USA > California > Monterey County > History and biographical record of Monterey and San Benito Counties : and history of the State of California : containing biographies of well-known citizens of the past and present. Volume I > Part 27
USA > California > San Benito County > History and biographical record of Monterey and San Benito Counties : and history of the State of California : containing biographies of well-known citizens of the past and present. Volume I > Part 27
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"Clerks in stores and offices had munificent salaries. Five dollars a day was about the small- est stipend even in the custom house, and one Baptist preacher was paid $10,000 a year. La- borers received $1 an hour; a pick or a shovel was worth $10; a tin pan or a wooden bowl $5, and a butcher knife $30. At one time car- penters who were getting $12 a day struck
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for $16. Lumber rose to $500 per thou- sand feet, and every brick in a house cost a dollar one way or another. Wheat, flour and salt pork sold at $40 a barrel; a small loaf of bread was fifty cents and a hard-boiled egg a dollar. You paid $3 to get into the cir- cus and $55 for a private box at the theater. Forty dollars was the price for ordinary coarse boots, and a pair that came above the knees and would carry you gallantly through the quag- mires brought a round hundred. When a shirt became very dirty the wearer threw it away and bought a new one. Washing cost $15 a dozen in 1849.
"Rents were simply monstrous; $3,000 a month in advance for a 'store' hurriedly built of rough boards. Wright & Co. paid $75,000 for the wretched little place on the corner of the plaza that they called the Miners' Bank, and $36,000 was asked for the use of the Old Adobe as a custom-house. The Parker House paid $120,000 a year in rents, nearly one-half of that amount being collected from gamblers who held the second floor; and the canvas tent next door used as a gambling saloon, and called the El Dorado, was good for $40,000 a year. From IO to 15 per cent a month was paid in advance for the use of money borrowed on substantial security. The prices of real estate went up among the stars; $8,000 for a fifty-vara lot that had been bought in 1849 for $20. A lot pur- chased two years before for a barrel of aguar- diente sold for $18,000. Yet, for all that, every- body made money.
"The aspect of the streets of San Francisco at this time was such as one may imagine of an unsightly waste of sand and mud churned by the continual grinding of heavy wagons and trucks and the tugging and floundering of horses, mules and oxen; thoroughfares irregu- lar and uneven, ungraded, unpaved, unplanked, obstructed by lumber and goods, alternate lumps and holes, the actual dumping-places of the town, handy receptacles for the general sweepings and rubbish and indescribable offal and filth, the refuse of an indiscriminate popu- lation 'pigging' together in shanties and tents. And these conditions extended beyond the actual settlement into the chaparral and under-
brush that covered the sand hills on the north and west.
"The flooding rains of winter transformed what should have been thoroughfares into treacherous quagmires set with holes and traps fit to smother horse and man. Loads of brush- wood and branches of trees cut from the hills were thrown into these swamps; but they served no more than a temporary purpose and the in- mates of tents and houses made such bridges and crossings as they could with boards, boxes and barrels. Men waded through the slough and thought themselves lucky when they sank no deeper than their waists."
It is said that two horses mired down in the mud of Montgomery street were left to die of starvation, and that three drunken men were suffocated between Washington and Jackson streets. It was during the winter of '49 that the famous sidewalk of flour sacks, cooking stoves and tobacco boxes was built. It extended from Simmons, Hutchinson & Co.'s store to Adams Express office, a distance of about seventy-five yards. The first portion was built of Chilean flour in one hundred pound sacks, next came the cooking stoves in a long row, and then followed a double row of tobacco boxes of large size, and a yawning gap of the walk was bridged by a piano. Chile flour, cooking stoves, tobacco and pianos were cheaper material for building walks, owing to the excessive supply of these, than lumber at $600 a thousand.
