2022 UPDATE: After this story was originally posted in 2016, Lt. Rita M. Knecht, LAPD, Ret., used her outstanding research skills to locate a wealth of information on the lives of Robert William Stewart, Joseph Henry Green and their families, as well as LAPD Chief John Malcolm Glass. I have added the results of Lt. Knecht’s research in this blue font. Thank you, Lt. Knecht, for contacting me and for your interest in L.A.’s first two black police officers. Thanks also to genealogist Lyndsey Stewart for sharing Ellen Doty’s death certificate. I am also grateful to a trio of Indiana librarians – Andrea Glenn at the Indiana State Library, Diane Stepro at the Jeffersonville Library, and Meghan Vaughn at the Floyd County Library – who were extremely helpful with researching Robert Stewart’s years in Jeffersonville, Indiana.
Most importantly, at the urging of Los Angeles Police Chief Michel Moore, on February 23, 2021, the Los Angeles Police Commission voted 5-0 to ceremonially reinstate Stewart as an officer and retire him with honor. In addition, on February 2, 2022, the roll call room at LAPD’s Central Station was named for Stewart. As of March 2022, however, the LAPD website’s history section still wrongly asserted that Robert Stewart was hired in 1886 and that he was the first black police officer in the United States.
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When this story was first posted in 2016, the Los Angeles Police Department
website said that Robert William Stewart and another man, Roy Green, were both
hired in 1886 as the LAPD’s first African-American officers. However, the exact evidence substantiating
the 1886 date has never been published or even described. In addition, Los Angeles city directories printed
in 1886 and 1887 list the members of the Los Angeles Police Department, but
neither Stewart nor Green is among them.
Recent research using publicly available resources shows
that Robert William Stewart and Joseph Henry Green – not Roy Green – were both
appointed LAPD officers on March 30, 1889. Stewart and Green definitely share the title of the first
African-Americans on the LAPD, although three years later than previously
believed. Available documentation suggests that Stewart and Green were probably also the first black police officers in California.
Joseph Henry Green was dismissed from the LAPD on February 18, 1890, as part of a reduction in the size of the force. Less has been discovered about his life than Stewart’s, but we know Green was born in North Carolina on October 30, 1850. He was likely born a slave, possibly in Wilmington, NC, where he was living in 1870. By 1876 Green was in San Francisco, working as a waiter at the new Palace Hotel. He stayed at the Palace until about 1882 – also probably the year he was married – then spent around a year atop Nob Hill as butler for Mary Hopkins, widow of railroad baron Mark Hopkins.
Green moved to Los Angeles by the end of 1883 and became head waiter at the Pico House. Green helped to organize L.A.’s “Colored Republican Club” in 1886; his political activities helped him obtain the patronage appointment of Los Angeles City Hall janitor in 1887 and be chosen for the LAPD in 1889. Following his short service as a police officer, Green went back to being a waiter, and by 1902 Green was head waiter at the Hotel Rosslyn on Main Street. On Friday morning, July 17, 1903, Joseph Henry Green died at his home after what the Los Angeles Herald described as a “prolonged illness.” His cause of death was given as kidney disease at age 52 years, 9 months, and 14 days, and he was buried at Evergreen Cemetery in East Los Angeles. He left a widow, Amanda, and daughters Lauretta and Cecil.
Green moved to Los Angeles by the end of 1883 and became head waiter at the Pico House. Green helped to organize L.A.’s “Colored Republican Club” in 1886; his political activities helped him obtain the patronage appointment of Los Angeles City Hall janitor in 1887 and be chosen for the LAPD in 1889. Following his short service as a police officer, Green went back to being a waiter, and by 1902 Green was head waiter at the Hotel Rosslyn on Main Street. On Friday morning, July 17, 1903, Joseph Henry Green died at his home after what the Los Angeles Herald described as a “prolonged illness.” His cause of death was given as kidney disease at age 52 years, 9 months, and 14 days, and he was buried at Evergreen Cemetery in East Los Angeles. He left a widow, Amanda, and daughters Lauretta and Cecil.
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Robert William Stewart was born a slave on March 1, 1850, near Lancaster, Garrard County, Kentucky (about 75 miles southeast of Louisville). He was the eldest of his mother's 11 children, eight of whom lived to adulthood. His parents were Faulkner Stewart (born c. 1804-1817, died 1900) and Ellen Doty (1830-1914), illiterate slaves who began living as husband and wife in 1849. However, they could not marry until Kentucky legalized marriages for blacks in 1866. [1] In September 1867, after most of their children had been born, Faulkner and Ellen received a Commonwealth of Kentucky “Declaration of Marriage of Negroes and Mulattoes.” It cost 50 cents to have their union officially recorded, plus another 25 cents for the certificate, significant amounts for newly freed slaves. [2]
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| This photo of Robert William Stewart was likely taken when he was in his twenties. |
It is unclear who owned Robert Stewart when he was born. However, it may have been Sabritt Doty (1806-1873), a white farmer and stock raiser who owned 10 slaves in 1850 and 18 in 1860. Soon after Ellen Doty’s son Faulkner Jr. was born on December 6, 1855, about five miles east of Lancaster near Back Creek, Sabritt Doty registered the birth to establish his ownership of the child [3]. Since Robert and Faulkner Jr. were brothers, it is quite possible Sabritt Doty owned them both, along with their mother Ellen (the surname of slaves was frequently that of their owner at the time they were freed). Their father, Faulkner Stewart Sr., likely worked at a nearby plantation or farm and had a different owner than his wife. His owner must have given him a pass that allowed him to travel.
Robert’s last sibling to be born in Garrard County was his brother Harve in July 1858. Robert’s sister Elsie was born c. August 1860 in Stanford, Lincoln County, the next county southwest of Garrard, as were the rest of his siblings (Stanford is about eight miles southwest of Lancaster). Because an 1851 Kentucky law required emancipated slaves to leave the state, [4] it can be assumed that c. 1858-1860 Ellen Doty and her children were sold, or possibly rented, to someone in Lincoln County; Sabritt Doty and his extended family appear to have lived only in Garrard County, not Lincoln County.
While little is known of Robert Stewart’s early life, information about where he grew up is available. When Stewart was born in Lancaster in 1850, its population was listed as 700, and Garrard County was home to 3,176 slaves, 25 free blacks, and 7,036 whites.[5] The county’s staple products that year were corn, rye, wheat and oats, and its main exports were horses, mules, cattle, hogs, and sheep.[6] When Stewart was a baby, Harriet Beecher Stowe visited Garrard County to do research on slavery before she wrote Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Lancaster had no rail service when Stewart lived there.
By the time Stewart was living in neighboring Lincoln County in 1860, it had 3,430 slaves, 158 free blacks, and 7,059 whites. Stanford’s population in 1860 was 479, on its way to 752 in 1870, when Lincoln County’s population was 3,404 blacks and 7,871 whites. The county’s leading agricultural products in 1870 were cattle, hay, and mules.[7] Railroad service to Stanford began when the Louisville and Nashville Railroad reached town on May 17, 1866.
As far as is known, Robert Stewart spent the entire Civil War in Stanford, Lincoln County, Kentucky. He may have seen Federal troops march south through Stanford in mid-January 1862, on the way to their victory at the January 19th Battle of Mill Springs about 40 miles south of Stanford. The largest battle in Kentucky during the war, the Battle of Perryville, was fought about 20 miles northwest of Stanford on October 8, 1862. After this battle Union forces followed the retreating Confederates to the east and south, and U.S. Army records note that there was fighting at Stanford on October 14.[8]
Stewart may also have seen Confederate raiders stealing horses and cattle near Stanford in late March 1863 [9], prior to the Union victory 30 miles south at the Battle of Dutton’s Hill on March 30. Stanford was briefly taken by Southern raiders on July 31, 1863 [10], but they were soon driven out. Although other raids and skirmishes occurred in and around Stanford during the war, it appears no one in the Stewart family was a victim of the war’s violence. Robert and his father also should have been exempt from an August 1863 U.S. Military Order that authorized impressing Lincoln County slaves to work on extending the Louisville and Nashville Railroad. The order applied to slaves aged 16 to 45, so Robert would have been too young and his father, Faulkner, too old.[11]
President Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation did not apply to Kentucky, and we do not know exactly when Robert and his family were freed. Robert’s mother gave birth to his two youngest sisters in Stanford in July 1864 and August 1865, so his family did not flee north to escape slavery. Additionally, Robert’s father Faulkner did not serve in the Union Army, so a March 1865 federal law freeing the wives and children of black soldiers [12] would not have applied to Robert and his family, who may have remained slaves until the 13th Amendment, abolishing slavery, was ratified by Congress in December 1865 (The Kentucky legislature rejected the amendment in February 1865).
In post-Civil-War Kentucky, the Ku Klux Klan and other white “regulators” used violence to restore the commonwealth’s antebellum political and social order. Although blacks were the primary victims, white Republicans and Union veterans were also targeted. One such episode occurred in Stanford on July 18, 1867, when James Bridgewater, a major in the Union Army then working for the Freedmen’s Bureau, was shot and killed by regulators while he was playing checkers in a barroom. Kentucky Governor John Stevenson sent armed units to Lincoln County in 1869 to stop mob violence, but the Kentucky legislature took little interest in quelling the lawlessness. [13] In March 1871, a group of black citizens living in and near Frankfort, the state capital, petitioned Congress for protection from the Ku Klux Klan. The petition listed over 100 incidents in which blacks were murdered, attacked, or intimidated, nine of which occurred in Lincoln County between August 1868 and April 1870. [14]
There are different figures for the number of blacks lynched in Kentucky after the Civil War. One author calculated there were 117 documented lynchings in Kentucky between 1865 and 1874 (with many more undocumented and uncounted). Another historian has estimated there were 93 lynchings in the state from 1867 to 1871. Still other accounts noted that from 1867 to 1871, as many as 25 lynchings per year occurred in central Kentucky alone, mostly in rural areas near cities like Danville, which is just 10 miles northwest of Stanford.[15]
Robert Stewart is listed on the 1870 U.S. Census (enumerated on June 18) as working on a Stanford-area farm where he lived with his parents and siblings. Based on census records and an 1879 map of Garrard and Lincoln Counties at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, in 1870 the Stewart family appears to have lived about five miles northwest of Stanford between Hanging Fork Creek and the Lincoln/Boyle County Line, roughly halfway between Stanford and Danville. The land they farmed was probably owned by Dr. George Woolfolk Givens (1818-1881), a pre-war slave owner and Confederate Army surgeon. Dr. Givens does not appear to have owned Robert Stewart in 1860, and his family may not have moved onto Dr. Givens’ land until after the Civil War. The Stewart family’s association with Dr. Givens could have helped them escape being targeted for violence by the KKK.
On the 1870 U.S. Census both Robert Stewart and his eldest younger brother, Faulkner Jr., are shown as being able to read and write. However, subsequent censuses show Faulkner Jr. could not read or write, and it is almost certain that in 1870 Robert was not fully literate. Exactly when he received his education is unknown. Robert may have attended one or more of the Freedmen’s Bureau schools established in Kentucky by the Federal Government in 1866. A freedmen’s school in Danville in neighboring Boyle County may have been closer to his home than Lincoln County’s freedmen’s school, which was about 10 miles southeast of Stanford in the town of Crab Orchard. [16] In the first half of 1869, a school for freedmen was established at Shelby City (now part of Junction City), which was perhaps only two or three miles from where Stewart lived in June 1870.[17] In addition, by May 1869 the American Missionary Association operated schools for freedmen in Danville, South Danville, and Stanford. [18] Whenever Stewart was educated, he was fortunate to be able to read and write; by 1870 only 30% of Kentucky’s African-Americans aged 10-21 were literate [19].
Although the evidence is circumstantial, it is likely that in 1870 Robert Stewart met an early mentor/role model: William H. Gibson (1829-1906). Gibson was a free black man who moved to Louisville in 1847, where he became an educator. During the Civil War he recruited black soldiers for the Union Army in Kentucky and Indiana, and after the war he worked for the Freedmen’s Bank in Louisville. In 1867-68 he helped reorganize the United Brothers of Friendship (UBF), a black benevolent fraternal order in which he played a prominent role the rest of his life. In July 1870 Gibson was appointed by the Grant Administration as the first black U.S. mail agent in Kentucky, and in that position he served on the branch line of the Louisville and Nashville Railroad that ran through Stanford. As Gibson described in his 1897 autobiography, during his first two trips “the people at every station gathered by hundreds, and climbed upon the cars to get a view of the black animal who dared to invade their territory.” [20] It seems quite likely that Stewart met and spoke with Gibson during his six months on the Stanford line (In January 1871 Gibson was reassigned to the Louisville to Lexington route, and on his second day he was attacked by the Ku Klux Klan and nearly killed). Stewart later joined the UBF, which had a lodge in Stanford that Gibson visited c. 1875-76.
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| William H. Gibson, c. 1897 |
Robert Stewart married Louise Coffey, also a former slave, probably in December 1871 in Stanford, Lincoln County, Kentucky. It was there on December 7, 1871, that Robert and a friend, Smith Baughman, signed Robert and Louise’s Marriage Bond, which bound Stewart and Baughman to pay the Commonwealth of Kentucky $100 in the event the marriage did not take place. The Lincoln County court clerk wrote on the bond that Baughman had sworn he knew Louise’s mother and that she approved of the marriage, which likely occurred shortly after the bond was obtained. Stewart signed the document with an X, evidence that he was not yet fully literate.
Louise was born on July 20, 1851, probably in Monticello, Wayne County, Kentucky. Her mother was a slave named Polly Susebury (or possibly Suesbury; born c. 1832-35, died 1894). Louise’s father was her married white owner, Benjamin Franklin Coffey (1816-1868). Polly gave birth to two more of Coffey’s children, a girl in 1853 and a boy in 1855 or 56 (Coffey also had nine children by his wife, Mary Ann Worsham). The 1860 U. S. Census shows Benjamin Coffey owned 18 slaves who lived in five slave houses.
Beginning in 1858 Louise’s mother Polly had three children with Anderson Hickman, a free black man employed in the Coffey household as a blacksmith. Sometime in 1865 Polly, her children, and apparently Anderson Hickman moved north from Wayne County up to Lincoln County. However, in December 1865 Hickman seems to have married another woman, before his last child with Polly was born in March 1866. Probably in 1867 Polly married Alex Logan, a black laborer who in 1870 worked, along with Louise, for white farmer John G. Smith and his wife Nancy just northeast of Stanford in Lincoln County. Polly and Alex had children in 1868 and 1877, giving Louise a total of five half-siblings (not counting Benjamin Franklin Coffey’s nine white children) in addition to her sister and brother.
Robert William Stewart (often recorded as R. W.) and his wife Louise remained in Stanford, Lincoln County, Kentucky after their marriage. Their only child, William Malcom Edgar Stewart, was born there in August 1877 (probably on the 19th). When the 1880 U.S. Census was enumerated on June 2, Robert and Louise were living with their son in Stanford in the household of Horace S. Withers (1820-97), a widowed white farmer. Robert and Louise worked as servants for Withers and his two teenage children, James and Josephine. Although it is not known when the Stewarts started working for Withers, they were probably recommended to him by his niece, Nancy Smith, for whom Louise Stewart and her family had worked in 1870. The 1880 census also recorded that Robert could read and write, but Louise could not.
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| The Horace S. Withers House, where Robert William Stewart once worked and lived with his family, still stands today at the northwest corner of Metker Trail and Hubble Road in Stanford, Kentucky. Built c. 1849-50, the Withers home is known as “Forest Hill” and was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1987 “as an excellent representation of Greek Revival domestic architecture in Lincoln County.” [21] This image is dated November 2016. |
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This is a 1983 photo of the entrance to the Horace Withers home. The well-off Withers, who in 1860 owned 23 slaves, “was associated with many of the prominent politicians of the county and his farmstead often served as the site for various political rallies.”[22] Articles from Stanford’s The Interior Journal show that in 1876 Withers was a delegate to the Democratic State Convention in Louisville, and in 1879-80 he was Chairman of the Lincoln County Democratic Committee. Robert Stewart may have learned much about politics from conversations he overheard while working for Withers.
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Compared to living in a more remote area of Lincoln County and working as a farmer or laborer, Stewart likely had more financial and physical security as Withers’ servant. However, Stewart was still a black man in the South, a point driven home in October 1879 when Stanford’s white Town Marshal, Smith Mershon, and two others broke up a United Brothers of Friendship meeting that Stewart probably attended. At some point, Stewart must have become convinced that his family’s only chance to live a better life lay outside the South. In contrast, Robert’s parents lived out their lives in Lincoln County, and all his siblings lived all or most of their lives there as well.
Robert and his wife Louise likely disagreed regarding where they should move to. Louise’s mother Polly and all Louise’s siblings and half-siblings moved to Marshall County in northeast Kansas, c. 1878-1881, so that was surely Louise’s preferred destination. However, many press reports during that era describe black emigrants to Kansas as desperate and near starvation. Robert seemingly preferred the prospect of a relatively more predictable income from industrial work – about $2.00 a day – to life on a Kansas farm. Eventually the Stewarts left Kentucky and moved to Jeffersonville, Indiana, the closest city to Stanford north of the Ohio River (just over 100 miles away by railroad) and directly across the river from Louisville. For Robert, there were industrial jobs in Jeffersonville, as well as a UBF lodge, established in 1877. Louise could take some comfort in knowing that a good friend of her mother’s, Rebecca Cowan Coffey, lived with her family in Cheviot, Ohio, in 1880 a small town of 325 people near Cincinnati, about 140 miles up the Ohio River from Jeffersonville.
Exactly when Robert Stewart and his family left Stanford and arrived in Jeffersonville is not known, but available evidence suggests both events occurred in 1881. He is not in the 1880-81 Jeffersonville City Directory, which was compiled and printed between May and July 1880. However, Robert Stewart is in the next Jeffersonville City Directory, which was canvassed from April to July 1882. He is listed as a laborer at the Ohio Falls Car Company (OFCC), which built railroad freight and passenger cars. In January 1881 the OFCC employed over 1,400 men, a figure that increased to 1,700 by July and to over 2,100 by January 1882.
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| After a catastrophic 1872 fire destroyed its factory, the Ohio Falls Car Company rebuilt with a series of brick buildings, nearly all of which were one story and some of which still stand. This view of the plant, taken from an 1886 advertisement, gives an approximation of what the works looked like, including the rows of stacked lumber next to the buildings. |
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| Robert William Stewart’s first listing in a Jeffersonville City Directory is in the 1882-83 edition. It was common for city directories of this era to note which residents were African-Americans, as Stewart is here (“col’d”). |
However, the amount of work at the Ohio Falls Car Company fluctuated, as it did with other manufacturers in Jeffersonville. By April 1882 the OFCC was down to 1,500 workers, and near the end of May 1882 about a third of those were laid off. In October 1882 the company was down to 700 employees, with even fewer there over the winter before the OFCC’s workforce rebounded to 1,300 in April 1883. It is possible that Robert was laid off by the OFCC between the spring and early fall of 1882, was unable to find employment elsewhere in Jeffersonville, and was forced to find a job in Louisville, which had a population of over 120,000. The 1883 Louisville City Directory, compiled in the fall of 1882, lists Robert and Louisa Stewart (Louise’s name was sometimes recorded as Louisa) living together in a boarding house at 730 Ninth Street, just a block from Robert’s old Stanford friend Smith Baughman, who had moved to Louisville around 1875. The directory shows Robert as a laborer and Louisa as a domestic worker. If the Stewarts moved to Louisville in 1882, they probably returned to Jeffersonville before the fall of 1883, when the 1884 Louisville directory – in which they do not appear – was compiled.
While in Jeffersonville, Stewart met several men who would play important roles in his life; one of those men was future Los Angeles Chief of Police John Malcolm Glass. Born in Tennessee and raised there and in Alabama, Glass fought for the Confederacy during the Civil War. He was demoted from sergeant to private due to cowardice at the 1863 Siege of Vicksburg, where he was captured and later paroled. He returned home to Alabama for about a month before he was ordered back into service. In November 1863 he deserted the Confederate Army in Tennessee and swore an oath of allegiance to the Union. He was next taken to Louisville, Kentucky, then released north of the Ohio River, likely at or near Jeffersonville. He later spent about five years as a guard at the Indiana State Prison South at Jeffersonville, ending in June 1876.
Unlike most Confederate veterans, after the war Glass was a Republican. Jeffersonville was primarily a Democratic town, but Glass won election twice as city marshal, serving from 1879-83. In May 1883 he began a single two-year term as Jeffersonville’s mayor after defeating five-term Democratic incumbent Luther Warder (who still has a park named after him in Jeffersonville). The Jeffersonville Daily Evening News carried many articles in the early 1880s that described the meetings of black Republican voters, and as Stewart was a Republican, he could easily have met Glass at a political event.
Stewart’s political activities in Jeffersonville apparently also led to his becoming acquainted with three other important local Republicans: shipbuilder David S. Barmore, his son Edmond H. Barmore, and their firm’s clerk/bookkeeper, Thomas J. Stuart. At some point after leaving the Ohio Falls Car Company – and possibly after living for about a year in Louisville – Robert Stewart began working at the Barmore Shipyard at the end of Meigs Avenue in Jeffersonville. Employment numbers at the yard fluctuated, but Barmore was reported to have between 250 and 300 workers from November 1882 to April 1883.
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| David S. Barmore (1832-1905) was apprenticed to the shipbuilding trade at age 12. In 1864 he opened the Stuart & Barmore Shipyard in Jeffersonville with partner John R. Stuart, whose younger brother Thomas J. Stuart joined the firm as a clerk and bookkeeper. After Barmore bought out John R. Stuart in 1869, Thomas J. Stuart continued working for Barmore. This photo, showing a steamboat under construction next to the sawmill, is said to have been taken during the Civil War. However, the sign suggests the photo was taken after Barmore bought out Stuart and became sole owner. “1818” could be a reference to when the first riverboat was built in Jeffersonville. |
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| This c. late 1883 image is a printer’s proof of the design on business envelopes mailed from the Barmore Shipyard. It was no doubt prompted by David Barmore’s announcement in October 1883 that he would make his son Edmond a full partner in his company on January 1, 1884. |
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| Here is Robert Stewart’s listing in the 1884-85 Jeffersonville City Directory, compiled from April to June 1884 and published that September. As a fireman he did not put out fires but rather stoked fires in boiler furnaces to keep steam-powered machinery operating. |
Stewart continued his membership with the United Brothers of Friendship during his years in Jeffersonville. In September 1885, the UBF’s Indiana State Grand Lodge met for its annual session in New Albany, Indiana (today about a 10-minute drive downriver from Jeffersonville), and an article in The New Albany Ledger from September 9, 1885, shows Stewart was not only one of three Jeffersonville delegates to the meeting, but he was also the outgoing state Grand Marshal.
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| At the bottom of this clipping from an article in The New Albany Ledger of September 11, 1885, we see that R. W. Stewart has been appointed by the UBF’s Indiana Grand Lodge as a Trustee for the coming year. Thus, it would appear as of September 1885, Robert Stewart had no plans to leave Jeffersonville. |
While Stewart lived in Jeffersonville, he found employment, made political connections, and held important posts with his fraternal order, the UBF. However, his marriage seems to have become strained to the point that he and Louise separated. Perhaps one of the issues dividing them was that although Robert and Louise were both familiar with farm life and small towns (the population of Stanford, Kentucky in 1880 was about 1,200), Louise may not have adapted to living in Jeffersonville as easily as Robert did.
It is not known exactly when the Stewarts separated, but it was probably between sometime in 1883 and the summer of 1884. However Louise felt about Robert, her desire to leave Jeffersonville may have been hastened by either of two disasters. The Ohio River flood of February 1884 was the worst in recorded history up to that time, surpassing the previous mark set by the Ohio River flood of . . . February 1883. Both floods left almost all of Jeffersonville inundated and most of its residents homeless; food, clothing, and other supplies were sent by nearby towns and cities to relieve the suffering. Whenever Louise left Robert behind in Jeffersonville, she took their son William with her.
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| This photo looks north on Jeffersonville's Spring Street during the flood of February 1883. Just right of center, the two-story building with a mortar and pestle atop its front is Graham Bros. Druggists at 137 Spring. Robert Stewart’s c. 1884-85 residence at 24 Spring Street was about three blocks south behind the photographer, toward the Ohio River. |
Louise probably went to live with her mother’s friend Rebecca Cowan Coffey in Cheviot, Ohio. Rebecca was born a slave in Kentucky a few years before Louise’s mother Polly. On the 1850 U.S. Census for Clinton County, Kentucky is a white man named John Cowan, born c. 1772. Immediately after him are listed 25 free black men, women, and children named Cowan – including Rebecca – strongly suggesting that, perhaps in the late 1840s, Cowan emancipated his slaves, some of whom he appears to have given or sold land to. The 1860 Census for Wayne County, Kentucky (adjoining Clinton County on the east) shows Rebecca Cowan living in the household next to that of Benjamin Franklin Coffey, whose slaves included Polly Susebury and her daughter Louise. Subsequent events show that Rebecca and Polly developed a close friendship during the years they were neighbors.
Rebecca married George Woodford Coffey (no relation to anyone else in this story named Coffey), a slave who ran away from his owner during the Civil War and joined the Union Army. By 1870 George and Rebecca Coffey were residing in Cheviot, Ohio. They remained there until moving in November 1884 – not to Missouri, where Rebecca’s sister lived – but instead to Marshall County, Kansas to live near Polly and her family. Louise probably moved to Kansas with the Coffeys at that time; the March 1, 1885, Kansas State Census shows Louise Stewart and her son William living in Frankfort, Marshall County, Kansas in a household that includes her mother and stepfather Polly and Alex Logan, their two children, and two of Louise’s other half-siblings, one of whom was Patrick Monroe Hickman. The census also shows that Louise and William came to Kansas from Ohio – not Indiana. Robert Stewart is not shown on that 1885 Kansas census because he was still in Jeffersonville.
