USA > California > Contra Costa County > History of Contra Costa County, California, including its geography, geology, topography, climatography and description; together with a record of the Mexican grants also, incidents of pioneer life; and biographical sketches of early and prominent settlers and representative men > Part 74
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JOHN B. SMITH .-- A native of New Bedford, Massachusets, born March 31, 1839. When but six years of age he was taken by his parents on a whaling voyage for three years, his father being a sea captain. On their return home, John was left in care of an uncle, and his parents sailed for California, via Cape Horn, and four years later our subject started via Panama to join his parents in the Golden State, arriving in San Francisco, January 27, 1852, where he resided one year. He then with his parents came to Contra Costa county, and, in the Fall of 1853, located on a place now owned by Mr. Sturges, seven miles from Martinez, and there remained until July 5, 1864. On that date he enlisted in Company E, Second California Volunteer Infantry, in which he served for nearly two years. In 1866, on receiving his discharge from the army, he returned to his home in this county, where he resided with his parents until 1868, when, through a fraudulent title, they lost their place. He then moved to Martinez, where he followed several different occupations until 1880, when, in November of that year, he, in company with James Johnson, and under the firm name of Smith & Johnson, opened up their present cigar and billiard saloon, in which our subject still continues. Was united in marriage, May 14, 1871, to Miss Nellie F. Austin, a native of North Tunbridge, Orange county, Vermont. By this union they have three children, two daughters (twins) and one son : Mary and Mercie, and Arthur.
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JOHN F. S. SMITH .- Now living on the San Miguel Rancho, where his sons, Smith Brothers, are engaged in farming and stock-raising, we find the subject of this sketch. Mr. Smith, the old " ex-Sheriff" of Contra Costa county, as he is familiarly known among all of the old settlers, and whose personal acts as an energetic officer in the discharge of the then dangerous and trying duties of his position, were not only in the arrest of criminals of the most desperate kind, but on many occasions he was forced to contend with that greater danger to society, the rampant " mob spirit " then prevailing and threatening at times the subversion of law and order to the whims of an excited people, led generally by thoughtless dema- gogues to the extremes of daring rashness. Mr. Smith was evidently a success as a Sheriff, for notwithstanding the lapse of time, having retired from office as Sheriff in 1855, his sobriquet of ex-Sheriff still attaches to his name, and in the recital of the stirring events of his official term, his fellow citizens invariably refer to him in the honorable terms of the " right man in the right place." As stated, we found the old ex-Sheriff to be quite a courteous gentleman, of about sixty years, living with his large family on a fine ranch in Ygnacio valley, at the western base of Mount Diablo. We were kindly received and agreeably entertained by himself and family. He was quite willing to impart his knowledge of the early history of the county, but when informed that our special object was his biography, as one of the pioneers of Contra Costa county, a shade of sadness passed over his features and he replied that notwithstanding many incidents of his personal history would make interesting reading for a book, he did not relish the egotistical task of writing of himself-for if not altogether a failure in the struggle of life, he certainly was one financially. But after solicitation and informing him that it was a necessity to our history of the county, he penned for us the following events :-
In throwing memory back over the thousand incidents in my personal history since I became aware of passing events, the task of selecting matter for this writing is overpowering, and I am tempted to con- dense by the simple recital that, on information and belief, I am the third son of respectable parents, and was on the 21st of November, A. D. 1821, in the city of Savannah, Georgia, introduced to this troublous world, in which, after possibly passing a few more years, the coroner will prob- ably give you the date of my exit. But my promise requires something more, and therefore I must comply and if possible make the matter read- able. My father was Captain James Smith of the United States navy, a native of Richmond, Virginia, of the old cavalier stock of Smiths and Mumfords of that old dominion. My mother was Mary Boylston, a native of Springfield, Massachusetts, and of the old Puritan stock of Morgans. James Boylston, my grandfather, was a Captain in the English
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army, and married my grandmother when the old revolutionary war was only a "little unpleasantness " to be settled in a few days, and which finally culminated in the independence of the Colonies after a long and bloody war. It was similar to the beginning of the late " secesh war," and there were many William H. Sewards at that time to predict a resto- ration of peace within "sixty days." The early history of my family brings out that fact forcibly. The Morgans, of Springfield, were strong Whigs, there was a family of Boylstons living in Boston, also Whigs, Captain James Boylston was introduced to the family by my great uncle, the late General David B. Morgan, his intimate friend, to placate the bitter hatred of the old mother towards the English, represented him as of the Boston stock of Boylstons, and as such he was welcomed to the family circle, they, my uncle and his friend the Captain, anticipating that the war clouds then lowering over America would soon blow over, and they would then find no difficulty in making peace with the old lady. The possibility of war could not stop the course of true love, and the young English Captain and the young daughter of the family fell hope- lessly in love. The old lady having learned that her guest was only a cousin of the Boston family of Boylstons and the son and heir of the hated English stock, and still worse, an officer in the army of King George, wrathfully drove him from the house, and threatened, in case of any future visit, to have her negro slaves (slavery then existed in Mass- achusetts) tie him and deliver him over to Washington as a spy.
