USA > California > Siskiyou County > History of Siskiyou County, California > Part 27
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Leaving his family in Indiana, he started with others by the overland route for the west, and ar- rived at Hangtown (Placerville) August 15, 1850, where he engaged in mining until October of the same year. when he started for Oregon to see the country. He wintered at Oregon City, working in a warehouse till spring of 1851, when he started to Scott Bar, then the only popular mining locality. On the route he learned of the rich mines on Yreka flats, and proceeded there, arriving in May. He found everything booming, spent the summer and fall mining on Cherry creek and the winter on Indian and Greenhorn creeks. In the spring of 1852 he returned to Oregon and mined that summer in Josephine county, returning to Deadwood in August, and from there he went to the States. Trading a year in drugs and groceries, he started again with his family for California, reaching Scott valley in the fall of 1854, and in 1855 raised a crop of grain, paying eight dollars a bushel for seed wheat. He next went to old Etna and engaged in the distilling business, making that place his home until July, 1857, when he moved on the place where Charles Hovenden now resides. There he lived until 1867, when he again moved in July to his present residence where his children have grown up. Mr. and Mrs. Davidson have lived to see Scott val- ley transformed from a wild waste, inhabited by Indians, with rude huts, to a beautifully improved tract, covered with pleasant and luxurious homes. Their farm is finely located on the west side of the valley three miles distant from the village of Etna. It comprises 280 acres, well fenced and watered and adapted to grazing and farming. Mr. Davidson is a member of Evening Star Lodge, No. 186, Free and Accepted Masons, at Etna ; and also of Evening Star Chapter, Order of Eastern Star. Politically he is a staunch Democrat.
RESIDENCE OF JERRY DAVIDSON, 3% MILES NORTH OF ETNA SISKIYOU CO.GAL.
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HISTORY OF SISKIYOU COUNTY, CALIFORNIA.
Baid of the same therefore you are to arest the said Dr. Baid and bring him before the people and to be dealt with according to their Judgment. A. BOLES, Chairman Committee. Yıeka, 1852.
Boles also endorsed it on the back, direeting Abraham Thompson "to serve the within rit;" and for fear it was not then sufficiently authenticated, signed his name again in another place. Armed with this document, Boles, Hurd, Thompson, and a few others went to a restaurant where Frenchy was quietly eating, arrested their man, and started with him at once for Scott river. Here they found an immense crowd gathered, who greeted them with cheers, and proceeded at once to dispose of Frenchy's case by miners' law. A jury was selected and the trial commenced. But little evidence could be pro- duced against him; Smith's belief that he was the man was about all, while in his defense was the tes- timony Hurd brought from Humbug that tended so strongly to prove an alibi. And yet on this slight evidence many wanted to hang him. The jury argued and discussed the matter, aided by the crowd, but could decide upon nothing. But for a few who would not agree to it they would have hanged him, but these few could not see how a man could be in two places at one time, and did not believe it possible to make the trip from Humbug and back in the night. While they were arguing the question, Smith tried his powers of persuasion on the prisoner, but to no avail. With tears in his eyes he spoke of the loved wife and innocent babe awaiting his return, that if he lost this money the world would hold no more charmns for him, he was ready to die. Suddenly he changed his manner, drew his pistol, and told the man he would shoot him like a dog if he did not confess, and restore the dust, and then put an end to his own existence, but if he gave up the stolen treasure he would see that he was released.
At this juncture the crowd came up with a rope, with the information that the jury had decided to hang him. They had agreed among themselves to run him up once, and if that did not extort a con- fession, to let him go. This was too much for Frenchy. On the one hand was the rope or pistol, and on the other Smith's promise to aid him. He looked at the preparations made to stretch his neck, and lost his courage. He had taken the treasure, he said, and would show them where he had hidden it. Down the trail he led them to where it passed some bluffy rocks; here he paused, reached his hand up into a crevice and produced the sack of dust. Those of the jury who had before stood by him were now the most eager for his punishment. They had been deceived, and this was a fault they could not stand. An agreement was soon made to give the culprit twenty-nine lashes. He was quickly stripped, tied to a tree, and a rawhide lash made. Smith was selected to administer the castigation. To this he objected. He had forgiven the man for the wrong, and could not whip him. He would treat the whole crowd, or do anything, but whip the man he could not. The crowd was angry at this; their natures were not sensitive enough to appreciate such sentiments; but Smith made them a speech which completely won their hearts. It was then decreed that the constable should do the flagellating.