We can only speculate as to how often Robert was able to visit his wife and son while he was in Jeffersonville and they were in Cheviot, Ohio. He may have traveled by steamboat to Cincinnati, then taken the narrow-gauge Cincinnati and Westwood Railroad, whose tracks ended in Cheviot. Regardless, it appears the Stewarts did not live together again until sometime in the second half of 1887, a separation of at least three years. We must also speculate as to the effect this period had on young William Malcom Edgar Stewart, who grew up to be a very different person than his father.
Meanwhile, back in Jeffersonville during 1885, Robert Stewart’s world had begun to change. In April, Jeffersonville Mayor John M. Glass had decided not to run for reelection, and the Democrats recaptured the mayor’s office the next month. After Glass’ term ended he remained in Jeffersonville, active in business and in politics as a member of local and state Republican committees. However, perhaps already thinking of living elsewhere, he declined to run for Jeffersonville Township Trustee in March 1886.
Although the Barmore Shipyard had survived the floods of February 1883 and 1884 (reopening in April of both years), it did not survive two events that occurred in 1885, one of which was the fire that destroyed the yard’s sawmill on July 9. When the sawmill had burned down in 1877, the City of Jeffersonville loaned Barmore $10,000 to rebuild. Now, however, after the back-to-back floods it could not afford another loan. Nonetheless, newspaper articles from July to October 1885 indicated that Barmore would rebuild his shipyard. Robert Stewart may have assumed this would happen, perhaps encouraged by Barmore having completed several craft that were under construction at the time of the fire but had escaped the flames.
The other event that finally doomed the Barmore Shipyard was more protracted and less dramatic than the fire. Following the Ohio River floods of February 1883 and 1884, in July 1884 Congress passed – and President Chester A. Arthur signed – a Rivers and Harbors Appropriations bill that included $50,000 to build a levee to protect the U.S. Army’s Quartermaster Depot at Jeffersonville. The path of the proposed levee cut off access to Barmore’s property, leaving it impractical to build ships there. On September 17, 1885, David Barmore filed for an injunction to stop the levee construction next to his shipyard, and he was granted a temporary restraining order. However, on November 13, 1885, a circuit court judge ruled against Barmore and dissolved the restraining order. Barmore immediately sold his riverfront property and remaining supplies and machinery to the larger Howard Shipyard, located about 1/3 mile upriver.
By this time, David Barmore may already have decided to relocate to Los Angeles. His shipyard clerk/bookkeeper, Thomas J. Stuart, had visited Los Angeles in January 1885 and again in early November. On December 20, 1885, the Louisville Courier-Journal wrote that David Barmore had just returned from Los Angeles, where he and his son and their families would move in the spring. The Jeffersonville Daily Evening News reported on February 18, 1886, that David Barmore, his son Edmond, and Thomas Stuart and their families had departed Jeffersonville that day to relocate permanently in Los Angeles.
Consequently, by early 1886 Robert Stewart had to reevaluate his situation. He had lost his job at the Barmore shipyard after its sale. His former employer, the Ohio Falls Car Company, had shut down indefinitely in January 1885 (though it would finally begin to reopen at the end of July 1886). Stewart knew that in addition to the Barmore and Stuart families, other former Jeffersonville residents had moved to Los Angeles, and their reports of the area were all positive. At some point in early 1886, Stewart must have decided to leave Jeffersonville and relocate to Los Angeles. Lowered railroad fares, the result of transcontinental competition between the Southern Pacific and new rival Santa Fe, helped Stewart make the move.
Although we do not know when Stewart moved, there are clues. The February 9, 1886, Jeffersonville Daily Evening News, which listed R. W. Stewart as among those with a letter waiting at the post office, is the last indication we have of Robert Stewart in Jeffersonville. The postal laws and regulations then in effect regarding the advertising of letters waiting at a post office make it probable that Stewart had not yet departed Jeffersonville at that time. [e.g., Letters were not advertised if the postmaster knew the addressee regularly visited the post office, which Stewart may not have had reason to do since his wife, parents and most of his siblings could not write. Nor would Stewart’s letter have been advertised if he had left town and asked to have his mail forwarded to another post office, which postal rules allowed in 1886.] [23]
Before moving west, Stewart might have traveled to see his family in Kentucky, although his last documented visit back home was when he attended his brother Harve’s wedding in Lincoln County on July 28, 1881. Harve may have been the sibling to whom Robert was closest; Robert had four siblings who had sons, but only Harve named one Robert. Once Stewart left Jeffersonville, presumably he stopped in Frankfort, Kansas and tried without success to convince Louse to leave her relatives and join him in moving to Los Angeles. This would likely have been the first time Stewart had seen his wife and son in at least a year and half, so he may have had an extended visit.
Robert Stewart’s arrival in Los Angeles was probably in the spring or early summer of 1886. He is not listed in the Los Angeles city directory canvassed from early February to the first week of May 1886 and issued that June. If he arrived in Los Angeles before the first week of May 1886, he was missed by the canvassers and he failed to stop by the city directory company’s office to ensure his name appeared in their publication. However, depending on when Stewart left Jeffersonville and how long he stopped in Kansas, he may have arrived in Los Angeles after the directory went to press.
Whenever Robert Stewart arrived in Los Angeles, it was certainly no later than August 30, 1886, when he first registered to vote. His address and employer are not shown, but his occupation is listed as laborer. When Stewart relocated to Los Angeles, its black population was small but growing. According to the 1880 U.S. Census, just 102 of the 11,183 people living in the City of Los Angeles were black. By 1890, Los Angeles had 1,258 black residents, about 2.5% of its population of 50,395. [24]
Stewart appears in two Los Angeles city directories published in 1887 – one in May and another in August – living at 216 Castelar Street (now North Hill Street), just north of Alpine Street (known as Virgin Street until August 1887). The earlier directory indicates Stewart’s employer was the C. S. & A. & P. Transfer Company, a freight-hauling firm named for two railroads: the California Southern and the Atlantic and Pacific (both were part of the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway system). Stewart worked not in the company’s main office but instead at the company’s stables, and he lived next door.
According to a Los Angeles city directory issued in June 1886, two of the C. S. & A. & P. Transfer Company’s three owners were Charles Elton, a former railroad engineer, and Edmond H. Barmore, newly arrived from Jeffersonville, Indiana. Both Elton and Barmore bought into the company in 1886, and by 1887 they were the only owners. Given Stewart’s prior work history with Barmore and his father in Jeffersonville, there seems to be little doubt that Edmond Barmore hired Robert Stewart to work at the C. S. & A. & P. Transfer Company. Records suggest that this occurred between September 1886 and early 1887.
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| Edmond H. Barmore (1860-1931), c. 1900. He was on the University of Michigan’s first football team in 1879. In September 1889, he and his father David, Charles Elton, and two others incorporated the Los Angeles Transfer Company (LATC), with Edmond Barmore as president and Elton as vice president. Barmore and Elton’s old firm, the C. S. & A. & P. Transfer Company, was merged into the LATC. |
Records also suggest that Robert was reunited with his wife Louise and son William around the summer of 1887. It is possible that Louise was persuaded to reconcile with her husband and move to Los Angeles by her half-brother, Patrick Monroe Hickman, who may have wanted to relocate there. Newspaper advertisements for Hickman’s nursery business in Frankfort, Kansas end in early May 1887, and the May 16, 1887, Los Angeles Herald lists Robert Steward (a common misspelling of Stewart) among those with a letter waiting at the post office – possibly the letter that told Stewart he would soon be joined by his family. Patrick Hickman probably accompanied Louise and William on the trip from Kansas to Los Angeles. Hickman appears on the Herald’s post office letter list as early as August 29, 1887.
The Los Angeles city directory canvassed in the spring of 1888 and issued that summer shows Robert Stewart (this time misspelled as Stuart) and Hickman both living at 243 Castelar Street, a home near the north end of the same block as Stewart’s previous residence at 216 Castelar. The same city directory also lists Stewart as a hostler for another freight-hauling firm named for a railroad, the S. P. (Southern Pacific) Transfer-Truck Company. This company had been purchased by David Barmore in October 1886, following his son Edmond’s becoming part-owner of the C. S. & A. & P. Transfer Company earlier that year.
Stewart’s move from 216 to 243 Castelar, probably sometime between the summer or fall of 1887 and the spring of 1888, may have coincided with his change in employer, because 216 Castelar seems to have been owned by the C. S. & A. & P. Transfer Company as housing for its workers at its adjacent stable. As to why Stewart changed employers, perhaps it was because he wanted a better home for his family: 216 Castelar was older and surrounded on two sides by a stable and corral. It is also possible Stewart did not get along with Edmond Barmore’s partner, Charles Elton. Stewart lived at 243 Castelar until approximately late 1888 or early 1889.
Directly across the street from 243 Castelar was the Castelar Street School, which 10-year-old William M. E. Stewart likely began attending in the fall of 1887. The school had only four rooms but 198 desks, and due to overcrowding it was on double sessions, with students attending class for about four hours a day. When William lived in Indiana and Ohio, the public schools there were segregated. In Los Angeles, the public schools had been integrated since the city’s “Colored School” was discontinued in 1881. However, the 1887-88 Los Angeles school census recorded just 261 black children aged 5-17, compared to 10,360 white children [25]. In the fall of 1887 William should have been old enough to start the fifth grade, assuming his prior education had kept him at grade level. After the sixth grade, William would have attended seventh and eighth grades at Sand Street School on Fort Moore Hill (this school was the renamed old Los Angeles High School building, opened in 1873 and laboriously relocated in 1886 to make way for a new Los Angeles County Courthouse). We do not know how long William stayed in school, other than he did not graduate from L.A. High School. However, we know that as a teenager he worked at a grocery store on the northwest corner of Buena Vista (now North Broadway) and Alpine Streets.
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| The Dakin Publishing Company’s map of Los Angeles was first printed in 1888. In late December 1889 the city changed to a new street numbering system that was implemented during 1890. The map was updated in 1891 to reflect the changed addresses and new construction. In the Dakin map clippings used here, both the old and new numbers are shown, with the new numbers all numerically higher than the old numbers. This portion of the Dakin map shows the 200 block (after 1889 the 800 block) of Castelar Street (now North Hill Street), with College and Alpine Streets at the top and bottom, respectively. To the right of the pink dot, the adobe building (shaded gray) with a wood (shaded yellow) porch in front and small addition in the rear is 216 Castelar, Stewart’s first known Los Angeles address. The green dot and long green rectangle mark the stable of the C. S. & A. & P. Transfer Company, where Stewart worked while living at 216 Castelar. In the upper left corner by the yellow dot is the Castelar Street School, built in 1882 with four rooms and enlarged to eight rooms in 1890. Across the street from the school, the home next to the red dot is 243 Castelar, which is listed as Stewart’s residence in the 1888 city directory. This is Stewart’s second known home in Los Angeles. |
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| This photo, probably taken between the fall of 1886 and the spring of 1887, looks northeast over what was then called Sonoratown (today's Chinatown) and Robert Stewart’s first two known Los Angeles residences, as well as his first known place of employment. The pink, green, yellow, and red dots mark the same structures as on the map above. The building with the pink dot on the roof is 216-218 Castelar Street, with Stewart’s residence at 216 in the southern half of the structure. The long dark building next door with a green dot on its roof is the C. S. & A. & P. Transfer Company stable, where Stewart worked. At left, the building with the yellow dot is the Castelar Street School. Across the street and marked by a red dot is Stewart’s next home at 243 Castelar. In the lower left corner of the image is the intersection of Alpine Street (which runs at an angle across the width of the photo, just above the bottom) and Yale Street (which runs diagonally across the lower left corner). |
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| This image, likely taken in the fall of 1887, looks south over Sonoratown. The Castelar Street School, again with a yellow dot, blocks all but a bit of the roof of Stewart’s first known Los Angeles residence at 216 Castelar. His next home at 243 Castelar – where he was probably living when this photo was taken – is once more marked by a red dot. The C. S. & A. & P. Transfer Company stable, just north of Alpine Street, again has a green dot. East of Castelar Street, the next north-south street is Buena Vista Street. The black dot marks the grocery store at the northwest corner of Buena Vista and Alpine Streets where the Stewarts’ son William worked as a teenager. To the left of the black dot, on the northeast corner of Buena Vista and Alpine, is one of the city’s early 150-foot-tall electric light masts, erected in 1883. East of Buena Vista Street, the next north-south street is barely-discernible New High Street, which ends at Alpine. A blue dot is on the roof of the Southern Pacific Transfer Company stable on Alpine Street where Robert Stewart worked after leaving the C. S. & A. & P. Transfer Company. The purple dot marks what around this time became known as the Hazeltine Adobe, which extended from the east side of Buena Vista to the west side of New High. Over the years the adobe had addresses on both streets. Stewart’s third and fourth Los Angeles homes would both be built just north of the Hazeltine Adobe after this photo was taken. The large three-story building in the extreme upper right corner of the image is the still-standing Pico House opposite Los Angeles Plaza. The structure in the extreme lower right corner of the image, north across College Street from the Castelar Street School, is the French Benevolent Society Hospital, built in 1869. |
Probably between the fall of 1888 and early 1889, Stewart and his wife and son moved two blocks east and one block south to 767 New High Street, on the southwest corner of Alpine Street. North across Alpine was the S. P. Transfer Company stable where Stewart worked c. 1887-88 to 1889. His next move, probably between April 1891 and March 1892, was just around the block to 764 Buena Vista Street, his fourth known Los Angeles residence.
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| On this section of the 1891 Dakin map we see Alpine Street, the east side of Buena Vista Street (on the left) and the west side of New High Street. The 150-foot-tall electric light mast seen in the previous photo was in front of the building labeled “Carpenter/Meat” on the northeast corner of Alpine and Buena Vista. The Hazeltine Adobe is again marked with purple, as it was in the preceding photo. At some point after that photo was taken and before this map was created, the portion of the adobe closest to Buena Vista Street was demolished. As seen here, by 1891 the adobe’s address was 761 New High Street. The blue dot once more shows the S. P. Transfer Company stable where Stewart worked. South across Alpine Street from the stable is a building divided into 765 and 767 New High Street; the latter, with the orange dot, was Stewart’s third known Los Angeles residence. It was probably built in the second half of 1888. A white dot marks Stewart’s next home, 764 Buena Vista Street, which was likely built c. March-April 1891. By 1894, the home had been enlarged by adding two rooms in the back. Stewart and his family lived at 764 Buena Vista until 1895. On the southwest corner of Alpine and Buena Vista, the map shows a smaller building than seen in the previous photo. This building has the pre-1890 address of 350 Buena Vista and is marked “GRO.” This grocery store burned down on the night of August 16, 1891, and the next day’s Los Angeles Herald noted that “The fire department was kept busy in saving the adjoining property.” It is unclear whether Stewart was living at 767 New High or 764 Buena Vista at the time, but either residence could be considered the “adjoining property.” In 1893 the burned grocery store was replaced by a vinegar production plant. |
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| This is a close-up from a photo taken c. late 1888 or early 1889 that looks north over Sonoratown. The image shows the area seen on the map immediately above, with Buena Vista Street visible in the lower left corner. Purple dots mark the different sections of the Hazeltine Adobe between Buena Vista and New High Streets. Below the blue dot is the almost-readable sign advertising the stable of the S.P. Transfer Company on Alpine Street. An orange dot is on the roof of 765-67 New High Street. Stewart and his family were almost certainly living at 767 New High when this photo was taken. The white dot indicates where Stewart’s next home, 764 Buena Vista Street, will be built. Just above the white dot is the grocery store destined to burn down in August 1891. Along the left edge of the photo is the lower part of the 150-foot-tall electric light mast on the northeast corner of Buena Vista and Alpine, seen in the previous photo from the opposite direction. |
It was at the S. P. Transfer Company that Stewart may have reconnected with future Los Angeles Police Chief John M. Glass, who later would be instrumental in prolonging Stewart’s LAPD career. Glass had not moved to Los Angeles in February 1886 with the Barmores and Thomas Stuart, but in August and September 1886 Glass toured the west coast, including an extended stop in Los Angeles with the Barmores. Glass was apparently anxious to return – perhaps to get in on the real estate boom then underway in Los Angeles – because the Jeffersonville Daily Evening News reported that Glass would leave town on October 17, 1886, to relocate to Los Angeles. At the end of November 1886, Thomas Stuart traveled back to Jeffersonville to bring Glass’s family to L.A.
Glass is listed in the Los Angeles city directory issued in May 1887 as working for the Southern Pacific Transfer Company, no doubt hired by his old Jeffersonville friend David Barmore before he sold the company in July 1887. Given that Robert Stewart likely switched employers between the summer of 1887 and the spring of 1888, he may have been hired at the Southern Pacific Transfer Company by either David Barmore or by the company’s new owners on the recommendation of John M. Glass. The 1888 city directory lists Glass’ occupation as “Real Estate.” In April 1888 Glass won election as a delegate to the Los Angeles County Republican Convention. Despite his political affiliation, Glass was appointed to the Los Angeles Police Department as a detective in 1888 – apparently in October – during the administration of Democratic Mayor William H. Workman.
Robert William Stewart also participated in local Republican politics. A meeting to form a “Colored Republican Club” (CRC) occurred on June 4, 1886, possibly just before Stewart arrived in L.A. However, Stewart may have attended the CRC gathering on August 20, 1886 (he registered to vote 10 days later). Another CRC meeting, attended by both white and black Republicans, was held on the night of October 14, 1886, and Robert William Stewart was among those who addressed the crowd:
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| October 15, 1886, Los Angeles Times. Stewart’s mention of “spittoon cleaners” is a reference to political patronage appointments. Stewart was one of the Colored Republican Club’s then-200+ members; the club’s Secretary was Joseph Henry Green. The same Times article notes that the club’s members resolved to “heartily indorse [sic] the nominations as made by the State and County conventions of our party” and pledged to “the support of our ticket from top to bottom, believing it to be not only for the best interests of our race, but for the whole people of the State.” There were few black Democratic Angelenos during this era. The meeting at which Stewart spoke was held in Manufacturer’s Hall at 57 N. Spring Street, located above a hardware store. Manufacturer’s Hall was approximately where the west entrance to Los Angeles City Hall is today. |
The “Colored Republican Club” in Los Angeles dissolved after the 1886 elections. There was no attempt to revive it until a meeting on January 18, 1888, which was chaired by black journalist and attorney R. C. O. (Robert Charles O’Hara) Benjamin, who had arrived in L.A. around October 1887. Benjamin believed that African-Americans held the balance of power between the two major political parties, so the black community should “be strictly independent of both Republicans and Democrats,” leaving black voters free “to support any measure by which they would be gainers, whether fathered by the Republican or Democratic party.” [26] However, that initial meeting attracted just 14 people, and a follow-up meeting a week later was canceled when it drew only half that number.
It was not until April 21, 1888, that a new “Los Angeles City and County Colored Republican Club” was formally organized. The club’s officers included African-Amercans who were staunchly Republican as well as others who were “independents” like R. C. O. Benjamin and Thomas Pearson, who came down to L.A. from Oakland the previous year and became aligned with Benjamin. The club passed a resolution that read, “the interest of the colored citizens of this city and county will be better served by working in conjunction and harmony with the white Republicans . . . we pledge ourselves to give them our undivided support.” [27]
Nonetheless, unlike in 1886 when Los Angeles had a single “Colored Republican Club,” in 1888 L.A.’s black community split between solid Republicans like Robert Stewart and the independents who sided with Benjamin and Pearson. Many independents supported the national GOP ticket, but at the state and local levels were open to voting for Democrats. Campaign clubs were formed by voters on both sides of the political divide, which was represented by two black-run newspapers in Los Angeles.
On July 7, 1888, the first edition of the Weekly Observer appeared, [28] edited by R. C. O. Benjamin. Despite Benjamin’s comments in January about black political independence, his Weekly Observer was initially believed to be a typical pro-GOP organ. However, on August 6, 1888, the Los Angeles Herald reprinted the Weekly Observer’s praise for the independents: “judging from the number of Negro independent clubs that are being organized . . . the death knell of the Republican party will be sounded unless they change their tactics toward the Negro. A great many white Republicans have an idea that the Negro owes the party a debt of gratitude, and it is therefor [sic] his imperative duty to vote the [Republican] ticket no matter if a dog is placed on it.” Also on August 6, the Herald quoted the Observer’s criticism of a GOP candidate for superior court judge in L.A. County. Benjamin’s Weekly Observer went on to attack other Republican candidates, the L.A. County GOP Central Committee, and several black Los Angeles residents, including Robert Curry Owens (grandson of African-American Los Angeles pioneer Biddy Mason), who on September 8 tracked down Benjamin and punched him in the jaw.
In addition, on September 4 the Los Angeles Times reported that Benjamin’s associate Thomas Pearson had helped organize the “Colored Men’s Republican Protective League” (CMRPL), a group of independent black voters that resolved to “support only such men as will advance the material interests of our country in general and advance the political interests of our race in particular.” On October 27, the Los Angeles Herald called Pearson “the prime mover in the independent movement which started in this city eight weeks ago.”
To oppose Benjamin and the Weekly Observer, in early September 1888 another group of black Republicans – which included Robert Curry Owens – began a newspaper that consistently supported the GOP, the Republican Advocate. [29] It was edited by one of its founders, John J. Neimore, who subsequently helped to shape the course of Robert Stewart’s life.
Stewart was not an independent; his views were closer to Neimore’s. Stewart saw no place for African-Americans outside of the GOP, nor did his brother-in-law, Patrick Monroe Hickman. Together, Stewart and Hickman attacked the Weekly Observer’s R. C. O. Benjamin and Thomas Pearson in the following letter, published in the September 15, 1888, Los Angeles Times:
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| Stewart and Hickman claim Benjamin (if not also Pearson) softened his support for the GOP because he was bought off (“boodle”) by Democrats. The use of the term “halfbreed” is undoubtedly an accusation that Benjamin was “half-Republican,” not a racial epithet. “Ballot box stealing and fraud” refers to the July 21 destruction of the Fourth Ward ballot box in the election for delegates to the L.A. County GOP convention. The warning about “a Democratic ticket in your hands” is a reference to how elections were conducted in California until 1891; voters submitted complete ballots or “tickets” printed by political parties, rather than voting in secret on official government ballots. Stewart and Hickman charge independent black voters willing to support Democrats with being members of an “unpatriotic, hellish union.” R. C. O. Benjamin was born in St. Kitts in 1855 and was educated there and in England. He came to New York City in 1869 and lived there until 1877, but after that he moved often, studying law and working as an educator and journalist. In April 1887 he sold his interest in Birmingham, Alabama’s Negro American newspaper and, after an interlude of traveling, arrived in Los Angeles that fall, becoming the city’s first African-American lawyer. His Weekly Observer appears to have gone out of business by early 1889, and he left Los Angeles by the end of the year. Benjamin eventually settled in Kentucky where he edited his own newspaper, the Lexington Standard. On October 2, 1900, Benjamin was trying to help African-Americans in Lexington register to vote when a white man named Michael Moynahan pulled out his revolver and used it to repeatedly beat Benjamin, whose only defense was to raise his hands to ward off the blows. Moynahan was restrained and arrested, but he was also released the same day. That evening Benjamin returned to the same voter registration site, where Moynahan was lying in wait. He shot Benjamin, hitting him in the front of the right arm. Benjamin turned and began running away, but Moynahan continued firing and hit Benjamin once in the back, killing him almost instantly. Although Moynahan was tried for murder, he pleaded self-defense and was acquitted. |
The election for federal, state, and county offices on November 3, 1888, produced Republican majorities in Los Angeles County for all GOP candidates, despite Thomas Pearson’s group of independent black voters endorsing four Democrats for L.A. County offices. [30] The GOP did not do as well in the Los Angeles City election of December 3, 1888. Democrat John Bryson won the mayor’s race by 941 votes out of 9,835 cast. The split in the black vote was just one factor in the election, but Bryson had been backed by the “Independent Republican Colored Club” (possibly the same group as Pearson’s CMRPL) and the “Bryson Colored Club.” In addition, the Democrats captured five of the eight City Council seats that were contested, giving the Democrats an 11-4 council majority.
Mayor Bryson was inaugurated on December 17, 1888. On December 21, the Los Angeles Evening Express published an article that said it was “generally understood that Mayor Bryson was about to appoint two colored policemen.” On December 22, the Evening Express ran this short item:
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| A slightly rewritten version of this story appeared in the January 4, 1889, Sausalito News (Marin County), January 9 Newcastle News (Placer County), and January 12 Sonoma County Tribune. The Los Angeles Times wrote on December 23, 1888, that Mayor Bryson had received “about thirty” applications from black citizens for the LAPD. However, the Times did not mention that some on the force threatened to resign if any African-Americans were appointed. | |
Two days later, the Evening Express addressed the threatened police resignations in an editorial. It said any white officers who resigned because black officers had been appointed “would merit and . . . receive the contempt of the community,” but the Evening Express stopped short of advocating for black officers on the LAPD:
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| December 24, 1888, Los Angeles Evening Express |
During this era, all of L.A.’s police officers were appointed or reappointed each year by the Police Commission. When the LAPD’s roster for the ensuing year was revealed on December 31, 1888, it did not include any black officers (it did, however, include Mayor Bryson’s son). The threats of white LAPD officers to resign may have stopped Bryson from ensuring two black officers were named to the force. Another reason may have been that one of the two purported leading African-American applicants was discovered to be a bigamist and fled to Mexico to avoid prosecution. [31]
Los Angeles’ new city charter, which took effect in January 1889, prompted another city election, which occurred on February 21, 1889. In the lead-up to this contest, L.A.’s African-American community was more unified, with no proliferation of opposing political clubs. Perhaps the independents and the regular Republicans “agreed to disagree” about certain issues, and the city’s white GOP establishment may have tried to heal the breach among its black supporters.
Mayor Bryson, elected just two and a half months earlier, ran for reelection on February 21, but this time the vote was an overwhelming GOP victory. Republicans won all eleven citywide offices, led by Henry T. Hazard, who defeated Bryson for mayor by over 2,300 votes. Republicans also won all the city council seats (there were now nine instead of 15) and eight of nine seats on the Board of Education. The GOP had gained control of city government with the assistance of L.A.’s black community, which wanted their help to be acknowledged and repaid.