In the summer of '49 there were more than three hundred sailing vessels lying in the harbor of San Francisco, from which the sailors had deserted to go to the mines. Some of these ves- sels rotted where they were moored. Some were hauled up in the sand or mud flats and used for store houses, lodging houses and sa- loons. As the water lots were filled in and built upon, these ships sometimes formed part of the line of buildings on the street. The brig Euphemia was the first jail owned by the city; the store ship Apollo was converted into a lodging house and saloon, and the Niantic Hotel at the corner of Sansome and Clay streets was built on the hull of the ship Niantic. As the wharves were extended out into the bay the space between was filled in from the sand hills
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and houses built along the wharves. In this way the cove was gradually filled in. The high price of lumber and the great scarcity of houses brought about the importation from New York, Boston, Philadelphia and London of houses ready framed to set up. For a time im- mense profits were made in this, but an ex- cessive shipment like that of the articles of which the famous sidewalk was made brought down the price below cost, and the business ceased.
The first of the great fires that devastated San Francisco occurred on Christmas eve, 1849. It started in Denison's Exchange, a gambling house on the east side of the plaza. It burned the greater part of the block between Wash- ington and Clay streets and Kearny and Mont- gomery streets. The loss was estimated at a million and a quarter dollars. The second great fire occurred on May 4, 1850. It burned over the three blocks between Montgomery and Dupont streets, bounded by Jackson and Clay streets, and the north and east sides of Ports- mouth square. The loss was estimated at $4,000,000. It started in the United States Ex- change, a gambling den, at four o'clock in the morning, and burned for seven hours. The fire was believed to be of incendiary origin and sev- eral suspicious characters were arrested, but nothing could be proved against them. A num- ber of the lookers-on refused to assist in arrest- ing the progress of the flames unless paid for their labor ; and $3 an hour was demanded and paid to some who did.
On the 14th of June, 1850, a fire broke out in the Sacramento House, on the east side of Kear- ny street, between Clay and Sacramento. The entire district from Kearny street between Clay and California to the water front was burned over, causing a loss of $3,000,000. Over three hundred houses were destroyed. The fourth great fire of the fateful year of 1850 occurred September 17. It started on Jackson street and destroyed the greater part of the blocks be- tween Dupont and Montgomery streets from Washington to Pacific streets. The loss in this wa's not so great from the fact that the district contained mostly one-story houses. It was esti- mated at half a million dollars. December 14
of the same year a fire occurred on Sacramento street below Montgomery. Although the dis- trict burned over was not extensive, the loss was heavy. The buildings were of corrugated iron, supposed to be fireproof, and were filled with valuable merchandise. The loss amounted to $1,000,000. After each fire, building was re- sumed almost before the embers of the fire that consumed the former buildings were extin- guished. After each fire better buildings were constructed. A period of six months' exemp- tion had encouraged the inhabitants of the fire- afflicted city to believe that on account of the better class of buildings constructed the danger of great conflagrations was past, but the worst was yet to come. At II p. m. May 3, 1851, a fire, started by incendiaries, broke out on the south side of the plaza. A strong northwest wind swept across Kearny street in broad sheets of flame, first southeastward, then, the wind changing, the flames veered to the north and east. All efforts to arrest them were use- less; houses were blown up and torn down in attempts to cut off communication, but the en- gines were driven back step by step, while some of the brave firemen fell victims to the fire fiend. The flames, rising aloft in whirling volumes, swept away the frame houses and crumbled up with intense heat the supposed fireproof struc- tures. After ten hours, when the fire abated for want of material to burn, all that remained of the city were the sparsely settled outskirts. All of the business district between Pine and Pa- cific streets, from Kearny to the Battery on the water front, was in ruins. Over one thou- sand houses had been burned. The loss of prop- erty was estimated at $10,000,000, an amount greater than the aggregate of all the preceding fires. A number of lives were lost. During the progress of the fire large quantities of goods were stolen by bands of thieves. The sixth and last of the great conflagrations that devastated the city occurred on the 22d of June, 1851. The fire started in a building on Powell street and ravaged the district between Clay and Broadway, from Powell to Sansome. Four hundred and fifty houses were burned, involving a loss of $2,500,000. An improved fire department, more stringent building regulations and a bet-
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ter water supply combined to put an end to the era of great fires.