The young captain and his lady love were married with the connivance of her brother David, and until called off to duty in the army, continued to visit his wife unknown to the old mother. My grandfather finally parted from his bride, fondly hoping that the unhappy war would soon cease and he would be permitted to return and claim her with the consent of all. But his young bride soon became a widow, and soon after a mother of an orphan girl. Her husband became a martyr to duty, and after giving birth to her child she followed him to where no ruthless wars could separate them, leaving her little girl in the care of her brother, the late General David B. Morgan, of Louisiana history, he to become her guardian and protector, the old lady having never forgiven her daugher for her secret marriage with the hated Englishman. The dying mother insisted upon depriving her of any care for or interest in her child, and insisted on the brother's promise to guard and protect her little babe. In the late "secesh" war we have many analagous cases of the loves and hates of the female sex within the rebel lines-for bear in mind my great-grandmother was a rebel of Massachusetts.
We have a family story, which, as it concerns Washington, may be listened to with interest. My great-grandfather Morgan being one of General Washington's warmest supporters, was frequently visited by him
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for counsel and advice. My grandfather, then young Boylston, was of course introduced and became acquainted with the great man on such ยท occasions. In the course of the bloody war which followed, Washington in the early dawn was inspecting the outer or picket lines, when he dis- covered a British soldier in the act of leveling his musket on him. Whilst facing the man in expectation of the bullet, he perceived an officer dash- ing rapidly up to the man, and in the next instant disarmed him, with these words : "King George expects from you the duty of a soldier and not that of an assassin," and then sent him in under arrest. Wash-> ington, in bowing his thanks, begged to know the name of the preserver of his life. The response was: " At some future time I hope to have the pleasure of giving it." The General subsequently learned that the gallant officer was Captain James Boylston, and that he fell mortally wounded on the battle field the same day, and died on board of a transport shortly after. On relating the incident to the family at the close of the war, he begged to be allowed to adopt little Mary, as he was childless, in gratitude to the dead father. The family declined the honorable request. As time rolled on and peace and social intercourse had been established, my mother, then a girl of fifteen, with her uncle, visited the family of the Lord Chief Justice of Canada. While there she was struck with the resem- blance of one of the portraits to that of her father in her locket, and while comparing the two, the old Admiral Holloway, of the British Navy, came hobbling by, and inquired why she compared them, and asked her who the locket represented. She replied : "My father !" " Who was your father ?" "James Boylston, sir." "Why, that is James Boylston on the wall-my nephew;" and looking at the locket and then at her, said, excitedly : "That is he, and you are surely his daughter. Explain to me, child ! I did not know of his marriage in America." She referred him to her Uncle David, who soon explained the matter of the private marriage with his sister and the unhappy circumstances following. The old Admiral became still more excited, from the fact that James Boylston being supposed to have died intestate, the large estates in England were inherited, with the name and title, by the eldest son of the Admiral, he being the next in blood. After looking up the proofs of the marriage, the Admiral insisted on taking young Mary to England, and as the right- ful heir of the estates, to be vested with her rights, as a simple act of justice, though by so doing he would deprive his own son of the title and estates which he was then unjustly enjoying. The papers being all arranged, they in due time arrived in England. The son was required by his father to resign the property, titles, etc., to the rightful heir; the young man refused ; the father denounced him as a dishonest man and a degenerate son, and proceeded to enforce the claim at law. Some miss- ing link or flaw in the proofs was observed, which required a return to
