USA > California > Fresno County > History of Fresno County, California, with biographical sketches of the leading men and women of the county who have been identified with its growth and development from the early days to the present, Volume I > Part 59
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There was testimony by a Mrs. L. A. Banta that on the evening of the homicide she saw a light about seven o'clock in the direction of the Bethel premises, about three-quarters of a mile distant. A lantern was in fact found near the body but to whom it belonged was another of the undetermined facts at the trial.
But what was the motive for the murder? That was another undeter- mined fact in the case. Effort was made to saddle a motive on Muhly but it was a failure. Bethel could neither read nor write. It was claimed that Muhly bore him a grudge and only awaited the time and opportunity to revenge himself for Bethel's encumbering the property in some manner in the half interest sale. The contention was in accounting for a motive that Bethel was the sole owner and occupant of the premises on which he had
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built ; that the half interest never was conveyed to Muhly ; that the property was sold for delinquent taxes and bought in by Muhly on the tax deed to gain title and oust Bethel. This was disproved by the showing that the built on land was deeded with the half interest and moreover that there never was charge or lien against the property from the time of Bethel's deed until after the murder, when mortgage was clapped on to raise money for Muhly's defense on the murder accusation.
On the other hand the plausible theory was advanced for the prisoner that the murder could have been the deed of Indians for revenge on account of a feud between the Bethel family and the Monos. Followed the recital of Judge Smilie who was a walking encyclopedia of the neighborhood and familiar with the history of every one who had ever lived in the region. And in this connection it is interesting to record as a historical fact that the division of the county to form the later Madera left the larger number of earliest pioneers located north of the San Joaquin River as the common boundary; also necessarily the greater number of these survivors are to this day in the younger county. Reason there was for this. The greatest mining activities, with exception in a narrow belt along the San Joaquin about Millerton, had been in that portion of Fresno County north of the San Joaquin ; the northern portion of the county lying between the San Joaquin and the Chowchilla and on the Madera and the Fresno between the two first named contributed more to the making of early history than did the southern portion between the San Joaquin and the Kings with population nuclei in the Millerton foothills, on the Upper Kings at what is today Cen- terville, on the Lower at what is today the Kingsburg and Reedley country and in the Coast Range on the west in a nook at what is today the New Idria quicksilver mining country in San Benito County, all between these points being a waste, desert plain awaiting the bringing on of water and the coming of the husbandman to cultivate the parched and baked virgin soil.
Putting in sequence the tale narrated by Pioneer Smilie, it appeared that when Bethel settled in the Crane Valley country more than a quarter of a century ago and took as a companion an Indian woman he had a quarrel over her with one of her tribesmen and shooting him thrice, killed him. This was so long ago that even Smilie would not hazard giving the year of the occurrence. Bethel had declared that he expected he would forfeit his life some day to an Indian assassin. However, early in the 80's Bob Bethel, a half breed son, shot an Indian in the leg but a white man's jury cleared him. About 1885 this Bob married according to the tribal custom the daugh- ter of Mono chief named Pemona, who hankered for a rancheria for his sub- tribe on the Bethel ranch. With the marriage, Pemona secured that ranch- eria. A day came and Bob deserted the chief's daughter, took up with an- other marriageable squaw of the tribe and the proximity of the rancheria having become objectionable (a circumstance not to be wondered at), Bethel tried to have it removed and of course trouble arose.
Pemona came to pow-wow with Bethel, who supposed at first that the chief had come to kill his half breed son for the desertion of the chief's daugh- ter. Bethel aided the son's escape with the help of a horse, but Pemona tarried all day and drinking too much there was a quarrel. Pemona advanced in menacing manner with a rock in hand and Bethel blew the top of his head off and killed him. Months thereafter, mayhap a year, the tribe had a gather- ing to grieve over the leaving from the rancheria and partly in memoriam of the dead chief. Bob Bethel was at the gathering standing at the camp fire. A shot rang out in the still of the night. A bullet struck him in the back and there was a dead half-breed. The shot was from a nearby house and the supposition has always been that the murder was by an Indian who had taken up the quarrel of Bob's wife.