After the great fires of 1851 had swept over the city there was practically nothing left of the old metropolis of the early gold rush. The hastily constructed wooden shanties were gone; the corrugated iron building imported from New York and London, and warranted to be fireproof, had proved to be worthless to with- stand great heat; the historic buildings had dis- appeared; the new city that, Phoenix-like, arose from the ashes of the old was a very different city from its predecessor that had been wiped from the earth by successive conflagrations. Stone and brick buildings covered the former site of wooden structures. The unsightly mud flats between the wharves were filled in from the sand hills and some of the streets paved. The year 1853 was memorable for the rapid progress of the city. Assessed property values increased from $18,000,000 to $28,000,000. Real estate values went soaring upward and the city was on the high tide of prosperity; but a reaction came in 1855. The rush to the mines had ceased, im- migration had fallen off, and men had begun to retrench and settle down to steady business habits. Home productions had replaced im- ports, and the people were abandoning mining for farms. The transition from gold mining to grain growing had begun. All these affected the city and real estate declined. Lots that sold for $8,000 to $10,000 in 1853 could be bought for half that amount in 1855. Out of one thou- sand business houses, three hundred were va- cant. Another influence that helped to bring about a depression was the growing political
corruption and the increased taxation from pec- ulations of dishonest officials.
The defalcations and forgeries of Harry Meigs, which occurred in 1854, were a terrible blow to the city. Meigs was one of its most trusted citizens. He was regarded as the em- bodiment of integrity, the stern, incorruptible man, the watch-dog of the treasury. By his upright conduct he had earned the sobriquet of Honest Harry Meigs. Over-speculation and reaction from the boom of 1853 embarrassed him. He forged a large amount of city scrip and hypothecated it to raise money. His forger- ies were suspected, but before the truth was known he made his escape on the barque America to Costa Rica and from there he made his way to Peru. His forgeries amounted to $1,500,000, of which $1,000,000 was in comp- troller's warrants, to which he forged the names of Mayor Garrison and Controller Harris. The vigilance committee of 1856 cleared the political atmosphere by clearing the city, by means of hemp and deportation, of a number of bad characters. The city was just beginning to re- gain its former prosperity when the Frazer river excitement brought about a temporary depres- sion. The wild rush carried away about one- sixth of its population. These all came back again; poorer and perhaps wiser; at least, their necessities compelled them to go to work and weaned them somewhat of their extravagant habits and their disinclination to work except for the large returns of earlier days. Since 1857 the growth of the city has been steady, unmarked by real estate booms; nor has it been retarded by long periods of financial depression.
CHAPTER XXVII. CRIME, CRIMINALS AND VIGILANCE COMMITTEES.
T HERE was but little crime in California among its white inhabitants during the Spanish and Mexican eras of its history. The conditions were not conducive to the de- velopment of a criminal element. The inhabit- ants were a pastoral people, pursuing an out- door vocation, and there were no large towns or cities where the viciously inclined could con-
gregate and find a place of refuge from justice. "From 1819 to 1846, that is, during the entire period of Mexican domination under the Repub- lic," says Bancroft, "there were but six murders among the whites in all California." There were no lynchings, no mobs, unless some of the rev- olutionary uprisings might be called such, and but one vigilance committee.
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HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
San Francisco is credited with the origin of that form of popular tribunal known as the vigi- lance committee. The name "vigilance com- mittee" originated with the uprising, in 1851, of the people of that city against the criminal ele- ment; but, years before there was a city of San Francisco, Los Angeles had originated a tri- bunal of the people, had taken criminals from the lawfully constituted authorities and had tried and executed them. The causes which called into existence the first vigilance committee in California were similar to those that created the later ones, namely, laxity in the administration of the laws and distrust in the integrity of those chosen to administer them. During the "decade of revolutions," that is, between 1830 and 1840, the frequent change of rulers and the struggles of the different factions for power en- gendcred in the masses a disregard, not only for their rulers, but for law and order as well. Criminals escaped punishment through the law's delays. No court in California had power to pass sentence of death on a civilian until its findings had been approved by the superior tri- bunal of Mexico. In the slow and tedious proc- esses of the different courts, a criminal stood a good show of dying of old age before his case reached final adjudication. The first committee of vigilance in California was organized at Los Angeles, in the house of Juan Temple, April 7, 1836. It was called "Junta Defensora de La Seguridad Publica," United Defenders of the Public Security (or safety). Its motto, which ap- pears in the heading of its "acta," and is there credited as a quotation from Montesquieu's Ex- position of the Laws, Book 26, Chapter 23, was, "Salus populi suprema lex est" (The safety of the people is the supreme law). There is a marked similarity between the proceedings of the Junta Defensora of 1836 and the San Fran- cisco vigilance committee of 1856; it is not probable, however, that any of the actors in the latter committee participated in the former. Although there is quite a full account of the proceedings of the Junta Defensora in the Los Angeles city archives, no historian heretofore except Bancroft seems to have found it.