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America for additional evidence; he thereupon returned with her, and after having supplied the deficiency, was preparing to go back as soon as the next convoy would start, with renewed determination to oust his degenerate son, when death called the old man from earth and trouble. Feeling that his end was near, he called for Mary, the papers and the Lord Chief Justice, his son-in-law ; placing the papers in his hands he exacted from his son-in-law a promise to proceed to England and enforce the claim of James Boylston's lawful heir and dispossess the degenerate son. As soon as practicable thereafter (the war against Napoleon then existing rendering a convoy necessary to cross the ocean), the Chief Justice and my mother were prepared to start in pursuance of the dying injunction of the Admiral, and in performing the last judicial act of his sitting-to wit, passing sentence of death upon the unhappy son of a dear friend-the shock caused the bursting of a blood vessel, and he died in his chair. Of course, this melancholy circumstance caused an indefinite postponement, and as there seemed a kind of fatality attending the prose- cution of the matter she was loath to undertake it again, and as other sorrows soon after followed, plunging her into deeper grief, she aban- doned the contest altogether, as she was not in need of the estates, having a good property of her own in America. Where the papers are I do not know. As the widow of the Chief Justice was the sister of the usurper, it is possible they were given to him, and, if so, soon to the flames. Some few years subsequently he visited my mother and proposed a compromise, offering to settle upon her one thousand pounds per annum for a quit claim. She indignantly ordered him to be gone, and never again dare to insult her in such manner. During the interval after the death of her friend the Chief Justice, she had become the wife of Captain Alexander Cameron, then stationed in Canada, who was taken from her by death, leaving her a widow with one son, and thus overpowered by continued sorrows, she declined to prosecute her claim any further.
The foregoing, as appended to a biography of the writer, is, un- doubtedly, extraneous, if not irrelevent. I give it as a romantic circum- stance, calculated to interest the American reader much more than the tame commonplace recital of the writer's experience, and much pleasanter writing to him.
Responding to the obligation of writing a smattering of the writer's acts and doings. My parents were prominent citizens of Savannah, Georgia. I was the youngest of four children, three boys and one daughter. After the death of my father, which occurred in 1829, my mother, then being reduced in fortune, was induced to remove with her children to New Orleans, by her uncle and former guardian, General D. B. Morgan. My eldest brother, the late Colonel William M. Smith, and founder of the town of Martinez, having run away to sea to get rid of
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the pedagogues, they being too much of the Teddy O'Rourke kind to suit his temper, and, although he subsequently became a man of culture and refinement, it was acquired by his own exertions as responsive to the calls of a brilliant natural intellect. He was a boy of courage, wit and pride, and a favorite with his schoolmates, but was termed a " bad boy " by teachers-and, as such, was the recipient of hardships only, which he invariably returned in evil tricks upon the master, and instead of learning, hated books and schoolmasters in particular. My brother, Wm. M. Smith, having been an early pioneer of California, and founder of the town of Martinez, is entitled to more than a passing notice. The family resided in New Orleans in reduced, though fair circumstances ; from there my brother James and I were sent north to school, in the Summer of 1833, and having been informed that the little town of Stonington, Connec- ticut, possessed a fine academy, a healthy climate, and good Puritan morals, and, as New Orleans, in 1833, was a bad place for boys, with its mixed population of American, French, Spanish, quadroon and negro, (Anglo-Saxons, Celtic and Teutonic races being classed collectively as Americans), there was a continued war of races kept up between the boys, the Americans, (Irish, etc.,) on the one hand, and the French, negroes, etc., on the other ; many were the glorious victories won over the combined forces of the enemy. Neither Generals Grant nor R. E. Lee could claim higher credit than we awarded to our gallant Captain "Jim Connolly." Ned Warfield was First Lieutenant, my brother James was Second-of course, your humble servant was a junior in the ranks. We were not hoodlumns, but patriots, engaged in maintaining the superior qualities of our race in a contest with numbers.