Bethel feared to go among the Indians to rescue the body of this son because he would be foully dealt by for the hostility between the Bethels
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and Mono tribe was at this period at fever heat. Bethel induced Smilie to accompany him in the recovery of the body for burial. Smilie acquiesced but for his pains was shot at mistakenly for Bethel. The body of Bob was recovered. About two years before the murder of Bethel, Barge, a younger .brother of Bob, was found dead one day at home with bullet wound in the head. At the time it was declared to have been a suicide and the coroner's verdict so declared and found. Since that finding the impression gained ground that it was a murder because it was impossible for Barge to have shot himself in the location of the rifle wound, the fact that there were no powder marks on him as there would have been had the firearm been dis- charged at so close range as it necessarily must have been if it was a suicide, and lastly because it has never been known for a half-breed to take his life.
There was also evidence at the trial that Bethel had ordered an Indian off the premises some weeks or months before, that on the morning following the murder an Indian had been seen prowling about the Bethel store at North Fork, that he had been drunk and excited suspicion. The above fragmentary and disconnected recital was furnished as a basis for the jury to believe or conclude in the absence of any proven or indicated motive for the killing of Bethel on Muhly's part that the murder must have been com- mitted by an Indian, who had taken the law into his own hands as avenger of a series of outrages suffered by his tribe through acts of the Bethels.
"Last scene of all, "That ends this strange, eventful history."
On the hillside near the Bethel roadhouse is a collection of graves, most of them unnamed, forgotten, dilapidated, weed or grass overgrown and dank. Four mark the earthly resting-places of known dead. One is the sepulcher of Ben Harding called before his Maker unprepared for the jour- ney into eternity many years ago. In the other three graves lie the remains of the three Bethels, father and two sons.
And all died with their boots on!
CHAPTER LXIV
CONSCIENCELESS EFFORT OF 1907-08 TO DIVIDE FRESNO COUNTY AND LOP OFF THE COALINGA OIL FIELD TERRITORY. A LAND GRAB INITIATED IN HANFORD FOR THE ENLARGEMENT OF KINGS COUNTY BY CONQUEST. ANIMOSITIES CREATED THAT CONTINUED A RANKLING THORN FOR A DECADE AFTER. COMMISSIONERS IN- DICTED CRIMINALLY FOR REFUSAL TO CANVASS VOTE CAST AT DIVISION SPECIAL ELECTION. APPEAL TO COURTS TO COMPEL THEIR PERFORMANCE OF A SWORN DUTY. COUNTY DIVISION CONSPIRACY DEFEATED. COMPROMISE FOLLOWS WITH LOSS BY FRESNO OF A 120 SQUARE MILE STRIP OF LAND.
Fresno was agitated to its depths in 1907-08 over a conscienceless effort made with apparent support of a ring in the legislature to divide the county by lopping off western territory embracing the Coalinga oil field developed in large part by Fresno men and capital and annexing it for the enlargement of Kings County to satisfy an insatiate greed.
Kings contained then 1,200 square miles. The Coalinga district em- braced 1,242 square miles. It is one of the richest oil fields in the world. The proposed steal of the land south of the Fourth Standard Parallel would have more than doubled Kings' area. In the proposed change, Coalinga was sought to be voted by hook or crook from one of the richest to one of the poorest counties in the state ; from one of the largest to one of the smallest. 24
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Fresno ranked then sixth in the state in order of population and wealth. Its immediate future according to every reasonable prospect was to rise to fourth place. Beyond that it could not well advance. To do so, it would have to pass San Francisco, Los Angeles and Alameda. Kings was then not so large as the rich district upon which it had cast covetous eyes.