The circumstances which brought about the organization of the Junta Defensora are as fol-
lows: The wife of Domingo Feliz (part owner of the Los Feliz Rancho), who bore the poet- ical name of Maria del Rosario Villa, became infatuated with a handsome but disreputable Sonoran vaquero, Gervacio Alispaz by name. She abandoned her husband and lived with Alis- paz as his mistress at San Gabriel. Feliz sought to reclaim his erring wife, but was met by in- sults and abuse from her paramour, whom he once wounded in a personal altercation. Feliz finally invoked the aid of the authorities. The woman was arrested and brought to town. A reconciliation was effected between the husband and wife. Two days later they left town for the rancho, both riding one horse. On the way they were met by Alispaz, and in a personal en- counter Feliz was stabbed to death by the wife's paramour. The body was dragged into a ra- vine and covered with brush and leaves. Next day, March 29, the body was found and brought to the city. The murderer and the woman were arrested and imprisoned. The people were filled with horror and indignation, and there were threats of summary vengeance, but better coun- sel prevailed.
On the 30th the funeral of Feliz took place, and, like that of James King of William, twenty years later, was the occasion for the renewal of the outcry for vengeance. The attitude of the people became so threatening that on the Ist of April an extraordinary session of the ayun- tamiento was held. A call was made upon the citizens to form an organization to preserve the peace. A considerable number responded and were formed into military patrols under the command of Don Juan B. Leandry. The illus- trious ayuntamiento resolved "that whomsoever shall disturb the public tranquillity shall be pun- ished according to law." The excitement ap- parently died out, but it was only the calm that precedes the storm. The beginning of the Easter ceremonies was at hand, and it was deemed a sacrilege to execute the assassins in holy week, so all further attempts at punishment were deferred until April 7, the Monday after Easter, when at dawn, by previous understand- ing, a number of the better class of citizens gathered at the house of Juan Temple, which stood on the site of the new postoffice. An or-
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ganization was effected. Victor Prudon, a na- tive of Breton, France, but a naturalized citizen of California, was elected president; Manuel Arzaga, a native of California, was elected sec- retary, and Francisco Araujo, a retired army officer, was placed in command of the armed force. Speeches were made by Prudon, and by the military commandant- and others, setting forth the necessity of their organization and jus- tifying their actions. It was unanimously de- cided that both the man and the woman should be shot; their guilt being evident, no trial was deemed necessary.
An address to the authorities and the people was formulated. A copy of this is preserved in the city archives. It abounds in metaphors. It is too long for insertion here. I make a few extracts : Believing that immorality has reached such an extreme that public secur- ity is menaced and will be lost if the dike of a solemn example is not opposed to the torrent of atrocious perfidy, we demand of you that you execute or deliver to us for immediate execution the assassin, Gervacio Alispaz, and the unfaith- ful Maria del Rosario Villa, his accomplice. * * Nature trembles at the sight of these venomous reptiles and the soil turns barren in its refusal to support their detestable existence. Let the infernal pair perish!' It is the will of the people. We will not lay down our arms until our petition is granted and the murderers are exe- cuted. The proof of their guilt is so clear that justice needs no investigation. Public vengeance demands an example and it must be given. The. blood of the Alvarez, of the Patinos, of the Jenkins, is not yet cold-they, too, being the unfortunate victims of the brutal passions of their murderers. Their bloody ghosts shriek for vengeance. Their terrible voices re-echo from their graves. The afflicted widow, the for- saken orphan, the aged father, the brother. in mourning, the inconsolable mother, the public -all demand speedy punishment of the guilty. We swear that outraged justice shall be avenged to-day or we shall die in the attempt. The blood of the murderers shall be shed to-day or ours will be to the last drop. It will be published throughout the world that judges in Los An- geles tolerate murderers, but that there are
virtuous citizens who sacrifice their lives in order to preserve those of their countrymen."