The gens d' armes, or police, being French, we regarded them as enemies, and, when in force, attacked them fearlessly-a war of races existed, and the boy who shirked duty was disgraced. Hence, the moral atmosphere of the little Yankee town was considered necessary as a wholesome antidote to the mental poison of that turbulent city. We were duly shipped on the brig Citizen, and consigned to Old Kirby, the Irish principal and proprietor of the Stonington Academy. My brother James, being three years older than I, refused to submit to Kirby's petty tyranny, and ran away and shipped to sea, leaving me alone at the age of twelve in that far-distant place, a complete slave, under a miserable tyrant. The people of the little town gave me the kindest sympathy. The little southern boy was especially invited to all child-parties, among the highest families, as a kind of compensation for Kirby's cruelty. Having succeeded, through the aid of a school-fellow, in informing my mother of the facts, (Kirby having withheld and destroyed my letters), I was immediately removed to the Lawrenceville High School, in the State of New Jersey, with Rev. A. H. Phillips as principal, and at which
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school I remained till the Fall of 1835, at which time I returned south. While, during the nine months under Old Kirby, I had absorbed a little of the rudiments of education-yet to the Rev. A. H. Phillips I am indebted for what little I ever received from schools. Kirby governed by the rod, and in the true Teddy O'Rourke style-if the mind wouldn't mark, faith he'd soon mark the back-and as I could not stand his flog- ging, nor be a family " flunkey " at his house, we were in constant war- fare, and instead of being morally or intellectually improved, he graduated me as a first-class hater of all Yankee one-eyed-Irish schoolmasters. Evidently my frequent battles with the old tyrant enlisted the sympathy of the townspeople, for my grateful memory recurs to and treasures many incidents of their noble kindness to the little stranger.
By contrast, allow me to return to the noble Phillips, and his gentle- manly tutors, at the Lawrenceville High School. Boys were taught to be gentlemen, and, as such, held to a strict responsibility-corporal pun- ishment being the last resort, only prior to expulsion and eternal disgrace. The result of such treatment, (in lieu of the code of Old Kirby, as prac- ticed by him under the " Puritanical system of Connecticut,") was the development of all the best elements of character-the intellect was stimulated and cultivated by the best of teachers, and the deportment of a gentleman being always required in the intercourse between pupils as well as with the teachers, who were companions as well as teachers.
In closing this subject, I must say that my practical experience of the New England system of education under "Kirby" at the Stonington Academy is not favorable, but, to the contrary, a damning record of the brutality of a prominent pedagogue, practiced in full knowledge of the people of that Godly and moral town upon a helpless child of one of the best families of the South, out of hearing and reach of his people, and for no other cause than refusing to be the house "flunkey " after school hours of the tyrant to whose care he was entrusted, through the influ- ence of New England friends residing in New Orleans. The reader must not infer from the foregoing that I was by nature a " bad boy." To the contrary, I was kind and tractable, and not rebellious, except when glaring injustice aroused the natural spirit of my race. At Lawrence- ville, under the noble Phillips, all the good elements of nature were culti- vated; and reviewing the course of my early life, cast at the age of seventeen amidst the wild excitements of border life on the frontiers of Texas, I feel that to my friend Phillips I am largely indebted for those sound principles of true honor inculcated into my mind, acting as a chart of guidance through all the temptations of a varied life, exposed to the allurements of gilded vice of every form, when suffering under the usual poverty and want incidental to the adventurous youth.
So much for the two styles of educating. Under Kirby's training, my
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Texan experience, in spite of a certain pride of blood inherited from my ancestry, would no doubt have inclined me to the bad-" for as the twig is bent the tree's inclined." Returning South, I joined my mother in Mobile, the family having removed from New Orleans. I remained there and at New Orleans till the Spring of 1839, at which time I arrived in Houston, Texas. Having been self-supporting after leaving school, I considered that to make a fortune it was only necessary to get to Texas, where I could soon be able to provide bountifully for my dear old mother, whose income had been reduced by successive misfortunes to a bare living. Full of hope, I sought employment in Houston, and, like the generality of foolish boys, got rid of my stock of money quite rapidly, till I found myself at the bed-rock with barely the color, when I attracted the atten- tion of a noble gentleman, by name of Bancroft, through whose influence I found employment at a small salary in the office of the County Clerk. Soon tiring of the monotonous work of copying dry writs of law, etc., I secured a place more to my liking with a brilliant young merchant (Jno. W. Pitkin), where I remained only a short time, for, unfortunately, Norval- like, " I had heard of battles," and I "longed to follow to the field some warlike lord." And Heaven soon granted, etc., for that warlike lord, under name of Captain Willson, appeared in Houston with a company of volunteers recruited principally in Galveston and destined to the frontiers to fight the Comanche Indians and anything else worth fighting. The temptation was too strong, and away I went as a bold soldier boy, mounted on a gallant mustang, as volunteer in the service of the Republic of Texas.
