Although the Southland had plenty of locals named Dewey in 1899, when Dewey Street was christened, the most likely honoree is Admiral George Dewey (1837-1917), who one year earlier defeated the Spanish Navy at the Battle of Manila Bay and became an American hero. You can read a little more at the entry for Koreatown’s Dewey Avenue – and anyway, historians have the admiral and his exploits well-covered. Less discussed is the landowner who named this street: George Stanton Van Every (1838-1914). A Canadian by birth, he was living in Kansas City in 1884 when he impregnated a young woman named Frances Dykes, promised to marry her – and then didn’t. The baby died and Dykes sued for breach of promise; Van Every moved (fled?) to Santa Monica in 1887 and Dykes tracked him down a year later, eventually winning her suit (after stalking him at his house and pulling a gun on his brother). After the dust settled, Van Every married Elizabeth Kelsey (1855-1913). They had two sons and settled in Pomona. Although Van Every’s 1914 obituary stated that he had spent the last eleven years of his life at the Patton psychiatric hospital in San Bernardino, the 1910 census showed him living in DTLA with another woman! Elizabeth Van Every’s own obit made no mention of him and yet they are buried together. Mysteries surround the legacy of George S. Van Every.
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