1 Child Mortality and the Blessing of Modern Medicine

A letter dated August 22, 1857 from Rev. James Woods (LA’s first Presbyterian pastor) to Benjamin “Don Benito” Davis Wilson (of “Mount Wilson” fame) and his wife opens: “It is but a short time since I heard that you had lost your dear little Maggie. That your hearts were overwhelmed with sorrow I have no doubt. For I have passed through something of the same affliction. We have buried two little cherub boys here in California (our little children died in Stockton before we came to Los Angeles).”
It’s hard to fathom a world in the not-so-distant past where some 40% of children did not live to see their fifth birthday, but that is the world that our Los Angeles Presbyterian forebears lived in, before advances in vaccines, antibiotics, and sanitation made burying children a rare and remarkable tragedy. Sometimes we are tempted to romanticize the rugged simplicity of this pioneer era, taking for granted (or even resisting) the benefits we enjoy from things like modern medicine. But we do well to temper this romance with the reminder that most families in the 1850s knew firsthand the pain of losing a child. 

2 Humility and Repentance for LA’s Pro-Slavery Past

Since California was admitted to the Union in 1850 as a free state, it’s easy to naively assume that the early American residents of Los Angeles were predominantly anti-slavery, and united against the Confederate cause in the Civil War years. It can be eye-opening, and sobering, for one reared in southern California to learn that the abolitionist spirit in the mid-nineteenth century resided mainly in the northern parts of the state. An 1860-61 school copybook of San Gabriel’s Edward Hereford (a stepson of Benjamin Davis Wilson, and eventually an uncle of General George S. Patton) provides some insight into Los Angeles-area civics education at the time. The teenaged Hereford’s copybook includes a speech by Jefferson Davis and, in an essay on the “dissolution of the Federal Union,” claims that “all this has been caused by the election of a Republican to the office of Chief Magistrate.” He continues to argue that “the Southern people have suffered severely by the meddling of fanatic abolitionists with their slaves, exciting them to rebellion, and keeping their masters in constant fear of losing their lives and property.”
This atmosphere made it difficult for abolitionists to live and minister in the city. In her 1887 biography of her husband Rev. W.E. Boardman, Mary Boardman reflected on their decision to leave LA a quarter century before: “And here we were, surrounded by those who were not in sympathy with us. As our hearts became warm on the side of the Abolitionists, we felt ready to help in any way that we could, but all our best friends in Los Angelos were in favour of slavery. They were most kind and attentive, and endeavoured to let it make no difference, but we were not comfortable, and felt we must leave, and go to be with those with whom we were in sympathy on this great momentous question.”
It’s one thing to note that Los Angeles was without a Presbyterian minister for most of the 1860s; our picture of this period shifts, however, when we add that this absence was due in large measure to Rev. Boardman’s discomfort being surrounded by proponents of slavery.
With our human tendency to judge the histories of other regions more harshly than that of our own, it is worthwhile to consider how our regional ancestors shared many of the biases of those from places we think of as more “backward,” so that we might better recognize the legacies of those ideologies and repent of this part of our history.

3 Friendly Relations with Political Enemies

Despite a “momentous question” that was weighty enough to push the nation to civil war and which (on a smaller scale) drove the Boardmans to leave Los Angeles for the East Coast, it is striking that warm personal connections survived between those on opposite sides of the fraught issue. William Boardman even recommended to Wilson in February of 1862 a Confederate-sympathizing pastor, Rev. Joshua Phelps, to take his place in Los Angeles (Phelps elected to stay in Sacramento, though he did later exchange letters with Wilson in which he lamented feeling politically out of place in the north). Throughout the War years, the Boardmans and Wilsons maintained a regular correspondence, with letters addressed to “My Dear Friends,” exchanges of photos and family news, and with Benjamin Davis Wilson helping to manage William Boardman’s business interests in LA. While these letters focus on personal and business matters, the great political question is neither ignored nor personally weaponized. For instance, a May, 1863 letter from W.E. Boardman to the Wilsons speaks both of his desire for the War’s conclusion and the value of his new work serving the Union soldiers as secretary of the US Christian Commission: “Would to God the occasion for it might cease in the rightful cessation of the War, but while it lasts I must do what can be done for the relief and salvation of the men of the army and navy.”
Upon the conclusion of the War, Boardman’s comments to Wilson continued to be conciliatory and encouraging: “The sacrifice of blood and treasure has been unprecedented and terrible. The tragedy of the President’s death most shocking of all. But it is past now. Already the signs of healing are manifest…Now your sunny clime and fertile soil ought to attract [much] enterprise and capital. The Los Angeles region ought to become the Eden of the world.”

In our current political climate it can sometimes be hard to imagine cordial relations with family members, neighbors, or fellow church members who are on the opposite side of the political spectrum. The Boardmans’ friendship with the Wilsons and others in Los Angeles reminds us that personal friendships can transcend even civil wars, and that one can take an unyielding, principled stance against an idea or institution without this translating into personal ill will for its proponents.