The ambition of Kings was to improve its river and swamp land at the expense of the taxes to be levied on the land and improvements of the oil district with which it was perhaps in closer relation because of the poor railroad connections and the lack of roads across the plains between Fresno and Coalinga. Indeed the railroad connection was by a circuitous route via Hanford in Kings. As a bribe to cajole it into annexation, the coveted terri- tory was promised a supervisorship in the enlarged Kings County, besides other empty inducements, which with the ultimate defeat of the annexation project no attempt was ever made at fulfilment. Coalinga by going over into Kings was asked to forever cut off the chance for a big West Side county with itself as the largest community the possible county seat. A develop- ment had then been started and has since continued, and a population might be looked for to warrant some day the formation of a county with the oil district as the nucleus. Had Coalinga gone into Kings, the latter would never have population enough to suffer the territorial loss of Coalinga annex, and Coalinga, so the anti-annexationists argued, would have shut off its oppor- tunity for a big county north of the Kings River to satisfy the ambitions of a few politicians south of the river. It was after all is said and done a raw effort by Kings to grow by conquest.
This county division plan never had inception in Fresno but was con- ceived in Kings. Two years before the Hanford papers began the agitation and campaign to enlarge the territory of the vest-pocket county for the sake of the enlarged tax income, Kings having reached the limit at home and Coalinga being a convenient and contiguous field with possibility of exploitation and assuredly worth the effort. There was everything to win and nothing to lose. In April, 1906, the Coalinga Record, under another management than that which dictated its policy later, denounced the Han- ford county division of Fresno project and the manifest effort to divide sentiment in the Coalinga district by fomenting dissension and declared that it was content to remain in Fresno. What induced the change in policy in the sheet is left to conjecture. Certain it was not in a change of conditions because they were improving. The annexation scheme was an inspiration of Kings for its material benefit, carried through its first steps in the legisla- ture by a combination of politicians and thereafter attempted to be pushed through to a successful consummation by methods suggestive of the most questionable tactics of the pothouse politician.
The annexationists were beaten in the end at their own game; the result on the division vote was attempted to be arbitrarily set aside and an- other election called ; the popular indignation was great over the tactics pur- sued : the Fresno grand jury took up the matter of the election commission's refusal to perform an official duty in the canvass of the vote, and of the fraud in voting and registration ; three of the commissioners were criminally indicted for felony ; injunction was sued out to desist from holding a second or other election on division : the district appellate court issued writ com- manding canvass of the election returns and declaration of the result; the indictments were afterward set aside on a legal technicality; the annexation swindle was defeated but based on the showing of the vote the Webber bill as a compromise was passed at the March, 1909, session of the legislature and 120 square miles were lopped off from Fresno instead of the 185 asked and the Laguna de Tache grant was cut almost in two. The ramified litiga- tion over the annexation steal created intense and bitter animosities. It was a rankling thorn for a decade after.
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The legislative measure that initiated the division election was one by Assemblyman William L. McGuire of Kings who politically has passed into oblivion. Under that bill were appointed March 25, 1907, the following named as commissioners to conduct an election to ratify the boundary change :
J. W. Herbert of Laton ;
L. P. Guiberson of Coalinga ;
Scott Blair of Coalinga ;
D. M. De Long of Coalinga ;
George Robinson of Coalinga.
They had made call for an election in the affected district for Tuesday the 10th of December, 1907. Things were in a muddled state the month before and registration of voters for that election had been reopened in the district under the expectation and theory that the election would not be held on the day set under the call and that the call was an illegal one. A test case had been taken to the supreme court against the advice of the Fresno bar and the decision declared that the election call could be issued at any time within sixty days after the remittitur of the court. The latter had not issued when the December 10th election date was set as notice had been filed of intention to ask for a rehearing of the case in the supreme court. The law re- quired that the election proclamation be published twenty-five days before the day of election and under the attempted call for December 10 issued on November 13 there was a bare twenty-five days intervening and registration closing forty days before election. However that may all be, the election was held on December 10.