Thompson stepped to the front and said he did not fancy the job, but that an officer should not shrink from his duty; and, seizing the whip in his hand, began laying on the stripes in a mild way. The prisoner made his first mistake when he was frightened into a confession, and right here he made his second. When fifteen lashes had been given he gave Thompson a look of hate, and hissed through his teeth, "I'll kill you." " Kill me, will you, you dirty thief ?" shouted Thompson, as he laid the blows on with all the power of his muscular arm. The whipping before had been gentle, but now the blood followed every cut. Thick and fast he rained the blows upon the bleeding back until thirty had been counted, when he was told to hold on, as he had given him one too many, but hold on he would not. Down came the lash with a vicious whiz through the air upon the lacerated back, until the subdued victim pleaded for his life and promised to do the irate whipper no injury. Thompson then relented, unbound the man and washed his bleeding back with liniment. The jury had still one more duty to perform. They took a bag of dust belonging to the Frenchman, weighed out six ounces to Smith for what he had lost before, six to Hurd for a nugget he had lost by theft, jurors', witnesses' and constable's fees consuming the balance. A purse of three ounces was then made up for him, and he was invited to "make yourself scarce," and never be seen in the diggings again, or he would be made to swing. He accepted the invitation.
Elijah Moore & Co. kept a trading-post at Free- town, on the north fork of Humbug creek, in 1852, which was the scene of considerable excitement one day. It was customary for Indians from about the mouth of Humbug to roam up the creek and beg old victuals and carry away offal from the slaughter-
house. Little articles were occasionally missed from this store, and these Indians were suspected of hav- ing spirited them away. One day two Indians were in the store, and one of the partners went out for awhile. After he was gone, the other partner noticed a pair of buckskin pants that seemed to him to lie too near the Indians, and removed them behind the counter. The Indians soon passed out and started down the creek. The first partner then returned, and noticing that the pants and Indians were both gone, seized a gun and went to the door and shot one of the Indians who had gone but a short distance. He soon discovered that he had been too hasty, and as he could not put life into the inan- imate form of his victim, he put metal into his own heels and took to the mountains. The miners gathered and proposed to have a trial, but the guilty man had escaped. This was no obstacle to the pro- ceedings whatever, for they tried his partner in his stead, a sort of an impromptu Damon and Pythias affair, with the brotherly love ingredient omitted. There was no evidence that this man was aware that his partner intended to shoot, but the crowd was excited, and many wanted to hang him anyway. The better judgment of the cooler ones prevailed, and the man was acquitted. The excitement soon passed away, and as the man killed was only an Indian, the partner who took to the woods returned and resumed his place in the store without moles- tation.
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HISTORY OF SISKIYOU COUNTY, CALIFORNIA.
TAR AND FEATHERS IN YREKA.
