USA > California > San Francisco County > San Francisco > History of the San Francisco Committee of vigilance of 1851 : a study of social control on the California frontier in the days of the gold rush > Part 14
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In the Alta California, September 16, 1850, a contrast was drawn between the comparative safety of life and property in the mines under the "prompt and substantial justice of 1849" and the frequent robberies and murders currently reported. The writer asserted that, although the better portion of the popu- lation had hailed with delight the advent of law as safer than the local practices which necessity had compelled, the statutes had proved so inefficient, and so poorly adapted to the migratory character of the community, that the courts failed to punish offenders and prevent crime; bail was habitually forfeited, re- arrest was almost impossible, and trials could be postponed by technicalities until the absence of witnesses made acquittal in- evitable. Throughout the state clever, premeditated robberies and murders formed a menace to security far more dangerous than the more impulsive crimes of an earlier period.
Peter H. Burnett made an excellent summary of the problems of the time when he said :35
For some eight or ten years after the organization of our State gov- ernment, the administration of the criminal laws was exceedingly defective and inefficient. This arose mainly from the following causes:
1. Defective laws and imperfect organization of the Courts; 2. The incompetency of the district attorneys, who were generally young men without an adequate knowledge of the law; 3. The want of seenre county prisons, there being no penitentiary during most of that time; 4. The great expense of keeping prisoners and convicts in the county jails; 5. The difficulty of enforcing the attendance of witnesses; 6. The difficulty of securing good jurymen, there being so large a proportion of reckless, sour, disappointed, and unprincipled men then in the country; 7. The unsettled state of our land-titles, which first induced so many men to squat upon the lands of the grantees of Spain and Mexico, and then to steal their cattle to live upon. . . .
It was the extremely defective administration of criminal justice in California for some years that led to the organization of so many vigilance committees, and filled the courts of Judge Lynch with so many cases.
When the second legislature assembled in San José on Jan- uary 6, 1851, Governor Burnett in his annual message alluded
35 Burnett, Recollections, 386, 390.
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to many of the serious problems of the state, and proposed some desirable reforms,36 but he did not remain in office to assist in the work he had considered so important. He resigned January 9, giving as his only excuse vague obligations of personal busi- ness.37 No satisfactory explanation of the resignation has been made in the meager chronicles of the times. Judge E. O. Crosby, who was thoroughly familiar with the problems of the day, felt that Burnett lacked the self-confidence and assertiveness neces- sary to hold his own against the more astute demagogues. Al- fred A. Green, another prominent San Franciscan, said plainly that the "Tammany" element was too powerful for the governor and was hostile to him on account of his honest opposition to land frauds in San Francisco.38 John McDougal, the lieutenant- governor who succeeded Burnett, was somewhat skilful as a politician, but he lacked personal force in times of crisis, his habits were dissipated, and he became a tool in the hands of corrupt men.39 It was most unfortunate for the development of California that after its citizens had placed in office a man of honorable principles, any influence, either private or public, should have forced him to relinquish his important responsibili- ties into unscrupulous hands, and to abandon the entire machine of government to selfishness and ambition.
To fill the vacancy created by MeDougal's promotion the senate elected as its president David C. Broderick, whose ability had already been recognized. From that time until his death Broderick was a dominant figure in the history of the state.
The legislature made some alterations in the statutes which may be noted here, although several of them did not become