On the Saturday night before the election, the opponents of division held a rally at the Coalinga Theater which was literally jammed to the doors with the more than half a thousand people in attendance. The assemblage was an enthusiastic one and the sentiment decidedly in favor of Fresno and staying with it. Tom O'Donnell, one of the largest oil operators, who had at the election before been a candidate for the assembly, was the chairman and touched upon the personalities that had been injected into the campaign as uncalled for while not affecting the issues at stake. He declared that the attitude of many of the leading men of Coalinga had been misrepresented and lied about by the divisionists. He cited examples of misrepresentations, among others one by Assemblyman McGuire that the interests of the Asso- ciated Oil Company were being jeopardized by Guiberson as its local man- ager in efforts to coerce local men because he favored Fresno interests. The refutation was given in a letter by business men of Coalinga.
David S. Ewing defended Fresno's interests on the division question. The oil field had been developed by Fresno capital and operated by Fresno men. Kings County men came in after the field had been developed and been proven and there were no longer risks to take. He himself had been among the first to invest in West Side oil lands; was a member of the com- pany that secured the first lease; and the company that discovered oil in 1899 on the West Side ; and he was attorney for the men that discovered oil in the Coalinga field in 1894. He pointed out the loss to Coalinga in taking the division step and the burden that it would shoulder as it would be looked to to furnish much of the taxes for the building up of Kings County.
H. H. Welsh, another large oil operator interested in the pipe transpor- tation lines, also pointed out the greater interests that Fresno men have in the district compared to the Kings agitators and therefore better able to form opinions on the subject of division than the outsiders. He referred to the change of policy of the Coalinga newspaper though two-thirds of its stockholders favored remaining with Fresno County and its unfair means and arguments. He asserted that the district supervisor had more than redeemed the one promise made that all money raised by taxation in the district should be devoted to improvements and needs of the oil district. He ridiculed some circulated rumors, one of these that if division carried the big
.
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oil companies would reduce men's wages because involving the supposition of a location in a county affected by the laws of supply and demand of the country at large. And as to the matter of roads of which much was made, he asserted that Coalinga had the best roads in the state and the winter before their condition was nothing to compare in badness with those of Fresno and in the vicinity of Hanford.
The speaker of the evening was Senator G. W. Cartwright of Fresno, who elaborated upon Kings County's ambition to grow by conquest, its greed and the fact that county division had its inception in Hanford. He made sport of the argument of the excess of love of Kings for the Coalinga people because Fresno officials had not visited the field as often as the Han- fordites. The sum total raised by Kings County for roads was $35,000, while the supervisorial district in which Coalinga is located alone raises $52,000. Kings County could not therefore fulfil the road promises it had made, giving it credit of wishing to make good on its word. The supervisors prom- ise to spend district tax raised money in the district had been fulfilled and the spending of the money was placed in the hands of De Long. If not spent to the best advantage, then it was De Long's fault, or going back of that of the supervisor, but in any event the county should not be held to blame. The remedy is not to leave the county. Under the existing arrange- ment in Fresno, Coalinga received a lot of tax money, but under the Kings system the plan was to place Coalinga into a district to be included with a large part of the Tulare lake bottom. This swamp country has comparatively small taxable resources, the Coalinga district is rich and the oil field would be called upon to build roads and bridges for the lake and swamp district.
As to the bait promise of a supervisorship, the Senator said that nothing had prevented Coalinga having a supervisor in Fresno other than that no man had been enterprising enough and up to snuff to run for the office, yet the district had elected a county recorder and small precincts had sent many a county officer to Fresno. Some of the circulated lies that had been nailed, proven untrue and having no foundation were reviewed. Among these were the assertions that Fresno County does not own its courthouse property ; that there is a clause in the deed for reversion if the land is not used for court house purposes ; that the county is in debt; and the like. As an argu- ment clincher there was exposure of the plot in the showing that on Novem- ber 19, 1907, at Laton, Ben McGinnis had in the presence of ten people, some of whom had made affidavit, said with regard to the question of who would pay for the proposed improvement of river and swamp land in Kings County : "Those people over in Coalinga are not paying anything like the taxes they should and we are going to raise their taxes to pay for all those improve- ments."
As one of the big jokes of the campaign was the statement that a subur- ban line would be built in the event of county division to run from Coalinga to Hanford crossing the river twice and passing through Lemoore and Laton. This was passed off as buncombe, as an election and not an electric road and ridiculed was the thought that a county would expend $100,000 in bridges and in an electric road to accommodate the travel of a few hundred people.