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| The March 14, 1889, Los Angeles Herald noted the dissatisfaction of L.A.’s black Republicans with their party and their demand to have black officers on the LAPD. Robert William Stewart and Joseph Henry Green were likely among those referred to as potential officers. To be endorsed for such trailblazing positions, we can be sure Stewart and Green were well-respected in their community. However, we must speculate as to exactly why Stewart wanted to be a police officer. Residents in California’s Sonoma County learned about the push for black police officers in Los Angeles when an almost identical version of this same editorial appeared in the March 19 Santa Rosa Daily Democrat and March 23 Sonoma Democrat. |
The new city charter expanded the Police Commission from three members (the mayor, chief of police, and city council president) to five (the mayor and four appointees – no more than two from the same political party – approved by the city council). On March 23, 1889, the new Police Commission named James F. Burns Chief of Police by a 3-2 vote.
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| James Franklin Burns (1831-1921), c. 1892. Born near Rochester, New York, he arrived in Los Angeles in 1853 and held a number of public offices, including Los Angeles City Treasurer (1865-68) and Los Angeles County Sheriff (1868-72). Burns lived in Nebraska from 1878-86. Upon his return to Los Angeles, he speculated in real estate and was secretary of a mining company. In December 1888, the Republican Burns lost when he ran for a seat on the Los Angeles City Council. The Los Angeles Times opposed his appointment as chief and claimed, “His affiliations are largely with the gambling element.” |
The new Police Commission also set out to reorganize the LAPD, and this was a highly politicized process. At the Police Commission meeting of March 30, 1889, after the names of 277 applicants had been read, a new police roster, approved by Chief Burns, was finalized. When the names of the officers were announced, they were divided into Democrats and Republicans. Among the new Republican officers were Joseph Henry Green and Robert William Stewart, whose appointments must have resulted from pressure applied by leaders of the black Republican community (like newspaper editor John J. Neimore) on local white Republican leaders, who in turn leaned on the City Council and Police Commission. A subsequent article in the Los Angeles Record asserted that banker George Bonebrake (1837-1898) used his influence to get Stewart appointed, as did Stewart’s old shipyard and transfer company boss, Edmond Barmore.
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| March 31, 1889, Los Angeles Herald. Major William C. Furrey and Refugio Billderrain were Police Commissioners. The Democratic appointees to the LAPD are in the first list above, and the Republican appointees are in the second list. Some of the men, like John M. Glass (whose name is misspelled as Glase) were already on the force. That Green and “Steward” [sic], at the bottom of the Republican list, were black, was not included in the article. |
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| The March 31, 1889, Los Angeles Times adopted a rather cynical tone in its article about how the police force had been appointed. Like the Herald, the Times also misspelled Stewart’s name and did not mention Stewart and Green’s race. Officers E. L Sieweke (Democrat) and A. C. Vignes (Republican) would later be Stewart’s political rivals. |
At the Police Commission meeting on April 1, 1889, there was at least one reaction to Stewart and Green joining the force. The commissioners voted to allow anyone who had an application on file to join the LAPD to withdraw that application. Left unsaid was why this was an issue, although whites not wanting to join a police department that now employed black officers is a safe guess.
In April 1889 three LAPD officers quit, but it cannot be confirmed that they did so because the department hired two black officers. On April 1, the Police Commission accepted the resignation of Peter Alexander Reel, a four-year LAPD veteran. On April 2, Reel was appointed a Los Angeles County Deputy Sheriff. The timing of Reel’s job switch is curious, but the change would have taken time to arrange and could be a coincidence. Next to go was Officer Jeremiah J. Camozzi, whose resignation was accepted on April 10. Known as “Jerry Comocy,” he was appointed to the LAPD in January 1887 but never sworn in due to questions about his character. He got on the force in February 1888 but that October was dismissed for cause. Incredibly, he was reappointed in January 1889 and again on March 30. At the time he quit he was divorcing his wife, who said he was a violent drunk who beat her and assaulted her 11-year-old sister. The third officer to resign from the LAPD in April was Albert Lincoln Smith, who quit on the 16th. Before he was named to the LAPD on March 30 he had been a Deputy Constable under his brother, Los Angeles County Constable Fred Smith. Why Albert L. Smith soured on the LAPD after just 17 days is unknown, but by June 1889 he was back working for his brother as a Deputy Constable and in April 1891 joined the Los Angeles Fire Department.
Currently archived Los Angeles newspapers from the first two months after Stewart and Green joined the LAPD do not mention either their race or any public dissatisfaction with their status as police officers. Also absent are any reports of what kind of reception Stewart and Green received from their brother officers. It may well have been awkward and not especially warm. However, L.A.’s two black policemen – and the reaction to their appointment – quickly made news in the state capital:
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| April 1, 1889, Sacramento Daily Record-Union |
Although the Record-Union wrote that Stewart and Green “went on duty,” they apparently were not immediately given the same assignments as other officers. Chief Burns may have accepted two African-Americans on the force as necessary because of political considerations, but he seems to have initially resisted using Stewart and Green to protect Los Angeles residents:
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| April 3, 1889, Los Angeles Times. G. H. Baxter was an African-American resident of Los Angeles who worked as a porter and janitor. |
Burns soon relented, and Sacramento’s Daily Record-Union updated its readers on the situation in Los Angeles. The newspaper again misspelled Stewart’s name but probably did not err in its description of the crowd’s reaction to the sight of a black man in a police uniform:
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The April 4, 1889, Sacramento Daily Record-Union, under the headline “Los Angeles Items,” noted Stewart’s first appearance on the street as a police officer the previous day. The intersection of First and Spring was one of the three busiest in the city at the time.
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Los Angeles’ two black police officers were also news in San Francisco. We know from voter registers that Joseph Green’s height was about 5 feet 7 inches, and since the article below also refers to a “six-foot negro,” Robert Stewart must be the one whose speech is mocked.
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| April 4, 1889, San Francisco Chronicle. There was no African-American officer on the San Francisco Police Department until the middle of the 20th century. Newspapers throughout California and in at least four other western states (Oregon, Washington, Nevada, and Montana) reported that Los Angeles now had two black police officers. Many publications printed the same articles. The April 2 Reno Evening Gazette, April 4 Daily Oregon Statesman, and April 10 San Diego Union were among the papers that ran this short item: “Considerable feeling is exhibited at Los Angeles over the placing of two colored men on the police force.” Other negative reactions to L.A.’s black officers included those published in Santa Rosa’s April 6 Sonoma Democrat (“bellicose Angelenos . . . object to arrest by a leather-colored ‘cop’”) and Fresno County’s April 13 Selma Irrigator (“Los Angeles’ colored police are not meeting with the approval of people of that town.”). In addition, between April 10 and 13, papers in Marin, Napa, Stanislaus, and Siskiyou Counties all wrote that “A sensation has been caused at Los Angeles by the appointment of two colored men on the police force.” |
On April 11, 1889, when the LAPD was reduced from 100 to 90 men, both Stewart and Green had passed their physical examinations and were officially confirmed as permanent members of the force. Stewart was classified as a foot patrolman, a position that paid $80 a month. One of his first arrests may have been on April 23, when he detained a man the Los Angeles Times identified as W. H. Braun for an unspecified misdemeanor. Both Stewart’s race and his size made an impression. A June 13, 1889, Times article told how Stewart, “the big colored policeman,” arrested two men for fighting, and on August 4, 1889, the Los Angeles Herald, in describing the court appearance of an unruly drunk, called Stewart “the colored giant in blue.” Voter registers of the 1890s list Stewart as being 6 feet 1-1/4 inches tall. The registers also show Stewart as having two identifying scars on the back of his left hand, but how he got them remains a mystery.
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| This is the best available photo of Robert William Stewart wearing his LAPD uniform. At the bottom of this cabinet card are the name and address of the photographer, Sampson Harrison Butterfield at 315 S. Spring Street. Based on when Butterfield was at that location, this photo probably was taken between May 1890 and February 1891. Research by this author in May 2021 indicates the eight-point badge Stewart is wearing was in use from c. March 1878 to May 1899, contrary to what is currently claimed by the LAPD (1869 to 1890). In 1890 the LAPD supplied its officers with a black patent-leather belt and 22-inch-long rosewood club, both of which Stewart is wearing in this photo. However, like the rest of the force, Stewart had to pay for his regulation uniform and provide his own handcuffs and revolver, for which there were no standards. [35] |
On July 17, 1889, the Police Commission voted to dismiss James F. Burns as Chief of Police and named John M. Glass to succeed him, with Glass officially taking over on July 24. In February 1890, the Mayor and City Council ordered the size of the LAPD be further reduced to a total of 80 (excluding the Chief and Matron). Of these, 68 were foot patrolmen, whose salary was cut $10 to $70 per month. To pare down the force, on February 17, 1890, the Police Commission asked Chief Glass to produce a list of 15 officers from which the commissioners would select nine officers to be removed. Joseph Green was among the nine, leaving Robert Stewart as the sole African-American with the LAPD. Only three surviving newspaper articles from 1889 mention Officer Green’s police work (arresting a drunk in September and answering the phone at Police Headquarters on Christmas Eve), compared to at least 14 articles that refer to Stewart over the same period.
Newspaperman John J. Neimore (who had published the Republican Advocate during the 1888 elections) presented that resolution at the GOP convention’s first night, September 6, at Turnverein Hall on Spring Street. His remarks to the delegates, which included a warning that African-Americans would not vote the Republican ticket unless they were represented on it, “were both applauded and hissed,” according to the Herald.
Vignes then removed his name from consideration, implying impropriety in the proceedings, although he still received some votes. The results of the second ballot showed Stewart had received 99 votes and none of the other candidates more than 19. Stewart was then declared the unanimous choice of the convention. As Republican nominee for Los Angeles Township Constable, Robert Stewart was the first African-American to be nominated by a major party for an elective office in Los Angeles County. [The Prohibition Party had broken the color line in 1888 by nominating S. B. Bows, an African-American, also for Los Angeles Township Constable. [41] Shadrach Bristow Bows (c. 1840-1902), born in Kentucky and educated at Oberlin College in Ohio, worked in Los Angeles as a carpenter.]
When Stewart returned to the force in January 1893, L.A.’s population was around 70,000. At this time the LAPD had just 74 officers (including the Chief and Matron); of these, only 49 were foot patrolmen, three of whom were stationed at busy intersections to direct traffic. The salary of a foot patrolman was $70 a month, unchanged since February 1890 (for comparison, in January 1893 San Francisco’s estimated population of 350,000 was protected by a police force with an authorized strength of 456; of these, 384 were patrolmen, who earned $102 a month) [44]. Although all members of the LAPD had a paid 10-day annual summer vacation, the rest of the year they worked eight hours a day, seven days a week [45]. Officers were expected to testify at court proceedings on their own time if the proceedings were held when the officers were not on duty. In addition, while the foot patrolman’s salary was raised to $83.33 a month in September 1894 (with $2 withheld from each officer’s check and paid into a police pension fund), mandatory, unpaid overtime was common.
During 1893 and 1894, newspaper articles describe Stewart finding dead bodies, bringing insane people to Police Headquarters, and of course making arrests, like this one:
Robert and Louise were joined in their 1895 relocation to Elmore/Ceres Avenue by Louise’s half-brother Patrick Hickman. Hickman moved into a house that would eventually become 753 Ceres Avenue, across the street and north two houses from Robert and Louise’s new residence. After arriving in Los Angeles in 1887, Hickman first worked as a teamster and hostler. Then c. 1892-98 he was County Courthouse janitor and City Hall janitor/watchman, positions to which he was appointed through political patronage.
Robert and Louise’s 17-year-old son William seems to have moved out of his parents’ new home shortly after they moved in. After working at the grocery store at Buena Vista and Alpine Streets, by November 1894 he was employed as a porter at W. S. Allen’s furniture and carpet store on South Spring Street. The 1895 Los Angeles City Directory lists William twice: as a porter living at 762 Elmore, and as a porter for W. S. Allen and living at 804 E. First Street. The double listing probably occurred because William moved in the spring of 1895 during the directory’s canvass, and his original information was not removed when he provided his updated address. The 1896 directory shows William back living with his parents and with no occupation listed. On October 3, 1896, the Los Angeles Herald reported that two young black men had been arrested for drunkenness the previous morning, one of whom “proclaimed himself the son of Robert W. Stewart, the only colored police officer on the force.” Although both men were booked at Police Headquarters and locked up, no complaint was filed against William, and he was allowed to go home when he sobered up (the article identifies him as William H. Stewart, not William M. E., but presumably he was recognized as Robert’s son). The 1897 city directory still has William living with his parents but working as the assistant janitor at the Los Angeles Theatre on South Spring Street. William may have then left Los Angeles, as there is no record of his whereabouts in 1898 or 1899.
On November 19, 1895, Sam Haskins, the first African-American hired by the Los Angeles Fire Department (on June 1, 1892), also became the first Los Angeles firefighter to die in the line of duty. While responding to a fire, he fell off a steam engine and was crushed between one of its wheels and its boiler. On November 22, Stewart was one of Haskins’ pallbearers at his funeral at Evergreen Cemetery in East Los Angeles (although the Fire Commission authorized $70 to cover the cost of Haskins’ funeral, his grave would be unmarked for over 100 years). Another pallbearer was fireman Albert L. Smith, who had quit the LAPD in April 1889 just 17 days after he and Stewart were appointed (Smith rejoined the LAPD in 1898 and served until 1921). A week after Haskins’ funeral, Stewart had this disheartening experience:
In 1896 Stewart suffered from ill health, described in the press as rheumatism. He was paid his regular $83.33 foot patrolman’s salary for January, but then his illness began to keep him at home. He worked only 14 days in February, earning $40.22, and for March he was paid $45.24. For April he received $41.66, a half-pay disability payment that indicates he did not work at all that month.
On July 23, 1896, Stewart almost exhausted himself helping to subdue a man gone berserk after receiving cocaine to dull the pain of a tooth extraction. In August, Stewart celebrated with the rest of the LAPD as their Headquarters was relocated from a cramped, smelly building on the north side of Second Street between Spring and Broadway to a new structure on the south side of First Street between Broadway and Hill. That November, Stewart and his chickens were in the news again:
While Stewart was struggling with rheumatism from February to June 1896, he received only 52.8% of the salary he would have been paid had he not missed any days. This led to a series of financial problems for Stewart. To begin with, Stewart found himself on the Los Angeles City Tax and License Collector’s delinquent list in June 1896 (for the 1895-1896 tax year), owing $1.38 on a $595 mortgage with the Columbia Building and Loan Association (likely for his new home), plus personal property. Stewart made the city delinquent tax list again in July 1897, owing $1.35 on his now $580 mortgage. Distressingly, Stewart had also been on the state and county delinquent tax list in June 1897, owing $.89 for personal property and $4.50 for a poll tax ($1 in 1897 = ~$32 in 2021 [48]).
Stewart’s personal financial problems also affected him professionally. In November 1896, the Police Commission received a complaint from the owner of a clothing store that Stewart owed $18 but refused to pay. The matter was referred to Chief Glass and seems to not have appeared in the press again; presumably the debt was legitimate and Stewart paid the $18. In April 1897, after hearing a complaint that Stewart would not pay $26 he owed to a different clothing store, the Police Commission ordered Stewart to pay the amount owed in 10 days or he would be dropped from the force. He was also fined 10 days’ salary. August 1897 saw the owners of a hardware store tell the commission Stewart owed them $13.75 they could not collect. In both 1897 cases, Stewart paid the amounts due. However, the Police Commission received more complaints about Stewart owing money in 1898 ($2) and 1899 ($18.50). Again, Stewart paid both debts, but these incidents may have strained his relationship with Chief Glass.
As far as his police work in 1897 was concerned, as usual he was mentioned in several newspaper articles for making arrests. One of those was of Martin Biscailuz, father of future Los Angeles County Sheriff Eugene Biscailuz, for stealing law books from an office. That June, at age 47, Stewart performed a feat of remarkable strength and courage. A newspaper article described the incident and commended him, though not without needlessly mentioning his race and using the words Darktown, dusky, and Ethiopian:
Stewart continued to be the LAPD’s only black officer until June 30, 1897, when Berry Richard Randolph was appointed as a special officer to replace regular officers who were taking their summer vacation. Randolph did well and was made a permanent officer on September 29, 1897. The LAPD had not had two black officers serving simultaneously since February 1890, when Joseph Green was fired. Randolph, who had originally applied to the LAPD in December 1894, was on the force for eight and a half years.
From 1898 through the first part of May 1900 Stewart continued as a patrolman. He performed such routine duties as making arrests, testifying in court, finding lost children, and taking injured people to the Receiving Hospital at Police Headquarters, where he also served as acting jailer. On May 16, 1899, when the LAPD replaced its officers’ old eight-point badge (or “star”) with a six-point badge, Stewart received badge #40. The numbers were assigned according to length of service with the department, placing Stewart 40th in seniority. It is unclear whether his seniority was determined using all his years of service (including 1889-92), or if it was based on when he returned to the department in January 1893.
The year 1900 did not begin well for Robert Stewart and his family. On December 26, 1899, LAPD Chief John M. Glass resigned, effective immediately, after losing a two-month power struggle with the City Council. Stewart had known Glass since the mid-1880s back in Jeffersonville, and their relationship no doubt had helped protect Stewart’s position with the LAPD. [On October 31, 1899, the Police Commission had approved by a 3 to 2 vote Chief Glass’ plan to increase the department’s efficiency by demoting eight officers and promoting others to replace them. Most of the demoted officers – especially Captain William Roberts – were well-connected politically, and on November 1 the City Council responded by voting 5 to 3 to declare the Police Commission vacant (except for Mayor Eaton, whom they could not remove from the commission). Soon after, the City Council named four new Police Commissioners who opposed Chief Glass and planned to remove him from office. Mayor Eaton and the other two members of the “old” commission who supported Glass’ plan continued to assert they were the official commission. This left the city with two Police Commissions claiming to hold authority. City Attorney Walter F. Haas issued an opinion on November 13 stating the old commission was in charge until it was removed by a judicial decree, obtained only through quo warranto proceedings that had to be authorized by the state attorney general. On November 14, the new Police Commission voted to begin the quo warranto proceedings, which California Attorney General Tirey Ford authorized on December 7. The legal outlook for the old commission was bleak after their attorneys failed to delay the lawsuit on December 22, and this led to Chief Glass submitting his resignation to the old commission, which also resigned on December 26, ending the standoff. The next day, the new Police Commission reversed all of Glass’ personnel demotions and promotions and named Captain William Roberts – who Glass had demoted to sergeant – the acting chief.]
Then at 7:45 p.m. on Thursday, May 10, 1900, Robert William Stewart’s life changed forever. While he was at Police Headquarters preparing to go out and walk his beat, he was arrested by LAPD Detectives Jason J. Hawley and Walter H. Auble and locked up on a charge of rape. Stewart was accused of assaulting a 15-year-old white girl named Grace Cunningham the previous night at around midnight while he was on duty.
Near midnight at the corner of Sixth and Broadway she met Stewart, who asked her name, where she lived, and why she was out so late. She said Stewart offered to walk home with her, but when they arrived at her house he did not believe she lived there, and he told her to walk with him. Back over on Broadway, Stewart asked her to step inside a partially completed building with him, but she refused. Then another police officer walked by, and Stewart stepped back out of the light and told her to go home. At that point she said she demanded to be taken home. Stewart agreed and suggested they take a short cut through the grounds of the nearby Spring Street School. That was when, she claimed, he pushed her onto the steps on the north side of the school building and raped her. After Stewart left, she ran home and told her mother what had happened.
Stewart proclaimed his innocence. He admitted meeting her on Broadway between Fifth and Sixth Streets at about 11:00 p.m., but he said he did not know her name or what she looked like and would not be able to recognize her if he saw her again. He denied touching her or even walking with her.
LAPD Officer Orlando Rohn said he had seen Stewart talking with a girl on Broadway at about 12:30 a.m. When Stewart joined him at a tamale stand about 20 minutes later, he joked with Stewart about the girl, but Stewart dismissed Rohn’s insinuations. Rohn also said he thought Stewart had been drinking.
Stewart received more bad news on May 19: he was being
sued. Back in October 1898, a cement contractor named George Banaz had won a city contract to construct a sewer on Stewart’s block of Ceres Avenue. The property owners had to pay an assessment to Banaz for building the sewer, which was completed in January 1899. Banaz alleged that Stewart never paid any part of the $15.20 assessment he owed. This is plausible, given the financial trouble Stewart seems to have been experiencing at the time. Banaz had filed his suit in Los Angeles County Superior Court on May 11, 1900; reading about Stewart’s arrest the day before apparently jogged Banaz’ memory. He sued Stewart for the $15.20, plus 10% interest per year from January 27, 1899. If Stewart lost he would also have to pay the $15 filing fee earned by Banaz’ attorney. Stewart had 10 days from the date he was served, May 19, to respond to the suit. [On May 11, Banaz also sued Mary Bronson, who lived just two homes south of Stewart on Ceres Avenue, for an unpaid sewer assessment. However, she received her summons on May 17, two days before Stewart received his, suggesting Stewart was not at home on May 17 and could not immediately be located. This is possibly because he was being hidden to ensure he was not lynched, an all-too-common fate of African-American men accused of rape in this era.]
Numerous newspaper articles from 1889-92 describe Stewart making arrests for such crimes as assault with a deadly weapon, battery, robbery, disturbing the peace, and larceny. He also testified in court and helped people who needed medical treatment. Some incidents he responded to were equine-related. While he was off-duty on August 7, 1890, a runaway horse caused a carriage to overturn near his home; Stewart rushed out to assist the two people injured and help right and repair their carriage. On September 15, 1890, Stewart witnessed an accident that severely injured a horse, and on the advice of a veterinarian, Stewart ended the horse’s suffering by shooting it.
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| Fifty-three men of the Los Angeles Police Department assembled for this photo in front of the Los Angeles City Hall on Broadway, probably around 1890. Robert Stewart is in the second row, fifth from left. |
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| In this close-up from the previous image, Chief John M. Glass is in the lower left corner. Behind Glass at the end of the second row is Captain William C. Roberts. Robert Stewart is at the right end of the second row. |
A particularly memorable day for Stewart must have been April 22, 1891, when President Benjamin Harrison visited Los Angeles, just the second time a U.S. President had been to the city. Stewart was not among the 20 LAPD officers (four mounted and 16 marching with rifles) who were at the front of the presidential parade. However, Chief Glass ordered the entire force to work the event, so Stewart was almost certainly among the officers used to keep the streets clear. A crowd estimated as high as 60,000 watched the President’s procession, which began a little after 3:00 p.m. at the Southern Pacific Railroad depot at Fifth Street and Central Avenue. The parade ended at City Hall, which was then on the east side of Broadway, just south of Second Street.
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This is one of the few currently available images of President Harrison’s visit to Los Angeles. Here he is circled in red, northbound on Broadway, passing in front of the Spring Street School (1884), which occupied a lot stretching from Spring to Broadway, just north of Sixth Street. The Signal Corps of the Seventh Regiment, National Guard of California, served as Harrison’s bodyguard; one of them is the man in the extreme lower left corner, wearing a plumed helmet and walking next to a black horse. Another member is walking behind him next to a white horse, and the two horsemen immediately behind Harrison’s carriage are also with the National Guard. |
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| In this close-up of Harrison’s carriage, the President is again circled in red. Sitting across from him, with the green dot on his shoulder, is General Alexander McDowell McCook. Since September 1890 he had been commander of the U.S. Army’s Department of Arizona, which was then headquartered in Los Angeles. Almost unseen, to the left of General McCook in the carriage, is Major Joseph P. Sanger, Harrison’s military aide. The President’s carriage is covered in flowers; circled in orange is part of a letter H made from marigolds. Harrison’s security was augmented by members of the Grand Army of the Republic (GAR). Three of these Civil War veterans are marked here with blue dots. Near the lower right corner of the full photo above, two other GAR members can be seen in line behind the three who are marked in this close-up. |
From December 7-11, 1891, the 221-pound Stewart was a member of the LAPD tug-of-war team, which competed against five other local teams before packed crowds of around 4,000 people in L.A.’s Hazard’s Pavilion. The tug-of-war contest was organized and sponsored by the Los Angeles Athletic Club following a similar event in San Francisco. The November 24, 1891, Los Angeles Evening Express noted that proceeds from the contest would be used to complete construction of Athletic Park (on the northeast corner of 7th and Alameda Streets, Athletic Park was L.A.’s primary outdoor sports venue c. 1892-97). On the eve of the tournament, the December 6 Los Angeles Times alluded to Stewart’s presence by advising its readers that in the LAPD's opening contest, “a first-class dark horse will be trotted out before the public.”
The police lost their first four matches. The first contest went on for an hour and 26 minutes, but in two subsequent matches the police were dispatched in less than a minute. The LAPD won their final contest, with Stewart and a teammate straining so hard during the 24-minute match that they fainted right after the victory and had to be carried off. The LAPD team’s captain, William C. Roberts, whose strategy in the first tug was criticized in the press (inexplicably, he had the team ease up and rest when it had momentum and was on the verge of victory), made the dubious claim that four of his team, including Stewart, had been ill during the week and thus not at their best. The tournament’s winning team was assembled by its non-tugging captain, Edmond Barmore, and one of its members was 203-pound Charles Elton.
The police lost their first four matches. The first contest went on for an hour and 26 minutes, but in two subsequent matches the police were dispatched in less than a minute. The LAPD won their final contest, with Stewart and a teammate straining so hard during the 24-minute match that they fainted right after the victory and had to be carried off. The LAPD team’s captain, William C. Roberts, whose strategy in the first tug was criticized in the press (inexplicably, he had the team ease up and rest when it had momentum and was on the verge of victory), made the dubious claim that four of his team, including Stewart, had been ill during the week and thus not at their best. The tournament’s winning team was assembled by its non-tugging captain, Edmond Barmore, and one of its members was 203-pound Charles Elton.
