USA > California > Mendocino County > History of Mendocino County, California : comprising its geography, geology, topography, climatography, springs and timber > Part 39
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Lynching at Little Lake .- For many years the citizens of Little Lake had been harassed by a crowd of men who had been engaged in robbing smoke- houses and other petty larcenies, and at times getting drunk and rendering night hideous and not a little dangerous by their shouts, yells, and promis- cuous use of fire-arms. No one dared to complain of these men and thus bring them before the law lest his life should pay the forfeit; but all things come to an end, and the patience of an outraged community sometimes has its bounds. It so happened that the boundary line of endurance in this com- munity had just been reached on the night of September 4, 1879, at which time a sort of a local "601" was organized, and did their work very effectively. On this day Abijah Gibson, Elijah Frost and Thomas McCracken were arrested and placed in charge of an officer for safe keeping till the next day. Some time in the night the " Regulators" arrived duly armed and masked, and relieved the guard of his charge very premptorily, and with but little
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ceremony. The victims were taken to the bridge just north of Willitsville, and suspended from the side guards. When found in the morning they had all been dead several hours. It is said that since then the place has been remarkably quiet and free from barbarousness.
People vs. Harvey Mortier .- The defendant was a half-breed Indian, and was charged with the murder of Richard McPherson, near Noyo in Big River township, March 25, 1880. It was a cold-blooded assassination, and various theories have been advanced as to the impelling motive, none of which, however, have assumed a definite shape. On the day of the homi- cide McPherson was at work out in the field back of his house, when Mortier came to the house with his gun in his hand and inquired for him. On being told where he could be found, Mortier went out, and, with no ado about the matter at all, shot McPherson dead in his tracks. He was arrested and brought to jail, and the Grand Jury found an indictment against him for murder in the first degree. In July his trial came on in the Superior Court and after the testimony was all given, the case was submitted without argu- ment. The jury were in consultation four hours over the matter, at the end of which time they returned a verdict of murder in the first degree. On Monday, July 19th, after a motion for a new trial had been denied by the Court, he was sentenced to suffer the extreme penalty of the law.
People vs. Nells Hammerland .- April 3, 1880, the defendant killeď his wife and a man named Frank Olson at Nevarra, Big River township, under the following circumstances: Hammerland and his wife and two small chil- dren lived in a very small shanty at Nevarra, in which there was but one room and a shed kitchen. They were poor people, and their household furniture was as limited as the outward appearance of the house would seem to imply. The entire family occupied one bed. About a year before the homicide, the man Olson put in an appearance, and was taken into the family, and the already overcrowded family bed was shared with him. On the night of the killing they had all been imbibing somewhat freely of beer, and about ten o'clock P. M. Hammerland went over to the hotel bar for a fresh bucket of the beverage. He remained away from home for some time, and upon his return found that Olson and his wife had retired, and were sound asleep. Either the fact that they had gone to bed and to sleep while he was absent for the beer, or that they had retired together in his absence, infuri- ated his maudlin brain, and rushing out he grasped an ax, and returning absolutely chopped them to pieces. He was arrested and indicted by the Grand Jury, and his trial came on July 8th. The following persons were impaneled as a jury in the case: T. S. Chambers, John Sansbury, W. V. Powell, D. N. Le Ballister, J. H. Tomlinson, Berry Wright, W. M. Henry, James Hooten, John A. Maddox, C. W. Tindall, Seth Williams, and John Tatham. At five o'clock P. M. of the next day the case was submitted to the
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jury, and at 9:25 of the same evening a verdict of murder in the second degree was returned. Monday, July 12th, he was sentenced to imprisonment for the term of eleven years.