"A committee will deliver to the First Consti- tutional Alcalde a copy of these resolutions, that he may decide whatever he finds most con- venient, and one hour's time will be given him in which to do so. If in that time no answer has been received, then the judge will be responsible before God and man for what will follow. Death to the murderers!
"God and liberty. Angeles, April 7, 1836."
Fifty-five signatures are attached to this doc- ument; fourteen of these are those of natural- ized foreigners and the remainder those of na- tive Californians. The junta was made up of the best citizens, native and foreign. An extraor- dinary session of the ayuntamiento was called. The members of the junta, fully armed, marched to the city hall to await the decision of the authorities. The petition was discussed in the council, and, in the language of the archives: "This Illustrious Body decided to call said Breton Prudon to appear before it and to com- pel him to retire with the armed citizens so that this Illustrious Body may deliberate at liberty."
"This was done, but he declined to appear before this body, as he and the armed citizens were determined to obtain Gervacio Alispaz and Maria del Rosario Villa. The ayuntamiento decided that as it had not sufficient force to .compel the armed citizens to disband, they being in large numbers and composed of the best and most respectable men of the town, to send an answer saying that the judges could not accede to the demand of the armed citi- zens."
The members of the Junta Defensora then marched in a body to the jail and demanded the keys of the guard. These were refused. The keys were secured by force and Gervacio Alispaz taken out and shot. The following demand was then sent to the first alcalde, Manuel Requena:
"It is absolutely necessary that you deliver to this junta the key of the apartment where Maria del Rosario Villa is kept.
"God and liberty.
"VICTOR PRUDON, President.
"MANUEL ARZAGA, Secretary."
-.
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HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
To this the alcalde replied: "Maria del Rosa- rio Villa is incarcerated at a private dwelling, whose owner has the key, with instructions not to deliver the same to any one. The prisoner is left there at the disposition of the law only.
"God and liberty.
"MANUEL REQUENA, Alcalde."
The key was obtained. The wretched Maria was taken to the place of execution on a car- reta and shot. The bodies of the guilty pair were brought back to the jail and the following communication sent to the alcalde:
"Junta of the Defenders of Public Safety. "To the Ist Constitutional Alcalde:
"The dead bodies of Gervacio Alispaz and Maria del Rosario Villa are at your disposal. We also forward you the jail keys that you may deliver them to whomsoever is on guard. In case you are in need of men to serve as guards, we are all at your disposal.
"God and liberty. Angeles, April 7, 1836. "VICTOR PRUDON, Pres. "MANUEL ARZAGA, Sec."
A few days later the Junta Defensora de La Seguridad Publica disbanded; and so ended the only instance in the seventy-five years of Span- ish and Mexican rule in California, of the people, by popular tribunal, taking the administration of justice out of the hands of the legally consti- tuted authorities.
The tales of the fabulous richness of the gold fields of California were quickly spread through- out the world and drew to the territory all classes and conditions of men, the bad as well as the good, the vicious as well as the virtuous; the indolent, the profligate and the criminal came to prey upon the industrious. These con- glomerate elements of society found the Land of Gold practically without law, and the vicious among them were not long in making it a land without order. With that inherent trait, which makes the Anglo-Saxon wherever he may be an organizer, the American element of the gold seekers soon adjusted a form of government to suit the exigencies of the land and the people. There may have been too much lynching, too much vigilance committee in it and too little
respect for lawfully constituted authorities, but it was effective and was suited to the social conditions existing.
In 1851 the criminal element became so dom- inant as to seriously threaten the existence of the chief city, San Francisco. Terrible conflagra- tions had swept over the city in May and June of that year and destroyed the greater part of the business portion. The fires were known to be of incendiary origin. The bold and defiant attitude of the vicious classes led to the or- ganization by the better element, of that form of popular tribunal called a committee of vigi- lance. The law abiding element among the cit- izens disregarding the legally constituted authorities, who were either too weak or too corrupt to control the law-defying, took the power in their own hands, organized a vigilance committee and tried and executed by hanging- four notorious criminals, namely: Jenkins,. Stuart, Whitaker and Mckenzie.
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