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| Robert William Stewart is standing in the back row of this photo, which has been identified as the “LAPD Strongmen” team since it appeared in Homer F. Broome, Jr.’s, LAPD Black History, 1886-1976. Broome dated the photo 1889, although other sources have dated it somewhere in the 1890s. Regardless, there are no newspaper accounts suggesting the LAPD maintained a team of “Strongmen” during this period. My research shows this is actually a publicity photo of the LAPD’s team in the tug-of-war tournament held at Hazard’s Pavilion from December 7-11, 1891. There is no indication Robert Stewart participated in any other police activity for which this type of photo would be appropriate. On December 6, 1891, the Los Angeles Times and Los Angeles Herald both reported that photographs of the tug-of-war teams were on display in many store windows around the city, with the Herald noting that the photos showed the men selected for the competition were “rich in brawn and muscle.” The Herald also printed the rules for the tug-of-war contest, which included, “Each team shall consist of ten men, two substitutes to be allowed.” This photo shows 11 shirtless men; apparently one LAPD team member missed the photo. The seated, uniformed officer in the picture is William C. Roberts, who was the non-tugging captain of the tug-of-war team. The LAPD’s next tug-of-war was on December 19, 1891, when they defeated the L.A. Fire Department in 17-1/2 minutes, but Stewart did not participate (only three men on the first LAPD tug-of-war team were on the second team). The LAPD did not have another tug-of war team until February 3, 1893, when its members – currently unknown – battled for 2-1/2 minutes before losing to a team from the local National Guard. |
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| Hazard’s Pavilion was named for one of its builders, attorney and public official Henry T. Hazard. It stood on the northeast corner of Fifth and Olive Streets from 1887 to 1905. This 1899 image looks northwest across Fifth Street from what is now Pershing Square at the pavilion’s south/front and east sides. On both sides of the pavilion’s entrance portico are posters advertising the appearance of aging boxer John L. Sullivan’s “Comedy Company” from April 2-5, 1899. |
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| This is the inside of Hazard’s Pavilion on May 4, 1903, looking toward the stage from the second-floor gallery above the front entrance. When the tug-of-war contest was held in December 1891, “the rope was placed on a narrow platform which was constructed from the back of the stage to the front entrance” [36]. To win a match, one team had to pull the other a distance of seven feet. |
Stewart was also mentioned in a short Herald article on April 23, 1892, that described a hen he owned. It was notable because it laid two eggs each morning, every day; the first at around 6:00 a.m., and the second about four hours later. Raising chickens was a hobby of Stewart’s, as was his membership in fraternal orders. Although the July 10, 1888, Los Angeles Evening Express noted that L.A. had a 35-member-strong lodge of the United Brothers of Friendship (UBF), which Stewart belonged to in Kentucky and Indiana, he does not seem to have joined the UBF in Los Angeles. A Knights of Pythias lodge for African-Americans was organized in Los Angeles on July 4, 1888, and Stewart was named one of the lodge’s Trustees in January 1889 and its Master of Finance in January 1893. However, newspaper references to his membership in the Knights of Pythias apparently end in early 1895. [The black Knights of Pythias, officially known as the “Knights of Pythias of North and South America, Europe, Asia, and Africa,” was established in the U.S. in about 1880 after the all-white Knights of Pythias Supreme Lodge denied a charter to a group of African-Americans.] [37]
During his years in Los Angeles, Stewart was active primarily in the Grand United Order of Odd Fellows (GUOOF), said by the same July 10, 1888, Evening Express article to be “the most substantial” of the local black community’s secret societies with 65 members. Probably not long after he arrived in town in 1886 Stewart joined Los Angeles GUOOF Lodge # 2639, which had been formally established in June 1885 [38]. Stewart was well-received by the members of Lodge # 2639 and had already served a term as its highest officer, Noble Father, by October 1891. His brother-in-law, Patrick Hickman, also joined the lodge.
Stewart had been named to statewide positions in the UBF, and he was likewise honored by his fellow GUOOF members. At an August 1894 convention in Los Angeles, Stewart was appointed Grand Marshal for GUOOF District Grand Lodge #32, which was comprised of all the individual GUOOF lodges in California. Stewart also helped to start a second GUOOF lodge in Los Angeles in 1904. [The all-white Independent Order of Odd Fellows would not admit black Americans, but in 1843 the Grand United Order of Odd Fellows in England began authorizing new lodges for African-Americans (though the lodges were open to all races), and by 1896 the GUOOF claimed over 100,000 active members in the U.S.] [39]
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The Library of Congress dates this photo of an unidentified GUOOF member at 1890-1900 and attributes it to Los Angeles photographer A. C. Golsh of 411 N. Main Street, but the last L.A. city directory in which Golsh appears as a photographer was issued in June 1887, and another photographer was at 413 N. Main by June 1888. In fact, the photo may have been taken in August 1887 or soon thereafter. An article in the August 13, 1887, Los Angeles Herald mentions that “sixteen sets of regalia for the Grand United Lodge of the order of Odd Fellows” had just arrived in town, so the lodge members would soon “be invested with their aprons, collars and other robes of office.” Also, the man in the photo has over his right breast the letters PNF, for Past Noble Father, and the August 5, 1887, Los Angeles Times' description of GUOOF Lodge 2639’s second anniversary party mentions Joseph Thompson as Past Noble Father, so that might be him in the photo. Whoever is pictured, he must have known Robert William Stewart. |
Robert Stewart had been a trailblazer as a black LAPD officer in 1889, and he achieved another first with his participation in local Republican politics in 1892. At the time, Los Angeles County government was divided into townships (e.g., Los Angeles, Long Beach, Pasadena, Santa Monica, Cahuenga, Ballona), with each having law enforcement officers called constables. Los Angeles Township had two constable positions, so the Democrats and Republicans each could run two men for the posts in the November 1892 election. The GOP’s nominees for all the county offices would be selected at the Los Angeles County Republican Convention, set to begin September 6, 1892.
On the evening of September 5, the Colored Republican Club
met and adopted a resolution, part of which stated, “It is with shame and
sorrow we point to the fact that the only office, federal, state or local,
which the Republican party has heretofore conferred on a colored man in Los
Angeles County has been that of janitor.”
The resolution concluded, “That because we are a law-abiding,
industrious and tax-paying body of citizens, and not moved hereto by a mere
lust for office, but by a decent respect for the dignity of our race, that we
demand from the Republican party of Los Angeles county representation on the
county ticket, and that we demand two places thereon, as entitled by our
numerical strength.”
Newspaperman John J. Neimore (who had published the Republican Advocate during the 1888 elections) presented that resolution at the GOP convention’s first night, September 6, at Turnverein Hall on Spring Street. His remarks to the delegates, which included a warning that African-Americans would not vote the Republican ticket unless they were represented on it, “were both applauded and hissed,” according to the Herald.
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| This image is from the March 12, 1912, Los Angeles Times obituary for John J. Neimore, who died on March 9. Neimore has long been credited with having moved from Texas to Los Angeles in 1879 and started a newspaper called The Owl; its name changed a few times before becoming The Eagle and, after his death, the California Eagle. This claim appears in Forty Years, the 1960 memoir of Charlotta Bass, who published the California Eagle from 1912 to 1951 and who worked for Neimore in the last two years of his life. However, Neimore could not have published a newspaper in Los Angeles in 1879 – he was in the wrong place and was too young. Neimore appears on the 1880 U.S. Census in Washington County, Texas (about halfway between Austin and Houston) living with his family, and his age is shown as 16. Depending on the source, Neimore was born as late as 1868 or as early as 1862, with the latter year probably being correct. The first three times Neimore registered to vote in Los Angeles – 1888, 1890, and 1892 – he gave his age as 26, 28, and 30, respectively, and when the February 21, 1890, Los Angeles Herald published an item on his engagement, his age was listed as 27. Records indicate Neimore lived in San Antonio, Texas from c. 1883 to 1886, working at least part of that time as a grocery store clerk. He apparently moved to Austin, Texas in 1886; the September 7, 1886, Austin Daily Statesman has J. J. Neimore on the city’s advertised letter list, and Texas Capitol payroll records from 1886 show J. J. Neimore employed as a laborer. By 1887 he was working in Austin as a shoemaker, the same occupation he gave when he registered to vote in Los Angeles in 1888 (His 1890 Los Angeles voter registration lists his occupation as janitor; finally in 1892 he is shown as a publisher). The first hint of John Neimore in Los Angeles is his inclusion on the advertised letter list printed in the Los Angeles Herald on December 5, 1887. His 1912 Los Angeles Times obituary says, "he came to Los Angeles in 1887 and worked as a day laborer until he was able to launch his newspaper.” A February 12, 1909, Times article titled “Negro Professional Men in the City” moves his arrival date forward one year, stating that after Neimore came “to California in 1888, he soon branched into the newspaper business, and the result was The Eagle, which has been in existence for eighteen years.” This falsely suggests The Eagle began publication c. 1891. On February 3, 1917, the California Eagle announced that the coming year would be the paper’s 30th anniversary (although “Established 1879” was printed atop the front page that day, a claim the paper began making in 1916). The 30th anniversary could only be true if Neimore’s previous papers had been one continuous business (which they were not), but it suggests his Owl began its short life c. February 1888. Neimore’s Republican Advocate started in September 1888 and may have still been operating in January 1890 [40]. By early 1892 Neimore was publishing, with George E. Watkins, the Southern California Guide. It lasted until at least March 1894, though Watkins' association with the paper seems to have ended by 1893. The 1895 Los Angeles City Directory is the first to show Neimore running The Eagle. |
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| The 1892 Los Angeles County Republican Convention was held at Turnverein Hall, 231 S. Spring Street. This photo of that building (with MUSIC HALL at the top) was taken in 1895. |
By September 1892, Robert Stewart had been in Los Angeles
for over six years, on the police force for over three years, was well regarded, and he was a solid
Republican. Consequently, Neimore and
other Republican leaders of the Los Angeles African-American community decided on Stewart as their candidate for county office.
The Herald reported on
September 9 that they “will demand for him the nomination for [Los Angeles Township] constable.” In 1890 Robert Curry Owens, one of L.A.’s most prominent African-Americans, had tried but failed to get the GOP nomination for the same office.
Near the end of the county GOP convention on September 9, 1892, the
last office for which nominees were chosen was Los Angeles Township
Constable. A white attorney named William
T. Williams placed Stewart’s name in nomination and gave a speech commending
him. Williams next offered a motion to
nominate Stewart by acclamation, but it lost.
Five white men were then nominated, including incumbent Lester D.
Rogers, one of two Republicans elected Los Angeles Township Constable in 1890,
and A. C. Vignes, a former L.A. policeman who was now a streetcar operator and a pre-convention favorite for the post, supported by other railway
workers. On the first ballot, Rogers received
99 votes, Stewart had 77, and Vignes was third with 56. Since 80 votes were required for the
nomination, Rogers had captured one of the two positions. Before a second vote was taken to pick the
other nominee, candidate Charles Smith, who finished last with just 10 votes,
withdrew in favor of Stewart.
While the second ballot was underway, a dispute broke out when delegate Phil A. Stanton attempted to cast 17 proxy votes for Stewart, all obtained from other delegates who, Stanton said, supported Stewart but had left the convention hall. Stanton was accused of fraud and trying to “even up an old score,” whatever that might have been. The Herald said that “Pandemonium reigned for 10 minutes.” In what must have been a dramatic scene, Stewart mounted the speakers’ platform and attempted to withdraw from the contest, apparently feeling his integrity was being questioned over the proxy issue. However, before he could quit the contest, his supporters stopped him and pulled him down from the platform.
While the second ballot was underway, a dispute broke out when delegate Phil A. Stanton attempted to cast 17 proxy votes for Stewart, all obtained from other delegates who, Stanton said, supported Stewart but had left the convention hall. Stanton was accused of fraud and trying to “even up an old score,” whatever that might have been. The Herald said that “Pandemonium reigned for 10 minutes.” In what must have been a dramatic scene, Stewart mounted the speakers’ platform and attempted to withdraw from the contest, apparently feeling his integrity was being questioned over the proxy issue. However, before he could quit the contest, his supporters stopped him and pulled him down from the platform.
Vignes then removed his name from consideration, implying impropriety in the proceedings, although he still received some votes. The results of the second ballot showed Stewart had received 99 votes and none of the other candidates more than 19. Stewart was then declared the unanimous choice of the convention. As Republican nominee for Los Angeles Township Constable, Robert Stewart was the first African-American to be nominated by a major party for an elective office in Los Angeles County. [The Prohibition Party had broken the color line in 1888 by nominating S. B. Bows, an African-American, also for Los Angeles Township Constable. [41] Shadrach Bristow Bows (c. 1840-1902), born in Kentucky and educated at Oberlin College in Ohio, worked in Los Angeles as a carpenter.]
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| From just after the Los Angeles County Republican Convention in September until the November election, the Los Angeles Times printed the Republican ticket in Los Angeles County, headed by incumbent President Benjamin Harrison. At the bottom, from the Times of October 26, 1892, with his middle initial incorrectly listed, is Township Constable candidate Robert W. Stewart. |
Shortly after the convention ended on September 9, Stewart resigned from the LAPD. He almost certainly had to do this because of a police rule that prohibited officers from taking part in political demonstrations or meetings (this rule was in effect in the fall of 1890, when two LAPD officers lost their jobs due to their political activities). Stewart’s resignation was formally received and accepted by the Police Commission on September 13, its first meeting after his nomination. Los Angeles City Council records show Stewart was paid for working 14 days in September 1892, so his last day must have been September 14. On September 22 Stewart spoke at a GOP rally at Washington Gardens, at the southwest corner of Main and Washington. However, two nights later he was denied permission to speak at a meeting of the "Colored Democratic Club" in Los Angeles. The club’s members may have remembered the letter the Times published in September 1888 from Stewart and his brother-in-law that denounced blacks who supported the Democratic Party as belonging to a “hellish union.” The Colored Democratic Club accused the Republicans of “holding the colored voters as political slaves” and of nominating Stewart – who they did not think could win – as a reaction to their organization. Stewart spoke at other GOP rallies leading up to the election, but to what degree he was actually supported by the local Republican apparatus is open to question; on September 14, 1892, the Los Angeles County Republican Central Committee refused to name any black members to its executive committee.
How Stewart felt about his chances is also unclear. In the election of 1890, the two successful GOP candidates for Los Angeles Township Constable, Lester Rogers and H. C. Clements, were elected with 5,583 and 4,957 votes, respectively. The two losing Democratic candidates received 4,763 and 4,102 votes. On Election Day 1892, in addition to Stewart and Rogers, there were two Democratic candidates, Allen P. Richardson and Eugene L. Sieweke, and there were also two candidates from the People’s Party.
At the November 22 Police Commission meeting, the Republican Glass was accused of partisanship by favoring Stewart. Glass defended his selection of Stewart by stating, “In appointing Stewart to the position, I was governed solely by the desire to obtain the best possible results . . . . This man has always shown himself to be a capable officer.” Glass must have found some work for Stewart in December 1892, as City Council records also show Stewart received seven days' pay that month.
In January 1893, the newly elected City Council named a new Police Commission, and plans to make changes to the police roster began. At the Police Commission’s meeting on January 17, a list of 68 applicants was read; among them were Robert William Stewart and Joseph Henry Green. On the 17th the commissioners also passed a number of new requirements for future LAPD officers. These rules included a maximum age of 45 and minimum height and weight requirements of 5’8” and 160 pounds. Stewart and Green were both 42, but Green stood only 5’7” or 5’7-1/2”, so he did not quite meet the height requirement. At the commission’s next meeting on January 24, 16 men were dismissed from the force, including Harrison Spiller, whose career as a regular LAPD officer lasted just over two months. Among the replacements appointed, assuredly with the approval if not the advocacy of Chief Glass, was Robert W. Stewart. After passing his physical examination, Stewart was declared officially back on the force by the Police Commission on January 31. Not counting his part-time work in November and December 1892, Stewart had been absent from the LAPD for four and a half months.
Regardless of how Chief Glass felt about Stewart’s abilities as a police officer, and despite whatever political pressure there was to have an African-American on the LAPD, Glass surely would have pleased more Los Angeles residents by backing a white man to fill a vacancy on the force. This suggests that the relationship between the Tennessee-born Glass and the Kentucky-born Stewart consisted of more than just mutual professional respect. They quite possibly had some affinity for each other.
How Stewart felt about his chances is also unclear. In the election of 1890, the two successful GOP candidates for Los Angeles Township Constable, Lester Rogers and H. C. Clements, were elected with 5,583 and 4,957 votes, respectively. The two losing Democratic candidates received 4,763 and 4,102 votes. On Election Day 1892, in addition to Stewart and Rogers, there were two Democratic candidates, Allen P. Richardson and Eugene L. Sieweke, and there were also two candidates from the People’s Party.
When all the votes cast on November 8, 1892 were finally counted (on November 18!), Stewart had finished third. He was 1,204 votes behind second-place Democrat Richardson and 1,700 votes behind the incumbent Republican Rogers (in 1890, the two GOP constable candidates were 626 votes apart). Stewart did not win a single precinct and came within a dozen or fewer votes of Rogers in only five precincts; four of those were Burbank, Glendale, Garvanza, and La Cañada, where some voters in those slightly distant locales might have been unaware that Stewart was an African-American.
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| November 19, 1892, Los Angeles Herald. Election results are listed for precincts 1-45, followed by the Burbank, Glendale, Garvanza, and La Cañada precincts. Rogers (not Rodgers) outpolled Richardson in 31 of the 49 precincts, but Stewart topped Richardson in only 14 precincts. The lopsided totals in the 6th and 7th precincts (noted by red dots) suggest some coordination by Republicans to abandon Stewart in favor of the Democrat Richardson. |
A letter to the editor of the Herald, published after the election, complained of “the shameful
manner in which the Republicans treated our friend, Mr. R. W. Stewart,
candidate for constable on the Republican ticket. The Republicans are loud in promises to the
colored people, but when it comes to fulfillment we have, in the defeat of Mr.
Stewart, an evidence of their insincerity.”
Two years later, in the November 1894 election, two white Republicans
were again elected Los Angeles Township Constables. Stewart remained a registered Republican
until his death.
Around the time of the 1892 election, a vacancy occurred on the LAPD. Chief John M. Glass reappointed Stewart to the force temporarily, pending approval by the Police Commission at its meeting on November 22 (Stewart was paid for working 15 days in November 1892). However, the commissioners had made prior arrangements regarding the next vacancy on the force, so when the commission met it overruled Glass and instead appointed Harrison Monroe Spiller, the LAPD’s third African-American officer.
At the November 22 Police Commission meeting, the Republican Glass was accused of partisanship by favoring Stewart. Glass defended his selection of Stewart by stating, “In appointing Stewart to the position, I was governed solely by the desire to obtain the best possible results . . . . This man has always shown himself to be a capable officer.” Glass must have found some work for Stewart in December 1892, as City Council records also show Stewart received seven days' pay that month.
In January 1893, the newly elected City Council named a new Police Commission, and plans to make changes to the police roster began. At the Police Commission’s meeting on January 17, a list of 68 applicants was read; among them were Robert William Stewart and Joseph Henry Green. On the 17th the commissioners also passed a number of new requirements for future LAPD officers. These rules included a maximum age of 45 and minimum height and weight requirements of 5’8” and 160 pounds. Stewart and Green were both 42, but Green stood only 5’7” or 5’7-1/2”, so he did not quite meet the height requirement. At the commission’s next meeting on January 24, 16 men were dismissed from the force, including Harrison Spiller, whose career as a regular LAPD officer lasted just over two months. Among the replacements appointed, assuredly with the approval if not the advocacy of Chief Glass, was Robert W. Stewart. After passing his physical examination, Stewart was declared officially back on the force by the Police Commission on January 31. Not counting his part-time work in November and December 1892, Stewart had been absent from the LAPD for four and a half months.
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| September 21, 1892, Los Angeles Herald. Harrison M. Spiller’s application to the police force had been received by the Police Commission on September 13, 1892, the same day it accepted Robert Stewart’s resignation. Although Mayor Henry Hazard was in favor of appointing Spiller to replace Stewart, on September 20 Democratic Police Commissioner A. F. Mackey objected and his candidate, a white man, was named to the LAPD instead of Spiller. |
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| November 23, 1892, Los Angeles Times. Police Commissioner A. F. Mackey previously had blocked Spiller’s joining the LAPD, but he sponsored Spiller’s appointment on November 22. Harrison Monroe Spiller has not previously been recognized as the LAPD’s third African-American officer. Harrison M. Spiller was born c. 1858-60 in Texas and married his wife Amanda there in 1879. They may have lived in Houston before moving to California, arriving in Los Angeles by 1888. Their only child, Harrison P., drowned in the Los Angeles River at age 10 on July 30, 1890. Spiller worked as a waiter, janitor and butcher before serving as an LAPD officer. The only available records of his police work are a January 1, 1893, incident regarding the City Poundmaster and Spiller’s arrest of two men for disturbing the peace on January 17. Spiller’s last day with the LAPD was January 31, 1893. After his brief LAPD career ended, Spiller was employed mostly as a janitor but as a laborer and teamster as well. Beginning around 1903 he is also sometimes referred to as Reverend H. M. Spiller. On Sunday, February 7, 1904, while attending a church service in Monrovia, California, Harrison Monroe Spiller collapsed and died from a ruptured aortic aneurysm. |
Regardless of how Chief Glass felt about Stewart’s abilities as a police officer, and despite whatever political pressure there was to have an African-American on the LAPD, Glass surely would have pleased more Los Angeles residents by backing a white man to fill a vacancy on the force. This suggests that the relationship between the Tennessee-born Glass and the Kentucky-born Stewart consisted of more than just mutual professional respect. They quite possibly had some affinity for each other.
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| This c. 1897 photo of Los Angeles Police Chief John Malcolm Glass (1843-1925) appeared in the February 26, 1898 edition of The Capital, an illustrated journal published in Los Angeles. Glass was an imposing figure at six feet three inches tall and 260 pounds. Prior to his election as chief in July 1889, the LAPD had had 10 chiefs in four and a half years. Glass was reelected to five two-year terms beginning in January 1891, and his 10 years as chief have been exceeded by only William Parker and Daryl Gates. Chief Glass was widely credited with reorganizing the LAPD and markedly increasing its efficiency. Glass was a member of the National Association of Chiefs of Police of the United States and Canada (now the International Association of Chiefs of Police). He attended three of its conventions, beginning at Atlanta in 1896; the May 15, 1896, Atlanta Constitution called Glass “one of the most active and popular delegates to the convention.” In October 1897, Glass was appointed to the association’s Board of Governors,[42] which had a goal of establishing in Washington, D.C., a “Central Bureau for the Identification of Professional Criminals, to be supported and maintained at the national government’s expense.” [43] He also attended the group’s conventions in May 1898 (Milwaukee) and May 1899 (Chattanooga). The May 10, 1899, Chattanooga Times described Glass as “undoubtedly one of the best-posted chiefs in the United States.” |
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Robert Stewart is wearing his LAPD uniform in this undated photo.
|
When Stewart returned to the force in January 1893, L.A.’s population was around 70,000. At this time the LAPD had just 74 officers (including the Chief and Matron); of these, only 49 were foot patrolmen, three of whom were stationed at busy intersections to direct traffic. The salary of a foot patrolman was $70 a month, unchanged since February 1890 (for comparison, in January 1893 San Francisco’s estimated population of 350,000 was protected by a police force with an authorized strength of 456; of these, 384 were patrolmen, who earned $102 a month) [44]. Although all members of the LAPD had a paid 10-day annual summer vacation, the rest of the year they worked eight hours a day, seven days a week [45]. Officers were expected to testify at court proceedings on their own time if the proceedings were held when the officers were not on duty. In addition, while the foot patrolman’s salary was raised to $83.33 a month in September 1894 (with $2 withheld from each officer’s check and paid into a police pension fund), mandatory, unpaid overtime was common.
During 1893 and 1894, newspaper articles describe Stewart finding dead bodies, bringing insane people to Police Headquarters, and of course making arrests, like this one:
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| July 22, 1894, Los Angeles Times |
On September 15, 1894, the LAPD held a benefit at Athletic Park for the widow and children of a police detective who had fallen ill and died. One of the scheduled events was a 50-yard footrace between the two heaviest men on the force: Robert Stewart and Officer Wesley Fifield, who was said to weigh about 290 pounds and was 19 years younger than Stewart. However, the result of this race did not appear in newspaper accounts of the benefit the next day.
Robert and Louise Stewart fulfilled what must have been a long-held dream in March 1895 when they bought their own home at 762 Elmore Avenue, on the east side of the street, between East Seventh and East Eighth Streets, three blocks west of Central Avenue. The Stewarts bought the house – probably built about 1891 – from its previous owner/occupant, a German-born baker named John F. Brachmann, for $1,300. The wood-frame house, which sat on a lot measuring 40 x 108 feet, eventually had five rooms but may have been built with only four (it also had a basement). To become homeowners, the Stewarts took out a mortgage.