Killing of Frank Southard and Wilbur McCoy .- The following particu- lars of the affair are gleaned from the Mendocino Beacon: "The homicide took place about twelve miles east of Usal, and about three miles from the Humboldt county line. The difficulty which led to the bloody consumma- tion grew out of a land dispute. It seems that Marshall Howard had pur- chased and stocked a sheep ranch, and that part of his claim had been jumped by Southard. To escape trouble Howard bought Southard out, who, it is said, promised to withdraw entirely from the place, but instead of doing so had scarcely gotten the money in his pocket when he again located on the land and began the erection of a building. In the meantime How- ard's house was burned, and he was subjected to threats and annoyances by parties who evidently intended by those means to drive him out of the county. On the day of the shooting, Friday, July 1, 1880, Howard went to the place where Southard and McCoy were building a house on the dis- puted land, and when he arrived there, Southard was discovered by him to be on the top of the house nailing on shingles; Howard shot him dead. McCoy was carrying lumber toward the house, and when Southard was shot he started to run, but Howard shot at him twice, fatally wounding him. He lived long enough, however, to make a statement. Immediately after the shooting Howard rode off and procured men to come to the spot, and also sent a telegram to Kibesillah for an officer to come up and take charge of him. Deputy Sheriff Banker responded to the call, and on Tues- day, the 6th, returned with Howard in custody. He at once went before Justice G. W. Claxton of Ten-mile River township, and the examination was set for Thursday, the 8th, at ten o'clock A. M. At the time appointed, G. Canning Smith appeared for the defendant. He was held to appear before the Grand Jury on a charge of manslaughter with bail at $3,000, which was furnished with Messrs. Stewart, Banker, Frazier, and Bonee on the bond."
Killing of Marion W. Gardner and Jacob H. Fitch .- The inhabitants of Little Lake valley were startled on Saturday evening, July 10, 1880, by the circulation of the report that two boys, Marion W. Gardner and Jacob H. Fitch, son and step-son of John Gardner, aged respectively twelve and eleven years, had been found dead at a place known as Manzanita Fiat, lying on the road from Willitsville to Potter Valley, and about seven miles east of the first-named place. It seems that Mr. Gardner had a claim at this place, had some stock there, and kept the boys there most of the time to hold his claim. On the day that they were killed he went over to see them, as he usually did every few days, and not seeing the boys about the
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house he called to them. They did not answer, so he started out to search for them, and about three hundred yards from the house he came upon their dead bodies, lying very close together, one, Marion, being shot through the head, and Jacob, through the right side with bullets. The first impression that obtained was that either the boys had quarrelled and one had killed the other, and then suicided from grief or fright, or that one had accidentally killed the other, and then taken his own life from the same motives. The fact that there was a revolver found near by them with all the loads dis- charged, which, when last seen, had three charges still in it, so confirmed this theory that the Coroner's jury returned a verdict to that effect. Later discoveries lead to the supposition that the boys were murdered, and the mother is thoroughly impressed with that idea. It is now thought that some one wished to get possession of the land, and that they were heartless enough to kill the boys because they were kept on the place to hold and maintain possession. A pool of blood was discovered quite near the house, and traces of blood leading from the house to where the bodies were found.
The Mendocino Outlaws .- It is most befitting that in collating and record- ing the murders of Mendocino county, we should put aside the chrono- logical sequence, and close the chapter with a record of the " Mendocino Out- laws." From the Mendocino Beacon we take the following : " Our commu- nity has been thrown into a state of excitement hitherto unparalleled by the occurrence of a shocking calamity. On October 15, 1879, two of our most esteemed citizens were atrociously murdered and a third wounded within four miles of our town, their comrades narrowly escaping death. Particulars of the sad affair are as follows :-
" Last Monday Constable William Host, while coming through Big river woods, accidentally discovered the entrails of a beef which had been recently buried with the evident design of concealing the killing of the animal. He returned to town and reported the suspicious circumstances to the Mendo- cino Lumber Company, to whom the creature was supposed to belong. Next day he and Thomas Dollard and William Wright went to the place to investigate the matter, and following some tracks about a quarter of a mile, found four men encamped in the thick woods about four miles east of here, near a spring, eating their breakfast. The stolen beef was hung up, under- going the process of jerking, or curing, and their rifles were stacked up by a tree. Their white hands and high-heeled boots indicated that they did not make their living by hard work. The two parties entered into conversation, but Host did not then attempt the arrest of the thieves, having as yet no warrant, and not considering his party of sufficient force, giving as an ex- cuse for their visit, that they were looking for a place to locate a tie camp. The investigating party then returned to town, swore out a warrant, and with
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further assistance, started in the afternoon to arrest the men, but on their arrival found the camp deserted of every vestige of the outlaws.
