Death of a Pioneer Attorney and Capitalist, Once Active in the Development of the City
History
Andrew Glassell (September 30, 1827 – January 28, 1901), for whom Glassell Park is named, was a fascinating and controversial man who left his mark on California both through his legal and business practice. He was born in 1827 in Orange Country, Virginia, but spent most of his childhood in Alabama, where his father was a cotton planter. He graduated from the University of Alabama in 1848 with a degree in law and moved to San Francisco a few years later. He was almost immediately hired as an attorney in the California Supreme Court, and soon thereafter appointed Deputy US District Attorney (the US District Attorney of San Francisco was a personal friend). He worked in this capacity for about three years, overseeing numerous land cases, many of which involved land acquired from the Spanish. When the Civil War broke out, Glassell quit his post rather than take the oath of loyalty to the Union required of public officials, as his allegiance was with the Confederates (in fact, his younger brother William was a Confederate naval commander famed for having destroyed the USS New Ironsides, the most powerful Union ship, in one of the first torpedo attacks in history).
During the war, Glassell operated a large steam-powered lumber mill near Santa Cruz. At the conclusion of the war Glassell moved to Los Angeles and founded the Glassell, Chapman & Smith legal firm as the senior member. He amassed a fortune using his prior litigation experience, settling many land cases and acquiring much land himself in severalty. The property he acquired in The Great Partition of 1871 would eventually become Glassell Park, where you are currently! In 1872 Glassell came into possession of a plot of land, and he let his brother William survey the region that would become the city of Orange. Originally they wanted to name it Richland after their father's Alabama plantation, but this name was already taken by a town in Sacramento County, so they settled on the name Orange in honor of the county in Virginia where they were born.
Glassell was a ruthless businessman, serving as an incorporator of the Famers and Merchants' Bank, first president of the Los Angeles County bar association, and founder of the Los Angeles and San Pedro railroad, until it was absorbed by the Southern Pacific Railroad company, for whom he was the chief counsel until he finally retired in 1883.
Glassell was married twice, first to Lucy Toland (the daughter of the pioneer San Francisco physician H.H. Toland, who founded Toland Medical College, which would become UCSF's medical school), with whom he had several children. After she died in 1879, Glassell remarried to Virginia Micou Ring of New Orleans, with whom he fathered no children, and also outlived. Glassell died on January 28, 1901 at the age of 73, and is interred at the Angelus-Rosedale Cemetery in Los Angeles.
Cache Description
The cache container is a silver bison tube that is cleverly hidden. No special tools are needed to find it, though some stealth may be required!