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| This 1894 illustrated map of Los Angeles looks south at Stewart’s block of Elmore Avenue (red line), between Kohler Street on the east and Helena (now Gladys) Street on the west. The location of Stewart’s home at 762 Elmore was approximately under the blue dot. At lower left, on the east side of Alameda Street and its railroad tracks, the orange dot marks Athletic Park, L.A.’s primary outdoor sports venue c. 1892-97. West across Alameda from Athletic Park are a candy factory (marked by a printed 3) and an electric railway plant (marked by a printed 4). |
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| The 1895 city directory was the first to show Stewart living on Elmore Avenue. In 1897, Elmore Avenue was renamed Ceres Avenue, and in 1910 Stewart’s home was renumbered from 762 to 772 Ceres. |
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| In this close-up from a page in the 1900 Sanborn Insurance Map of Los Angeles, a red star marks 762 Ceres Avenue (formerly Elmore Avenue). It was a one-story wood home with a front porch (indicated by the dashed lines) and a brick chimney. There was a small building or shed in the back yard, and behind that a 12-foot-wide alley. Today, the 700 block of Ceres is in an industrial area and has no single-family homes. |
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| This 1910 photo was taken from a balloon and looks south over most of the 700 block of Ceres Avenue, with East Eighth Street running across the top of the image. The red arrow points at Stewart’s home, now numbered 772 Ceres. The block is still mostly lined with single-family homes; the three-story tenement near the upper right corner at 787 Ceres (marked) had been built in 1905. The block’s first industrial building, a one-story factory erected at 730 Ceres (marked), was built in 1910. A blue arrow points at 753 Ceres, the home of Patrick Monroe Hickman, Stewart’s brother-in-law. Two houses north of Hickman’s, the yellow arrow marks 749 Ceres. It was owned by an African-American named Isaac Johnson, who from 1894 until his death in 1935 lived in the larger house in front and rented out the smaller residence at the back of the property (in some years vice versa). Evidence indicates that California Eagle publisher Charlotta A. Bass (née Spear or Spears) lived at 749 Ceres from her arrival in Los Angeles on September 10, 1910 [46], until sometime in 1918 or early 1919. A May 17, 1935, California Eagle article about an incident at 749 Ceres mentions that “it was with him [Isaac Johnson] and his wife that . . . Mrs. C. A. Bass resided when she first came to Los Angeles.” On December 23, 1927, Charlotta Bass wrote in her newspaper that back in March 1912, “About the only real friends I had acquired in Los Angeles were Mr. and Mrs. Isaac Johnson, with whom I made my home . . . .” The Los Angeles City Directories from 1913 to 1915 list “Charlotte A. Spear” living at 749 Ceres. There is no indication in the city directories of her c. February 1915 marriage to Joseph Bass – with whom she by then operated the California Eagle – until the 1916 directory shows her as “Mrs. Charlotte A. Spear,” again at 749 Ceres. However, the 1915 and 1916 directories show Joseph Bass living elsewhere. On December 9, 1916, the California Eagle announced that “After Dec. 12, Editor and Mrs. J. B. Bass, of the California Eagle, will reside at the residence of Mr. Isaac Johnson, of 749 Ceres.” This was apparently when Charlotta and Joseph Bass first began living together, and they are listed at 749 Ceres in both the 1917 and 1918 city directories. |
Accompanying the Stewarts to their new home was Louise’s youngest half-sibling, Nannie Logan, who was just three months older than the Stewarts’ son, William. She had moved in with Robert and Louise on Buena Vista Street in August 1894 after being accompanied on her trip from Kansas to L.A. by Rebecca Coffey, the friend of Louise’s mother with whom Louise and William had stayed ten years earlier in Cheviot, Ohio. The 1895 city directory shows Logan working as society editor for a short-lived and little-known black-run weekly newspaper, The Hustler (which had ceased publication by June 1895). The 1896 city directory lists her as a printer for Eagle publisher John J. Neimore and his wife. In late 1896 Nannie Logan married a laborer named John Willbourn and moved to Arizona.
Robert and Louise were joined in their 1895 relocation to Elmore/Ceres Avenue by Louise’s half-brother Patrick Hickman. Hickman moved into a house that would eventually become 753 Ceres Avenue, across the street and north two houses from Robert and Louise’s new residence. After arriving in Los Angeles in 1887, Hickman first worked as a teamster and hostler. Then c. 1892-98 he was County Courthouse janitor and City Hall janitor/watchman, positions to which he was appointed through political patronage.
Robert and Louise’s 17-year-old son William seems to have moved out of his parents’ new home shortly after they moved in. After working at the grocery store at Buena Vista and Alpine Streets, by November 1894 he was employed as a porter at W. S. Allen’s furniture and carpet store on South Spring Street. The 1895 Los Angeles City Directory lists William twice: as a porter living at 762 Elmore, and as a porter for W. S. Allen and living at 804 E. First Street. The double listing probably occurred because William moved in the spring of 1895 during the directory’s canvass, and his original information was not removed when he provided his updated address. The 1896 directory shows William back living with his parents and with no occupation listed. On October 3, 1896, the Los Angeles Herald reported that two young black men had been arrested for drunkenness the previous morning, one of whom “proclaimed himself the son of Robert W. Stewart, the only colored police officer on the force.” Although both men were booked at Police Headquarters and locked up, no complaint was filed against William, and he was allowed to go home when he sobered up (the article identifies him as William H. Stewart, not William M. E., but presumably he was recognized as Robert’s son). The 1897 city directory still has William living with his parents but working as the assistant janitor at the Los Angeles Theatre on South Spring Street. William may have then left Los Angeles, as there is no record of his whereabouts in 1898 or 1899.
In July 1895, Robert Stewart was accused of making “improper proposals” to a young white woman. Stewart was dismissive of the charge and welcomed an investigation of his actions. He was confident any allegations would be proven untrue and his innocence established.
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Wednesday, July 10, 1895, Los Angeles Times |
The “disreputable lodging house” keeper who Stewart said threatened him was in all likelihood William Fishback. He operated the Grand Floral lodging house on the southeast corner of Los Angeles and Commercial Streets where the female accuser – identified as May Smith by the July 10 Los Angeles Herald – lived.
Stewart was not suspended and was quickly exonerated. It is not certain that any charges were actually filed with the Police Commission (no currently available newspaper report of the commission’s meetings on July 16 or 23 mentions Stewart). The matter may have been quietly dropped after a short investigation. The July 23 Los Angeles Evening Express, in an article about William Fishback allegedly abandoning his wife, described his Grand Floral lodging house as a “resort for uncertain women” and reviewed what had happened with Stewart:
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| The Evening Express also reported that Fishback and his wife fought after she became jealous of the attention he paid to some of his female lodgers. May Smith appears to have been one of those women. Fishback’s claim that he was being urged by a friend of Stewart’s to suppress Smith’s charges was obviously also a lie. On July 24, the Los Angeles Herald told essentially the same story as the Evening Express: “Fishback . . . induced the Smith woman to threaten to file charges against Officer Stewart, claiming he had made improper proposals to her. Fishback acknowledged later that he knew the allegation to have been false, and nothing came of it.” Neither Fishback nor Smith appear to have suffered any legal consequences for their scheme to damage or destroy Stewart’s LAPD career. |
Stewart’s reputation and career were thankfully unaffected by the false accusations. He was almost certainly the “R. Stewart” reported to have spoken at the Young Men’s Afro-American League (YMAAL) picnic at Sycamore Grove Park on September 5, 1895. The next day’s Los Angeles Evening Express said the event featured “Speeches by Prominent Los Angeles Colored Citizens” who, in addition to Stewart, included publisher John Neimore; Dr. Melvyn Sykes, one of L.A.’s first African-American physicians; and Benjamin F. Talbot, who was born in 1845 in Canada to parents who fled there from the U.S. to escape slavery. Talbot moved to the U.S. in 1864 and joined the Union Army. [47] In Los Angeles he was involved in GOP politics and worked as a wagon and carriage maker (In December 1898, Talbot was sufficiently well connected for the L.A. County Board of Supervisors to elect him to the $70 per month job of County Courthouse elevator operator, but he died in February 1900 when he fell down the elevator shaft).
The YMAAL had been founded in August 1894, with John Neimore as president and Stewart’s brother-in-law Patrick Hickman as vice president. Although the group endorsed GOP nominees it was officially non-partisan, and that status apparently allowed Stewart to skirt the rule against police officers participating in political events and attend the picnic. Stewart seems to have used one day of his 10-day summer vacation to be there.
Around 1895, there was an increase in newspaper articles that referred to Robert Stewart as “Bob.” Although this familiarity might indicate that Stewart was a respected veteran officer, that respect only went so far. Any praise he received was usually accompanied by racist remarks, like those in this article from the November 17, 1895, Los Angeles Times:
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| The Los Angeles Times referred to this incident again on December 23, 1895, when it published a column called “What Well-Known People Expect from Santa Claus,” a list of “joke” Christmas presents. Robert Stewart’s gift was “an illuminated helmet so hotel guests who throw beer bottles out of windows will be able to see him on a dark night.” |
On November 19, 1895, Sam Haskins, the first African-American hired by the Los Angeles Fire Department (on June 1, 1892), also became the first Los Angeles firefighter to die in the line of duty. While responding to a fire, he fell off a steam engine and was crushed between one of its wheels and its boiler. On November 22, Stewart was one of Haskins’ pallbearers at his funeral at Evergreen Cemetery in East Los Angeles (although the Fire Commission authorized $70 to cover the cost of Haskins’ funeral, his grave would be unmarked for over 100 years). Another pallbearer was fireman Albert L. Smith, who had quit the LAPD in April 1889 just 17 days after he and Stewart were appointed (Smith rejoined the LAPD in 1898 and served until 1921). A week after Haskins’ funeral, Stewart had this disheartening experience:
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| November 30, 1895, Los Angeles Times. The shoe thief, John Bergen, was convicted of petty larceny for having stolen two pairs of shoes. He received 150 days in prison for one pair and 90 days for the other, sentences that may have been longer than normal because he fought with Stewart. |
Newspaper articles at the beginning of May 1896 mentioned that Stewart had been ill but was now back on the job. However, he was able to work just seven days in May, earning $18.81 in salary. On June 2 Stewart petitioned the police commission for $32.25, or 12 days of sick pay for May, which was approved on July 6, as was another half-pay disability payment of $41.66 for June. Stewart, who returned to duty full-time on July 1 and only missed three days’ work the rest of the year, was fortunate to receive part of his salary while he was ill. An 1889 state law allowing cities to create “Police Relief, Health and Life Insurance and Pension” funds was not fully implemented in Los Angeles until 1899.
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| July 30, 1896, Los Angeles Herald. It is doubtful that the electric belt marketed by Dr. A. T. Sanden could have cured Stewart’s rheumatism (or perhaps any ailment). Nonetheless, Stewart was one of many who endorsed the belt, so he must have felt it helped. The ad gives Stewart’s address as 762 Elsinore Avenue, but it was actually 762 Elmore Avenue. |
On July 23, 1896, Stewart almost exhausted himself helping to subdue a man gone berserk after receiving cocaine to dull the pain of a tooth extraction. In August, Stewart celebrated with the rest of the LAPD as their Headquarters was relocated from a cramped, smelly building on the north side of Second Street between Spring and Broadway to a new structure on the south side of First Street between Broadway and Hill. That November, Stewart and his chickens were in the news again:
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| November 16, 1896, Los Angeles Herald |
Stewart’s personal financial problems also affected him professionally. In November 1896, the Police Commission received a complaint from the owner of a clothing store that Stewart owed $18 but refused to pay. The matter was referred to Chief Glass and seems to not have appeared in the press again; presumably the debt was legitimate and Stewart paid the $18. In April 1897, after hearing a complaint that Stewart would not pay $26 he owed to a different clothing store, the Police Commission ordered Stewart to pay the amount owed in 10 days or he would be dropped from the force. He was also fined 10 days’ salary. August 1897 saw the owners of a hardware store tell the commission Stewart owed them $13.75 they could not collect. In both 1897 cases, Stewart paid the amounts due. However, the Police Commission received more complaints about Stewart owing money in 1898 ($2) and 1899 ($18.50). Again, Stewart paid both debts, but these incidents may have strained his relationship with Chief Glass.
As far as his police work in 1897 was concerned, as usual he was mentioned in several newspaper articles for making arrests. One of those was of Martin Biscailuz, father of future Los Angeles County Sheriff Eugene Biscailuz, for stealing law books from an office. That June, at age 47, Stewart performed a feat of remarkable strength and courage. A newspaper article described the incident and commended him, though not without needlessly mentioning his race and using the words Darktown, dusky, and Ethiopian:
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| June 22, 1897, Los Angeles Times |
Stewart continued to be the LAPD’s only black officer until June 30, 1897, when Berry Richard Randolph was appointed as a special officer to replace regular officers who were taking their summer vacation. Randolph did well and was made a permanent officer on September 29, 1897. The LAPD had not had two black officers serving simultaneously since February 1890, when Joseph Green was fired. Randolph, who had originally applied to the LAPD in December 1894, was on the force for eight and a half years.
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| The Los Angeles Public Library’s caption for this photo is “Portrait of an unidentified police officer, wearing badge #65, with the Los Angeles Police Department.” However, in LAPD’s Black History, 1886-1976 author Homer F. Broome, Jr., identifies this as Officer “Randolf or Randolph,” so this is a photo of Berry Richard Randolph, the LAPD’s fourth African-American officer. This author’s May 2021 research indicates the badge Randolph is wearing was used by the LAPD from May 1899 to June 1909, although the LAPD currently says it was used from 1890 to 1909. Randolph was born in Georgia, probably on February 2, 1865, and grew up in Jackson County, northeast of Atlanta. He married his wife, Lula, in 1886 or 1887; sadly, only two of their six children lived to adulthood. Randolph arrived in Los Angeles c. 1894 and worked as a laborer and sewer contractor before becoming a police officer. He was once described as having a “Hercules torso,” and records indicate he was about 5’11” and 265 pounds. An April 19, 1902, Los Angeles Times article said Randolph was “reputed to be the strongest man on the force, barring none.” |
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| This photo of Berry R. Randolph is from the January 1906 edition of The Liberator (a Los Angeles newspaper published by African-American J. L. Edmonds from 1900-14). Randolph resigned from the LAPD in January 1906 to become proprietor (and apparently at least part-owner) of the Hotel Canadian. It opened in November 1905 as L.A.’s first “first-class” hotel built expressly for black guests, and by March 1906 the hotel’s popularity prompted the construction of an addition even larger than the original building. Both structures still stand, now known as the American Hotel, on the southeast corner of Traction Avenue and Hewitt Street in Los Angeles. In 1908 the Los Angeles Police Commission revoked the hotel’s billiard hall license (for non-payment of fees) and restaurant liquor license (for selling liquor on Sunday without a meal). Both licenses were in Randolph’s name, and their loss seems to have led to his being forced out as the hotel’s proprietor by the end of 1908. Randolph later operated a saloon on East 2nd Street in Los Angeles before his death in Riverside, California on April 25, 1915. |
From 1898 through the first part of May 1900 Stewart continued as a patrolman. He performed such routine duties as making arrests, testifying in court, finding lost children, and taking injured people to the Receiving Hospital at Police Headquarters, where he also served as acting jailer. On May 16, 1899, when the LAPD replaced its officers’ old eight-point badge (or “star”) with a six-point badge, Stewart received badge #40. The numbers were assigned according to length of service with the department, placing Stewart 40th in seniority. It is unclear whether his seniority was determined using all his years of service (including 1889-92), or if it was based on when he returned to the department in January 1893.
Although by September 1899 Stewart had been on the LAPD for 10 years, he was still ridiculed in the press because of his race. Here, the Los Angeles Times used a story about a noisy rooster to apply another degrading stereotype to Stewart:
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| There can be no doubt that the second paragraph of this September 1, 1899, article alludes to chicken stealing – a common black stereotype of that era. Perhaps the Times author remembered Stewart’s hobby of chicken raising and used it as an excuse to include his name in the article. |
An uncommon task Stewart had completed in August 1898 was to build a cage to hold a captured eagle. Initially called “Ole Cap” but soon renamed “Dewey” for the famous admiral, the bird was caught by a party of four LAPD officers who were hunting in the Tehachapi Mountains of Kern County (the police had planned to use the bird in parades, but it died in its cage in the Police Headquarters basement in February 1899). One of those four officers was Captain William Roberts, who back in December 1891 had done a poor job guiding the LAPD tug-of-war team. Although Roberts had been receiving a Civil War disability pension since about 1870, he joined the LAPD in 1885 and became captain in 1889, making him the powerful number two man in the department behind Chief Glass.
The year 1900 did not begin well for Robert Stewart and his family. On December 26, 1899, LAPD Chief John M. Glass resigned, effective immediately, after losing a two-month power struggle with the City Council. Stewart had known Glass since the mid-1880s back in Jeffersonville, and their relationship no doubt had helped protect Stewart’s position with the LAPD. [On October 31, 1899, the Police Commission had approved by a 3 to 2 vote Chief Glass’ plan to increase the department’s efficiency by demoting eight officers and promoting others to replace them. Most of the demoted officers – especially Captain William Roberts – were well-connected politically, and on November 1 the City Council responded by voting 5 to 3 to declare the Police Commission vacant (except for Mayor Eaton, whom they could not remove from the commission). Soon after, the City Council named four new Police Commissioners who opposed Chief Glass and planned to remove him from office. Mayor Eaton and the other two members of the “old” commission who supported Glass’ plan continued to assert they were the official commission. This left the city with two Police Commissions claiming to hold authority. City Attorney Walter F. Haas issued an opinion on November 13 stating the old commission was in charge until it was removed by a judicial decree, obtained only through quo warranto proceedings that had to be authorized by the state attorney general. On November 14, the new Police Commission voted to begin the quo warranto proceedings, which California Attorney General Tirey Ford authorized on December 7. The legal outlook for the old commission was bleak after their attorneys failed to delay the lawsuit on December 22, and this led to Chief Glass submitting his resignation to the old commission, which also resigned on December 26, ending the standoff. The next day, the new Police Commission reversed all of Glass’ personnel demotions and promotions and named Captain William Roberts – who Glass had demoted to sergeant – the acting chief.]
On January 3, 1900, the Police Commission appointed a new LAPD Chief: Charles Elton, Vice President of the Los Angeles Transfer Company, for whom Stewart had worked c. 1886-87 (Edmond Barmore was President of the LATC; his role in Elton’s appointment, if any, is unknown. According to an article in the October 12, 1903, Los Angeles Evening Express, 1st Ward City Councilman William Harrison Pierce – a co-founder of the Pierce Brothers Mortuary – demanded 1st Ward resident Elton become chief in exchange for Pierce’s vote to declare the pro-Glass Police Commission vacant on November 1, 1899). Elton had no background in law enforcement and had never held a city office, suggesting the City Council and Police Commission wanted a chief they could control. Stewart must have felt a sense of loss with Glass’ departure, and if his prior relationship with Elton had not been good, a sense of foreboding as well.
More bad news came on January 18, 1900, when Louise’s half-brother Patrick Hickman was arrested for grand larceny. The charges were dropped four days later, but the incident may have motivated Hickman to go on an extended prospecting tour in early April to Riverside County, California.
With Stewart having been close to Chief Glass, whose attempt to demote Captain Roberts figured prominently in Glass’ eventual resignation, Stewart surely was sorely disappointed on February 24 when the Police Commission acquitted Roberts of several charges that had first been filed against him in November 1899. Although the charges were initially dismissed by the commission when it reinstated Roberts as Captain on December 27, 1899, the City Council soon instructed the commission to investigate the allegations, three of which were from Chief Glass (failing to perform his duties; encouraging insubordination; and, drinking while on duty – to which Roberts admitted, claiming that because he was “not a strong man” he had “been advised by surgeons to use alcoholic stimulant”). In addition, Mayor Eaton charged with Roberts with insubordination (for refusing to close saloons on election day), and several citizens accused Roberts of inappropriate behavior with women. On February 6, 1900, the commissioners gave Roberts the five days’ notice required by an 1894 city ordinance to request a hearing to answer the charges; if he did not, he would be fired without a hearing. Roberts’ reply, filed five days later, cited the 1894 ordinance and formally requested the hearing. With the help of his three attorneys – one of whom was a young Earl Rogers – Captain Roberts was acquitted by a 4-1 vote of the Police Commission. Only Mayor Eaton voted to convict Roberts. Among the commissioners voting to exonerate Roberts was Albert C. Day; Roberts had worked for Day’s cousin in Los Angeles c. 1882-84.
Next in Stewart’s run of bad news was the death of his father, Faulkner, back in Kentucky on the evening of May 7, 1900. Robert’s family may have notified him by telegram the next day, but when and how he learned of his father’s death is not known.
Then at 7:45 p.m. on Thursday, May 10, 1900, Robert William Stewart’s life changed forever. While he was at Police Headquarters preparing to go out and walk his beat, he was arrested by LAPD Detectives Jason J. Hawley and Walter H. Auble and locked up on a charge of rape. Stewart was accused of assaulting a 15-year-old white girl named Grace Cunningham the previous night at around midnight while he was on duty.
Cunningham lived in a lodging house at 513-1/2 S. Spring Street with her younger brother Albert and their mother, described in the press as a widow named Mary. However, she was not widowed, and her real name was Emma; she began using “Mary” after she and Albert and Grace’s father, Ward Cunningham, were divorced. [Ward Cunningham had filed for divorce on grounds of desertion, and the divorce was granted on December 5, 1895. The next day, 30-year-old Ward Cunningham married a 15-year-old girl.]
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| The heading of the Los Angeles Herald’s May 11, 1900, article about Stewart’s arrest gave an outline of the accusation against him. |
The Los Angeles Herald, Times, and Evening Express all reported basically the same story: Cunningham – said by the Herald to be “small for her age and frail of build” – claimed that on the night of Wednesday, May 9, she had gone alone to the Orpheum Theater at 112 S. Main Street. Next (despite the city’s 9:00 p.m. curfew for juveniles under 17) she went to visit a friend who lived on Hill Street but who was not at home. Cunningham said she then began walking to her residence on Spring Street.
Near midnight at the corner of Sixth and Broadway she met Stewart, who asked her name, where she lived, and why she was out so late. She said Stewart offered to walk home with her, but when they arrived at her house he did not believe she lived there, and he told her to walk with him. Back over on Broadway, Stewart asked her to step inside a partially completed building with him, but she refused. Then another police officer walked by, and Stewart stepped back out of the light and told her to go home. At that point she said she demanded to be taken home. Stewart agreed and suggested they take a short cut through the grounds of the nearby Spring Street School. That was when, she claimed, he pushed her onto the steps on the north side of the school building and raped her. After Stewart left, she ran home and told her mother what had happened.
Stewart proclaimed his innocence. He admitted meeting her on Broadway between Fifth and Sixth Streets at about 11:00 p.m., but he said he did not know her name or what she looked like and would not be able to recognize her if he saw her again. He denied touching her or even walking with her.
LAPD Officer Orlando Rohn said he had seen Stewart talking with a girl on Broadway at about 12:30 a.m. When Stewart joined him at a tamale stand about 20 minutes later, he joked with Stewart about the girl, but Stewart dismissed Rohn’s insinuations. Rohn also said he thought Stewart had been drinking.
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| These images are from the May 11, 1900, Los Angeles Times coverage of Stewart’s arrest. Although the Times mentioned that Grace Cunningham was employed in a Los Angeles Street overall factory, according to the U.S. Census, enumerated on June 6, 1900, Grace was neither working nor going to school. Patrick W. McGrath, mentioned in the third paragraph above, was married in Los Angeles in January 1888, perhaps not long after his arrival in town. As a merchant, he sold groceries and ranching supplies. He branched off into oil and mining interests in around 1898, but he eventually returned to the grocery business. In 1900 he was living with his wife and nine-year-old daughter on East 2nd Street. Patrick McGrath’s relationship to the Cunninghams is not known. |
Compared with other currently available press accounts of Stewart’s arrest, the one published on May 11 by the Los Angeles Record provides more background and context and gives Stewart’s side of the story more coverage. The Record’s article mentions Stewart came to L.A. from Jeffersonville, who helped him get appointed to the LAPD, and that police politics might have been behind his arrest. The Record also says that Grace Cunningham admitted she had been “out with men” on two occasions in the last two months. In contrast, it was not until May 21 that the Evening Express reported Grace “was not of previous chaste character”; the Herald and the Times printed Grace’s admission on May 22.
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| The May 11, 1900, Los Angeles Record tells of Stewart’s good reputation in Los Angeles, where he is said to have “many influential friends,” and that he was “well thought of” by those who knew him in Jeffersonville (including E. H. Barmore, whose name here is misspelled as "Barmon”). In contrast to other newspaper accounts, the Record writes of the Cunninghams sharing a single room and Grace Cunningham being “fairly well developed.” Grace’s mother, who would not tell the Record’s reporter her name, is described as “evidently overworked”; on the 1900 U.S. Census she is listed as a housekeeper. |
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| This 1904 photo looks west at the Spring Street School, with the American flag flying over the east/Spring Street entrance. The school grounds stretched from the west side of Spring over to the east side of Broadway, with the school building in the middle. Grace Cunningham accused Stewart of raping her on the steps on the school building’s north side (unseen here) while he was taking her from Broadway to her home on Spring Street, a few buildings north of the school. The school looks a bit out of kilter because it is on the seam between two parts of a panoramic photo. The lodging houses that Grace Cunningham is quoted mentioning are the Louise (with an L on its south wall) at 520 S. Broadway and the Delaware at 534-1/2 Broadway (with a D on the upper right corner of its mostly obscured east/rear wall). The Spring Street School was immediately south of both the Delaware and also the (labeled) Le Grand Block at 531-35 S. Spring. The steps on the north side of the school were opposite the west end of the Le Grand Block’s south wall. |
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| We see the Delaware at 534-1/2 S. Broadway in this c. 1896 view looking south on Broadway. The Spring Street School is hidden by the Delaware. At right, the building with the steeple is the First Baptist Church (1884-1898) on the northeast corner of 6th and Broadway. |
The following morning, May 11, Stewart was taken from his cell and led upstairs to the Police Court of Judge Henry C. Austin to be arraigned. Stewart’s bail was set at $1,500, but his preliminary hearing was not scheduled at that time because he did not yet have a lawyer. Stewart was again brought to court at 1:30 p.m., now represented by defense attorney LE Compte Davis. Stewart’s preliminary hearing was scheduled for May 16. Later in the afternoon of May 11, Stewart was released on bail.
