‘Little Jack’ Watson: Bridging of 2 Cultures

James Alexander Watson’s political connections helped the Dominguez family--alone among owners of the great Spanish ranchos of Southern California--retain title to thousands of acres in the South Bay and preserve a tradition of development and political involvement that persists today.

It was a tribute to James Alexander Watson’s good aim that he lived long enough to play an important role in the early history of Los Angeles.

Watson, who stood 5-feet-6 and weighed 120 pounds, survived a series of gunfights, lynch mobs, Mexican War battles and a stint as a Texas Ranger before he settled in the city more than a century ago. In Los Angeles, he established himself as a farmer, attorney, vintner and assemblyman--after prevailing in one of the area’s most famous shoot-outs.

“A deadlier shot never fingered a revolver,” one contemporary noted. But his main contribution to the city had little to do with derring-do.

Cross-Cultural Marriage

Watson’s marriage to Dolores Dominguez served as a crucial bridge in post-Mexican War Los Angeles between the Hispanic culture of the former Spanish landholders and the emerging Anglo society of the new American state.

Watson’s political connections helped the Dominguez family--alone among owners of the great Spanish ranchos of Southern California--retain title to thousands of acres in the South Bay and preserve a tradition of development and political involvement that persists today.

The tempestuous Watson fell into obscurity after his death in 1869, but a new history book, “California Legacy: The Watson Family” by Judson A. Grenier, may change that.

Grenier, professor of history at California State University, Dominguez Hills, spent eight years examining census records from the 1800s, U.S. Army documents from the Mexican War, mining claims from the California gold country, legislative minutes, land deeds, old newspapers and memoirs.

He started out expecting to produce a modern history of the Watson family, commissioned by the family business, Watson Land Co. But the portrait of “Colonel Jack” came to dominate his work, eventually taking up half of “California Legacy.”

“It was going to be a two-year project concentrating on the 20th Century,” Grenier said. “Then I discovered this man about whom nobody knew anything.”

Grenier’s research has unearthed only sketchy information about Watson’s boyhood. He is believed to have been born in 1821 in Washington, D.C., shortly after his parents emigrated to the United States from Scotland, possibly because of discrimination against Roman Catholics. At age 13, he attended Madison College, a boarding school in southwestern Pennsylvania.

Like many in that frontier era, he spent years wandering, coming to California only in the last half of his life.

It was in New Orleans--his first stop as an adult--that Watson apparently absorbed the Southern traditions of honor and dueling.

Six Deaths Documented

“That was his way of defining himself,” said Grenier, whose book documents the deaths of six men at Watson’s hands. “Maybe it had to do with his height and size. He couldn’t let a larger guy get near him.”

During the Mexican War, Watson participated in the bloody capture of Monterrey on Sept. 24, 1846, and soon after joined the famed Texas Rangers--not the state police of later years but fighting troops known for vengeance in battle and love of gambling and dance at other times. In one savage incident, Watson’s regiment shot 80 Mexicans in the streets of Mexico City in retaliation for the murder of a single Ranger.

In this crew, “Little Jack” Watson, as he was known, achieved a certain notoriety. Nevada Sen. William M. Stewart described him in a passage quoted in the book:

“He would fight at the drop of a hat the biggest man that ever breathed. . . . The little chap didn’t provoke difficulties, but I verily believe he enjoyed fighting for its own sake. . . . His long suit was shooting, and a deadlier shot never fingered a revolver.”

Lured by gold fever, Watson and many fellow Ranger veterans left for California. Although he became a lawyer after the war ended, Watson listed his occupation as “speculator” with the census taker in Sacramento. He was in that city on Sept. 9, 1850, the date California became a state.

Watson cleared out about the time cholera came to town, showing up in gold mining camps, where he decided that practicing law would be more lucrative than mining. In the lawless climate of the day, however, his other skills were soon tested. He shot and killed a drunk from a rival camp.

Watson was acquitted on grounds of self-defense, but when he later tried a case in the rival camp, he had to face down a lynch-minded crowd.

Many of the Rangers who went to California became active in Democratic Party politics, and Watson was no exception. He told associates that he had been at the founding convention of the state Democratic Party on May 19, 1851.

Honorary Rank Bestowed

On July 9, 1852, in recognition of Watson’s skill with weapons and his political work, Gov. John Bigler appointed him aide-de-camp and gave him the rank of “colonel of cavalry.”

Watson was about 31 when he arrived in Los Angeles in January, 1853. Within weeks, he was part of the inner circle of the Los Angeles Democratic Party.

Aided by his associations, Watson developed a real estate law practice connected with the old families, descended from Spanish settlers, that had been given the original land grants to the area when it was a colony of Spain.

