USA > California > Nevada County > History of Nevada County, California; with illustrations descriptive of its scenery, residences, public buildings, fine blocks, and manufactories > Part 26
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HISTORY OF NEVADA COUNTY. CALIFORNIA.
mental faculties, he was not responsible for the terrible erin be had committed
In the county just, awaiting the execution of his water lies All Luck, a Chiner monderer Last winter he hul a quarrel with Al Gow a fellow Chinaman about 's and with On fire and Ah Sing wayland his money on the Truckee bridge, where they shoot him and then backe I and slashed hint in a horrible matuur with a knife and hatelat. They then walked through a binding know storm to Boca, but were fol- lowed by the officer and apprehend ] The testimony pro- down on the trial was of a circunstancial character, but very convincing, shled to which was the fact that he had killed mother Chimman in Tracker two years before, for which net le wos sequitted. Alt Lack, wins t'harlie Lack, was fomul guilty of murder in the first degree and sentenced to be hanged on Friday, June 25, 1880, whib. his companions were sentenced to the penitentiary for the term of their natural lives.
CHAPTER XXXIII.
LEADING CASES OF HOMICIDE.
Condition of Society Murder of Dr. Janmox New Year's Ball at Girass Valley nad Depth of Jock Allen The Hecker Family-The French Way - Innor Rich at Alpha The Formation of a Rope The Breman Suicide- Dr. MoMurtry and the Grilling- Death of Quintan oml Attemptel Assas- sination of O. P. Stidger The Double Murder at Cooper's Bridge- Bran- um and the Chinamen- "No Man Con Ilit Me With a Rock and Live" Love'a Tournament in Trucker Buried Treasure and Death The Exploits of Benjamin Rood Twenty-four Stale Make Assault and Battery- Murdered by Lamp Light A Desperate Street Fight-Crazy for Blowl- The Tront Creek Caxy Shot for Interfering-Shot During a Spree.
Ix 1850, the society, although rough and boisterous, swayed by passion and acting upon impulse, was far better than it was 11. low years later, and as tow homicides were committed as in most years of the subsequent history of the county. Among the thousands there were a few bad ones, some extremely depraved, but the citizens hudl a custom of executing summary justice upon those who willfully took life or property, which deterred them from the commission of overt acts. As yet no resort had been inde to lynch law here, but it had been done in other places, and all knew that there was needed but the necessity for action, and the men would not be found wanting. The sentiment of the people supported it and their hands would have upheld it; this they all knew. and it had a health- Tul effect upon the community. Neither was there so much fighting and especially so much verbal abuse as is noticed at the present time. Men kept civil tongues in their heads, for all went. armeel. and an insult was instantly avenged. No man calledl another a liar or applied to him a vile epithet, unless he
exp.cual to fight_aud drew his revolver the instant the words 1 } his lip if, indeed he had not drawn it before. Occasional row- and pistol shots chiefly in saloons and gam- bling Longer, served to keep up the excitement, and frequently a man was wounded, sometimes killed, but the deliberate, cold blooded murder, of which wo many have since disgraced the county, was almost entirely unkown. Of robbery there was remarkably little, in fact, it was almost unknown. The people were not bad but reckless, and although in a sudden heat of passion they might shoot down their best friend, they would not deliberately rob their most hated enemy. A few there were whose moral sense was so hunted that theft was not too low for them, but these were too cautious to cominit an act, that experience had taught them would be followed by sudden and severe punishment.
The text year aml the few following wrought a change in the condition of society. The country suffered from an inva- sion by " Sidney Ducks," discharged and fugitive convicts from the British penal colonies of Australia. Also there was a great ! influx of gamblers, thieves and blacklegs from the East, the drift wood brought in by the breakers of the gold excitement. The first tide of vinigration to the gold fields was composed of men who came here to dig wealth from the soil or to engage in some legitimate ocenpation, adventurers, if you will, but honest and intelligent ones. They counted in their ranks representa- tives of all the learned professions, men educated in all branches of mercantile business, mechanics of all descriptions, farmers, sailors and laborers of every elass. They came to make money, and to work for it. But when the news was sent back that the thousands who came out in 1849 and 1830 had spread all over the country, had developed thonsands of mining locali- ties, and built thousands of mining camps, where gold was plentiful and spent with a prodigal hand, then it was that the thieves and cut-throats who prey upon society and fatter upon the industry of others, flocked to the coast to live a life of plunder and rapine and gather spoils of the reckless and extravagant miner. Theft and robbery then became prevalent, murders more frequent and a feeling of insecurity gradually settled down upon the community. Then it was that the Vigilance Committee was organized in San Francisco, and kindred associations sprang np in almost every town in the State. They served in some measure to check the commission of crime, but they were held together by a rope of sand, and as soon as the occasion which drew them together had passed, they also vanished like the morning mist. They vanished but to reappear whenever eirenmstances demanded their interfer- ence, played their brief part and again disappeared. As the courts became better organized, ti.e means of communication between localities much improved and society more settled, the vigilance committee disappeared entirely, except here and there
a feverish action that had not the excuse of self-protection as formerly to palliate its conduct.