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| To keep out of prison Stewart needed more than just an average lawyer, and he got one in LE Compte Davis (1864-1958), a successful criminal attorney who was born in Kentucky and had lived in Los Angeles since 1887. This photo of Davis was taken c. 1900. |
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| Davis, shown here c. 1920, assisted famous attorney Clarence Darrow with his defense of the McNamara Brothers in the 1911 Los Angeles Times bombing trial. Davis then helped defend Darrow when he was indicted on bribery charges related to that trial. Davis also subsequently defended restrictive covenants that barred African-Americans from owning homes in certain areas. |
The next day’s Los Angeles Times article on the arraignment noted that “Stewart has long been one of the foremost men of his race in this city” and that his friends expressed shock and disbelief at the rape charge. Angelenos “both white and black” thought well of him. Although Stewart said he was ready to prove his innocence, the article suggested he might skip bail to avoid “about fifteen years in the penitentiary” if found guilty (according to California law at the time, a conviction would send Stewart to state prison for a minimum of five years; the maximum sentence a judge could impose was life in prison). The Times also named the four men who had gotten Stewart released from jail:
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| May 12, 1900, Los Angeles Times. Three of the four men who bailed Stewart out of jail were African-Americans. Dr. Melvin Elijah Sykes (1863-1915) was one of the first African-American physicians in Los Angeles. George Madison Warner (1858-1931), who was employed as a janitor, moved to Los Angeles around the same time as Stewart and was in the GUOOF with him. E. B. Lane was a farmer from Long Beach and like Stewart a member of the Colored Republican Club and GUOOF; the Herald’s “Among the Colored Citizens” column on May 13 noted that Lane “was one of the many who were willing to sign the bond for Officer Stewart.” Joseph Engert (1857-1929) was a German immigrant who operated the Vendome Hotel, which included a restaurant and saloon, at the southwest corner of First Street and Central Avenue in Los Angeles. |
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| Alabama-born Dr. Melvin Elijah Sykes graduated from Meharry Medical College in Nashville, Tennessee in 1893 and moved to Los Angeles the same year. This photo of Dr. Sykes was taken c. 1903. |
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| Joseph Engert, seen here c. 1895, came to America in about 1874. He arrived in Los Angeles c. 1888 and was an active member of the Democratic Party. Engert probably met Robert Stewart when he walked a beat in Engert’s neighborhood. According to the Engert family’s oral history, Stewart was hidden by his friends while he was out on bail to ensure he was not lynched. [Many thanks to Tim Garrow, Joseph Engert’s great-great grandson, for the photo and information.] |
On May 16, LE Compte
Davis asked Judge Austin to delay the preliminary hearing. Davis claimed to have a witness willing to
travel to Los Angeles and testify that Grace Cunningham was over 16. If true,
the Times reported, this would reduce
Stewart’s possible crime from a felony to a misdemeanor. (The age of consent in California had been increased from 10 to 14 in 1889, and it was raised again to 16 in 1897). Deputy District Attorney Joseph F. Chambers
objected to the delay, but Judge Austin finally yielded to what the Herald described as Davis’ “importunity”
and agreed to postpone the hearing until Monday, May 21. As it turned out, the would-be witness knew a
different girl named Cunningham.
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| This is a c. 1920 photo of the Central Police Station (with the arched entrance and windows), which opened in 1896. It was located on the south side of First Street, between Broadway and Hill Street. This is where Stewart first was held after his arrest on May 10, 1900, and where he appeared before Judge Austin in Police Court. |
When Stewart’s preliminary hearing began on the morning of May
21, African-Americans made up about half of the spectators in Judge Austin’s
courtroom, which was packed to capacity.
Stewart, seated next to attorney Davis, was composed and occasionally took
notes. The Times also provided this description of Stewart chewing gum: “As he industriously masticates
his quid, his ears wag in unison with the motion of his jaws, to comical
effect.”
Before any testimony was heard, LE Compte Davis protested against the presence of LAPD Detectives
Jason Hawley and Walter Auble in the courtroom, whom Davis felt would
intimidate the witnesses. Deputy District
Attorney Chambers insisted on having at least one of the detectives present to
assist him with the case, and Hawley was allowed to remain. The rest of the morning session was taken up
by the testimony and cross-examination of Grace Cunningham (whose name on the
1900 census was recorded as Viola G. M. Cunningham).
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| Deputy District Attorney Joseph F. Chambers, c. 1902, after he had become a judge. |
Parts of Cunningham’s story had changed since they were
reported on May 11. She now claimed
Stewart offered her money for sex. In
addition, Cunningham at first said she had run straight home to her mother
after the alleged attack but now testified she actually spent the next hour and
a half talking to a tamale vendor. She
also attributed to Stewart a different remark when Officer Rohn walked by them
than she had before.
Under cross-examination, Cunningham said she had not asked
Officer Rohn for help when he walked by because she thought he might be as bad
as Stewart (a remark that the Record noted prompted laughter from courtroom spectators and a threat from Judge Austin to clear the court if such laughter recurred), and she had not screamed when she was attacked because she was too
scared. The Herald and the Record both noted that Davis attempted to call into question not only
Cunningham’s character but also that of her mother, Mary. The implication may have been that the mother
had forced her daughter into prostitution. Grace Cunningham denied making any
arrangements to meet other men on the night of May 9. However, she admitted that she had, as the Times put it, “strayed from the path of
virtue several months ago.”
Police Officer Orlando Rohn testified that he had seen Stewart and Cunningham together on Broadway. Also, later that night, while he and Stewart had lunch at a tamale stand, he had kidded Stewart about being with her. Rohn again said he thought Stewart had been drinking. The day’s last witness, Detective Walter H. Auble (LAPD Chief in 1905-06 and killed in the line of duty in 1908), related what Stewart had said after his arrest; he had seen the girl and asked why she was out so late but did not know her name and would not be able to recognize her.
When the preliminary hearing continued at 9:30 a.m. on May 22, Judge Austin’s courtroom had many fewer spectators than the day before. The evidence given against Stewart on the 21st had evidently taken some of the drama out of the proceedings. Three more witnesses testified that they had seen Stewart and Cunningham together, including one who claimed to have seen them enter the Spring Street School grounds and walk to the north side of the building. The prosecution’s last witness was another tamale vendor, who corroborated what Officer Rohn had said about talking with Stewart that night. The tamale vendor also thought Stewart had been drinking and said Stewart had taken his lunch later than usual that night.
Defense Attorney LE Compte Davis conceded that given the testimony against his client, Stewart would have to stand trial in Superior Court. Davis called no witnesses to refute those of the prosecution. Instead, he produced only character witnesses in an attempt to ensure Stewart’s bail would be kept sufficiently low that he could remain free prior to his trial.
Conspicuous by his absence as a character witness was former Police Chief John M. Glass. It is not known whether Glass declined to be a witness or was not asked to be one. Although continuing to maintain his Los Angeles home at 234 W. 22nd Street, in the spring of 1900 Glass was often in Gardena, working to improve a farm he owned.
The
character witnesses notwithstanding, Davis’ attempt to keep Stewart free on
bail failed. Judge Austin set Stewart’s
bail at $3,000, double what it had been before.
Stewart was unable to raise that amount, and late on the afternoon of
May 22 he was sent to Los Angeles County Jail to await trial.
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| Above is Grace Cunningham’s testimony as reported in the May 22, 1900, Los Angeles Times. Regarding the 15-year-old Cunningham’s having “strayed from the path of virtue,” the Herald was a bit more direct, stating, “She was compelled to admit that she had not been previously a virgin." The Los Angeles Record had reported this information about Grace back on May 11. |
In the afternoon session on May 21, three witnesses
testified that they saw Stewart and Cunningham (or just “a girl”) on the night
of the alleged assault, and the tamale vendor corroborated what Cunningham had
said about talking with him that night. Also
testifying was Mary Spiker, the midwife who helped deliver Grace
Cunningham. Spiker attested to
Cunningham’s birthdate of April 13, 1885; the prosecution needed to establish
that Cunningham was underage.
Mary Cunningham was a poor witness on her daughter’s behalf. She began by stating her daughter Grace had just turned 15 years old in April. Then she said Grace had not come home until nearly 2:00 a.m. on the night of May 9 because she said she had been assaulted by black policeman. At that point, Defense Attorney Davis succeeded in having all of Mrs. Cunningham’s testimony stricken, except the part about Grace being 15. Shortly afterward and without giving further testimony, Mrs. Cunningham was excused.
Mary Cunningham was a poor witness on her daughter’s behalf. She began by stating her daughter Grace had just turned 15 years old in April. Then she said Grace had not come home until nearly 2:00 a.m. on the night of May 9 because she said she had been assaulted by black policeman. At that point, Defense Attorney Davis succeeded in having all of Mrs. Cunningham’s testimony stricken, except the part about Grace being 15. Shortly afterward and without giving further testimony, Mrs. Cunningham was excused.
Police Officer Orlando Rohn testified that he had seen Stewart and Cunningham together on Broadway. Also, later that night, while he and Stewart had lunch at a tamale stand, he had kidded Stewart about being with her. Rohn again said he thought Stewart had been drinking. The day’s last witness, Detective Walter H. Auble (LAPD Chief in 1905-06 and killed in the line of duty in 1908), related what Stewart had said after his arrest; he had seen the girl and asked why she was out so late but did not know her name and would not be able to recognize her.
When the preliminary hearing continued at 9:30 a.m. on May 22, Judge Austin’s courtroom had many fewer spectators than the day before. The evidence given against Stewart on the 21st had evidently taken some of the drama out of the proceedings. Three more witnesses testified that they had seen Stewart and Cunningham together, including one who claimed to have seen them enter the Spring Street School grounds and walk to the north side of the building. The prosecution’s last witness was another tamale vendor, who corroborated what Officer Rohn had said about talking with Stewart that night. The tamale vendor also thought Stewart had been drinking and said Stewart had taken his lunch later than usual that night.
Defense Attorney LE Compte Davis conceded that given the testimony against his client, Stewart would have to stand trial in Superior Court. Davis called no witnesses to refute those of the prosecution. Instead, he produced only character witnesses in an attempt to ensure Stewart’s bail would be kept sufficiently low that he could remain free prior to his trial.
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| May 23, 1900, Los Angeles Herald. Three of Stewart’s five character witnesses were white. Edward Bouton (1834-1921) was a Union General in the Civil War who became a rancher and real estate developer. Joseph Mesmer (1855-1947) came from a long-time Los Angeles family and was a businessman and civic leader. David C. Morrison was an attorney who had been a Police Court Judge in Los Angeles from 1894 to 1898. George M. Warner, who had helped Stewart post bail after his arrest, and Henry W. Ballinger (c. 1830-1915), who was still working as a plasterer at age 70, were Stewart’s two African-American character witnesses. |
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| Edward Bouton, c. 1900. After the outbreak of the Civil War, Bouton left private business in Illinois to enter the Union Army and organize an artillery battery, which became renowned as “Bouton’s Battery.” Later in the conflict he was promoted to Colonel and commanded the 59th United States Colored Infantry. A Brevet Brigadier General at war’s end, in 1866 he was urged to accept the rank of Colonel in the regular army by Generals Ulysses S. Grant and William T. Sherman, but Bouton declined and moved to Southern California in 1868. From about 1883 to 1901 Bouton lived on the SW corner of Castelar (now North Hill) and Alpine Streets. As this was near Robert Stewart’s first four known Los Angeles homes – and practically a stone’s throw from Stewart’s residence on Castelar just north of Alpine – Bouton and Stewart may have come to know each other as neighbors. In 1902 Bouton’s former residence at Castelar and Alpine became the first home of what is today the Children’s Hospital of Los Angeles. |
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| Joseph Mesmer, c. 1909 |
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| David C. Morrison, c. 1900 |
Conspicuous by his absence as a character witness was former Police Chief John M. Glass. It is not known whether Glass declined to be a witness or was not asked to be one. Although continuing to maintain his Los Angeles home at 234 W. 22nd Street, in the spring of 1900 Glass was often in Gardena, working to improve a farm he owned.
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| May 23, 1900, Los Angeles Times |
Judge Austin must have been conflicted regarding Stewart’s
case. During Austin’s 11 years as a
Police Court Judge, he had seen Stewart testify many times against those he had
arrested. In addition, Austin surely had
misgivings about the alleged victim, Grace Cunningham, whom the Herald later described as “a young girl whose character appeared at
the preliminary examination to have been as irregular as the officer’s
methods.”
Stewart, now behind bars, did not respond to George Banaz’ lawsuit about the sewer assessment by the May 29 deadline. Superior Court records show that because Stewart had failed to appear, on June 12 an Order to Enter Default was filed, which prevented him from further contesting the suit (since it seems no one represented him in court, it is unclear who else besides Stewart knew about the issue at that point). The unpaid sewer assessment became a lien on Stewart’s home, so a prompt and aggressive pursuit of the matter by Banaz and his attorney had the potential to be disastrous for Stewart and his wife. In similar situations, Banaz had forced properties to be sold at auction to satisfy a lien.
On May 29, Los Angeles Police Chief Charles Elton reported
to the Police Commissioners (of which there were five, including Mayor Fred
Eaton) that he had suspended Stewart and forced him to surrender his police star (badge number 40) and other equipment. Elton used a
transcript of Stewart’s preliminary hearing as justification and recommended that
the commission take further action regarding Stewart. Commissioner William B. Scarborough – who was
born in antebellum Louisiana – favored removing Stewart immediately, but the other
commissioners countered that Stewart had not yet presented his defense. Moreover, removing him might tend to
prejudice the case against him. In the
end, the commission voted to postpone taking action for one week.
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| This photo of LAPD Chief Charles Elton was taken between mid-February and late March 1900. |
When the Police Commission next met on June 5, 1900,
Commissioner Scarborough was again ready to discharge Stewart from the force,
and now Scarborough was supported by commissioners Robert A. Ling and Albert C.
Day. The commissioners were then reminded of the 1894 city ordinance that forbade dismissing regular police officers without giving them an opportunity to answer charges against them. The Police Commission had followed the ordinance four months earlier when they investigated the charges against Captain William Roberts and gave him the required five days to ask for a hearing, which he received. Now, however, Scarborough said the City Charter gave the Police Commission complete power over hiring and firing officers, and the City Council could not regulate that power. All the council could do, he said, was replace members of the commission.
The Police Commission then voted on whether it had the power to
dismiss officers, and by a 3-2 vote Commissioners Scarborough, Ling, and Day
prevailed over Commissioner L. G. Parker and Mayor Eaton. That cleared the way for the commission to
vote on discharging Stewart. By the same
3-2 vote, the Police Commission then voted to fire Robert William Stewart from
the Los Angeles Police Department. Four
days later, on June 9, City Attorney Walter F. Haas issued an opinion that said
the 1894 ordinance requiring that officers be given a hearing before being
discharged was not binding on the Police Commission, which could dismiss any officer at any time without providing a reason. The next day the Los Angeles Herald claimed Haas’ opinion “turns the police department of the city of Los Angeles into an up-to-date political machine” and that officers now “must be able to do practical politics.” [Too late for Stewart, in 1905 LAPD officers gained the right to answer charges against them at a Police Commission public hearing.]
City Attorney Haas’ opinion had a demoralizing effect on the officers of the LAPD, especially those close to ex-Chief Glass. The June 11, 1900, Los Angeles Record reported that “the Glass men generally are to be considered as on probation by the [police] commission, and that the first open or covert movement they make is to be taken as a cause for dismissal.” On June 12 Chief Elton told the Police Commission that Officer Frank Fowler, who was friendly with Glass, had made false and defamatory statements. The commissioners, without asking what the statements were, then voted 3-2 to fire Officer Fowler, with Scarborough, Ling, and Day again in the majority. The commissioners did not give Fowler a hearing to refute Elton’s accusations, citing the City Attorney’s June 9 opinion that validated their precedent-setting firing of Stewart on June 5. “That precedent,” the Los Angeles Herald had predicted on June 7, “by a coincidence, will probably be available in the case of Officer Fowler. In fact, some people are rude enough to say the precedent was established for exclusive use in the Fowler case. If Stewart can be fired without a hearing, so can Fowler . . . .” This suggests that the Police Commission knew City Attorney Haas would support them when they fired Stewart without a hearing.
[As events played out, no mass-dismissal of “pro-Glass” officers occurred. This may have been because on June 9, the nine-member City Council was invited to an ad-hoc meeting with about 50 members of the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce. The seven councilmen who attended were told that while the city’s businessmen supported Chief Elton, the actions of the Police Commission’s majority had negatively impacted the LAPD’s effectiveness (e.g., there had been an increase in armed robberies over the previous two months) and the commissioners needed to be replaced. The City Council did not replace the Police Commission, but the pressure by the Chamber of Commerce on the City Council seems to have reigned in police commissioners after they fired Officer Fowler.]
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| William Byron Scarborough (1853-1927), as he appeared c. 1901. Scarborough, along with Robert Ling and Albert Day, were known in the press as the Police Commission’s “Solid Three," with Scarborough and Ling especially close. The commissioners were accused by local newspapers of putting politics ahead of public safety by planning to dismiss officers for reasons unrelated to their job performance, such as being friendly with ex-Chief Glass. |
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| Robert A. Ling (1852-1910), photographed c. 1897. Press reports paint Ling as the primary force on the Police Commission behind the dismissal of Officer Frank Fowler in June 1900. The June 13, 1900, Los Angeles Evening Express wrote that Fowler’s testimony at a trial had resulted in the deportation of three of Ling’s Chinese legal clients, and personal animosity motivated Ling’s drive to remove Fowler, who in addition was on good terms with ex-Chief Glass. In 1884, when Ling was Justice of the Peace in Los Angeles, he had married Grace Cunningham's parents Ward and Emma/Mary. In 1895, Ling represented Ward Cunningham in his divorce suit against his wife. |
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| Walter F. Haas (1869-1936), shown here c. 1911, was Los Angeles City Attorney from December 1898 to December 1900. |
On June 8 Stewart was arraigned in Department One of Los Angeles County Superior Court, with Judge Benjamin N. Davis presiding. Stewart returned to Judge Davis’ courtroom on June 14 to plead not guilty, and on June 18 Stewart’s trial was set for July 30. However, on July 25, LE Compte Davis’ law partner Judson R. Rush appeared before Judge Smith to ask that Stewart’s case be continued. Rush said that LE Compte Davis had just been summoned to Chicago to handle another case and would be gone for at least three weeks.
The Times quoted
Rush’s further explanation: “It is Mr. Davis who has been preparing to defend
our client, and it would be almost impossible for me to try the case. Mr. Davis has known Stewart from boyhood, and
the latter doesn’t care to go to trial without him. We don’t believe that we should be compelled,
under these circumstances, Your Honor, to go to trial at the time set down.” Deputy District Attorney Charles C. McComas,
though professing to be “aching to go to trial with this case,” agreed to the
delay. Judge Smith set Stewart’s trial
to begin October 22, 1900, five months from the day he was sent to Los Angeles County Jail.
[Attorney Rush’s assertion that “Mr. Davis has known Stewart from boyhood” makes for a wonderful story – an unbelievable stroke of good fortune for Stewart and an explanation why Davis agreed to defend him. However, Davis (born 1864) was raised in Mercer County, two counties and about 25 miles away from Stewart in Lincoln County. So, the two being acquainted in Kentucky is not impossible, but it seems rather implausible.
[Attorney Rush’s assertion that “Mr. Davis has known Stewart from boyhood” makes for a wonderful story – an unbelievable stroke of good fortune for Stewart and an explanation why Davis agreed to defend him. However, Davis (born 1864) was raised in Mercer County, two counties and about 25 miles away from Stewart in Lincoln County. So, the two being acquainted in Kentucky is not impossible, but it seems rather implausible.
A more likely reason for Davis agreeing to defend Stewart is politics. In the February 1889 Los Angeles municipal election, the Democrat Davis ran for Police Judge but was outpolled by two Republicans. Appointed Los Angeles County Deputy District Attorney by a Democrat in 1893, Davis’ term ended after a Republican was elected D.A. in 1894. In 1898, Davis tried but failed to get a Democrat elected to a Los Angeles City Council seat. After those experiences, Davis may have hoped that by representing Stewart he might get enough votes from L.A.’s black community – then overwhelmingly Republican – to get himself elected to public office. Davis tried again in 1902, running for the 38th District State Senate seat in Los Angeles. Davis was endorsed by L.A.’s African-American-published newspaper The Liberator, which editorialized, “Whenever Mr. Davis believed in the innocence of those of our unfortunate people who have been hauled into the courts, he defended them, whether they had money or not. This he has often done, in the face of adverse public sentiment." [49] “No money” and “adverse public sentiment” could certainly describe Robert Stewart’s situation. Nonetheless, in 1902 Davis lost to the Republican candidate by 173 votes out of 6,518 cast.]
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| Judson Randolph Rush (1865-1938), photographed c. 1900. He and LE Compte Davis both served as Los Angeles County Deputy District Attorneys from 1893-95. Upon leaving office Davis and Rush formed their law partnership and practiced together for 27 years. Rush, a Democrat like Davis, also ran for office unsuccessfully, losing elections in 1896 for Los Angeles City Attorney in 1908 for L.A. County’s seat in the U.S. House of Representatives. |
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| Benjamin N. Smith (1839-1908) won election as a Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge in 1890 and served for the rest of his life. This image accompanied a Los Angeles Evening Express article on his death. |
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| Los Angeles County Deputy District Attorney Charles Carroll McComas, c. 1900. |
Louise Stewart was doubtless terribly worried, knowing that her husband was accused of a crime for which African-American men were often lynched. She must have hoped that Los Angeles County’s first African-American deputy sheriff, Julius Boyd Loving, who worked at the county jail, could help keep her husband safe there. Louise also had to have been concerned about whether Robert would receive a fair trial, even with his impressive legal team. A lengthy prison term for her husband must have seemed like a real possibility. Indeed, when the U.S. Census enumerator visited the Stewart home at 762 Ceres Avenue in June (on the 11th or 12th), Louise said she was married and head of the family, but no one else is shown as living with her (nor does she have an occupation listed). Perhaps she despaired of ever seeing her husband free again.
After her husband was jailed, Louise may have begun working as a laundress – she did so later in life – but the loss of her husband’s $83.33 monthly salary had to have been devastating, especially if they were still having financial problems (when the city’s delinquent tax list for the 1899-1900 fiscal year was published in June 1900, it again included Robert Stewart, who owed $1.13 on his mortgage and personal property). In addition, census records indicate that Louise could not write, and her ability to read was likely limited, which had to make her husband’s absence even more difficult to deal with.
What help Louise Stewart received while her husband was in jail is hard to determine. Their 22-year-old son, William, was living in San Francisco, unmarried and working as a bartender (as of the census reporting date of June 6, 1900). Louise’s half-brother and the Stewarts’ neighbor on Ceres Avenue, Patrick Hickman, may have been almost entirely absent. He had traveled to Riverside County in April, and on August 5, 1900, a regular Los Angeles Herald column of news and social items from L.A.’s African-American community titled “Among the Colored Citizens” noted, “P. Hickman and family are now located in Oregon.” That same Herald column also mentioned, ”Mrs. Wilber of Arizona, formerly of this city, is visiting Mrs. Stewart.” It is highly likely that “Mrs. Wilber” was actually Louise’s half-sister, Nannie Logan Willbourn, who lived with the Stewarts before moving to Arizona in 1896. So, Louise was able to lean on at least one relative for support during part of a nightmarish ordeal.
After her husband was jailed, Louise may have begun working as a laundress – she did so later in life – but the loss of her husband’s $83.33 monthly salary had to have been devastating, especially if they were still having financial problems (when the city’s delinquent tax list for the 1899-1900 fiscal year was published in June 1900, it again included Robert Stewart, who owed $1.13 on his mortgage and personal property). In addition, census records indicate that Louise could not write, and her ability to read was likely limited, which had to make her husband’s absence even more difficult to deal with.
What help Louise Stewart received while her husband was in jail is hard to determine. Their 22-year-old son, William, was living in San Francisco, unmarried and working as a bartender (as of the census reporting date of June 6, 1900). Louise’s half-brother and the Stewarts’ neighbor on Ceres Avenue, Patrick Hickman, may have been almost entirely absent. He had traveled to Riverside County in April, and on August 5, 1900, a regular Los Angeles Herald column of news and social items from L.A.’s African-American community titled “Among the Colored Citizens” noted, “P. Hickman and family are now located in Oregon.” That same Herald column also mentioned, ”Mrs. Wilber of Arizona, formerly of this city, is visiting Mrs. Stewart.” It is highly likely that “Mrs. Wilber” was actually Louise’s half-sister, Nannie Logan Willbourn, who lived with the Stewarts before moving to Arizona in 1896. So, Louise was able to lean on at least one relative for support during part of a nightmarish ordeal.
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| The large building with the clocktower is the 1891 Los Angeles County Courthouse, where Stewart went on trial in October 1900. The smaller building to the courthouse’s immediate left is the 1886 Los Angeles County Jail, where Stewart was confined for five months in the spring, summer, and fall of 1900. This c. 1899 photo looks southwest, with Temple Street in the lower right corner. The street in the lower left corner is New High Street, which no longer runs through this location and has been replaced by a realigned Spring Street. The courthouse was condemned after the 1933 Long Beach earthquake and demolished in 1935-36. The jail was converted to a "juvenile detention home" in 1904 and torn down in 1909. |
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| At the left side of this undated, northwest-facing photo is a rare close-up view of the 1886 Los Angeles County Jail’s New High Street entrance. The small sign painted on the right side of the arched entry reads "RING THE BELL." The south side of the county courthouse is on the right half of the image. |
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| In this c. late 1890 photo we are looking northeast across Broadway at the south and west sides of the Los Angeles County Courthouse, which is under construction. In the lower right corner, marked by two red dots, is the south side of the 1886 Los Angeles County Jail. Most of the cells were in the smaller rear section. The county jail was built with four cells, each 6’ x 9’, for keeping some prisoners separate from the rest of the jail population. Deputy Sheriff Loving may have tried to ensure Stewart’s safety by placing him in one of these special cells. |
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| Julius Boyd Loving (1863-1938), Los Angeles County’s first African-American deputy sheriff, served from 1899-1903 and 1907-1937. This photo was taken c. 1903. |
When Stewart’s trial finally began on Monday, October 22, 1900, the Los Angeles Evening Express reported that Stewart looked well and was "feeling finely," though his rheumatism had troubled him several times while in jail. The trial judge was Benjamin N. Smith. The prosecution consisted of Assistant District Attorney Johnstone Jones
and Deputy D. A. Charles McComas, while the defense team of LE Compte Davis and Judson Rush was assisted by attorney
Frederick H. Thompson.
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| Los Angeles County Assistant District Attorney Johnstone Jones (1848-1922) was born in North Carolina and served the Confederate Army from 1864-65. This image was taken c. 1900. |
The jury of 12 men was chosen out of a pool of 24. The jurors “were carefully examined as to any
prejudice they might have of a racial nature, and as to whether they would give
more weight to the girl’s testimony than to other witnesses,” the Times reported.
Grace Cunningham was the first witness. The Times
described her as “not particularly prepossessing, but very cool
headed.” Her testimony about the alleged
assault echoed what she had said at Stewart’s preliminary hearing on May
21. She was then cross-examined by the
defense, which was reported to be confident that Cunningham’s story could be
discredited. The details of that
cross-examination were not printed in the Times, Herald, Record, or Evening Express; Stewart’s trial
received less publicity than his arrest and preliminary hearing.
