“General” John Howard Shields (1829-1902) was one of those eccentric mountain dwellers of early La Crescenta. The oldest child in a large, wealthy Tennessee family – Dad was a physician and they kept nine people as slaves – Shields married Margaret A. McMillan (1832-1900) in 1852 and ran various businesses in Knoxville including a stove manufactory and a general store. There’s no indication that he fought in the Civil War, but Union troops did burn down his house in 1863. Two years later, Shields’s assets and property were seized, suggesting bankruptcy, so he took his family to Alabama and then to Cincinnati, where he graduated from law school. The Shieldses and their five kids came to California in 1874; after picking up some land in Lompoc, they set up a farm in Florence, south of Los Angeles. Shields was going by “General” at this point, despite his civilian background, and soon became a locally esteemed horticulturalist. In 1882, he purchased some acreage in these hills and holed himself up in a tiny cabin while Margaret and the kids relocated to DTLA. (In the 1887-1888 Los Angeles City Directory, Margaret was listed as a “widow” – her nutty husband was dead to her.) Shields Canyon was named by 1885. Ten years later, Shields obtained a passport and went traveling. He died of a heart attack in Coatepec, Veracruz, Mexico.
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