We started out about the 1st of September, 1839, marching direct to the frontier. At San Antonio, Col. Carnes took the chief command, and after adding to our squad a band of scouts and a company of surveyors, under young Jack Hays (now our old Col. Jack of Alameda county), we boldly advanced into the heart of the Indian country. The Comanches, at that time, were the most powerful and war-like tribe of the western plains, but with Carnes, the most celebrated Indian fighter on the frontier, as our leader, we had no doubt of a successful campaign. The redoubt- able Capt. Willson, of our squad, possessed a monstrous knife, it was intended as an improvement on Jim Bowie's knife, being larger and curved like a Moorish scimiter-I mention the knife because it was of more importance than the owner, and calculated, from its dimensions and bright brass scabbard, to give the owner a character of blood-thirstiness sought after by every bombastic coward since the days of old Jack Falstaff -seeing him with such a knife at the head of his command, and as he flourished it before the admiring gaze of his company, it is no wonder that in my eighteenth year, I selected him as leader to the field of glory. Carnes led us to the Indians on the waters of San Saba, a tributary
Thomas murphy
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of the Colorado. We killed some Indians ; got from them forty-seven horses and mules, and after locating some Texas land scrip on what was supposed to be rich mineral lands, returned to the settlements. The most remarkable incident of the campaign was the killing of a " dead " Indian by our gallant Captain with his celebrated knife. We attacked the Indians in the early dawn of a drizzly morning, and as there were scarcely Indians enough to go round we soon finished up killing all but two or three, out of a war-party of twenty-four, led by the noted chief Isawakanee, which had just left the main body for an independent foray on the settlements below. In the grey of the twilight, after the scrimmage was about over,
as I was returning to the Indian camp, a voice cried out, "Shoot that damn'd Indian over there; he is showering us with arrows." Two of us shot him, I think Col. Jack Hays and myself-he was down with a broken thigh ; our bullets broke his arm and entered his body at the breast-he cried out in Spanish, after falling against some bushes : " don't kill me, I want to talk." As Col. Carnes, with others, advanced to hear him, not dreaming of danger from a man with only one available arm and leg, and a ball through his vitals, he noticed the bow at the feet of the Indian, when whiz came an arrow directed at his head. Knowing Carnes by his " red head " this chief had often tried to kill him, as the worst foe of the Comanches, and now with death upon him he hoped to accomplish it, and thus go to the Indian heavens with glory. But Carnes, ever watchful of a Comanche, saw the movement and dodged the arrow. With only one leg and arm available, he caught his bow with his toes, and with the agonies of death upon him fixed and pointed the arrow at his mortal foe. Excited by the treachery, Carnes cried, " Kill him!" etc., and the Indian was riddled with bullets, and fell back a corpse. Of course we admired the game and pluck of the Indian, and would liked to have saved him, but a Comanche seldom gives, and never asks quarter-he died as he had lived, the implacable foe of the white man. There was a kind of sympathy for the dead redskin among the boys present, but our gallant Captain appearing at the close of the action with his famous knife, and perceiving the conspicuous corpse, fell upon it with murderous blows, and fleshed his glorious knife in the body of an Indian-as dead as a door nail. Learning, from a Mexican prisoner held by the Indians as a slave and mortally wounded, that there was a large body-some five thousand or more-of Indians within a few miles of us, and as one had escaped on horseback, Carnes ordered an immediate return to San Antonio, which was done, Captain Willson being the only one of the company who had acquired a notoriety-he "killed the dead Indian."
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