The second day of the trial, October 23, began with Grace
Cunningham recalled to the stand for more cross-examination. Then the prosecution produced 12 witnesses, most of whom had testified back in May, including Grace’s mother,
Mary. Police Surgeon Dr. Ralph Hagan,
who examined Cunningham the morning after the alleged assault, was the
prosecution’s last witness. By the
afternoon, spectators had filled the courtroom to capacity.
Davis and Rush began Stewart’s defense by again calling character witnesses, who testified on October 23 and 24. The Los Angeles Evening Express seems to have named most or all of them: Joseph Mesmer and General Edward Bouton, both of whom also had testified for Stewart in May; Leroy M. Grider, a well-known local real estate developer and former Los Angeles City Councilman; Judge Henry C. Austin, who had presided over Stewart’s Police Court appearances on May 10-11 and 21-22; Los Angeles Township Justice William Young, who had run on the same Republican ticket with Stewart in 1892; Jay T. Conley (c. 1850-1905), a Los Angeles Police Officer who had served with Stewart since March 1889; and Thomas J. Stuart, the friend of former LAPD Chief Glass and the Barmores whom Stewart had known in Jeffersonville and who was now Secretary of the Associated Charities of Los Angeles. In defense of her husband, on October 23 Louise Stewart made a short appearance on the witness stand, but the nature of her testimony apparently was not described in the press.
Los Angeles County District Attorney James E. Rives decided to retry Stewart’s case, and on November 12 the second trial was set for December 27, 1900. With a December 3, 1900, city election looming, Rives was billed as the featured speaker at a meeting of black Republican voters on November 26, ironically in the same building where Stewart was nominated for constable in 1892. However, Rives did not attend the meeting, sending Deputy District Attorney Curtis D. Wilbur (later Chief Justice of the California Supreme Court and Secretary of the Navy under President Coolidge) in his place. Rives’ decision to retry Stewart was undoubtedly unpopular with the audience at the meeting, so it is not surprising that Rives sent a substitute instead.
Stewart's second trial received much less press coverage than his first trial. Stewart was again defended by LE Compte Davis and Judson Rush, and Deputy D. A. Charles McComas again prosecuted. The first day of the second trial, also presided over by Judge Benjamin N. Smith, was taken up by selecting a jury. This time the jurors were chosen from a pool of 30, six more than in Stewart’s first trial, probably in the hope of avoiding another hung jury.
What was New Year’s Eve like at the Stewart home at 762
Ceres Avenue that night? Loud and
jubilant? Quiet and thankful? We can only guess. The Herald's “Among the Colored Citizens” column carried no items in early 1901 about
Stewart celebrating his acquittal with his friends. George Warner and Dr. Melvin Sykes, who had helped
Stewart get out on bail twice, are mentioned as guests at a January 12 party
that was also attended by a Mrs. Stewart – very possibly Louise – but not by
Robert. However, the April 19, 1901, Los Angeles Herald printed the names and addresses of 10,000 citizens who signed a petition to allow Los Angeles saloons to stay open on Sunday – including R. W. Stewart of 762 Ceres Avenue.
“Among the Colored Citizens” reported on a June 22, 1901, party hosted by Dallas and Mary Bronson at 770 Ceres, just two doors south of the Stewarts. Not only George Warner but also Joseph Green, who had broken the LAPD’s color line with Stewart back in 1889, were among the over 20 guests, but Robert and Louise Stewart were not. Of course, not everyone gets along with their neighbors, and it is conceivable the Stewarts and Bronsons did not socialize. However, with the exception of his continued membership in the Grand United Order of Odd Fellows, Stewart appears to have kept a low profile following his acquittal. His only known public service post after 1900 was serving as a precinct judge for the November 1906 election.
There was apparently no discussion of giving Stewart his old job back, even though he had been exonerated of the charge that led to his dismissal. Perhaps if Chief Glass had still been running the LAPD, Stewart might have been rehired, but even then there would have been many factors working against that: it is easy to imagine many people remembering (and still believing) the charge against him, rather than his acquittal; there had been court testimony about his drinking; and, he was an African-American. Berry R. Randolph remained the LAPD’s only African-American officer until William W. Glenn was hired on September 10, 1903.
The Los Angeles City Directories of 1901 and 1902 list Robert Stewart as a laborer, then from 1903 to 1906 he is shown as a janitor. After that, through 1920 – when he was 70 – Stewart is listed as a laborer in the city directories. From 1922 to 1930, the city directories again show him working as a janitor. Louise Stewart appears in nine Los Angeles City Directories from 1907 until 1922, and her occupation was always laundry-related. In 1912, at age 61, she is listed as an ironer.
Robert and Louise’s son, William, moved back down from San Francisco and is shown boarding with them at 762 Ceres in the 1902 city directory. After that, there is no record of William’s whereabouts until 1910, when he worked as a bartender in Oxnard, Ventura County, California. [At William’s death, an autopsy revealed he had a history of drug addiction; this could be a factor in the 1902-10 gap in his life story.] William may have left Los Angeles after an incident there in May 1902: a young black man named William Stewart was convicted of carrying a concealed weapon – a revolver with which he chased two white men out of a restaurant – and was sentenced to 25 days of labor on the chain gang. If this William Stewart was Robert’s 24-year-old son, a painful family scene may have resulted, followed by William leaving the family home.
Former Los Angeles Police Chief John M. Glass almost regained his job as chief in 1905 but was on the losing end of a 3-2 vote by the Police Commission. In 1909 he ran for one of nine at-large seats on the Los Angeles City Council, but he finished 25th out of 77 candidates. Glass died in Los Angeles on September 19, 1925, at age 82. The Times article about Glass’ funeral lists his pallbearers, but Robert Stewart was not among them.
William continued living in his parents’ house and working as a laborer for the City of Los Angeles until his death on March 13, 1936, at age 58. His principal cause of death is listed as acute bronchopneumonia; the contributory causes are chronic cystic nephritis and history of drug addiction. Shown as the informant on his death certificate is his aunt, Nannie Logan Willbourn, who by 1930 had left Arizona and relocated with her husband to Pasadena, California, where they worked as servants (she died Christmas Day 1962, aged 85). William is also buried in Evergreen Cemetery, in the same row as his parents, three plots to the east. His grave is unmarked.
Robert William Stewart’s trailblazing role as an
African-American Los Angeles Police Officer has been known for 40 years, but the
details of his career with the LAPD and the injustice of his firing had been
forgotten. In addition, his achievement
in politics as the first African-American to be nominated by a major party for
an elective office in Los Angeles County had gone unnoticed. Robert William Stewart and Joseph Henry Green, who in 1889 were the first two African-Americans on the LAPD, both deserve to be both honored and remembered, and with luck, further research
will uncover more details about their lives.
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| October 23, 1900, Los Angeles Times |
Davis and Rush began Stewart’s defense by again calling character witnesses, who testified on October 23 and 24. The Los Angeles Evening Express seems to have named most or all of them: Joseph Mesmer and General Edward Bouton, both of whom also had testified for Stewart in May; Leroy M. Grider, a well-known local real estate developer and former Los Angeles City Councilman; Judge Henry C. Austin, who had presided over Stewart’s Police Court appearances on May 10-11 and 21-22; Los Angeles Township Justice William Young, who had run on the same Republican ticket with Stewart in 1892; Jay T. Conley (c. 1850-1905), a Los Angeles Police Officer who had served with Stewart since March 1889; and Thomas J. Stuart, the friend of former LAPD Chief Glass and the Barmores whom Stewart had known in Jeffersonville and who was now Secretary of the Associated Charities of Los Angeles. In defense of her husband, on October 23 Louise Stewart made a short appearance on the witness stand, but the nature of her testimony apparently was not described in the press.
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| Leroy Milton Grider, c. 1897 |
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| Police Court Judge Henry C. Austin, c. 1900 |
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| Judge William Young (1840-1923), c. 1912 |
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| Thomas J. Stuart, c. 1895 |
October 24 was the trial’s big day, when Stewart testified
in his own defense, and the courtroom was again packed. Stewart was on the stand for over an hour,
and the Times admitted that he “made
a favorable impression.” Stewart claimed
that at the time of the alleged assault he was patrolling another part of his
beat, which covered the blocks between Fifth and Tenth Streets and Broadway and
Hill Street. He admitted meeting
Cunningham and scolding her for being out so late, but he had not walked with
her or had any physical contact with her.
“He was very sure he was not drunk that night,” reported the Times, which added that many of
Stewart’s statements referenced God to emphasize their truth. “If I were to meet my God in the next minute,
I would swear that I have not harmed that young girl,” the Herald quoted Stewart as testifying.
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| This is the Los Angeles Times' October 25 story about what happened at Stewart's trial on October 24. |
Testifying for Stewart on October 24 was a man named Charles Mendenhall, who said he'd encountered Stewart on the night of the alleged rape. Upon seeing Stewart on Broadway between 5th and 6th Streets, Mendenhall asked him what time it was. Stewart replied that it was 18 minutes to 1:00 a.m., and the October 24, 1900, Los Angeles Evening Express reported that Mendenhall's testimony "corroborates Stewart's and goes to prove an alibi according to the testimony given by the witnesses for the state."
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| The October 24, 1900, Los Angeles Evening Express quoted Stewart's testimony from that day at some length, including a reference to his encounter with Mr. Mendenhall. |
Also on October 24, Grace Cunningham's mother testified about Grace's appearance when she arrived home at 2:00 a.m. on May 10. Mrs. Cunningham said her daughter was "in tears and walking very slowly," according to the Evening Express. The day concluded with arguments by Assistant District Attorney Jones and defense attorney Davis.
The trial's final day, October 25, was described best by the Evening Express. It said defense attorney Rush reviewed the evidence presented by all the witnesses and by Grace Cunningham and then "proceeded to tear the girl's testimony to pieces." According to Rush, Stewart only had 10 minutes to walk with Grace down Broadway, into the schoolyard, assault her, then walk to the tamale wagon where he meet Officer Rohn at about 12:50 a.m. – and that scenario was impossible:
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| October 25, 1900, Los Angeles Evening Express. The "Smith" referred to is Herman Smith, a night watchman/patrolman at a private detective agency. |
After Rush and Deputy District Attorney McComas had finished their closing arguments on October 25, the
case was submitted to the jury at 3:36 p.m.
The jury was taken out to dinner at 6:00 p.m. then continued
deliberating and voting until 11:00 p.m. before stopping for the night. The jurors reconvened for a short time on the
morning of October 26 but at 10:00 a.m. reported to the judge that they could
not agree on a verdict. It was soon
revealed that the initial vote of the jury had been 7 to 5 to acquit Stewart,
and six subsequent votes had not produced any change. In light of this result, Judge Smith reduced Stewart’s bail to $1,000.
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| October 27, 1900, Los Angeles Times. Currently available archived Los Angeles newspapers were unanimous in reporting Stewart’s bail had been increased to $3,000 after his May 1900 preliminary hearing. They all also noted that Stewart’s bail was reduced to $1,000 on October 26. No evidence of Stewart’s bail being lowered from $3,000 to $2,500 has been uncovered, so the Times may have been incorrect in reporting the latter amount here. |
Three days after the end of the trial,
on October 29, Stewart’s friends George Warner and Dr. Melvin E. Sykes bailed
him of county jail. Stewart had been behind
bars for 160 days.
Fortunately, during Stewart’s time in jail no further action had been taken regarding his unpaid sewer assessment. Neither contractor George Banaz nor his attorney, Lewis Preston, had made Stewart’s case a priority. Banaz was no doubt distracted by personal matters. He was married on July 26, 1900, but he packed up and moved out a month later; he and his wife were divorced on October 12. As for Preston, he had collected and turned over about 78% of $18,000 in assessments owed to Banaz and two other sewer contractors when, without explanation, Preston emptied his office, abandoned his wife and left town on October 19, 1900 (he turned up in Mexico the next year). When Banaz’ new attorney took over on November 2, his work was hampered because Preston had torn out the pages of his account books that showed the sewer contractors’ records.[50] It is unclear when Stewart paid what he owed, but Stewart clearly caught a break with the inattention paid to his case while he was in jail.
Los Angeles County District Attorney James E. Rives decided to retry Stewart’s case, and on November 12 the second trial was set for December 27, 1900. With a December 3, 1900, city election looming, Rives was billed as the featured speaker at a meeting of black Republican voters on November 26, ironically in the same building where Stewart was nominated for constable in 1892. However, Rives did not attend the meeting, sending Deputy District Attorney Curtis D. Wilbur (later Chief Justice of the California Supreme Court and Secretary of the Navy under President Coolidge) in his place. Rives’ decision to retry Stewart was undoubtedly unpopular with the audience at the meeting, so it is not surprising that Rives sent a substitute instead.
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| Georgia-born James C. Rives (1864-1923), seen here c. 1900, was Los Angeles County District Attorney from 1899 to 1903. |
Stewart's second trial received much less press coverage than his first trial. Stewart was again defended by LE Compte Davis and Judson Rush, and Deputy D. A. Charles McComas again prosecuted. The first day of the second trial, also presided over by Judge Benjamin N. Smith, was taken up by selecting a jury. This time the jurors were chosen from a pool of 30, six more than in Stewart’s first trial, probably in the hope of avoiding another hung jury.
The next day, December 28, Grace Cunningham and her mother testified.
The Times reported that they told
“the same story in the main as told at the first trial.” Other witnesses took the stand as well, but
they were not named in the press. However, the Evening Express again provided the best available reporting on the trial and noted how Grace’s story had evolved:
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| December 28, 1900, Los Angeles Evening Express |
That Stewart’s trial was “rapidly nearing conclusion” was
about all the Times reported
regarding the trial’s third day, Saturday, December 29. The Herald
mentioned even less, and there was nothing in the Record or Evening Express. However, we know closing arguments started on the 29th, because when the trial resumed on December 31 (after a day off for Sunday the 30th), the Evening Express reported that defense attorney Davis began that morning by concluding his presentation. Davis was followed by his partner Rush's closing argument. Finally, Deputy District Attorney McComas summed up the case for the prosecution, and the case was
submitted to the jury that afternoon.
At 5:00 p.m. on Monday, December 31, 1900, after deliberating for
about 40 minutes, the jury found Robert William Stewart not guilty of raping
Grace Cunningham.
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| This is from the January 1, 1901, Los Angeles Herald’s “Court House Briefs” column on page 4, where Stewart’s acquittal was the 12th case mentioned. Also on January 1, the Los Angeles Evening Express ran a similar article about Stewart's acquittal on page 10. The Los Angeles Record wrote just five lines about the verdict in Stewart’s trial on page 3 of its January 2 edition. |
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| The January 1, 1901, Los Angeles Times gave Stewart’s exoneration a bit more coverage, though on page 2 of section 2 (or page 14 of 20 in that day's edition). The Times reminded its readers that Stewart had lost his job as police officer due to the charge he had just been acquitted of. |
“Among the Colored Citizens” reported on a June 22, 1901, party hosted by Dallas and Mary Bronson at 770 Ceres, just two doors south of the Stewarts. Not only George Warner but also Joseph Green, who had broken the LAPD’s color line with Stewart back in 1889, were among the over 20 guests, but Robert and Louise Stewart were not. Of course, not everyone gets along with their neighbors, and it is conceivable the Stewarts and Bronsons did not socialize. However, with the exception of his continued membership in the Grand United Order of Odd Fellows, Stewart appears to have kept a low profile following his acquittal. His only known public service post after 1900 was serving as a precinct judge for the November 1906 election.
There was apparently no discussion of giving Stewart his old job back, even though he had been exonerated of the charge that led to his dismissal. Perhaps if Chief Glass had still been running the LAPD, Stewart might have been rehired, but even then there would have been many factors working against that: it is easy to imagine many people remembering (and still believing) the charge against him, rather than his acquittal; there had been court testimony about his drinking; and, he was an African-American. Berry R. Randolph remained the LAPD’s only African-American officer until William W. Glenn was hired on September 10, 1903.
After the trial, Grace Cunningham and her family disappeared from the newspapers. Their next appearance in the public record is 15-year-old younger brother Albert’s listing in the 1902 Los Angeles City Directory as helper at a planing mill, though without a home address. From 1903-05 the Los Angeles city directories show Albert (and presumably his mother and sister) living at 1330 S. Olive Street. Mary Cunningham, who returned to using her given name of Emma after her ex-husband died in 1910, lived with her son Albert and his family for the rest of her life, which ended in Alhambra, California, on September 22, 1932, when she was 73 years old.
Grace Cunningham married a butcher named Elzie Brown in Los Angeles on August 2, 1906. In December 1910 she filed for divorce, then she married John Tenuta in Los Angeles on December 13, 1913. The Tenutas were living in Glendale in 1918 when Grace gave birth to a daughter. John and Grace (or Viola as she was now known) lived in Glendale through at least 1920, then in northern California’s Alameda and Sonoma Counties in the 1930s and 40s before returning to Los Angeles. Grace Cunningham died a widow at age 80 in Los Angeles on July 27, 1965. The motivation for her false charge against Robert Stewart will likely never be known.
Grace Cunningham married a butcher named Elzie Brown in Los Angeles on August 2, 1906. In December 1910 she filed for divorce, then she married John Tenuta in Los Angeles on December 13, 1913. The Tenutas were living in Glendale in 1918 when Grace gave birth to a daughter. John and Grace (or Viola as she was now known) lived in Glendale through at least 1920, then in northern California’s Alameda and Sonoma Counties in the 1930s and 40s before returning to Los Angeles. Grace Cunningham died a widow at age 80 in Los Angeles on July 27, 1965. The motivation for her false charge against Robert Stewart will likely never be known.
However, we can speculate as to her motivation. It is possible that prior to Stewart’s arrest, Grace and her mother Mary had somehow come to the attention of the police and/or persons associated with the Police Commission (Commissioner Ling already knew Grace’s family, having represented her father when her parents divorced in December 1895). After Stewart’s arrest, 15-year-old Grace admitted she had had sex twice in the previous two months, and Stewart’s lawyers called her and her mother’s character into question. If the police suspected Mary Cunningham had forced Grace into prostitution, the police could have threatened prosecution if the Cunninghams did not cooperate in a scheme to frame Stewart for rape. Or, perhaps there was no prostitution, and the poverty that Mary Cunningham and her children were living in made her susceptible to accepting a bribe to have her daughter accuse Stewart. The atmosphere surrounding the LAPD at the time makes either scenario all too possible.
In April 1900 the department was divided into factions for and against ex-Chief Glass, with the April 9 Los Angeles Evening Express reporting, “It is claimed there is a conspiracy to get rid of all officers who are supposed to have been friendly with the old regime, and that nothing will be left undone to accomplish this end. There are lively times ahead in the police department, and startling developments may be looked for at any time.” That month Chief Elton brought charges against three officers identified with ex-Chief Glass, and it was expected that the Elton-friendly Police Commission would fire them. However, on April 17 the commissioners were forced to drop charges against two of the officers, Samuel N. Baker and Joseph A. “Gus” Smith, and Elton failed to submit the evidence he claimed he had against the third officer, Frank Fowler. Chief Elton was ridiculed in the press for making accusations he could not prove. When Elton finally produced his evidence against Fowler at a hearing on May 8, the police commissioners found it lacking and unanimously acquitted him. However, Elton and the commissioners still wanted Fowler and other “Glass men” off the force.
After the failure on April 17 to dismiss the three pro-Glass officers, one can imagine Chief Elton and his supporters on the Police Commission asking themselves, “Is there another officer who was close to Glass that we can go after, and is there an accusation that officer won’t be able to defend himself against?” Charging Robert Stewart with raping a white girl would certainly check both those boxes, and the timing of events suggests he was framed. Officer Fowler was acquitted on May 8, Stewart was accused of raping Grace Cunningham on May 9, and he was arrested the next day. On May 29 Elton urged the Police Commission to take action against the already-suspended Stewart, but the Police Commission waited until June 5 to fire him. Stewart’s dismissal was confirmed on June 9 by City Attorney Walter Haas’ opinion invalidating the 1894 city ordinance that prevented police officers from being fired without a hearing (Haas’ opinion was then used to fire Officer Fowler on June 12). It seems clear that between May 29 and June 5, City Attorney Haas advised the Police Commission – or more likely just commissioners Scarborough, Ling, and Day – that he would support firing Stewart without a hearing. However, even if Stewart had received a hearing, it would have been impossible for him to mount an effective defense by June 5.
In the end, if there was a plan to rid the LAPD of Stewart by accusing him of raping a white girl, it worked. Such a plan would have had to include Chief Elton, and since he was still new to the department at the time, it seems reasonable to suspect that at least one other veteran, probably high-ranking LAPD officer may have been involved, such as Captain William Roberts. Other likely conspirators include Police Commissioners Scarborough, Ling, and Day. However, Detectives Hawley and Auble, who arrested Stewart – as well as Patrick McGrath, who told Grace’s story to Hawley and Auble – all may have unknowingly participated in the plot. City Attorney Haas must have known the police commissioners wanted the 1894 ordinance nullified so they could fire Stewart (and Fowler), but it’s uncertain whether Haas knew Stewart had been framed.
The false accusation against Stewart cost him his reputation and his job – including a 1902 pay increase for foot patrolmen to $100 a month – and it also ruined his opportunity to earn a police pension. Under the rules at the time, officers who had served 20 years on the LAPD and who were 60 years old (or officers of any age who could no longer work due to job-incurred injury or illness) could retire on half pay. Had Stewart remained with the force until March 1, 1910, when he turned 60, he would have put in his 20 years and earned a pension. Instead, Stewart worked for the rest of his life, and his wife Louise worked into her early 70s.
The Los Angeles City Directories of 1901 and 1902 list Robert Stewart as a laborer, then from 1903 to 1906 he is shown as a janitor. After that, through 1920 – when he was 70 – Stewart is listed as a laborer in the city directories. From 1922 to 1930, the city directories again show him working as a janitor. Louise Stewart appears in nine Los Angeles City Directories from 1907 until 1922, and her occupation was always laundry-related. In 1912, at age 61, she is listed as an ironer.
Robert and Louise’s son, William, moved back down from San Francisco and is shown boarding with them at 762 Ceres in the 1902 city directory. After that, there is no record of William’s whereabouts until 1910, when he worked as a bartender in Oxnard, Ventura County, California. [At William’s death, an autopsy revealed he had a history of drug addiction; this could be a factor in the 1902-10 gap in his life story.] William may have left Los Angeles after an incident there in May 1902: a young black man named William Stewart was convicted of carrying a concealed weapon – a revolver with which he chased two white men out of a restaurant – and was sentenced to 25 days of labor on the chain gang. If this William Stewart was Robert’s 24-year-old son, a painful family scene may have resulted, followed by William leaving the family home.
William next appears, c. 1912, in Sacramento County, California, again employed as a bartender. Los Angeles city directories show William back living with his parents in 1914 and 1916, working as a laborer and a bartender, respectively. Then in L.A. on June 12, 1916, William got married for the first and only time.
William’s bride was Annie Myrtle Hughes, who was born in on August 1, 1889, probably in Los Angeles. She appears in L.A. (as Myrtle Hughes) on the 1900 U.S. Census, living with her parents and attending school. Sadly, her life took an early downward turn, as documented in a number of 1903 newspaper articles. In February, she and a 12-year-old boy disappeared (“eloped” suggested the Herald and the Record) for several days; in March, the boy was sent to the state reform school at Whittier. In April, Myrtle went missing again when she spent several days in a downtown L.A. rooming house with two teenage boys. Myrtle was eventually found in Santa Monica; Myrtle’s mother had the boys charged with raping her daughter. They pleaded guilty and were also sent to the Whittier reform school. Myrtle disappeared once more in August 1903; this time she was found 60 miles east of L.A. in San Bernardino in what was probably a house of prostitution. On August 19, the Times wrote that Myrtle, too, would be sent to Whittier. If she was, her stay was short, because the Times reported on August 30 that she and her mother had left for Philadelphia, where Myrtle would attend school. Myrtle’s parents must have been desperately looking for a way to save their daughter.
William’s bride was Annie Myrtle Hughes, who was born in on August 1, 1889, probably in Los Angeles. She appears in L.A. (as Myrtle Hughes) on the 1900 U.S. Census, living with her parents and attending school. Sadly, her life took an early downward turn, as documented in a number of 1903 newspaper articles. In February, she and a 12-year-old boy disappeared (“eloped” suggested the Herald and the Record) for several days; in March, the boy was sent to the state reform school at Whittier. In April, Myrtle went missing again when she spent several days in a downtown L.A. rooming house with two teenage boys. Myrtle was eventually found in Santa Monica; Myrtle’s mother had the boys charged with raping her daughter. They pleaded guilty and were also sent to the Whittier reform school. Myrtle disappeared once more in August 1903; this time she was found 60 miles east of L.A. in San Bernardino in what was probably a house of prostitution. On August 19, the Times wrote that Myrtle, too, would be sent to Whittier. If she was, her stay was short, because the Times reported on August 30 that she and her mother had left for Philadelphia, where Myrtle would attend school. Myrtle’s parents must have been desperately looking for a way to save their daughter.
It is unclear how long Myrtle stayed in Philadelphia, but in April 1905 and now known as Annie Myrtle Hughes, she married Albert Roy Russell in Los Angeles. From 1906 to 1909, she and her husband lived in L.A. alongside her parents. The 1910 U.S. Census shows Albert Russell as married and living in Oakland, California – but not with Annie. Although records suggest Annie and Albert may not have divorced until 1914, by late 1911 she was using the name Myrtle Hughes and living in Sacramento, California. And it was in Sacramento on Christmas Eve 1911 that Myrtle was arrested for grand larceny.
Several weeks earlier, Myrtle had bribed a private security officer not to patrol in certain areas of the city so she and her male accomplices could commit robberies. On December 23, 1911, the officer was approached by a man who said he was looking for a room. The officer pointed out the man to Myrtle, who led him to a room and took his jewelry (the man was probably drunk and possibly looking for more than just a room). Myrtle’s accomplices and the private security officer all confessed and implicated her in robbing the victim. Myrtle was convicted of grand larceny on February 14, 1912, and a week later she was sentenced to three years at San Quentin, the only California state prison that housed women.