At the time, Los Angeles was a dusty little city undergoing drastic social change. In 1850, when California became a state, Los Angeles had 1,610 residents, about 80% of them Latino. One decade later, the population had more than doubled to 4,399 and the Latino percentage had dropped to 50%.

Exciting Times

In the year Watson arrived, the situation was explosive. Outlaws on the lam from the mining country mingled--frequently with bloodshed--with Mexican bandits hiding out north of the border. In addition, some members of the old Latino families of Los Angeles had turned to banditry--much like the fictional Zorro character--in resentment of Americans taking away their land and women.

One or more people, on the average, died each day from stabbings and gunfights.

“It was a common and usual query at the bar or breakfast table. ‘Well, how many were killed last night?’ ” according to settler and author Horace Bell.

A fancy ball on Washington’s birthday, hosted by one of Watson’s friends to introduce the young attorney to local society, was a blast--literally.

In a barroom down the street, a disgruntled group that had not been invited denounced the party-goers as aristocrats, hauled a cannon to the house and, at about 11 p.m., fired it through the front door, producing, as one contemporary account noted, “panic among the women, who shrieked and fled from the room.”

To the Rescue

Braving a volley of pistol shots, Watson “sallied out alone. . . . Colonel Watson discharged four shots from the door, the effects of which were mortal wounds to Elias Cook and Dr. J. T. Overstreet. The mob then fled, leaving their wounded upon the ground,” the Los Angeles Star reported.

Expecting reprisals that night, Watson casually demonstrated his marksmanship to others who were standing guard. He made a mark in a post, walked 15 yards and fired five shots as fast as he could. The bullets all hit the mark, three of them almost in the same hole.

At a coroner’s inquest, Watson admitted shooting the two men and commented that another shot should have been lethal to a third man.

“I only discovered this morning why it was not. It is my habit when I shoot a man at night to aim just below the belt . . . and I always disable my man.”

But the third man apparently was standing behind a short post. The bullet buried itself in the post.

Watson was acquitted of murder charges and was not challenged again in Los Angeles.

Lawlessness Condemned

The Star used the incident to bemoan the lawless state of the city, condemning the cannoneers and others who “hack one another in pieces with pistols and other cutlery as if God’s image were of no more worth than the life of one of the 2,000 or 3,000 ownerless dogs that prowl our streets and make night hideous.”

Dangers of another sort threatened the Spanish land-grant families, who were seeking to gain U.S. title to their holdings through a protracted process in the unfamiliar arena of U.S. courts and legal procedures. Many of the families were ridden with debt and, as ranchers, were vulnerable to declines in beef prices.

The ones who were successful in obtaining title to their land linked up with lawyers with solid political connections. But that was no protection against rapacious lawyers, whose fees were so high that land often passed into their hands--after title had been certified.

San Pedro Ranch

Manuel Dominguez, who claimed title to Rancho San Pedro, a 75,000-acre tract ceded in 1784 to his great-uncle, scout and interpreter Juan Jose Dominguez, found a solution--Jack Watson.

In addition to being a lawyer, Watson had impeccable credentials in the pro-Southern faction of the Democratic Party, whose candidate, James Buchanan, won the White House in 1856. And Watson was an unattached man.

Bell wrote: “The more sensible and far-seeing of the heads of the old families felt that the future was in the hands of the invading race, that the old easy methods of business and life were no longer of avail and that it was a protection to family interests to have an American son-in-law, one who could give advice in the new business methods and have authentic voice at court in legal and political affairs.”

The Dominguez home was a center of social activity and Watson, drawn by his work on the land claim and Catholic background, quickly became a regular guest.

His reputation, however, had preceded him. According to family tradition, Dolores Dominguez, 16, great-great-niece of the intrepid Juan Jose Dominguez, hid under the bed when she was first ordered to meet her future husband, the notorious gunfighter.

Gift of Gold

At the Oct. 13, 1855, wedding, Watson gave his bride 13 gold adobes, coins larger than silver dollars and worth $50 each. Following local custom, they said their vows while tied together with a rope around their necks.

The guest list, which numbered in the hundreds, included the top levels of Los Angeles’ Latino and Anglo communities, as well as political leaders and former Texas Rangers from throughout the state.

Other historians say that Grenier’s depiction of the commingling of cultures--as exemplified by the Watson-Dominguez marriage--is the most noteworthy part of his book, which is being sold in local bookstores and through the Southern California Historical Society.

“It is exactly the sort of thing that we need,” said Andrew Rolle, an Occidental College history professor who is considered an authority on the early history of Southern California. “Very richly done . . . a fine piece of tapestry.”

