J. Edward Hollenbeck and Joseph Phillips: the two men without whom Covina would not have existed.
These past six weeks I've been doing a deep dive into Covina founder Joseph Swift Phillips, and I've uncovered many surprising new facts. The subjects are fairly complicated and make for a long, dry read, however, so I thought I'd approach this article differently and start off with a list of my main points and then delve into the particulars afterwards.
I should perhaps note here at the outset that none of the following findings have been described in any previous published history of Covina. This is all new stuff here, especially the legal blockbuster near the end!
tl;dr summary:
• As I stated in a previous article, the real estate deal between Phillips and Hollenbeck for the tract of land which would become Covina took place in 1881, not 1882.
• The 1881 deal was only a contract for deed, not an outright sale, and Phillips may have used real estate instead of cash for his down payment.
• In 1885, Phillips had to borrow $40,000 to pay off Hollenbeck, and the loan was secured by a deed of trust that conveyed legal title from Hollenbeck directly to trustee James F. Houghton. Phillips himself never actually held marketable title to the tract which bore his name.
• Although Phillips was empowered to arrange and negotiate sales, all of the original land purchases and title conveyances in the Phillips Tract from 1885-1889 were brokered and closed by Houghton.
• Phillips ultimately failed to repay his 1885 loan, so in 1889, Houghton foreclosed and Phillips forfeited all of his Covina properties.
• Hollenbeck and Houghton both made big bank on the Phillips Tract, while Phillips himself lost everything.
• In 1894, Phillips sued almost everyone who had been involved with his past land dealings in a last ditch effort to recoup his financial losses.
• In sum, litigation expense was likely a significant contributor to Phillips's financial downfall.
Details and references below.
