Open Letter to the Los Angeles Times

Dear Editors:

I am posting this publicly because whenever I contact publications privately regarding factual inaccuracies, they ignore me and never correct anything.* 

I’m honestly not trying to put LA’s paper of record on blast (for the record, I am a subscriber myself and read the Times every single day). I just want greater awareness of the facts.

I am writing to ask that the Times please issue two corrections to an article published on May 3rd, regarding the origin of some local place names.**

I am not in any way faulting the writer of the piece; her work is excellent and I enjoy reading it each week. However, two errors still somehow made it to print. 

Mary Agnes Christina Mesmer Griffith was not, and could not have been, a Verdugo descendant. Her parents Louis Mesmer Sr. and Katherine Forst Mesmer were both immigrants from Alsace, France.

There is no record of the Mesmer family having any ties to Jose Maria Verdugo’s native Mexico. There is no record of the Verdugo family having any ties to eastern France or western Germany (Alsace changed hands while the Mesmers were alive). I have spent considerable time exploring Ancestry.com and there is no real indication that the Mesmers could possibly be related to the Verdugos.

Additionally, while Louis and Katherine Mesmer were indeed land barons, they did not inherit their properties from ANYONE, let alone the Verdugos. The Mesmers were very successful entrepreneurs who invested their earnings in land. 

Mrs. Griffith did inherit a significant amount of real estate, but it had belonged to Andre Briswalter, a friend of her father’s. Briswalter was also from Alsace.

As to the second correction, Mrs. Griffith was not blinded in one eye. The bullet destroyed her eye and what was left of it had to be removed. The veil she wore for the rest of her life also hid scarring from gunpowder burns (Griffith shot her from approximately two feet away).

Again, I am not faulting the writer of the piece. I happen to know that someone else is entirely to blame for spreading the myth of the Alsatian-born Mesmers somehow being descendants of an early Californio family.

Mary Agnes Christina Mesmer Griffith went through quite enough when she was alive and has mostly been forgotten. I believe we owe it to her to be as accurate as possible when mentioning her life.

Merci,

C.C.

*Sole exception thus far: the good people at Mental Floss, who promptly corrected an inaccuracy regarding the number of generations between Louis XIV and Louis XVI.

** May 10, 2022 - one week since the errors ran and no correction has been made. This is why I post the facts!

The Lost Legacy of André Briswalter

There was a time when fresh food was rather costly in Los Angeles. The pueblo was hot and dusty, the river periodically burst its banks and flooded, and your neighbor just might illegally divert water from a zanja for their own use. Los Angeles traded with San Bernardino for eggs, crackers, and other foods, but the long and hot wagon trip often meant food was well on its way to spoiling by the time it arrived.

If you had a talent for growing fresh fruit and vegetables, you could make a good living.

André Briswalter arrived in the Pueblo from Alsace in the early 1850s. He rented a plot of land on San Pedro Street, planted vegetables, and sold them door-to-door in a wheelbarrow. With high demand for fresh food and limited competition, he could charge whatever the market would bear.

Briswalter made so much money that he was soon able to buy his own plot of land, followed by a horse and wagon.

André Briswalter planted an orchard in a plot bordered by present-day Main Street, Ninth Street, Los Angeles Street, and Olympic. When I mapped the site I was shocked to realize I knew the area quite well. The California Market Center (my professors informally called it "the Mart") now stands on the site. I couldn't even begin to list how many times I went there as a young design student. Briswalter's fruit trees are long gone, of course, as is the house on the land (where he spent his last years).

Briswalter had another orchard, south of what is now the Wholesale Produce Market. He also began to grow nuts. City directories list Briswalter's longtime home at Washington and Main.

André Briswalter eventually owned a great deal of City and County property, notably much of present-day Playa del Rey.

Briswalter was active socially, belonging to Knights of Pythias Lodge 79, better known as "La Fraternité" due to the lodge being composed of French speakers and conducting everything in French.

André Briswalter died of blood poisoning in 1885. A large cemetery chapel was built at Old Calvary Cemetery in his honor and served as his burial site.

Briswalter left behind an estate valued at $375.407.76 - nearly $11 million in 2020 dollars. (His land holdings, of course, would be much more valuable today due to the higher demand for land in Los Angeles.) That estate was willed to a veritable 'who's who' of 1880s Los Angeles - Isaias Hellman, Henry Hammel, W.H. Denker, Rev. Peter Verdagner, Mary Agnes Christina Mesmer, Louis Mesmer, Mary Collins, and Alice Briswalter Meit.