Some time during the year 1853 a man and woman from Oregon registered as man and wife at the Yreka House, then the only regular hotel in the city, and kept by Horace Knights, who rented it from the owner, N. Garland. It soon transpired that the parties were not married, but that they were engaged in a business highly immoral and improper. It must be borne in mind that the moral sense of the community was not as aeute as it might or should have been ; that few ladies then shed their refining influence among the people, although a small number of most excellent and refined ladies were then here; but that squaws and women of a disreputable character were to be found in the majority among the representatives of the gentler sex. Still, blunt as was the moral sense of the peo- ple, and heedless as they may have been of the de- moralizing tendency of their own acts, they took it upon themselves to become virtuously indignant at the audacity and moral depravity of this man, and determined to make an example of him. Let it be said, however, that with some, perhaps many, this indignation was but a cloak. They wanted some fun, and thought that this man, who had no friends, and who was in a business that was not calculated to create for him much sympathy among the better class of citizens, could furnish it. Whatever were their various reasons, this was what they did :--
Mr. Garland stepped into the hotel one evening and called the man outside. There he imparted to him the startling information that there was an organized body of men bent on hanging him or inflicting some outrage upon him, the character of which he was not certain, on account of his business ; that he was his friend and would lead him away to a place of safety. Trusting in the friendship and assistance thus proffered, the man submitted himself to Garland's guidance. They had gone but a short distance when, near the corner of Miner and Third streets, they met a small crowd of men, who demanded his surrender to them. Garland drew his revolver and made a great pretense of protecting him, even firing several shots, being careful, however, not to hit any one. Despite the efforts of this most valiant and heroic protector, the man was secured and taken to a cattle eorral on the south-east, corner of Third and North streets, where a kettle of boiling tar and a bed of variegated feathers were awaiting him. A judicious mixture of these was quickly substituted for the clothing the moral outcast had worn when captured, and then he was advised to turn from the depravity of his ways, emulate the noble example of those shining lights who were now ministering unto him, to consider the uprightness of their ways and walk therein, and was then released.
Whether he profited by the good advice is not known, but if it stuck to him as long and persistently as did the new suit of clothes they gave him it must have done him some good. There were but few directly engaged in this lawless act, but a great many were cognizant of it and gave it their approval, while few felt called upon to give the unfortunate man even so much as their sympathy, and no one to see that an official inquiry was made into the affair.
GEORGE BRUNT OUTRAGE.
In the spring of 1853 there were but few men
working on Hamburg Bar, and among them was a company of five men who were bringing a ditch to their claim. One afternoon their tent caught fire, evidently from sparks blown by the wind from the fire with which they had cooked dinner, and burned down. The proprietors, two of whom were named Barnes and Shaw, accused a young Englishman named George Brunt of having set the tent on fire. A number of men accompanied them to the claim of Joseph Reeves, where Brunt was at work, and there ascertained that when the tent was burned the suspected man had been hard at work in the claim. The ditch men seemed to have some grudge against the man, and were not satisfied of his inno- cence, and during the night went to his cabin, took him away, and proceeded to extort a confession from him by stringing him up to a tree. After hanging him till he was nearly dead, and becoming con- vinced that he knew nothing of the burning of the tent, they let him go. They were now troubled about the consequences that might follow their bar- barous acts, and charged Brunt, who was a very simple man, never to divulge what they had done under pain of death. He returned to his cabin, afraid to go to any one for relief, and lay there alone, groaning with pain. His groans reached the ears of Sigmund Simon, who took his revolver, and went out to see what was the trouble. Guided by the sounds, he reached the side of the suffering man; and asked what ailed him.
"I am in pain," said he.
" What is the matter ?"
" I can't tell you."
" You can't tell me?" " No."
" Well, I eame over to help you, but if you won't tell me what the matter is you can lie there and groan, and I'll go to bed again."
Brunt then said he would tell, and turned his face to the wall while he related the outrage that had been committed upon him. Simon examined his neck and found his story confirmed by the black and blue ridge left by the cruel rope. The next day Simon went to Johnson's Bar for assistance to punish the men who had committed the inhuman act, and forty men returned with him to investigate the affair. They found the five men intrenched in a cabin, and threatening to shoot the first man who came near them, but after a great deal of talk and bluster they were convinced that their safest course was to come out and stand trial. A court was organized, and the affair investigated, resulting in a verdict for the men to pay Brunt two hundred dol- lars for his injuries, and to leave the river within thirty days. When the time for their departure had elapsed they were still there, and were granted a little longer time. They finally departed, having compromised with their victim for one hundred and fifty dollars.
CRAZY FRENCHMAN HANGED AT YREKA.
