Los Angeles County
Biographies
CAVE J. COUTS
Cave J. Couts is spending the evening of life in the old Spanish home on Guajome Ranch at Vista, San Diego county, where he was born on the 5th of June, 1856, a son of Colonel Cave J. And Ysidora (Bandini) Couts. The following story of his famous father appears in the history of San Diego and San Diego county by Clarence Alan McGrew, published in 1922.
Colonel Couts was born near Springfield, Tennessee, November 11, 1821, and in that locality his parents also spent their lives. His early education was supervised by his uncle, Cave Johnson, who was a member of President Polk’s cabinet as postmaster general. At the age of seventeen he was appointed a cadet in West Point Military Academy and graduated in 1843, being commissioned a brevet second lieutenant of the regiment of Mounted Rifles. He was on frontier duty at Fort Jessup, Indiana, and in 1845 was sent with a detachment of recruits to Fort Washita in Indian Territory. In the meantime he was commissioned second lieutenant of the First Dragoons, and did frontier duty at Evansville, Arkansas and Fort Gibson, Indian Territory, until February, 1847. He was then made first lieutenant of the First Dragoons, and during the war with Mexico was on duty along the frontier passing through Mexico and Arizona to California, crossing the Colorado river on Sunday, November 26, 1848, it taking him three days to cross his regiment. After confronting many obstacles and enduring much hardship crossing the desert between Colorado and the mountains, he reached Los Angeles with his command on Sunday, January 9, 1849. Colonel Couts served about San Diego, Los Angeles and San Luis Rey to 1851. In 1849 he conducted an expedition to the Gila river and was in charge of the boundary survey between the United States and Mexico, stationed at the junction of the Colorado and Gila rivers or “Camp Calhoun.” While on duty there he was complimented by his superior officers on his dealing with the Indians and assisting the emigrants. On August 1, 1849, he was elected a delegate from San Diego in accordance with the proclamation of Brevet Brigadier General B. Riley, governor of California, to form a state constitution or plan for a territorial government.
Until thirty years of age his life was that of the soldier, but on April 5, 1851, he married Miss Ysidora Bandini, daughter of Don Juan Bandini of San Diego. Colonel Couts was fortunate in finding a companion and wife with many of the noblest traits of her sex and her race. Ysidora Bandini continued to live on the old homestead at Guajome after the death of her husband until she passed away in the spring of 1897, and showed marvelous skill in managing the property through the trying years of her early widowhood. She came of a family renowned for physical and mental strength and beauty, and at the time of her marriage she was regarded as the most beautiful young woman in Southern California. Her father, Don Juan Bandini, was a prominent official under the Mexican government, living at San Diego, where Mrs. Couts was born. He was highly educated and early foresaw the results of the war with Mexico and was one of the first Southern Californians to ally themselves with the Americans. Three of his daughters, one of them Mrs. Couts, made the first American flag hoisted at San Diego. Mrs. Couts’ grandfather, Don Jose Bandini, was a native of old Spain and an admiral in the Spanish Navy, being stationed on the Pacific coast, and was in command in Peru when Don Juan, father of Mrs. Couts, was born. The Bandini family were originally Italian.
