The History of Hewes

          David Hewes is not well-remembered in western history, although he left his mark on such diverse projects as land development in Orange County and the linking of the first trans-continental railroad. In Orange County the name Hewes lives on as a school, a street that skirts the eastern edge of Orange and, to some older residents, Hewes once was the name of a park and a hill. His role in the linking of the railroads at Promontory Point, Utah, 101 years ago this tenth day of May, 1970 is all but forgotten, overshadowed, perhaps, by the men who risked their fortunes to finance the railroad or by those who met the savage challenges of laying tracks across plains, deserts, and mountains.

          But David Hewes, who rose from farmland to capitalist, philanthropist and land developer, was the man who furnished the famed golden spike that linked the railroads at Promontory Point. Hewes had made his fortune at 59 when he appeared on the Orange County scene in 1881. He bought a house in Tustin City, not far from a horse corral and the Headquarters Saloon, owned by Frank Frieseneker. One reason for the move from San Francisco, where Hewes lived for nearly 30 years, was a belief that the Southland's gentle climate would be beneficial for his wife, the former Matilda C. Gray, a widow, whom Hewes married in 1875 when he was 47. He later gave the saloon and corral land to the Presbyterians and underwrote the building of the congregation's first church at Main and C Streets. About 1885, Hewes apparently decided to remain in Orange County (then a part of Los Angeles County) and bought an 820-acre ranch a half-mile south of the present community of El Modena and seven miles east of Orange. On it he built his home, a rambling structure which he named Anapauma (Spanish for "place of rest") and filled it with many art treasures he and his wife had collected on their honeymoon trip to 22 countries. Early in 1887, when Hewes was 65, his wife died. But he remained single for only about two years and married Anna M. Lathrop, sister-in-law of Leland Stanford, former governor and founder of Stanford University. Hewes was no stranger to Stanford who drove the golden spike at Promontory Point after missing it with the first two swings. The spike, now in the Stanford museum, weighed about 18 oz and was about six inches long. It was ordered from a San Francisco jewelry firm and cost Hewes about $425.24.

          A nugget attached to the spike was broken off before it was driven into the ground and made into small watches and rings for President Ulysses S. Grant, Secretary of State William H. Seward and the Presidents of the Central Pacific and Union Pacific railroads. On one side of the spike these words were engraved: "May God continue the unity of our country as this Railroad unites the two great oceans of the world. Presented by David Hewes, San Francisco." The path Hewes followed from his native New England to a historic moment at Promontory Point and then to the peace of Orange County, was not easy. He was born May 16, 1822 in Lynfield, Mass., and was a descendant of Joseph Hewes, a signer of the Declaration of Independence. He was one of eight children and his father died when he was five. Although he was bound out as a farmland for $30 a year when he was 14, Hewes later managed to attend Yale university for two years and by the time he was 25, he had the tidy sum of $3,000. In 1850, when the nation was resounding with tales of California's gold rush, Hewes moved West, but not as a prospector. He put most of his money in collapsible tin buildings which he shipped to Sacramento, then the hurly-burly gateway to the Mother Lode country. Hewes became a leading merchant in Sacramento, but he lost nearly everything in a fire in 1853. After that, he headed to San Francisco where he eventually made his fortune, although his start was not an auspicious one. He went to work with a shovel and wheelbarrow. And with the help of a Chinese laborer he began to level land and fill in the shadow areas of the bay.

          He moved foothills into the Mission Bay area and created many acres between the foot of Montgomery St. and what was then the waterfront. In five years he progressed from a shovel and wheelbarrow to the owner of $42,000 worth of steam shovels and went on to build the first steam locomotive on the Pacific Coast. He became a recognized financial leader in San Francisco and remained so until he moved to Orange County. After the death of his first wife, Hewes became involved in many projects, among them the promotion of the town of Earlham, which was platted in the spring of 1896 at the foot of the grade to Irvine Park. He also donated a bell to the Friends Church. But the bell, too heavy for the steeple, crashed down along with the building in a Santa Ana wind. That same bell, reportedly shipped to California around Cape Horn, was only recently moved to the El Modena Friends Church on Santiago Blvd.

         The city of Earlham never materialized, but was renamed Modena. The Post Office Department thought that was too close to Madera and the name finally became El Modena. Hewes also became involved in publishing a newspaper, The Modena Record, which lasted but a short time, and also was going to donate land for Earlham College, which never became a reality. Hewes Ranch was planted in barley, grapes, and other crops and in one year, reportedly had an income of $72,000. In 1887, the year Hewes' first wife died, the blight that doomed Anaheim's once-flourishing vineyards also struck Hewes Ranch and within two years laid waste about 600 acres. Hewes planted citrus trees on the ranch and left for San Francisco where he married his second wife.

         She died within three years and Hewes, once more a widower, returned to Orange County and invested at least $75,000 in developing Hewes Park, at La Veta and Esplanade. The park, laid out by the man who designed the original famed Busch Gardens in Pasadena, was open to the public and was considered one of Southern California's beauty spots. In 1894, Hewes decided to break up his ranch and sell small plots. A brochure printed in that same year said five-acre plots were available for $50 to $100 and payments were $10 a month. That same brochure pointed out that the 1890 federal census gave the county a population of 13,589, and it had now grown to where "it could boast 20,000." The county also had two high schools, 26 grammar schools, 59 primary schools manned by 89 teachers and attended by 4,341 pupils. In addition, there was one business college and two parochial schools with 75 students each. The brave predictions for the future in the brochure didn't help Hewes' project, and buyers were too scarce despite the low cost of the land. By the time Hewes was 84 years old, he was no stranger to disaster. Death had taken two wives, a prosperous business had gone up in smoke, blight had decimated his vineyards, and a land development project had failed. But none was quite as sudden or spectacular as the San Francisco earthquake of 1906 that leveled his three-story office building at 997 Market Street. Age, however, had not quenched the spirit that brought David Hewes from poverty to prosperity. He wired his nephew: "Burned today; build tomorrow," then planned a 15-story building that was completed two years later at a cost of nearly $1 million. Hewes spent his time in both San Francisco and Anapuma. He organized the David Hewes Orange and Lemon Association, built a packing spur and at age 90 and still drove his horse and buggy around Los Angeles and San Francisco. Anapuma proved to be his place of rest for it was there he died July 23, 1915, about two months after his 93rd birthday. Hewes Ranch was sold to a Los Angeles syndicate in 1920, the packing house burned down in 1939 and Subdivisions now cover Hewes Park. Author-historian Jim Sleeper probably wrote the most fitting eulogy for David Hewes and the time "when a continent was nailed together with a golden spike." He said: "History has a short memory. It has forgotten the man; it remembers only the nail. It has forgotten David Hewes, 'The Builder' who once thrived and died in Orange County and whose gumption and good works were his real golden legacy."