The years of 1855-6 were noted for the great prevalence of erime throughout the State. In October, 1855, the Alta published statistics that showed the number of people in the State who had died by violence during the eight months com- meneing January 1, 1855. The total number was four hundred and eight, of whom three hundred and seventy were killed, two were hung by Sheriff's, while thirty-six suffered death at the hands of a mob. The next year was the noted one, when tlin great Vigilance Committee of San Francisco took possession of and eleared that city of the horde of criminals that infested it. Immediately after the close of the sanguinary civil war, n wave of crime seemed to sweep over and engulf the whole country ; the history of a few years bear upon every page the bloody impress of the assassins' hand. More murders and robberies were committed from 1865 to 1870 than during any like period of the county's history. Two men were hanged at the beginning of the period, for murder, but the example seems to have had no effect, for the murders increased in number beyond that of any period since the first grain of gold was washed from the mountain streams.
It is neither desirable nor possible to chronicle all the deeds of blood committed in the county, nor in fact any considerable portion of them; but those that at the time attracted great attention, the circumstances of which are peculiar and interest- ing, or which contain the element of deliberate murder, these pages will endeavor to faithfully record.
The first is the cowardly and cruel assassination of Dr. Len- nox, of Missouri, in December, 1850. While that gentleman was in his own house, surrounded by friends, with whom he was engaged in pleasant conversation, a shot was fired from the street, the bullet entering the nnsuspecting man's body, inflicting a wound from which he died in an hour. The mur- derer made good his escape, and it was fortunate that he did so, for the jail was located at Marysville, which was entirely too distant to convey prisoners, and he would have been swung from the limb of a trce.
On the night of January 1, 1851, a New Year's ball was given at the Grass Valley House, in the then little town of Grass Valley, or Centerville, which was attended by ladies and gentlemen from all sections of the county. The gentlemen were of the best that had gathered from all parts of the world, and were well educated, refined and polished. There was one man, however, John Allen, familiarly known as Jaek Allen, a member of the famons Stevenson Regiment, a rough, burly fellow, who made himself very disagreeable, by becoming drunk and thrusting himself npon those who did not desire to cultivate his acquaintance. Allen had a " hankerin " after a young lady who was present from Cold Spring Valley, and
AT
RESIDENCE OF B. TAYLOR, GRASS VALLEY, NEVADA Cº, CAL.
PUBLISHED BY THOMPSON & YAST.
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HISTORY OF NEVADA COUNTY, CALIFORNIA
who had declined the pleasure of his court to the ad ant which had filled his heart with bitterness and his stomach with whisky Il in istel upon wring the young lady for whom his heart yearned a tenderly, and walked unamone d int, the ladies dressing room, where he then wa, from which le was partly coaxed and partly pulled by a Mir Ros and Ome others. He became: violently angry at R . unl threatened to kill him, but after repeatedly interrupting the dauert he was finally taken away by his friends By this time the gray dawn had begun to n ert it If and Bass said . This man has bren threatening my life all the night, and if he comes back love again I'll kill hun " The dance went on with its crawlons reand, und just as the morning light proclaimed the time had come for merriment to case, a voice wanted " lank out. Ross' Here ha mpes" A wild rush was made for the door as a severe of pistol shots rung out in rapid succession. Allen staggered and moved up the street A Dr Vanglo then rushed out mal fred a shot gom loaded with buckshot at Allen who had been the target for so many shots. The poor drunken follow foll dend. nul it was supposed that the fatal shut was the one tirel by Vanghu.
