Levi Newton Breed

Levi Newton Breed (December 4, 1831 – December 17, 1908) was an active and early American participant in 19th Century California, where he helped organize Lassen County and was a member of the Los Angeles Common Council, the governing body of that city.

Personal

Breed was born in Manlius, Onondaga County, New York on December 4, 1831. When he was 4 years old, his family moved to Hannibal, New York, and Breed worked on his father's farm and attended school until 1850, when he moved to Schuyler County, Illinois, where he again farmed and went to school for two more years.

In 1893 the Breeds were living at the Hotel Nadeau in Los Angeles.

He was a Mason and a Republican.

Breed died December 17, 1908, at the Hotel Stewart in San Francisco, leaving his wife and their daughter; the latter had married Charles C. Moore of San Francisco.

Breed became a miner, at one time partnering with T.P. Kingsbury. Later he went to Honey Lake Valley, now a part of Lassen County, where he was the third Caucasian settler, and he opened a trading post in Indian Valley in 1856, having bought a "small stock of goods" from E.D. Hosselkus and T.J. Harvey.

Breed was a member of the first city Board of Fire Commissioners in 1887.

He was an organizer of the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce and was its treasurer from 1889 to 1895. Of the latter, he said that

"The natives are an indolent, but good-tempered and hospitable, race of people, who live only for today, giving no thought for tomorrow, and caring very little for anything except their present enjoyment. They are rapidly decreasing in numbers, and will soon become entirely extinct. . . . All the best people will stand by the present [counterrevolutionary] government . . . and are strongly in favor of annexation to the United States. What Honolulu needs at the present time is a sewer system and cable connections" with the United States.

Legacy

In Los Angeles, Breed was interested in street improvements, "and the laying out of the city's parks. To his efforts is due much of the credit for the present park system" of the city.

Breed Street in Boyle Heights, Los Angeles was named for him.