More Than 40,000 Acres

On Dec. 18, 1858, after approval by the U.S. Supreme Court, President Buchanan issued to the Dominguez family a formal patent of title to 43,119 acres including all of what is now Compton, Gardena, Dominguez Hills, Carson, Redondo Beach, Hermosa Beach, Torrance, the Palos Verdes Peninsula, San Pedro and Wilmington.

The patent was the first California title issued by the United States affirming a Spanish land grant.

But it was costly. To finance their legal struggles, the Dominguez family and another family sold 2,423 acres to developer Phineas Banning, who then built New San Pedro, the area now known as Wilmington.

In 1858, Watson lived on a 24-acre vineyard near the intersection of 16th and Alameda streets, just inside the city limits.

During the Civil War, Watson supported the South and ran for the Assembly as a so-called Copperhead Democrat--someone so committed to the Democratic Party, the saying goes, that he would vote for a copperhead snake were it a Democrat.

Successful Campaign

Many others in Los Angeles shared his sympathies, and he won election to the first of three terms. He was one of eight “secessionists” in Sacramento, some of whom supported splitting off from Northern California to form a pro-Confederacy Pacific Republic.

In 1863, Watson’s attention turned to the family ranch when a severe drought threatened his father-in-law’s cattle, which died by the thousands.

But Manuel Dominguez’s foresight in making Watson part of his family prevented disaster: He no longer had to worry about the expensive legal battles still tying up other land-grant families. The drought drove four-fifths of the Dominguez’s neighbors into foreclosure.

Seven officials from Southern California pleaded with the federal government to stop appealing lower court decisions affirming the land-grant titles. “The landowners are destitute,” they wrote in 1864, “and if obliged to borrow money to prosecute their claims at Washington, they will be totally ruined. . . . In fact, the money necessary to defend the appeals must amount to more, in some instances, than the land is now worth.”

Changes of Title

Almost all the great ranches--which were heavily mortgaged--changed hands in the years following the drought.

The Nieto and Cota families, both recipients of land grants, lost Rancho Cerritos and Rancho Alamitos--sites of present-day Cerritos and Los Alamitos--to Los Angeles merchant and moneylender Abel Stearns, who in turn could not pay his debts and had to sell out. The Talamantes family, which owned a land grant in the Ballona area near what is now Culver City and Venice, lost their holdings over a period of years.

The Verdugos lost Rancho San Rafael, north of the current downtown. And in what became Orange County, part of the Irvine sheep ranch was created when the Yorba and Ontiveros families sold their land-grant tracts to James Irvine and the Bixby family.

After the Civil War, the old Spanish society--which was based on the financially precarious base of cattle ranching--quickly gave way to a more dynamic economy linking commerce and farming. Prices for building and vineyard lots tripled in two years. Railroad tracks were built from San Pedro to Los Angeles, passing Watson’s Alameda Street property.

Short Life Span

By this time, Watson was not a well man. On Sept. 16, 1869, he died, probably of heart disease brought on by a lifetime of hard drinking and a diet rich in meats. He was 48.

District Court was adjourned in his memory. Bishop Francis Mora said the memorial Mass at the Plaza Church.

The importance of Watson, Grenier concluded, is that “his marriage into the Dominguez family fused the striving dynamism of Manifest Destiny with the established native culture; his legal knowledge and assistance helped his father-in-law . . . preserve ownership of his ranch at a time when his peers were falling victim to creditors, unscrupulous attorneys and natural disasters. . . . With his Colt revolvers, his oratory and his pen, he had made his mark on California.”

Although Watson helped preserve the Dominguez family holdings, he did not leave his immediate family well off. His estate, excluding his homestead property, was valued at $2,600. His widow did not receive her share of the family fortune until after the 1882 death of her father.

In 1886, Watson’s son, James, took over running much of the family’s land-management business. In 1912, at the urgings of attorney Henry O’Melveny, the Watson Estate Co,. forerunner of Watson Land Co., was created to keep the land holdings in one corporate entity. In 1922, the discovery of oil in the area guaranteed prosperity for the Watsons, who sold land for what was then the largest concentration of refineries in the country. Two years later, Jack Watson’s widow died. She was 85.

Developing Land

Today, Watson Land Co., a frequent contributor in local elections, develops industrial parks and office complexes in the South Bay. Its biggest project is the Watson Industrial Center, opened in 1963 on more than 800 acres between Wilmington and Avalon streets in central Carson. In the mid-1970s, the company developed a similar project north of the San Diego Freeway in Carson. It is now developing an industrial park in Lakewood.

Three members of the Watson family are on the board of the company. The company’s chairman, William T. Huston, like Jack Watson a century before him, married into the family business.

His son Tom--great-great-grandson of Jack Watson and the great-great-great-great-great-great nephew of Juan Jose Dominguez--works for the company also. He is in charge of developing business parks.