"On Wednesday morning, Host went out again with a posse comitatus, consisting of J. J. Morrow, A. Yell, E. W. Potter, James Nichols, C. Gal- braith, Thomas Dollard, and William Wright. After following the ridge from the camp previously found for about a mile, they saw below them, in a rough ravine, the remains of a camp-fire. Descending the hill, Wright and Yell, who were in advance, the others following closely, stooped to feel the ashes, to ascertain if they were still warm; Wright exclaimed, 'They must have stopped here last night,' when suddenly, without a moment's warning, a volley was fired upon the party by the outlaws lying in ambush on the opposite hill a few yards above them. Wright immediately fell backward, having received a shot in the back of the neck, ranging downward ; Dollard was struck in the upper part of the thigh, but fired a shot in return. Nich- ols was shot in the left shoulder, and another ball perforated Galbraith's coat. The outlaws kept up a rapid fire, and hit Dollard twice more, which prostrated him, and he gradually rolled to the bottom of the ravine, when he pulled off his coat and crawled under a log in the creek, where he lay groan- ing. Yell, Potter and Galbraith shot several times, but the murderers kept themselves almost entirely concealed, only some portion of the bodies of one or two appearing, and it is not yet known whether any shots took effect on them or not. Host, Potter, Yell and Morrow finally gained a cover, where they remained till succor came. They are convinced that their assailants numbered eight or nine, as the shots came very rapidly and from several directions in front. In the meantime Galbraith and Nichols gained their horses and returned full-speed to town with the frightful news. Constable Nelson immediately organized another posse, and also engaged teams with bedding to bring in the wounded. Upon their arrival at the scene of con- flict, they found Dollard already a corpse, and Wright helpless and speech- less, and evidently near his dissolution. With considerable difficulty they carried them up the steep acclivity to the wagons, and returned with them to town, giving up further pursuit of the desperadoes for the time being. Wright was taken to Carlson's hotel and cared for. As the two men were brought in, and the body of Dollard was laid out in a room over the post- office, a mute expression of sorrow was visible on every countenance. An in- quest was immediately held, Justice Smith acting as Coroner, on the deceased, at which the jury returned the following verdict: 'We, the jury impaneled to inquire into the cause of the death of Thomas Dollard, do find as follows : That the name of the deceased was Thomas Dollard, a native of Ellsworth, Maine ; that he died on the 15th day of October, 1879, about four miles east of Mendocino, in Mendocino county, California; that he came to his death by means of hemorrhage from three gun-shot wounds, caused by rifles fired by several parties unknown to us.'
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"A public meeting was held and a committee of safety numbering twenty- one was appointed to act in the emergency and organize a determined pur- suit of the outlaws,
"William Wright died on Wednesday evening about seven o'clock, having remained unconscious nearly all the time since his fatal wounding in the morning. Subsequent examination showed that he had received a second shot through the side near the heart.
"The inquest on his body, held on Thursday morning was substantially the same as in the case of Dollard. This town and vicinity is thoroughly aroused, and two separate parties well armed and equipped, left here Wednesday evening in search of the guilty parties. Caspar mill and woods ceased work Thursday, and a large party from there joined in the hunt. On Thursday evening word was brought that three of the outlaws had been seen on the prairie back of Little River, and that two had obtained breakfast and supper at the house of a settler on that day. The same day, a man named Carmichael, reported that while riding toward Mendocino on the Ukiah road, about three miles out, he saw a man by the roadside, who threatened him with a rifle, but seeing him unarmed, slunk off into the woods.
"One man was arrested in Little River that night on suspicion, but after examination was released.