The will was contested by Caledonia Guirado, who claimed that she had been married to the elder André Briswalter and that he was the father of her son Andre. Investigation showed that ten years before Briswalter died, she had married someone else and had five children with him. She had several other children by what one newspaper politely called "three other irregular connections". The matter took nearly two years to sort out in court, with a jury ruling that Ms. Guirado was not André Briswalter's wife and the boy was not his son. (Sound familiar?)

Regular readers may recall that Tina Mesmer inherited money and land from Briswalter, who was a friend of her father's (curiously, she was the only Mesmer child included in the will). This became a problem after she married Griffith J. Griffith, who would eventually falsely accuse her of poisoning Briswalter and attempting to poison him.

In 1915, St. Peter's Italian Church moved into Briswalter's old chapel, having outgrown a smaller church on North Spring Street (much of modern-day Chinatown was Little Italy then). By 1943, the parish had outgrown Briswalter's chapel and was raising money for a new church.

Ironically, St. Peter's didn't tear down André Briswalter's chapel. They didn't have to - a terrible fire destroyed the building. The current St. Peter's opened its doors in 1947.

It isn't clear if André Briswalter's remains were destroyed in the fire, reinterred at New Calvary, or if they remain onsite at St. Peter's.

An immigrant prospers...his considerable estate is contested...a phony heir pops up...everything he owned or built is long gone...and for extra fun, it's unclear where he's buried. Yep...it's another day in Frenchtown.

Money, Madness, and Attempted Murder

One hundred years ago today, Griffith Jenkins Griffith died.

Every Angeleno knows Griffith J. Griffith donated Griffith Park to the city of Los Angeles. In that story, Griffith gets to be the hero.

In the story of one of the most prominent French families in Los Angeles, however, Griffith will never be anything but a villain who got a slap on the wrist.

Born February 29, 1864 to industrious French immigrants who had become land barons*, Mary Agnes Christina "Tina" Mesmer spoke four languages, was a talented musician...and owned more than one million dollars' worth of Los Angeles real estate in her own name by the time she was 22.

Mary Agnes Christina Mesmer

In 2019 dollars, that's $25 million, but without an exhaustive inventory of the properties she owned, I can't say its true value in 2019 terms. Given the high demand for Los Angeles real estate, it would probably be worth much more than $25 million today. In any case, Tina was an extremely wealthy young woman.

And she caught the eye of Griffith J. Griffith.

Born penniless in Wales, Griffith was nouveau riche to the hilt. He wore a frock coat and carried a cane - in still-the-Wild-West Los Angeles. He affected the title of "Colonel", despite not having served in the military at all. His idea of doing someone a favor was allowing them to be seen in public with him. One acquaintance dubbed him a "midget egomaniac"; another called him "a roly-poly pompous little fellow" and compared his walk to that of a strutting turkey.

God only knows how this obnoxious character managed to win the hand of pretty, well-bred Tina Mesmer.

In a letter to Tina dated January 8, 1887 - less than three weeks before their wedding - Griffith sought to break their engagement. He accused her of having misrepresented her wealth (...so a 22-year-old with a million dollars wasn't rich enough?) and of being a pawn in her father's hands.

Despite this giant red flag, the wedding did take place January 27, 1887.

At the time, it was a common practice for brides of means to deed their property and fortunes to their husbands when they got married. It was a dowry in all but name. And Tina Mesmer, not realizing what would happen to her, deeded her vast fortune to her new husband.

Big mistake.

Griffith was a devout Protestant. Tina was just as devoutly Catholic as the rest of the Mesmer clan (her father and brother were instrumental in finishing construction on St. Vibiana Cathedral). Instead of a church wedding, they had a small ceremony at the Mesmer family home. Griffith would later start religious arguments with Tina. But wait - it gets worse.

So. Much. Worse.

Just four months after marrying Tina, Griffith filed for partial distribution of André Briswalter's estate. Briswalter, a wealthy landowner himself, had been a friend of Tina's father Louis Mesmer and had left her some property on San Pedro Street. Griffith claimed that Tina had assigned her claim on the property to her father, and that Griffith had then bought the claim from Mesmer. Briswalter's large estate was in dispute due to an alleged illegitimate son, and the parties involved (including the Mesmers) had agreed to probate.