The October following his marriage Colonel Couts resigned his commission as a first lieutenant in the regular army, but soon afterward was appointed colonel and aide de camp on the staff of Governor Bigler, accounting for the military title with which his friends honored him. Colonel Couts has been described as a man of commanding figure, a little over six feet tall, straight, willowy and active, a perfect horseman, making a splendid appearance as a cavalry officer, and with the natural instincts of a gentleman supplemented by a thorough education. He was devoted to his family and in every transaction betrayed a strict integrity, though he was also a congenial companion, fond of music and dancing, and a popular figure in all social circles. The most interesting part of his story is that which relates to the development he instituted in San Diego county. He was one of the first to discover that the climate and soil of that county were adapted to all kinds of agriculture and horticulture. He was the first to plant an orchard on a large scale with the improved varieties of fruits, and for years his was the only orange grove in San Diego county. About two years after leaving the army he lived at old San Diego, where he served a term as county judge. In 1853 he and his family, consisting of his wife and two children, moved to Guajome. Guajome was an Indian grant containing two thousand, two hundred and nineteen acres made by the Mexican government to Andres, an Indian, and to his two sisters. It was bought by Mrs. Don Abel Stearns of Los Angeles and by her presented to Mrs. Couts as a wedding present. In the Indian language the word means “Home of the frog.” When Colonel Couts took possession of it in 1852 there was not a sign of a tree, and it was his initiative and enterprise that later covered the tract with orchards, among them several of the tropical fruits, such as the “Chicomoya” or “Anona,” “Marego,”“Auguacate” (alligator plant) and several others, also vineyards and other groves. He put up a camp on the land, made from willow poles and a few boards taken from San Diego, and that served him while he was building more commodious structures. As there was no running water on the land he dug a hole with a spade, and later enlarged that hole to a pond one hundred feet in diameter and seven feet deep, which had a constant flow of water, much of it used for irrigation purposes. Colonel Couts was special Indian agent, resigning o August 10, 1856, after having made a full report to the honorable commissioner of Indian affairs and calling attention to the condition of the “poor Indian,” and making suggestions that, had they been exercised, the Indians would not have been wronged or, as might be said, practically exterminated by the invasion of the white man. He also had the supervision of a large number of Indians in and around San Luis Rey, who loved and feared him. He commanded their services and labors, and from the labor of some three hundred Indians constructed an immense adobe house built in a square, containing twenty rooms, with a courtyard filled with orange and lemon trees and varieties of flowers. The same labor erected barns, stables, shed and corrals and also servants’ quarters, and finally a neat chapel was dedicated to the worship of God. Perhaps due to his military training, he had an almost infallible ability in managing and controlling Indians. He instituted system and order everywhere and visitors frequently knew without being told that “Don Cuevas,” as he was generally called, was a military man. He also accumulated thousands of cattle, hundreds of horses and mules and many sheep, and purchased the San Marcos, Buena Vista and La Joya ranches, besides about eight hundred acres of government land adjoining his homestead. Altogether his estate aggregated about twenty thousand acres. He was prospering until the passage of the “no fence law,” which practically ruined him financially and he was compelled to sell his livestock at a tremendous sacrifice. He was just beginning to recover from this disaster when death came to him while at the Horton House in San Diego, July 10, 1874. The tragedy of his useful career was that he was not permitted to enjoy the fruits of his toil and the expenditure of thousands of dollars in developing what might properly be considered a paradise.
Colonel Couts was one of twelve children, his wife was one of ten, and their own family numbered ten children, namely: Abel Stearns Couts, who died in 1855, when nearly four years of age; Maria Antonia, widow of Colonel Chalmers Scott, of Los Angeles; William B., of Los Angeles; Cave J., who is the immediate subject of this review; Nancy Dolores, who died in 1868, at the age of eleven; Ysidore Forster Fuller, widow of the late Judge Fuller, of Los Angeles, where she resides; Elena, who is Mrs. Parker Dear, of San Marino, California; Robert Lee, of Los Angeles, who died March 18, 1920; John Forster, of San Diego; and Caroline, wife of J. B. Winston, of Los Angeles.
The home in which Cave J. Couts resides has now been standing for eighty-two years. His ranch is devoted to general farming, with the exception of a grove planted to Valencia oranges, and all the old Spanish features of the place are retained. Mr. Couts is hale and hearty at the age of seventy-seven years and ranks with the leading and most respected citizens of his native county. He gives his political support to the democratic party and is a member of the county planning commission. His religious faith is that of the Roman Catholic Church.
In 1887 Mr. Couts married Lily Belle Clemens, a direct descendant of Mark Twain, and they became the parents of a son, Cave J. Couts, Jr., a resident of San Diego, whose biography appears on another page of this work.
Transcribed 5-26-13 Marilyn R. Pankey.
Source: California
of the South Vol. V, by John Steven McGroarty, Pages 717-721,
Clarke Publ., Chicago, Los Angeles, Indianapolis. 1933.
© 2013 Marilyn R. Pankey.
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BIOGRAPHIES