In the winter of 1552 and 3 the new town of Little York was inlisted by a band of desperados known as the " Decker Family," composed of Dick Fisher, Billy the Butelor. Andy Thompson and a half-dozen others. They carried mutters with a high land and sa terrorized the people that. no one dared to qquse them in anything. They picked purrels with strangers and brutally bent them; they paid for nothing, but when in want of clothing or any article simply went into the store and made their selection, and the proprietor thought himself fortunate if they departed in pence and quiet. One day in the spring of 1853, some of them, among whom way Dick Fisher, entered a Jew clothing store und, benning offended at the proprietor. took possession of the establishment und soun deposited the thoroughly terrified Hebrew, with his whole stock in trade, in the middle of the street. Quite a crowd collected to witness the raid, but no one felt himself specially called upon to interfere. A man named Ault nude the remark, "1 should think some om. would shoot them sometime," which remark was reported to the bully, Fisher, who declared his intention of whipping the presumptuous man. Later in the day Fisher entered Gay- lord's store, where Ault was standing, and proceeded to put his threat into execution, when Anlt lrew his revolver and tired upon him. Fisher bent, a hasty retreat followed by Ault, who kept up n continuous tire until the defeated bully lay dead at his feet. The spell of terror was broken, and the other bullies, recognizing the fact, shook the dust of the place from off their stolen boots, and Little York knew the " Decker Family " no more forever.
A par rall elde purrel o Sired rok between Gra Vally and Rough and Ready May as 1535 Tire Fraehren w working out rok and living together in a ralin one of the bing enplayed by bis two companies Thy ew fit to di har him and the act so gale ] html that le. procure la resolver and processed to the clans where the others were at work, and shut one of thems fatally and samles the other be then pm a lot in his own brain and
Early Thursday evening. March 3 17, wane men who entered the store of Fand Rich, at Alpha, were barritied to till that gentleman lying upon the floor in a pool of fresh blood, apparently deal Upon examination, his far and arma were found to be terribly out and mutilated with a knife while from his broken skull small pieces of brain were oozing out men the floor. The wounds upon his arms were supposed to have been given while endeavoring to ward off blows aimed at his head. No robbery had been committed, and the appearances indicated that the deed had but just been perpetrated by some me what had entered by the rear door, and who had escaped in the same way. bring frightened away by the men who formul their unconscious victim before time had been given to secure ally plunder. Mr. Rich was so severely injured that no physician was sent for until the following morning, and twenty-four hours bad elapsed ere n surgeon arrived from Nevada City. T'hr unfortunate man's wounds were dressed, and after hang- ing on the brink of eternity for a number of days, he began to improve, and finally recovered, but was unable to clear up the mystery that surrounded the bloody deel. A Belgian, named Nevils, was arrested a few days after the occurrence, in Saera- mento, by Marshal Plumer, of Nevada City. He had departed from Alpha on the night of the attempted assassination, and this, with a few other circumstances, turned suspicion in his direction. He was conveyel to Alpha, examined by a Justice of the l'eace and committed for trial. So excited were the citizens that it was with dithienlty they were prevented from lynching the prisoner; as it was they took him from the otlicers, placed n rope abont his neck and endeavored to frighten him into making a confession, an act which wonbl have assur- edly scaled his doom. He still protested his innocence, audl was at Ist redelivered into the hands of the officers, who conveyed him to Nevada City and safely lodged him in the county jail. When the case was brought to the attention of the: grand jury. so slight and circumstantial was the evidence against Nevils, that body refused to indict him, and he was set at liberty. He never received any satisfaction for his rough handling by the mob, unless he considered the fact that they did not hang liim satisfaction enough ; it was a close call. Who assaulted Isaac Rich was never known.
The saddest tragedy that has ever stained the pages of the
Jonty's history was the murder and suicident tiras Valley. Somly. February 22 1538, Michael Brennan, a man of liberal ohention an I refined sensibilities, an Irishman by birth. was ent here from New York, where he had been connected CI villy with the daily press, to superintend the operations of the Ment HEque Mining l'o on Massachusetts Hill At first heresful, les operations logan to prove disastrous, mul his investments and ventines failures After two years of battle against adverse fortunes, and being driven to desperation and despair mere la the loss he had orcasional those who had request was much confidence in him than by his own penniary disasters, and seeing no way in which to provide for the wants of the family dependent upon him, his reason femme dethrand and in a tit of melancholy and dejection he noministered prawie acid to his wife and three sinnll children and tiuully to himself. On the morning of Smalay, Folgmary 22, 1538, the bodies were formul cold and rigid in death in the house that had ones been their happy home. The children, the oldest but five years of nge, were found in different rooms, while the wife ly For the sofa and the father and husband upon the floor of the parlor, showing that the poison was administered to each separately mil privately By the side of the murderer and suicide lay londra piste, racked, though for what parques intended is only a matter of conjecture. He left a better fully explaining the causes that had left him to the commission of the barritale dord. saying that he could not hear to see his family living in poverty and disgrace, mivel wishing that he might take with him un his long journey his mother and sister, who were living in Kuruq and were dependent upon him for maintenance.