Probate was time-consuming, even in the 1880s. But Griffith didn't want to wait. Hmmm.

In December of 1896, Griffith J. Griffith announced he was donating 3,015 acres of Rancho Los Feliz for use as a public park. He stated "I consider it my obligation to make Los Angeles a happier, cleaner, and finer city. I wish to pay my debt of duty in this way to the community in which I have prospered." 

Here's what most people don't realize about the parcel of land he chose to donate at the time: it was too hilly and woody for farming, livestock grazing, or developing into housing tracts. That made the acreage in question a potential property-tax loss for Griffith...who owed an outstanding tax debt to the city at the time. Was the land truly a gift? Could it have been a tax write-off? Or was Griffith trying to bribe the city into forgiving his existing tax debt?

The city of Los Angeles hesitated to acknowledge, let alone use, the "gift" at first. Gee, I wonder why.

Fifteen months later, Griffith formally deeded the land to the city. A special, jam-packed City Council session was held for the occasion. The Los Angeles Herald noted that "...Mr. Griffith stepped jauntily in, carrying a huge roll, tied with an immense bow of blue satin ribbon - the deed to Griffith Park." The midget egomaniac had gotten his way, and in a ludicrously theatrical manner at that.

Within a few years of "gifting" Griffith Park to the city, things took a much darker turn.

Griffith, who claimed to be a teetotaler, began to drink. Heavily. He reportedly drank up to two quarts of whiskey per day. (Which seems slightly implausible, since two quarts means 42.66 standard shots in one day, but in any case, those close to him knew he drank way, way too much.)

The religious arguments began. Somehow, Griffith became convinced that his Catholic wife was plotting with Pope Leo XIII to poison him and steal his fortune.

At one point, Griffith told Tina "Come in here, I want to speak to you" in such a frightening way that she fled the family home and spent the night at her sister Lucy's house.

When Louis Mesmer died in 1900, Tina inherited only $500 from her father's estate. The will explained that the amount was so small because Louis had arranged Tina's inheritance from André Briswalter.

Griffith's drinking and bizarre behavior continued to worsen.

On August 4, 1903, a new Pope was elected - Pius X. Around the same time, the Griffith family took a vacation in the Presidential suite of Santa Monica's posh Arcadia Hotel.

For weeks, Griffith's paranoid delusions about being poisoned by his wife - or even by the new Pope - led him to constantly switch cups and plates with Tina, or with their 15-year-old son Vandell. Tina finally had to have the hotel's kitchen send their meals up family-style, since Griffith would switch out plated portions.

Thursday, September 4 was the last day of the Griffiths' vacation. Tina was packing her trunk when Griffith ordered her to get onto her knees. She could see he was holding his revolver. He demanded she close her eyes, but she was too frightened to completely close them.

Griffith peppered poor Tina with questions, seemingly trying to implicate her in poisoning André Briswalter (who had died of blood poisoning), poisoning him, and even being unfaithful to him.

On this last question, Griffith fired the gun. Tina jerked away, with the bullet entering her left eye. She ran for the window, pried it open, and jumped out to escape. Tina landed on a piazza roof one floor down, breaking her shoulder.

Luckily for Tina, the hotel's owner was in an adjacent room and heard the commotion. He pulled her to safety, sent for a doctor, and called the sheriff.

Tina's siblings asked her doctor not to discuss her condition or the circumstances of the shooting. Griffith would immediately exploit this.

Griffith told newspapers that Tina had shot herself in a suicide attempt. He then told Vandell that his mother was shot when the pistol was dropped.

The Mesmers subsequently allowed Dr. Moore to make a statement - and rallied around their sister, bracing for a very ugly legal battle.

Dr. Moore notified the newspapers that Mrs. Griffith had been shot through the eye and needed surgery to remove the bullet, pieces of splintered orbital bone, and what remained of her destroyed eye. Tina was also badly concussed and in such poor overall condition that Dr. Moore postponed setting her broken shoulder for two more days. 

Dr. Moore added that if the bullet had entered Tina’s eye just one-sixteenth of an inch lower, it would have entered her brain. 

Another physician, Dr. Rogers, stated that gunpowder burns on Tina’s face indicated she had been shot from approximately two feet away.

The day after shooting Tina, Griffith spent a long afternoon and evening bar-hopping. Law enforcement was tailing him on foot, and he was arrested that night. He was quickly released on bail. Vandell, unable to visit his mother in the hospital, accompanied Griffith back to Los Angeles, where they checked into the Fremont Hotel.

