and recognized the
fact that the Domec family was related to the Leonis family. He told
me about them, and I obtained the trunks and almost everything
except the toys, which he had sold off.
Ray paid just $1,000 for the three trunks and their contents.
An 1855 Pre-emption claim,
from the Domec Trunk
Collection
•Charles and Cora Woolsey recorded
their homestead in 1904, but were not
on the 1900 census. They were 35 and
34 years old in 1904, and never had
children.
•Their house was north of the Woolsey
Canyon creek near todays Rocky Mesa
Place Road, just east of Mountain View
Estates Mobile Home Park.
•In the 1910 Chatsworth census Charles
is listed as a farmer, and their neighbor
is Henry Egliston.
•By 1920, they have moved to La
Crescenta. The 1930 census has them
still in La Crescenta as chicken ranchers
with partner Henry Egliston.
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Charles Woolsey
The black rectangles
above identify houses
on the 1903 topo map
to the right. Domec,
Woolsey, Brown, and
the old Domec adobe
behind the limekiln.
Woolsey Canyon is the
gateway to Burro Flats
•Prehistory –
Chumash Rock
Art
•1937-54 –Movie
set
•Mid-50’s –
Rocketdyne tests
rocket engines
and power
systems.
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Charles Woolsey
•1903 –Clyde Dayton homesteads 59
acres on the south edge of Dayton
Canyon. He has 350 hives of bees, a
bee house & apiary.
•1905 –His wife Katie dies of
tuberculosis.
•1908 –Clyde Dayton is granted his
patent on 59 acres. In the same year
he purchases 80 acres “mostly
valuable for stone building purposes”
north near Woolsey Canyon.
•1909 –Clyde marries Lulu Adkisson,
also a Seventh Day Adventist. Clyde
would write a weekly paper on health,
and ads for his “red ripe” honey.
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Clyde Dayton
The Google Earth map above shows the two Dayton
parcels. The 1903 topo insert below shows only one house
(red circle) on Coleman property in Dayton Canyon.
• “A familiar site in the early days was the Red Ripe Honey
Man trundling his wheelbarrow through the town as he
sold his honey and doubtless advised the residents on the
proper foods to eat.”
• “Published in the 1917 Owensmouth Gazette, HOW
HONEY HEALS “there is not any kind of food that is
nutritious if it is white, unless it is combined by its
molecules with red or green.” His theory was that
vegetables, red honey and fruits were good for digestion.”
• “This prophet of health, C.W. Dayton, lived reclusively with
his wife in the hills west of town, was regarded dubiously
by some of the settlers, and came to a violent end”.
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Clyde Dayton
Clyde Dayton
Excerpts above from Catherine Mulholland’s
The Owensmouth Baby, pages 160 and 161)
•On April 17th, 1922, Los Angeles Times -Charred Bodies of Two Found –Double
Murder or Murder and Suicide in Grim Cabin Ruins? –Visitors to Secluded Spot
Stumble on Remains of Man and Wife
•Clyde was 60 and Lulu was 52 at the time of their deaths on April 12th. It was
reported that Clyde was a miser and an eccentric, worth $50,000, and had a large
sum of money in his possession.
•A thick blanket of white ashes six inches deep over a square 10 by 12 feet, and a few
bones and ribs were the only thing that remained from the inside of the corrugated tin
shack.
•Persons who visited the place say that it was full of magazines and literature printed
by the old hermit on a printing press operated by him in another building.
3/15/22 Chatsworth Historical Society - Chatsworth Hills Homesteaders Part 3 37
Clyde Dayton
•Was it a Murder and Suicide?
•A Mrs. Thompson gave deputies a letter received from Lulu where she
expressed fears for her life. Another witness said that Lulu had told him
that Clyde was talking to himself, declaring: “I don’t know what I am going
to do with that woman unless I kill her.”
•Deputy sheriffs said that Dayton was evidently insane, his actions were
unusual, and he lived mainly on red honey, cactus and green vegetables.
•Witnesses said that the disagreement between Clyde and Lulu was a
difference of opinion as to the division of property and the need for a new
and more comfortable home. They had lived in a 10 by 12 foot corrugated
metal shack for 13 years.
3/15/22 Chatsworth Historical Society - Chatsworth Hills Homesteaders Part 3 38
Clyde Dayton
•Or was it a Double Murder?
•Evidence indicates that gasoline or coal oil must have been spread
about the cabin because of the intense heat.
•A blood bespattered trail, an empty five-gallon oil can, the remains of
several pieces of firearms, and failure to find all valuables were
additional clues.
• Half the community speculated that Dayton’s neighbor, rancher Lon
Gates, the son of Calabasas Constable William Gates, might have
killed the couple for money or even revenge.
3/15/22 Chatsworth Historical Society - Chatsworth Hills Homesteaders Part 3 39
Clyde Dayton
• 8 days after the deaths, the Ventura Daily Post reported: “The
investigating officers concluded that Dayton killed his wife and then
committed suicide, a comfortable theory always for the investigators in as
much as it does away with the necessity for looking for the slayer”
Plummer Street was named for Juan
(John) Plummer, who owned property in the San
Fernando Valley, just west of San Fernando.
3/15/22 Chatsworth Historical Society - Chatsworth Hills Homesteaders Part 3 40
Eugene Plummer, age 90 (with hat)
• Juan’s father, Captain John Cornelius Plummer
and his wife Dona Maria Cecelia Plummer had
two sons, Juan (John) and Eugenio (Eugene).
•In 1874 they purchased 160 acres in Hollywood
at Sunset and La Brea, and built a ranch house.
•Youngest son Eugenio was quite a storyteller,
and in 1942 wrote the book, “Señor Plummer”,
one year before his death at age 91.
•In 1983 the Plummer Ranch House, State
Historical Landmark No. 160, was moved to the
grounds of the Leonis Adobe in Calabasas.
Sources/Acknowledgements
3/15/22 Chatsworth Historical Society - Chatsworth Hills Homesteaders Part 3 41
• “Reminiscences of a Ranger”, Horace Bell (Dec.
11, 1830–June 29, 1918), 1881
• “On the Old West Coast”, Horace Bell, 1901,
published 1930
• “Leonis”, Horace Bell, 1909, published 1993,
Leonis Adobe Association
• “History of San Fernando Valley”, Frank Keefer,
1934
• “Señor Plummer”, 1942, E.R. Plummer
• “The Cattle on a Thousand Hills, Southern
California, 1850-80”, Robert Glass Cleland, 1957,
Huntington Library
• “The Story of San Fernando Valley”, Title
Insurance and Trust Company, 1962
• “El Escorpion”, Chester G. Cohen, 1989
• “The Boom of the Eighties in Southern California”,
Glenn S. Dumke, 1991, Huntington Library
•Los Encino Docent Association,
http://historicparks.org/imagegallery/delaosa/
• “Santa Susana Pass State Historic Park Cultural
Resources Inventory Historic Overview”,
Alexander Bevil, 2007
• “The History and Mystery of Dayton Canyon”,
Robbie B. Wilson, 2014
• Jerry England’s blogspot, http://a-drifting-
cowboy.blogspot.com
•The Leonis Adobe Museum, Michelle Covello
•Prepared by Ann and Ray Vincent, Chatsworth
Historical Society, March 2014, revised 3/22
•For our list of online resources, please send an
email to: chatsworthhistory@gmail.com