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| Here is Myrtle Hughes (aka Annie Myrtle Russell) after she arrived at San Quentin on February 24, 1912, a little over four years before she became Robert William Stewart’s daughter-in-law. Her occupation was listed as “housewife” and her height at 5’2-1/2”. Besides being guilty of grand larceny, she also lied about her age, as she was actually 22 years old, not 19. A report dated June 30, 1912, showed she was one of just 24 female prisoners at San Quentin [51]. |
Prison records show Annie/Myrtle was paroled on August 24, 1913, and discharged from parole on June 24, 1914. She seems to have returned to Los Angeles, where presumably she met William Stewart. We do not know how much Robert and Louise knew about their daughter-in-law’s past. Perhaps Robert’s old police officer instincts told him Annie Myrtle Hughes was bad news.
Where William and Annie resided after their June 1916 wedding is uncertain, and their time living together as husband and wife may have been brief. In Stockton, San Joaquin County, California on May 15, 1918, Annie was again arrested for grand larceny. This time, she came up to a man on the street and used one hand to distract him while she slipped her other hand in his pocket and grabbed $6. On the evening of June 5, while confined to the county hospital (the reason is unclear), she sneaked past a guard and escaped in an automobile 50 miles north to Sacramento, where she was recaptured the next day. She pleaded not guilty to the larceny charge on June 24 but was convicted at her July 15-16 trial. Annie Stewart arrived for her second term at San Quentin on July 20, 1918, to serve a sentence of 1-10 years. Her occupation was again recorded as “housewife,” but we do not know if she and William were living together at the time of her arrest.
However, we know that when William registered for the WWI draft on September 12, 1918, he was living in a Sacramento lodging house at 1025 Front Street (today part of the tourist-oriented Old Sacramento Waterfront District) and working east of town as a laborer at Mather Field (later Mather Air Force Base). He listed Annie as his wife on the draft card. The 1920 U.S. Census, enumerated in January, has William as a laborer and still living at his September 1918 address, but he is shown as single. The same 1920 census has Annie in San Quentin, though she is listed as married. Annie Myrtle Hughes Russell Stewart’s ultimate fate is unknown; on the 1930 U.S. Census, William’s marital status is widower.
William left Sacramento and by c. 1922 was working as a porter in El Centro, Imperial County, California. By 1924 he had moved back in with his parents on Ceres Avenue in Los Angeles, working first as a laborer and janitor. In about 1927-28 he found work as a laborer with the Los Angeles City Engineering Department. He held this job longer than any other in his life.
Around October 1903 Louise’s half-brother Patrick Hickman, after three years in Oregon and northern California, also moved back to Ceres Avenue. He held a variety of jobs before working c. 1912-16 for undertaker A. J. Roberts [whose son Frederick M. Roberts (1879-1952) was likely the first African-American graduate of Los Angeles High School and in 1918 became the first African-American elected to the California Legislature, representing the 74th Assembly District, where Robert Stewart lived]. Hickman and his wife moved to East Pico Blvd. in Los Angeles in June 1917, then apparently during 1921 they left Los Angeles and settled in Lake Elsinore, Riverside County, California, where he died aged 82 on September 1, 1941.
Around October 1903 Louise’s half-brother Patrick Hickman, after three years in Oregon and northern California, also moved back to Ceres Avenue. He held a variety of jobs before working c. 1912-16 for undertaker A. J. Roberts [whose son Frederick M. Roberts (1879-1952) was likely the first African-American graduate of Los Angeles High School and in 1918 became the first African-American elected to the California Legislature, representing the 74th Assembly District, where Robert Stewart lived]. Hickman and his wife moved to East Pico Blvd. in Los Angeles in June 1917, then apparently during 1921 they left Los Angeles and settled in Lake Elsinore, Riverside County, California, where he died aged 82 on September 1, 1941.
Former Los Angeles Police Chief John M. Glass almost regained his job as chief in 1905 but was on the losing end of a 3-2 vote by the Police Commission. In 1909 he ran for one of nine at-large seats on the Los Angeles City Council, but he finished 25th out of 77 candidates. Glass died in Los Angeles on September 19, 1925, at age 82. The Times article about Glass’ funeral lists his pallbearers, but Robert Stewart was not among them.
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| In 1905 John M. Glass moved into a new house at 4782 S. Main Street in Los Angeles and lived there until his death. The home is currently (2022) used as a daycare facility. |
Captain William C. Roberts had fought to keep his job both when Glass demoted him to sergeant in October 1899 and when, restored to captain, he was tried by the Police Commission in February 1900. However, in July 1900 he put in a request for retirement, claiming that his “age and physical condition” prevented him from performing his “arduous duties.” On July 10, 1900, the Police Commission voted to retire Roberts (a vote seen by many as a vindication of Glass demoting Roberts) on a pension of $62.50 a month, half his captain’s salary. The July 11, 1900, Los Angeles Evening Express editorialized that the 60-year-old Roberts had been “part and parcel of the corrupt scheme by which Chief Glass was removed as head of the department.” Roberts also died in Los Angeles in 1925, at age 85.
Chief Glass’ successor, Charles Elton, resigned under pressure in April 1904 due to his failure to curb gambling and prostitution. Around this same time, he sold his interest in the Los Angeles Transfer Company (probably to Edmond Barmore), entered the saloon business, and abandoned his wife and six children. His failure to pay support for his family landed him in Los Angeles County Jail for 10 days in February 1906. He died in San Francisco in 1916 at age 61.
Edmond H. Barmore, Elton’s former business partner, continued to run the Los Angeles Transfer Company; by 1912 its wagons, 90 horses and 10 trucks handled about half of the transfer and express business in the city [52]. Barmore owned the LATC until 1926, though operational control of the company passed from his hands after he declared bankruptcy in 1917. He died, aged 71, on November 26, 1931. From about 1908-11 he had lived at what is known today as the Boyle-Barmore House at 1317 Alvarado Terrace in L.A.’s Alvarado Terrace Historic District.
David S. Barmore, Edmond’s father, moved back to Madison, Indiana in 1891 to again engage in building steamboats on the Ohio River. He sold his company in early 1901 and retired, returning to Los Angeles and building a home at what is now the NW corner of 23rd and Portland Streets. David Barmore died there on March 16, 1905, at age 72, but his home was still standing in May 2021 on a block with other well-kept houses from the same era.
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| This is David Barmore’s photo from the March 20, 1905, Los Angeles Times article on his funeral. |
Thomas J. Stuart, who was closely associated with Chief Glass and the Barmores in Jeffersonville and who testified as a character witness for Robert Stewart at his rape trial, retired as Secretary of the Associated Charities of Los Angeles in November 1907. He died at age 70 on May 13, 1909, three weeks after slitting his throat on the front lawn of his Alhambra home.
We do not know if Robert Stewart kept in contact over the years with the people – Glass, the Barmores, and Stuart – he followed from Jeffersonville to Los Angeles. Nor do we know if Robert and Louise met with two people from their distant past who eventually moved to Los Angeles. Around 1903, Horace Withers’ daughter, now Josephine Withers McAlister, moved to 1824 W. 6th Street with her husband and children. Josephine was about 18 when the Stewarts had left her father’s employ back in Kentucky c. 1881. Then in 1922, Louise’s white half-brother Benjamin Franklin Coffey moved to Eagle Rock. He was born in 1860 and was the son of Louise’s white father and his wife. Louise had likely last seen her half-brother in 1865 when she moved from Wayne County to Lincoln County, Kentucky.
The Stewarts are missing from the 1910 U.S. Census, enumerated between April 15 and May 5. Perhaps they had saved enough money to go on vacation and were out of town. However, we know that from July to October 1910, Louise went back to Frankfort, Kansas to visit relatives and friends, many of whom she probably had not seen since she moved to Los Angeles in 1887. Louise was accompanied on the trip to Kansas by her 17-year-old niece, Lulu Hickman (Patrick’s daughter). In addition, Louise’s half-sister Nannie Logan Willbourn came up from Arizona to Kansas to join them. Articles in the Frankfort (KS) Daily Index reporting on Louise’s visits do not mention Robert, so he apparently did not make the trip.
While in Frankfort, Louise and her brother Logan Coffey undoubtedly discussed real estate. In September 1908, Coffey had obtained two homes on adjoining properties in Frankfort. He apparently registered them in the names of Robert Stewart and Patrick Hickman, perhaps in an attempt to get them to move to Kansas. However, the properties seem to have been on the delinquent tax list when Coffey acquired them. As a result, in January 1909 Stewart and Hickman owed $25.56 and $22.50, respectively, in back taxes on them. The homes were eventually transferred back to Logan Coffey’s ownership; Stewart’s prior to April 1915 and Hickman’s after April 1917.
Robert Stewart’s name still occasionally appeared in print. The February 12, 1909, Los Angeles Times reviewed the city’s black fraternal orders, and the section on the GUOOF prominently mentioned Stewart, who held his lodge’s second-highest post, Noble Grand, that year (there is no evidence that Louise ever joined the women’s branch of GUOOF, the Household of Ruth). The January 8, 1916, California Eagle wrote that Stewart “was confined to his bed”; by February 12 it reported that he was still sick but “able to be up and around.” On June 22, 1922, the Los Angeles Evening Express’ list of short news items under the heading “25 Years Ago Today” included Stewart stopping the team of runaway mules back in June 1897, “at considerable risk to himself.” In addition, an article in the March 15, 1927, Los Angeles Times described the upcoming birthday party for George Washington Bright, the Los Angeles Fire Department’s first full-time black firefighter, and Robert Stewart was mentioned as one of the people scheduled to attend.
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| Stewart was remembered here as the first black police officer in Los Angeles, though he actually shared that title with Joseph Henry Green. Bright was born a slave in Texas in 1862 and came to Los Angeles in 1887. He was a member of the L.A. Fire Department from 1897 to 1917 and died at his desert home in Apple Valley in 1935. Bright was credited as the LAFD’s first-ever black firefighter until Sam Haskins’ part-time service from 1892 to 1895 was rediscovered over 100 years after his death. The “Deputy Sheriff Loving” referred to in the Times article is Julius Boyd Loving, one of Stewart’s jailers back in 1900. |
Louise Stewart, like the widows of both Joseph Henry Green and Harrison Monroe Spiller, became active in the “Pioneer Club,” which was organized in 1914 by black Los Angeles residents who had lived in the city for a minimum of 20 years. California Eagle articles on the Pioneer Club suggest that its membership was mostly female.
The Stewart home on Ceres Avenue had been built just over half a mile from the Southern Pacific Railroad’s Los Angeles passenger depot, and over the years his neighborhood and street became more industrial and commercial. Some single-family homes were demolished and replaced by businesses. Other residences became rooming houses, and tenements were built, further changing the area’s character. Although Ceres was then barely five blocks long, articles in the Los Angeles Times from 1913 to 1916 reported that the city’s Receiving Hospital had more cases of suicide or attempted suicide from Ceres Avenue than from any other street in the city.
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| We are looking east at Robert Stewart’s home at 772 Ceres, under the arrow at the bottom of this c. 1922 aerial photo. At the top of the image, on the east side of Central Avenue, is part of the large Los Angeles Wholesale Terminal Produce Market, built in 1918 between East Seventh and East Eighth Streets; the latter is seen along the right edge of the photo. |
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| This photo was taken between the second half of 1923 and the first half of 1924. It looks west at the southern half of the 700 block of Ceres Avenue and, under the arrow, the rear of Stewart’s house at 772 Ceres. At the image’s right center edge is part of 736 Ceres (marked), an industrial building erected in 1923 and the only structure we see on this part of Ceres that was still standing in August 2021. |
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| Here is the 700 block of Ceres Avenue on December 16, 1931, with East Seventh and East Eighth Streets on the left and right, respectively. Above the red dot is 772 Ceres. Many of the single-family homes on both sides of the street have been replaced by industrial buildings; the structure on the north (left) side of the Stewart home was built in 1925 by a fruit products company. Occupied through at least 1942, 772 Ceres was probably torn down c. 1946. A federal government inspection in 1939 had noted that the house needed major repairs. |
The 1920 U.S. Census shows Stewart had paid off the mortgage on his home at 772 Ceres. The 1930 census, enumerated on April 17, shows Stewart continued to own his home (which he said was worth $8,000) free and clear and that he also owned a radio, an item few on his block had. The 80-year-old Stewart’s occupation on the census is lodgeroom janitor. However, the 1931 Los Angeles City Directory, which was distributed in November 1930, lists Stewart’s occupation as clerk, a job title he had never held before. If this listing is accurate, it may be an indication of Stewart’s failing health and need for a less physically demanding occupation. Records suggest that at the end of November 1930, Stewart’s doctor discovered he had prostate cancer.
In February 1931, The Los Angeles Negro Directory was published by the same company that published L.A.’s African-American-owned newspaper, the California Eagle. The directory’s goal was to present “a complete Directory of the entire Colored population of Los Angeles.” Curiously, Robert and Louise Stewart, who had lived in the same house on Ceres Avenue since 1895, were not included in the directory (nor was their son William). Also left out was Stewart’s neighbor Isaac Johnson, who had lived across the street at 749 Ceres since 1894 (and with whom California Eagle publisher Charlotta Bass had lived c. 1910 to 1918), so perhaps that block of Ceres Avenue was not carefully canvassed.
Robert William Stewart died in Los Angeles on July 27, 1931,
at age 81 from prostate cancer. Robert and Louise had been married for almost 60 years. His death came 16 days after that of his brother Harve back in Stanford, Kentucky. Robert was included on the
“Official Death List” published in the Times and Evening Express two days later, but neither newspaper ran an obituary or announcement of his
burial at Evergreen Cemetery in East Los Angeles. However, Stewart had not been forgotten in his own community.
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| Unfortunately, the July 31, 1931, California Eagle’s front-page article on Stewart’s death has several obvious errors, such as the spelling of his last name and the county where he was born, the number of years he served as a police officer, his address, and that he was a charter member of his GUOOF lodge (when the lodge began in 1885 he was still in Jeffersonville). However, the article’s assertions that Stewart was “well-known as a great fraternal worker and useful citizen” and was “honored for his integrity and public-spirited citizenship” certainly ring true. The California Eagle had been founded as The Eagle by John Neimore, whose work had helped get Stewart appointed to the LAPD in 1889 and nominated for Constable in 1892. |
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| After Robert Stewart’s death, his remains were taken to the Conner-Johnson Mortuary at 1400 East 17th Street, on the southeast corner of Naomi Avenue. The building opened on March 31, 1923, (this photo was taken the same year) and was used until construction of the Santa Monica Freeway forced the mortuary to relocate in October 1956. The building was demolished soon after. |
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| Robert William Stewart’s funeral was held at Los Angeles’ Second Baptist Church, which we see on this vintage postcard along with Rev. Thomas L. Griffith, who officiated at Stewart’s obsequies. The building was dedicated in January 1926 and is still used in August 2021 by the Second Baptist Church. Both the Conner-Johnson Mortuary and the Second Baptist Church were designed by a young black architect named Paul Revere Williams (1894-1980), early in his long and distinguished career. |
Louise and William stayed in the house on Ceres Avenue. She remained active in the Pioneer Club and hosted a meeting of the group at her home for perhaps the last time in April 1932. Louise Stewart died on December 19, 1933, at age 82 from angina pectoris. The California Eagle said her illness was one “of long duration which had not confined her to bed until recently” and described Louise as “a kindly neighbor and friend . . . ever ready to assist in any manner possible those in need of help.” Two days after her death she was interred in the same plot as her husband, with her casket resting on top of his.
William continued living in his parents’ house and working as a laborer for the City of Los Angeles until his death on March 13, 1936, at age 58. His principal cause of death is listed as acute bronchopneumonia; the contributory causes are chronic cystic nephritis and history of drug addiction. Shown as the informant on his death certificate is his aunt, Nannie Logan Willbourn, who by 1930 had left Arizona and relocated with her husband to Pasadena, California, where they worked as servants (she died Christmas Day 1962, aged 85). William is also buried in Evergreen Cemetery, in the same row as his parents, three plots to the east. His grave is unmarked.
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| The inscription on Stewart’s headstone is HUSBAND, not BELOVED HUSBAND or HUSBAND AND FATHER. Let us hope this was due to economics rather than family animosity. Robert and Louise were married almost 60 years despite their mid-1880s separation. Robert must have been disappointed in his son’s lifestyle, but we can also hope father and son eventually reconciled any differences they had. Below Stewart’s date of death is the Odd Fellows’ “Three Link Emblem” representing Friendship, Love, and Truth. |
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October 25, 1900, Los
Angeles Times @ ProQuest via Los Angeles Public Library
October 24, 1900, Los Angeles Evening Express @ Newspapers.com
October 25, 1900, Los Angeles Evening Express @ Newspapers.com
October 27, 1900, Los Angeles Times @ Newspapers.com
James C. Rives, c. 1901: Men of California (1901) by Wellington C. Wolfe @ Google Books
December 28, 1900, Los Angeles Evening Express @ Newspapers.com
January 1, 1901, Los
Angeles Herald @ California Digital Newspaper Collection via UC Riverside
January 1, 1901, Los
Angeles Times @ Newspapers.com
Annie Stewart at San Quentin, 1912 @ Ancestry.com
4782 S. Main Street: 2016 author photo
David Barmore: March 20, 1905, Los Angeles Times @ Newspapers.com
March 15, 1927, Los Angeles Times @ Newspapers.com
c. 1922 aerial photo: CHS-9922 @ University of Southern California Libraries/California Historical Society Collection
1923-24 aerial photo: EXM-P-S-LOS-ANG-CIT-BUI-341 @ University of Southern California Libraries/Los Angeles Examiner Collection
December 16, 1931 aerial photo: Flight C 1930, Frame 67 at UC Santa Barbara Aerial Photography Collection
July 31, 1931, California Eagle @ Newspapers.com
Conner-Johnson Mortuary: The Crisis, November 1923 @ Google Books
Postcard of 2nd Baptist Church @ estatesalechronicles.blogspot.com
Robert Stewart gravestone:
Author photo
Notes:
[1],[2] Marion B. Lucas, A History of Blacks in Kentucky (Kentucky Historical Society, 1992), p. 207.
Notes:
[1],[2] Marion B. Lucas, A History of Blacks in Kentucky (Kentucky Historical Society, 1992), p. 207.
[3] Bill Vockery, Vital Statistics Garrard County, Kentucky: Births, Marriages, Deaths, 1852-1859, 1874-1878 (1988).
[4] Marion B. Lucas, A History of Blacks in Kentucky (Kentucky Historical Society, 1992), p. 53.
[5] A New Kentucky State Register, Accurately Compiled for the Year 1852, Edited by Thomas B. Monroe, Jr. (Hull & Brother, 1852), pgs. 98 and 213 @ Library of Congress
[6] Lewis Collins, Historical Sketches of Kentucky (1850), p. 321 @ Hathitrust.org
[7] Lewis and Richard H. Collins, History of Kentucky (1878), pgs. 260-69 @ Hathitrust.org
[8] Thomas H. S. Hamersly, Complete Regular Army Register of the United States for One Hundred Years (1880), p. 171.
[9] April 2, 1863, The Dollar Weekly Bulletin [Maysville, KY] @ Newspaperarchive.com
[10] August 3, 1863, Frankfort Tri-Weekly Commonwealth @ Newspaperarchive.com
[11] February 27, 1864, Louisville Courier-Journal @ Newspapers.com
[12] Lowell H. Harrison (1983) "Slavery in Kentucky: A Civil War Casualty," The Kentucky Review: Vol. 5: No. 1, Article 4 @uknowledge.uky.edu.
[13] Anne E. Marshall, Creating a Confederate Kentucky (The University of North Carolina Press, 1990), pgs. 65 and 68.
[14] Colored citizens of Frankfort, KY (1871), “Memorial of a committee appointed at a meeting of Colored citizens of Frankfort, Ky., and vicinity, praying the enactment of law for the better protection of life,” Colored Conventions Project Digital Records, accessed June 26, 2021, https://omeka.coloredconventions.org/items/show/539.
[15] George C. Wright, Racial Violence in Kentucky, 1865-1940 (Louisiana State University Press, 1990), pgs. 41-42.
[16] “African American Schools in Lincoln County, KY,” Notable Kentucky African Americans Database, accessed June 26, 2021, https://nkaa.uky.edu/nkaa/items/show/2641.
[17] Eighth Semi-Annual Report on Schools for Freedmen, July 1, 1869, by J. W. Alvord (Washington, Government Printing Office, 1869), p. 67 @ Google Books
[18] The American Missionary Association, Its Missionaries, Teachers, and History (1869), p. 6 @ Library of Congress
[19] Marion B. Lucas, A History of Blacks in Kentucky (Kentucky Historical Society, 1992), p. 236.
[20] William H. Gibson, History of the United Brothers of Friendship and Sisters of the Mysterious Ten (Bradley & Gilbert Co., 1897), p. 53 @ The Internet Archive.
[21],[22] National Register of Historic Places Inventory – Nomination Form (Horace Withers House), United States Department of the Interior, National Park Service, 1987 @ nps.gov.
[23] The Postal Laws and Regulations of the United States of America, Compiled and Edited by Arthur H. Bissell and Thomas B. Kirby (1879), pgs. 103 and 115 @ Hathitrust.org (Thanks to Jennifer Lynch, USPS Historian, for her assistance and referring me to this publication).
[24] Thirteenth Census of the United States (1913), Vol. 1, Ch. 2, p. 209 @ census.gov.
[25] Annual Report of the Public Schools of Los Angeles City, California, 1896-97, p. 36 @ Hathitrust.org.
[32] The Official Website of the Chicago Police Department, chicagopolice.org.
[33] “First African-American Newark police officer honored during Black History Month ceremony,” NJ.com, February 23, 2010.
[34] Art Matthews and Ben Scott, In Commemoration of the Black in Blue (Diggypod, 2016) [Quoted in Germantown Courier, March 7, 2018].
[26] January 19, 1888, Los Angeles Times @ ProQuest via Los Angeles Public Library.
[27] April 22, 1888, Los Angeles Times @ ProQuest via Los Angeles Public Library
[28] July 10, 1888, Los Angeles Evening Express @ Newspapers.com
[29] September 8, 1888, Los Angeles Times @ ProQuest via Los Angeles Public Library.
[30] November 1, 1888, Los Angeles Times @ Newspapers.com
[31] December 21, 1888, Los Angeles Evening Express @ Newspapers.com and December 22, 1888, Los Angeles Times @ ProQuest via Los Angeles Public Library.
[32] The Official Website of the Chicago Police Department, chicagopolice.org.
[33] “First African-American Newark police officer honored during Black History Month ceremony,” NJ.com, February 23, 2010.
[34] Art Matthews and Ben Scott, In Commemoration of the Black in Blue (Diggypod, 2016) [Quoted in Germantown Courier, March 7, 2018].
[35] December 17, 1890, Los Angeles Herald @ Newspapers.com
[36] Betty Lou Young, Our First Century: The Los Angeles Athletic Club, 1880-1980 (Los Angeles Athletic Club Press, 1979), p. 33.
[36] Knights of Pythias files 1914-1964 @ The New York Public Library - Archives and Manuscripts
[38] Charles H. Brooks, The Official History of the Grand United Order of Odd Fellows in America (Odd Fellows’ Journal Print, 1902), p. 180 @ Hathitrust.org.
[38] Charles H. Brooks, The Official History of the Grand United Order of Odd Fellows in America (Odd Fellows’ Journal Print, 1902), p. 180 @ Hathitrust.org.
[39] Charles H. Brooks, The Official History of the Grand United Order of Odd Fellows in America (Odd Fellows’ Journal Print, 1902), pgs 12-13 and 271 @ Hathitrust.org.
[40] January 24, 1890, Los Angeles Times @ Newspapers.com
[41] Douglas Flamming, Bound For Freedom: Black Los Angeles in Jim Crow America (University of California Press Books, 2006), p. 105.
[41] Douglas Flamming, Bound For Freedom: Black Los Angeles in Jim Crow America (University of California Press Books, 2006), p. 105.
[42],[43] Proceedings of the Fifth Annual Convention of the Chiefs of Police of the United States and Canada (Seymour & Muir Printing Co., 1898), pgs. 12 and 40 @ Hathitrust.org.
[44],[45] George W. Hale, Police and Prison Cyclopædia (The W. L. Richardson Company, 1893), pgs. 302-03 @ Hathitrust.org.
[44],[45] George W. Hale, Police and Prison Cyclopædia (The W. L. Richardson Company, 1893), pgs. 302-03 @ Hathitrust.org.
[46] Charlotta A. Bass, Forty Years: Memoirs from the Pages of a Newspaper (self-published, 1960), p. 27 @ Los Angeles Public Library.
[47] “Kent County-born Talbot served in ‘Colored’ regiment in Civil War,” by David Yates @ chathamthisweek.com, September 16, 2020.
[48] "$1 in 1897 → 2021 | Inflation Calculator.” Official Inflation Data, Alioth Finance, https://www.officialdata.org/us/inflation/1897?endYear=2021&amount=1.
[49] November 1902 The Liberator @ Los Angeles Public Library, Edmonds Family Collection.
[49] November 1902 The Liberator @ Los Angeles Public Library, Edmonds Family Collection.
[50] November 3, 1900, Los Angeles Record @ Newspapers.com
[51] Biennial Report of the State Board of Prison Directors of the State of California, 1910-1912 (Friend Wm. Richardson, Superintendent of State Printing, 1913), p. 83 @ Hathitrust.org.
[52] The Power Wagon, Vol. 97, December 1, 1912, p. 117 @ Google Books.
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| LAPD Chief Michel Moore gave me this certificate for uncovering Robert William Stewart's story. Thank you, Chief! |
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| Here is a close-up of the text in the center of the certificate. My thanks also go to John Thomas, retired LAPD Lieutenant and former Chief of USC’s Department of Public Safety, for working to bring attention to Robert Stewart’s story. |
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| This is the plaque outside the Robert William Stewart Roll Call Room at the LAPD's Central Station. |
Awesome Job Thank You!!!
ReplyDeleteThank you!
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