4 The Dangers of Greed and Opportunism

The July 28, 1892 issue of the Los Angeles Times updates the situation of “The Versatile Ellis.” While we tend to speak of versatility in a positive sense, the article’s subtitle makes it clear that its intent was not to praise Ellis’s shapeshifting adaptability: “More of the Ex-Reverend’s Crooked Business.” This iteration of Ellis was as “an exploiter or promoter of electric roads,” which was “apparently not a howling success,” as evidenced by complaints about his unpaid bills. This failure to pay bills was evidently a pattern for Ellis, with a headline from the prior year (April 12, 1891) announcing “Dr. Ellis’s Debts: Unpaid Bills Against Him All Over the State.” He seemed to be quite overextended during his pastorate in Los Angeles (1880-85) as well, as the proprietor of both a school (Ellis Vista College) and a luxury hotel (the Belmont) in addition to his pastoral responsibilities. Even before both of these burned down (in December, 1887, and July, 1888), there were financial troubles with these institutions as well; a high-profile 1884 case in which a music teacher named Emilie Lassaugue was assaulted by Rev. D.W. Hanna, the principal of Ellis Vista College, had its origins in Ellis’s inability to pay Mrs. Lassaugue her promised salary for her work either as a teacher or as a soloist at his church.
Despite some successes in growing the church’s numbers and leading the effort to build a church building, some of the members of the Los Angeles church he was stealing from were frustrated by his neglect of pastoral duties even prior to learning of his financial affairs. Later, as his San Francisco trial progressed, he turned vindictive, relishing in various misfortunes that came upon his accusers and claiming these as divine retribution.
There are unanswered (and perhaps unanswerable) questions about what prompted Ellis’s ethics violations—whether business failures drove him to a place of financial desperation or if a temperamental inclination for shortcuts and duplicity led to business failure—but a basic sense of greed and entitlement seems to have formed the root of his problems. And he stands for us as a warning of how such greed can destroy a reputation, corrupt one’s character, and damage the church’s ministry.  

5 Ecclesial Disorder Enabling Malfeasance

It shouldn’t be surprising that both of Rev. Ellis’s church finance scandals were facilitated by administrative chaos. Pat Hoffman’s 1977 history of First Presbyterian Church of Los Angeles says nothing of Ellis’s misdeeds (reporting his departure simply with “On August 30, 1885, Rev. J.M. [sic] Ellis asked to leave First Church”), but comments on the disorder of his tenure: “(Ellis) served for five years, but 1884 and 1885 seemed to be years of disorganization,” noting that the 1884 Annual Meeting had no reports for the Secretary or Treasurer of the Board of Trustees (neither of whom was present), and that at the 1885 Annual Meeting there were no reports for the Sunday School Superintendent or the Women’s Missionary Society, as neither had been informed that they were supposed to submit a report.
Similar disorder was evident in Ellis’s San Francisco parish as well, with the San Francisco Call (August 4, 1891) relaying that the San Francisco Presbytery’s “Committee on Records reported in effect that Dr. Ellis’ relations with the Central Presbyterian Tabernacle ceased on March 1, 1891. Strong disapproval was expressed of the manner in which the records of that church were kept.”
We sometimes joke about the Presbyterian emphasis on “decency and order” and grumble about the red tape generated from all of our checks and balances, paper trails,  and precise procedures. But we have strong theological, anthropological, and practical reasons for operating this way, and this order helps us avoid a lot of scandals and headaches.

6 Facing Sin and Failure Head-on

The June 9, 1885 report in the Los Angeles Times of Rev. Ellis’s resignation from First Presbyterian Church (“by general desire of his church”) ends by noting that “formal charges, and damaging ones, might have been brought against the pastor; but it was preferred not to do this, lest reproach be brought on religion.” That this desire to avoid bad publicity was reported in the newspaper is only one of many ironies with this situation. Earlier in the article, the paper itself expressed greater confidence in transparency and truth than the church could muster. As concerns about Rev. Ellis grew in the congregation and as members started to leave for other churches, “the trustees and elders of the church [were] somewhat disposed to reticence—not from regard for Mr. Ellis, but lest the efficiency of the church be injured by a full statement of the case. The TIMES, however, does not believe the plain truth, judicially told, can injure the cause of Christ. The truth in such matters is the safeguard of purity in the pulpit, and the truth must be told.”
This was not the first, and certainly not the last time that the Press displayed more confidence than the Church in Jesus’ teaching that the truth will “set us free” (John 8:32)—the Boston Globe plumbing the depths of the sexual abuse scandal in the Roman Catholic Church in the early 2000s comes immediately to mind. And while it is surely easier for disinterested parties to face and expose difficult truths than it is for an organization to do this about itself, sometimes the Church does need to hear the reminder that “the plain truth, judicially told” cannot ultimately “injure the cause of Christ.”

7 The Impact of Church Conflict on our Corporate Witness

Barely a decade after J.W. Ellis’s financial misconduct had ended his Los Angeles pastorate and hampered the Presbyterian mission in LA, First Presbyterian was divided in a bitter dispute over whether to relocate the church campus, with the behavior of the combatants further tarnishing the church’s witness in the region.
A Los Angeles Times account of a June, 1895 meeting opened: “As a model exhibition of Christian brotherly feeling, adherence to parliamentary rules, and ability and determination to settle kindly, but thoroughly, disputed questions, the meeting yesterday afternoon at the Second Presbyterian Church, East Los Angeles, of the two factions of the erstwhile First Presbyterian Church, will certainly never be cited.”
Subsequent headlines in the paper over the following months did little to improve the Presbyterians’ image in the city: “War to the Knife: The Brethren Cannot Dwell Together in Unity” (July 3, 1895); “A Spicy Committee Report Embodying a Resume of All the Points of the Now Noted Dispute” (September 27, 1895); “A Schism in the Los Angeles Presbytery” (September 28, 1895); “The Warring Presbyterians” (October 18, 1895). By the end of the year the battle between the two factions was so familiar to the paper’s readers that updates could be headlined simply “That Church Fight” (December 17, 1895).
While the Press today is somewhat less concerned with the internal dynamics of most congregations and denominational councils, how we treat one another is still noticed by our communities. Jesus’ dictum that “everyone will know that you are my disciples if you have love for one another” (John 13:35) is as true today as it was in 1895, and our ability to “dwell together in unity” remains a core aspect of our corporate witness.