The day may come when a main railroad will connect Fresno and Coal- inga. Hanford located as it is will be always on a branch line and Coalinga annexed would be connected with its county seat by a jerk water line and the main line closely connected with Fresno. To emphasize the contrasted public improvements of Fresno and Kings Counties, stereopticon views were shown and the exhibition was of things that Fresno had, and that Kings lacked; and that Coalinga might expect to pay for what Kings lacked.
The night before election the divisionists had their final meeting. A Tulare senator and Hanfordites were the speakers, it was noted. The elec-
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tion was held with the following result, nine precincts in the affected district voting :
For division 643
Against division
521
Total vote 1,164
Necessary sixty percent. to carry. 698
Division lost by
55
Coalinga precinct voted for. 329
Coalinga precinct voted against 229
Total precinct vote 558
Necessary sixty percent.
334
Division lost by
5
It rained on election day. Had it not rained, the anti-divisionists would have probably polled more votes. The rain impeded the automobiles as the swifter means of bringing men in from the oil fields to vote. Coalinga was the center of the day's conflict-a veritable "bloody angle" for there the Han- fordites were in strength and marshaled their forces, contested every inch of the ground with shifty tactics and methods to put to blush the boldest of metropolitan ward bosses. As Senator Cartwright stated after the thing was over, not dreaming of what was to come thereafter: "Every inch of the ground was contested, but Fresno did not lose any tricks, even though the cards did seem to be stacked at one stage of the game."
The first bomb cast into the camp of the anti-divisionists was a ruling early in the day by the election board that whoever had registered, even up to and including the day of election, could vote. This ruling was on the advice of a Visalia attorney, who represented the annexationists in all the legal pro- ceedings. The ruling cast to the winds the general election law provision that a voter must be registered a certain number of days before the election day. The Fresno committee protested against the ruling but it was of no avail. So it decided to take the bull by the horns and it also went after anti-annexa- tionists that had not registered within the forty-day limit. Such votes were offered but being anti-division voters their ballots were refused on the ground that their names were not on the register. Kings County men were permitted to vote on a certification by a deputy registration clerk, who by some well directed mischance seemed to have omitted the names of those who might have been favorable to Fresno.
In the confusion that ensued the Visalia attorney was besieged and com- mitted himself to a proposition on registration. The Fresno committee pre- pared certifications and forty-five or fifty votes were polled on the same basis as the Kings County "emergency voters." Registrations were also proceeded with but these were not voted or made avail of. As a matter of fact 270 names had been added to the great register since October 30, the day when registra- tion for the election should have ceased. Challenges at the polls were in order all day long, a total of twenty-six from Fresno. It was also stated that for divisionists as well as the antis some 300 affidavits had been taken during November and December of persons whose names did not go on the register because the time was after the forty days before the election. These had been taken for possible registration on the first entertained theory that the election might not be held on the 10th as there was a question as to the legality of the election call issued before the remittitur from the supreme court came down in the first test case. Election day was a day of excitement wild and long to be remembered.
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But if beaten at the election, there were other shifty tactics to be resorted to and they were on Tuesday, December 17, at Coalinga, when three of the commissioners actually declared the election held null and void and made an- nouncement of another election to be held on the 14th of January, 1908. The commissioners were to have met to canvass the vote on Monday the 16th but did not. In a sworn affidavit made by Commissioners Guiberson and Her- bert they deposed that they met at the appointed hour at the office of the commission with an attorney who was clerk of the commission in Coalinga to canvass the returns. The clerk locked the door, refused them entrance, or to have access to the returns, or to inspect them, whereupon the commis- sioners met outside the door and by resolution adjourned until two o'clock on the day after. The affidavit also stated that Scott Blair, another of the commissioners, was present in the building at the time and although requested to do so refused to meet with the two commissioners or to canvass the returns, the meeting having been at the call of the chairman theretofore given.
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