"Nearly the whole of the circumstances go to show that there are but four men who have perpetrated these crimes, and they are undoubtedly the same who were found by Host and the deceased on Tuesday. The description, as given by Host, is; one about five feet ten inches in height, dark complexion, short dark hair and moustache, face unshaven for a week or two, weight about one hundred and fifty-five pounds, age about twenty-six years; one about five feet eight inches high, heavy set, complexion dark, short hair, black moustache, otherwised clean shaved, dark eyes, about thirty-two years; the third. five feet eight inches high, light complexion, big moustache and goatee, blue eyes, weight one hundred and sixty, age thirty-five; and the fourth, five feet eleven inches, sandy complexion, blue eyes, big mous- tache and goatee, heavy set, about one hundred and seventy-five pounds, age about forty-five years. An armed force is now scouring the prairie near where they were last seen. The funeral of the murdered men was held on Friday, at 1 P. M. Mr. Dollard was an officer and member in high standing of Mendocino Lodge, No. 179, F. and A. M., and was buried accord- ing to the rites and ceremonies of that order. Mr. Wright, though not a member of any secret society, was attended to his grave by the Odd Fellows as a mark of respect. As we go to press, nothing of importance has been heard from the parties in pursuit of the outlaws."
A reward of $300 for the first and $200 for each subsequent murderer was offered by the Governor. Early the next week Dr. J. F. Wheeler, a
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resident of Mendocino City, was arrested for complicity in the affair. The clue that led to his arrest was the finding of a tin cup and a frying-pan in the camp said to have been purchased by Wheeler recently. Wheeler had gone to Mendocino City some time before and started into business as à dentist, but finally developed into a regular practicing physician. He was a married man, of pleasing address and suave manners, and soon managed to have quite a number of friends in the place, and was doing quite a thriv- ing business. Nothing was known of his past life, and, California like, nothing was asked. He was, apparently, a gentleman now, and that was all that was asked or required. The truth was, however, that he was an ex-convict, having served his time in San Quentin for his connection with a stage' robbery some years ago. It was developed shortly after Wheeler's arrest that he was the grand moving spirit in the enterprise. In August previous John Billings received a letter from Wheeler, as follows :- " I have here, in Mendocino county, a rich claim, worth about $15,000; it can be worked in about two weeks if I have good men. The claim is the Sheriff of Mendocino county. I have one good man with me. Come yourself and bring any one you know and can depend on." The good man he referred to was H. E. Brown. About the 10th of September Billings arrived at Mendo- cino City, bringing with him Samuel Carr, an old ex-convict, who had been sentenced to the State Prison for life from San Francisco for killing a man in the " Thunderbolt " saloon, but who had been pardoned on the condition that he leave the State and never return. There was also with them a young man named George Gaunce, heretofore to criminal fame unknown. As the plan was to rob the Sheriff when he was making his annual round collecting the taxes, and as it would yet be some time before he would come on his trip, the gang concluded to rendezvous in that vicinity, but, of course, not at the hotels or elsewhere where they would be seen much by the people. For some time their rendezvous was at a cabin owned by A. B. Courtwright, in the mountains east of Westport. While here Wheeler supplied the necessaries of life, and also purchased a lot of ammunition and fire-arms for their use.
About two weeks before the murders the gang inoved their quarters down to within a few miles of Mendocino City, and were vigorously engaged in jerking beef and in other ways preparing for the journey they soon expected to take. While here they were in daily communication with Wheeler, who advised them never to surrender if an attempt was made to arrest them, but to shoot, and how well they followed his advice the story of their attempted arrest sets forth. One of the gang, Samuel Carr, was overtaken and arrested at a cabin in Long valley on the morning of the 22d, while cooking his breakfast. He was tired, sick and footsore, and without arms, as he had thrown his rifle away. He turned State's evidence, and hence was
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used as a witness for the people, and narrated all the details of plans, etc., with evident truthfulness ..