In the year 1853 there lived in a cabin on the Greenhorn road an old Frenchman who was crazy on the subject of perpetual motion. One day au Oregon packer who had been to Yreka to urt h's bell-mare shod, was passing back to Greenhorn, when the Frenchman ran out of his eabin ith his revolver and shot him dead. The man f from
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HISTORY OF SISKIYOU COUNTY, CALIFORNIA.
his horse, and the murderer fled to Yreka, pursued by a crowd of miners, who had rushed from their claims when they had heard the pistol shot. He ran to the sheriff's office, where the Tribune office now is, and gave himself up to the sheriff, who took him down the back stairs and put him in jail. In less than an hour a thousand men were in the streets demanding the prisoner. Tools were pro- cured from a blacksmith's shop, and an assault made upon the jail door, which soon gave way, and the murderer was in the hands of the mob. He was taken to the vacant lot opposite Ad. Winckler's resi- dence, where a regular miners' court was organized to try him. Dr. W. H. Gatliff made a professional examination of the prisoner, and testified that he was insane, but it did no good, for the mob was in- sane also. His death was decreed by the jury. One of the three pine trees that stood back of the present residence of W. I. Nichols was selected for a gallows, and a nimble English sailor scrambled up it, and fastened a rope to one of the limbs. The noose was so far from the ground that the victim had to stand on a horse in order to reach it, and before everything was ready the horse moved, the man slipped off, and he died a miserable, strangling death. The mob, most of whom were Greenhorn miners, then dispersed, and after dark some of the victim's countrymen took down the body that had been left hanging to the limb, and buried it.
THE GREENHORN WAR.
Early in 1852 the miners on Yreka flats began to look about them for more water to work their claims, and soon formed a company to bring the water of Greenhorn through the gulch on the left to the flats above the town. The ditch company was composed of seventy shares, and the work was done by the owners who expected to use the water in their claims. The water was taken from the creek on the north bank about three-fourths of a mile above its mouth. There was at that time but one claim being worked below the head of the ditch, and that belonged to Quinn & Lee, who were working on the south bank and had a little ditch carrying twenty-five or thirty inches of water to their claim. The company pro- enred the consent of Quinn & Lee to the diversion of the water from the creek upon agreement to always leave enough to fill their little ditch, and then com- menced to cut their ditch through to the flats, where it still runs and is known as the Sproll or China Hydraulic ditch. After this had been accomplished, gold was found in quantities below the head of the ditch and many claims were located. In winter and until the water became low in the creek in the sum- mer time, no difficulty was experienced in working these new claims, but as soon as nearly all the scant supply of water was needed to fill the ditch, leaving scarcely a drop running to the claims below, there was trouble. Ignorant of the principle and law of water rights that obtained in the mines, the disap- pointed miners of Greenhorn claimed that the water should be allowed to run in its natural channel, and that any diversion of it to the injury of claims fur- ther down the stream was illegal and wrong, not- withstanding such diversion was made prior to the location of the claims. No serious difficulty occurred till the spring of 1855, when the miners cut the ditch,
and allowed the water to run down the creek. The company repaired their ditch and applied to Judge R. L. Westbrook for an injunction restraining any- one from in anyway diverting the water from the ditch in the future. At this time the property had fallen into the hands of half a dozen men, under the name of the Middle Greenhorn Ditch Company. The injunction issued by Judge Westbrook was dis- obeyed by Robert Wilson, who cut the ditch on the twenty-third of February, 1855, and was arrested for the act by Sheriff Colton and lodged in the jail at Yreka.