Six days after the shooting, Griffith was served with divorce papers. Tina demanded her freedom, sole custody of Vandell, and her share of their enormous combined estate. A temporary injunction was issued to prevent Griffith from disposing of any property in the interim (gee, I wonder why the court had to do that...), and Tina was granted custody of Vandell for the duration of the proceedings. Since Tina couldn't leave the hospital yet, Vandell was placed in the temporary care of Tina’s stepmother, Jennie Mesmer.

Tina's legal team knew she would have difficulty winning back her property. Joseph Scott, Esq. told the Los Angeles Herald “Unfortunately for Mrs. Griffith, she so neglected her own rights at the time of her marriage as to deed all of her property to Griffith before their union. It was an act of renunciation based on the old idea of dower, and it will be exceedingly difficult to attack the property now. Mrs. Griffith’s ‘dower’ included a large part of what is now known as the Briswalter tract, and was estimated to be worth $500,000 at the time of her marriage. It would be hard to estimate its present value. While we anticipate no difficulty in obtaining a decree of divorce or in obtaining ample support for our client, it seems questionable whether she can obtain any approximation of what really should be hers.” 

Griffith’s trial began February 15, 1904. Within a few days, the prosecution’s line of questioning showed a possible motive for the murder attempt.

Tina, who concealed her scarred face behind a veil, was asked a series of questions about her inheritance. She revealed that Griffith had been managing her business for their entire marriage. She had repeatedly asked him to settle up with her, since she wanted to handle her own land holdings. It was further revealed that had the bullet killed her, she would have died without a will. 

Tina's share of the couple's estate would have automatically stayed with her homicidal husband instead of going to her only child or her siblings.

Griffith, using a defense of “alcoholic insanity” (which sounds an awful lot like the Twinkie Defense if you ask me), was found guilty of a lesser charge - assault with a deadly weapon. He was sentenced to two years at San Quentin.

Two years in prison, for almost killing his long-suffering wife. Does anyone else smell that? I believe it's the distinct smell of bullshit.

Griffith’s original legal team, Silent & Works, sued him for $20,000 in attorneys’ fees. 

Tina’s divorce case was heard on November 4, 1904. Judge Allen granted her a divorce on the grounds of cruelty after just four minutes of testimony. (Everyone thinks it's four and a half minutes. The earliest news article I can find covering the case says that it was four minutes, and poor Tina was too traumatized to say anything for much of that time. To my knowledge, it's the shortest divorce testimony on record.)

Griffith was not present at the divorce hearing. He was still in the County Jail, awaiting an appeal (an appeal - really?!). The financial end of the divorce was settled out of court. Griffith agreed to pay for Vandell's education, but demanded he not attend a Catholic-affiliated school (the Griffiths settled on Stanford, although Van ultimately did not go to college).

Griffith sobered up in prison, and tried to donate more land to the city, in addition to funds for an amphitheater and a science building. The Parks Commission didn't want it. Mount Griffith was renamed Mount Hollywood.

Griffith eventually donated all of the above and more to the city in his will, essentially buying himself respectability in death. His grave marker in Hollywood Forever Cemetery is so tall you can practically see it from space.

True to her family's strong Catholic faith, Tina was interred at Calvary Cemetery when she passed away in 1948. 

To this day, Griffith Park bears its founder’s name, in addition to his likeness in statue form (the terms of Griffith's "gift" required that the land be called Griffith Park in perpetuity). 

Mary Agnes Christina Mesmer Griffith, who spent the rest of her life in seclusion at her sister and brother-in-law’s home, hiding her scarred face and empty eye socket behind a veil, has been forgotten.

Griffith Jenkins Griffith died from (what else...) liver disease on this day, one hundred years ago. 

Good riddance.

P.S. I went to Griffith Park regularly as a child, and have returned plenty of times as an adult. I truly believe that it is one of the greatest urban parks in the world. But seeing Griffith lionized as a civic-minded Angeleno, knowing what he truly was, makes every last drop of my French blood boil.

*There is a persistent myth that the Alsatian-born Mesmers were somehow descendants of/heirs to the Verdugo family, who were Californios. It’s NOT TRUE. It’s not even possible; I’ve spent hours on Ancestry checking this. For the love of macarons, Please. Stop. Saying. Tina. Was. A. Verdugo. Heiress.