A most sanguinary battle occurred on Osman Hill nour finnes Valley, July 1, 1858, in which courage on the one side was opposed to numbers and cowardier on the other. A dispute. existel between Alexander Gritlin and Dr. MeMartry in regard tu the MeMurtry and Larrimer mining chim, which way apparently ahont to be amienbly settled. On the fatal duy Dr. MeMartry, his brother, James H. MeMartry, and Richard Kim. ball were engaged in sinking a shaft upon the disputed claim, when Gritlin appeared with a party of about a dozen men, whom he had filled with whisky and provided with guns, and ordered the working party to abandon the claim. Overawell by numbers tlo: three men were retiring, when they were fired ujwin, James H. MeMurtry being killed ant Kimball severely wounded. Dr. MeMurtry, the ouly one left to battle against the cowardly assassins, turned and stood at bay; six shots from his revolver, fired in rapid succession, created consternation in the ranks of the enemy, killing a man uamed Holland, fatally wounding a inan namned Garvey and "Coyote Jack," severely wounding Patrick Casey and slightly woundling several others. When his weapon was exhausted, the now desperate man kneeled down by the body of his murdered brother, took from it
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HISTORY OF NEVADA COUNTY. CALIFORNIA.
the revolver that he had been unable to use, aree and again confronted his a ilant but they had fel, the unerring aim of the doctor proving to much for their whisky infused courage. Kimball was rendered insan al was out to the Stockton Asylum, where he was kept for some time. Six of the assault- ing party were un tol mil held on the charge of inunker. Five of them were convicted of moher in the second degree and sentenced to the penitentiary, Grillin for fifteen years and John Met'ule, Daniel Meter, Patrick d'way and Patrick Har- rington for ten yours ' Griffin escaped from the county jail, February 2, 1859, salequent to his conviction, but was arrested a few days later in Sacramento and conveyed to San Quentin. To close this ketch it is only necessary to stata that they all received pardons before their terms hil expired.
During the cival war sectional feeling ran very high in C'al- ifornia, among where population were thousands who had but u few years before called the " Sunny South" their home, and who were ever ready to assert its rights and redress its wrongs. Many of these returned home and took an active part in the struggle, while others, whow patriotism or courage was not equal to that effort, remained here and were a constant source of annoyance und danger. One of these, who made himself especially obnoxious, was Augustus Quinton, a native of Illi- nois, and more bitter than the most violent Southern man. le used himself by hurrahing for Jeff. Davis, shooting at the stars and stripes and threatening to shoot. any abolitionist who should attempt to arrest him. This began to grow monot- onous to the citizens of North San Juan, where the champion lived, in faet, highly objectionable, and a warrant was procured for his arrest, July 28, 1864. The officers, with the warrant, proceeded to the residence of the eller Quinton, the paternal progenitor of the champion, and in attempting to make the arrest, were resisted by the young man, whereupon he was shot and killed. His father and two brothers departed from tho place with their families. A few months later, Judge O. P. Stidger, who was then editor of the Nevada Gazette, and had been very bitter in his strietures upon sueh ehivalric gentlemen as Quinton, had occasion to visit North San Juan. Ho returned on the morning of September 9, 1864, oeeupying an outside seat with the driver, being the only passenger until after the occurrence to be narrated. At a point in the road about three-fourths of a mile from North San Juan, a bullet whizzed past his car, between him and the driver, the report of a gun was heard and the smoke from the discharged weapon was seen curling upwards from a elump of bushes that stood .just inside of a fence surrounding a field on one side of the road. The stage driver instantly whipped up his horses, and they were soon beyond the reach of another bullet. No other cause could be asigned for the attempted assassination than the
hatrol felt toward Judge Stilger for his course in violently and constantly denouncing the recessionists