The miners along the upper Greenhorn resolved to rescue him from the clutches of the law, and began to make arrangements for a demonstration in force that night. About dark they assembled at Wheel- er's trading-post and organized for a raid upon the jail. They then started in a body for Yreka. Some half-dozen, among whom were Bob Hardin and the notorious Bill Fox, went ahead of the others, unknown to them, and reached the jail a considerable distance in advance. The jail was situ- ated on the south-west corner of the plaza, opposite where Winckler's house now stands, and before it was a large space of open ground, no buildings hav- ing yet been erected there. But a block to the north a festival was being held in the new Metho- dist Episcopal church, which still stands there, its look of newness long since faded away. A great crowd was gathered at the church, including the county officers, and when the advance party arrived at the jail, they found it silent and apparently deserted. A little investigation revealed the pres- ence of a deputy known as Dutch Andrew, of whom they demanded and received the keys. Wil- son was quickly released and spirited away, and all was again quiet. Now, after the bird had flown, came the large Greenhorn crowd to the cage and ranged themselves before the door. George Chaplin rushed into the church and eagerly told Colton that a mob was making an attack upon the jail for the purpose of releasing Wilson. In the church were the leading citizens of the town, among others J. Mont- gomery Peters, the district judge. He called upon all good citizens to go up and aid the sheriff defend the jail, but as he manifested no disposition to go him- self, the majority thought themselves no better citi- zens than the judge and carefully remained away. At the first alarm, the sheriff and several others rushed from the church and advanced to where the mob was assaulting the door with an ax, the marks of which can still be seen by the curious to the pres- ent day, as the old door now opens and shuts for the accommodation of the city marshal and the guests he entertains in the calaboose back of the engine-house. They tried to reason with the mob and persuade them to have respect for the law, and not to interfere with its officers in the discharge of their duty, but to no avail. A man inside, whom the mob supposed to be Wilson, cried out, "I want to be taken out!" and they made an immediate assault upon the door. A few shots were fired and Hugh Slicer, a well-known and respected citizen, was wounded, and the mob fell back in confusion. Colton took advantage of the lull in the storm to procure a shotgun from his house near by and entrenched himself within the jail, with a few citi-
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HISTORY OF SISKIYOU COUNTY, CALIFORNIA.
zens who had hastily armed themselves with revolv- ers. The defenders within the building, as remem- bered by two of them, were D. D. Colton, H. G. Ferris, Livy Swan, Charles Hathaway, William Terry, A. E. Schwatka, Sank Owens, Hugh Tate, and Thomas Conner. Up to this time neither the officers within nor the enraged mob without were aware that Wilson had long since been taken away by his friends. The angry crowd now again ap- proached the jail, and despite the warning of the sher- iff not to advance, kept drawing nearer and nearer to the door, and when they had advanced to within a few feet, Colton fired upon them with his gun and ordered the others to shoot. A volley was then fired from the inside that completely scattered the assailants, who returned in confusion to their headl- quarters at Wheeler's trading-post. The defenders then went out and found Dr. Stone lying on the ground mortally wounded. He was carried down to Dr. Daughty's office, where he expired before morning. Several others were wounded, but got back to Greenhorn, one of them dying from the effects of his injuries.
The miners now expected the war would be brought into their camp, and that a sheriff's posse would come to the creek to make arrests. They fortified themselves to the number of one hundred and twenty or more at the point of rocks, above Wheeler's, and for two days no communication was held between them and the people of Yreka. No mining was done on the creek and everything was in suspense. Colton and Westbrook were afraid to go to the fortress of the Greenhorn army, and so prevailed upon A. E. Schwatka to go up there, read the riot act, and see what was the condition of affairs. Schwatka was acquainted with every man on the creek, living there himself, and knew they were all friendly to him. All was quiet as he went up the cañon, the claims deserted, and no one to be seen. At Wheeler's he found a man named Atkins, whom he sent to the Point of Rocks with a request for the men to come down to Wheeler's and hold a consultation, that he was entirely alone and no danger was to be apprehended. Soon a long line of familiar faces filed before him and halted in front of the post, where he explained his inission, read the riot act, and requested them to send a delegation to Yreka to consult with the authorities, offering to remain himself as a pledge of good faith to the dele- gates. A committee of seven was sent to Yreka, where they held a consultation with Judge West- brook, Sheriff Colton and others, which resulted in the appointment of a committee to settle the diffi- culties and effect a compromise between the miners and the proprietors of the ditch. As a result of this conference the following agreement was made :-
GREENHORN CREEK, March 3, 1855.
WHEREAS, We, the committee appointed on behalf of the miners of Greenhorn creek, its tributaries and banks, and invested with power to settle the dispute between the miners of Greenhorn, on the one side, and the Middle Greenhorn Ditch Company on the other side; we, the committee on behalf of the miners, make the following proposals to the committee on behalf of the Ditch Company :--
1-That the miners of Greenhorn creek and its banks have the first right to water for mining purposes.
2-That the Middle Greenhorn Ditch Company have a right to all the overplus water after the creek and its banks are sup- plied.
3-That this committee appoint a miner on the creek, whose duty it shall be to regnlate said water.
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