Early Monrovia Structures Research

James Elam

Birthdate:

James Elam Hunter was the son of a wealthy farmer.  The 1970 U.S. census records Hunter's father as having real estate valued at $10,000 and personal estate of $17,000.  This is an enormous amount of money for post Civil War Texas.

The earliest record of Hunter being in Los Angeles is the voter registration list of 1888.  His occupation is listed as and attorney, and he is only 26 years old.  He may have brought from Texas to Southern California by the advertising for affordable, fertile land.  He buys Lot 19 in Block B of the Town of Monrovia Subdivision.

He pays Monrovian Charles E. Slosson to manage the property for him, but he only owns the property for three years.  The property values drop steadily from 1888.  By 1890, the First National Bank owns the property.  It is difficult to determine what the chain of ownership is from the tax records.  The bank owns the property from 1890 to 1897.  Then a woman named Adeline F. Wright owns the property, which is now valued at $75.  In 1898, she builds a house on the property.

Then from 1900-1901, James Hunter, owns the property again.  But since Hunter dies on February 19, 1899,  in Los Angeles, it isn't likely that the tax records are correct.  Adeline Wright appears in the tax records again as owning the property from 1902-1909.