The most fiendish and brutal murder has yet to be recorderl. Shortly after five o'clock on the morning of Tuesday, Novem- ber 27, 1566, Charles A. Nixon arrived at Cooper's bridge, over the South Yuba, on his way to Nevala City from Columbin Hill. He found the body of James L. Cooper lying prone upon the bridge, about twenty feet from the north end. The laxly was covered with front and bore the appearance of having lain there the entire night. The back and upper portions of the head were terribly eut and mangled, apparently with a hatchet or axe. Mr. Nixon returned to the top of the ridge and pro- cured the assistance of two men to watch by the body of the murdered man, while he went on to Nevada City to notify the authorities. Upon reaching the scene of the umrder, the officers proceeded to the cabin of the deceased, situated at the foot of the precipitous hills skirting the Yuba, and more than a mile from any human habitation. Lying inside the door of the cabin was discovered the body of Joseph Kyle. a partner of the deceased Cooper, and bearing wounds similar to those on the murdered man lying upon the bridge. The cabin bore every indiention of having witnessed a terrible struggle between the victim and his assailants. The safe door had been forced open and several hundred dollars extraeted, trunks had been chopped into with the bloody axe and the cabin thoroughly rifled. Fifty dollars were found in Cooper's pocket, which the- villains had overlooked. Upon examination of the bodies, Cooper was found to have received eight terrible gashes upon the head, any one of which was sufficient to cause death. Kyle's head was nearly severed from the body, and he had also received a blow from the axe upon the breast, the murderous weapon being burried up to the eye. The Board of Super- visors immediately offered a reward of $2,000 for the arrest and eonvietion of the murderers. Governor Low offered an addtional reward of $1,000, and the friends of the murdered men increased the amount to $3,500, but the murderers were never detected, and the bloody deed still remains wrapped in mystery as with a shrond.
During the course of a drunken row at Camp 20, on the line of the C. P. R. R., in May, 1867, John Hennessy was killed. Two of the participants, John Brannan and Mary Gallagher, were arrested and indicted for murder. In Septem- ber a nolle prosequi was entered in the case of the woman, but Brannan, who was only twenty-one years of age, and was said to have already killed three men, was placed upon trial. The evidence was not sufficient to convict him and he was dis- charged. While awaiting his trial he made his escape from the jail, but was retaken two days later, nine miles from Nevada City. About a month after his acquittal, November 7, 1867, in company with John Kelley and two others, he
entered a cabin a few miles above Cisco, and attempted to rob five Chinamen who resided there. They were, offered fifty dollars to depart, but demanded all the money there was in the house, whereupon the indignant Celestials set upon them with shovels, killed Kelley and wounded Brannan, so that he was unable to eseape, and handed him over to the authorities. The other two doughty warriors effected their escape, as surprised at the manifestation of latent belligereney in the Mongolian constitution as they would have been by an earthquake.
During 1867 there were quite a mimber of homicides, but as the verdiet in each ense was " not guilty," and it is presumed that it was a just one, no mention of them will bo made. A man who has been put in peril of his life for the murder of his fellow man and has been acquitted by a jury of his peers, is entitled to absolute exemption from any reference to the cir- cumstances that would cast any reflection upon him, and therefore these eases and many others are omitted from this work.
While indulging in a game of cards at Forest Springs, Thomas Alcorn and a man named Shaddock began to quarrel. Eli Hanna, who was present, took up Shaddock's side of the controversy and in a fight which ensued between him and Alcorn he was knocked down with a rock. He tried to borrow a pistol, but failed, and the quarrel apparently ended. Alcorn went to the ranch of A. Bowen nearly three miles from the scene of the altercation, and Hanna went to J. Bowen's house, about half a mile farther. Here he procured a shot gun, loaded it with slugs and retraced his steps to A. Bowen's place. It was now midnight and Bowen and Alcorn were sitting in the dining room, when Hanna, who had left his gun standing in the porch, entered and demanded of Alcorn why he had hit him with a rock. Alcorn replied, "Let me alone, or I will hit you again." "No man can hit me with a rock and live," said the irate Hanna, and stepped back through the door, raised his gun and shot Alcorn dead. Hanna fled and remained in the woods all night, but returned in the morning and surrendered himself. He claimed that from the time he was hit with the rock until he found himself roaming about in the woods he had no knowledge of what transpired. The trial was concluded July 29, 1868, and a verdict was rendered of murder in the second degree, with a recommendation to the mercy of the court. The court showed the mercy he thought the prisoner entitled to by sentencing him to a term of twenty-five years in the penitentiary.
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