On the 29th the posse who were scouring the mountains divided into two parties, one, under the direction of Sheriff Moore, started towards Piercy's ranch on Rattlesnake creek, in which direction the outlaws were heading, and the other, under J. M. Standley, remained on their track, closely pur- suing them. During the day Standley's party suddenly came upon them near the mouth of Rattlesnake creek. Each party discovered the other about the same time, and after ordering the outlaws to surrender their pursuers began firing, but with no particular result, except that they fled and left their camp equipage behind, escaping with only their arms and a few rounds of ammunition. The gang then changed their course from north to east, and ate breakfast on the morning of the 30th at William
Rea's, near Blue Rock. They were then heading for Trinity county, north of Round valley. . They were next heard from in the Mad river country in that county, where a posse from Round Valley came upon them in camp in a deep gulch. This was in the night, and the posse decided to divide, and one part remain above and the other go below, and thus be ready to trap them in the morning, but daylight found the birds flown, and they had evidently passed very near to their pursuers. They were next heard of at Petit Johns', in Tehama county. It was known ahead that they were coming that way, and Petit Johns expected to arrest them, and for that purpose had asked a neighbor to come to his house that day, as he expected them to pass about noon. They came, however, in the morning before they were expected, and they found Johns by himself. They called for breakfast, and were provided with the meal. Johns' wife placed the plates all on one side of the table, so that all were in a row, and when they came in and sat down they left their guns setting just outside the door. The woman then went off to the barn, expecting her husband to open up a fusilade upon them and probably kill one or more of them. The old man seemed anxious enough to do something of the kind but he felt that he was taking too great chances. He went into an adjoining room twice and came out again after a time, his courage evidently failing him. He went into the room a third time, when Billings' suspicions were aroused, and drawing his revolver and placing it on the table said that .if he came in the room again from that room he would shoot him in his tracks. Johns, fortunately for him, passed out through another door.
At one place they had stopped in a roofless and deserted cabin to spend the night. Presently they were aware that their pursuers were on their track, and close at hand; so they rushed out into the bushes and hid. Standley, it is said by Gaunce, came near losing his life here. He rode up to the house and looked over into it, and then started on up the cañon, but a mule he had for packing refused to follow him, and he was obliged to turn
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& G. Wilson.
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back for it twice, and he then changed his course. Had he come right on he would have come upon them in their ambush; and as he was recognized as the leader of the posse by the gang, it was well known to them that if he were killed the posse would break up, or at least be so demoralized that they could get a good start. Billings seemed determined to shoot anyway, but was persuaded to desist as his man was too far off; but that mule, fortunately, did not let him get close enough for Billings to carry his purpose into execution.
On the 8th of November they were at Last Chance Hollow, west of Red Bluff. On the 10th they crossed the Sacramento river above Red Bluff. Here all traces of them were lost by the pursuing party, and the chase for the time abandoned. The pursuers traveled over one thousand miles in this most wonderful man chase, and the most of the time on foot, and some of the time through soft, wet snow. The following description of their journey- ings will convey an adequate idea of the great amount of traveling they did. From Big river north to Blue Rock; thence east to Bell Springs; crossed Eel river; thence north to Red Mountain; thence north to Mad river; thence west to Kittenchaw valley; thence east, up Mad river to the three forks of the river; thence up the north fork of the main divide between Mad river and the south fork of Trinity river; thence south to the Yolo Bolles; theuce across the Yolo Bolles; thence east to the foot-hills on Cold creek ; (Petit Johns lives here); thence south to the Rel Banks. Here the posse divided, Donohoe and Shepherd going south to Paskenta, thence south to Newville; thence south to Stony creek, thence north to Elk Grove; thence north to Paskenta, thence east to Red Bluff; thence south to Tehama; thence north to Cold creek; thence south to Mount St. John ; thence east to Willows; thence home, having lost all traces and given up the chase. After the separation Moore and Standley went from Red Bank to Vale's Gulch; thence to Red Bluff; thence down the Sacramento river to Tehama ; crossed the Sacramento river and went to Vina ; (at this time the outlaws were on the railroad between the two pursuing parties); thence to Tehama ; thence up the Sacramento river to Blossom's ranch; thence east to the foot-hills of the Sierra Nevada mountains; thence south along the foot-hills a distance of fifteen miles; thence back to Tehama; thence to Thomas' creek; thence south-east to Newville, near Stony creek; thence up Stony creek to Bear valley; thence east to Willows; thence east to Colusa ; thence to Williams', and thence to Ukiah. This was the end of the first chase, and all parties were now in Ukiah; and it was thought that the gang had eluded the vigi- lance of the officers.
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