36 Journals of the California Legislature, 1851, pp. 22-23.
37 Burnett, Recollections, 377.
38 See Crosby, MS Statement, 47-49, and Green, MS Life and Adven- tures, 25; Hittell, California, IV, 60-64, 87.
39 Bancroft said that in 1856 MeDougal was arrested for election frauds (Popular Tribunals, I, 130).
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effective until July, 1851.40 Justices of the peace were given jurisdiction over minor offenses, and it was provided that their courts should be open continuously.41 This change permitted prompt trial of misdemeanors, and corrected one of the most flagrant defects in the earlier laws. Criminal cases might be appealed from the justice of the peace to the Court of Sessions, which also had jurisdiction over all more serious crimes, except murder, manslaughter, and arson. The last named offenses and all criminal cases not otherwise provided for were still under the jurisdiction of the District Court, which had, in addition, appellate jurisdiction over criminal judgments found by the Court of Sessions. These measures, generally designated as the Civil and Criminal Practice aets, proved so efficient that, with necessary modifications, they remained in force for many years, and served as models for other states and territories west of the Rocky Mountains. 42
Aeting on a recommendation of Governor Burnett, and on a petition from the citizens of El Dorado County, who prayed that horse stealing should be made a capital offense,43 the legis- lature passed an act that permitted a jury to impose the death penalty for robbery and grand larceny." The bill originated in the senate, where it was vigorously opposed by Broderick and three others, but passed by a vote of eight to four. It passed the assembly without delay, and a motion to reconsider it there was lost by a vote of seventeen to nine.45 The same bill per-
40 Especially an Act concerning the Courts of Justice of this State and Judicial Officers (California, Statutes, 1851, chap. 1, p. 9) ; an Act to regulate Proceedings in Civil Cases (ibid., chap. 5, p. 51) ; an Act to regulate Proceedings in Criminal Cases (ibid., chap. 29, p. 212).
41 California, Statutes, 1851, chap. 1, p. 23, sec. 90. The civil jurisdiction of justices' courts was also modified.
42 See Some Account of the Work of Stephen J. Field [edited by C. T. Black and S. B. Smith], 1881, pp. 19-20; Hittell, California, IV, 67.
43 Journals of the California Legislature, 1851, pp. 91, 101, 1412.
44 California, Statutes, 1851, chap. 95, p. 406.
45 See Journals of the California Legislature, 1851, pp. 286, 1422, 1426.
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mitted, at the discretion of the jury, a punishment of fifty lashes for petit larceny. The statute remained in force until 1856,46 and several felons were executed under its provision. Professor Royce used the law as the text for this severe arraignment of the spirit of the lawmakers :47
So far did this trust in hanging as a cure for theft go, that in the second legislature, that of 1851, an act was passed making hanging for grand larceny a penalty to be thenceforth regularly imposed at the pleasure of the convicting jury. So easy is it for men to sauction their blunders by the help of a little printers' ink, used for the publication of a statute.
Correcting an error of Shinn in regard to the date and duration of the statute,48 Royce continued :
The matter [of the date] . . . is of some importance, because it shows that the law did not first encourage the lynchers, but that only after the extravagances of popular justice had for some time flourished, it was found possible to load the statute book with an entirely useless and demoralizing penalty.
That criticism is hardly justified ; a study of the measure reveals that it was suggested by the governor of the state as a tem- porary and deplorable substitute for the customary terms of imprisonment, that it was passed by large majorities in both houses, after full discussion, that it was seldom invoked by juries, and was repealed as soon as jails could be constructed and the emergency relieved.49
46 See California, Statutes, 1856, chap. 139, p. 220.
47 Royce, California, 337-338.
48 Shinn, Mining Camps, 228. Perhaps copied from Tinkham, History of Stockton, 161.
49 See Hittell, California, IV, 70-71; and his General Laws of the State of California, I, secs. 1459-1461. The following executions under this statute have come to my attention. John Thompson and James Gibson, for highway robbery and assault, in Sacramento, Aug. 22, 1851. A companion named William Robinson or Heppard, senteneed for the same day, and reprieved by the governor, was hanged by a mob (History of Sacramento County, 126. See also infra, p. 378). James Wilson and Frederick Salkmyer, horse thieves, in San Joaquin County, November, 1851 (Herald, 1851, November
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One of the trials that took place under this law affords vivid illustration of the makeshifts imposed on the county courts. While William B. Ide was aeting as a justice of the peace in Colusa County he examined and committed a man for the crime of horse stealing, and later, as county judge, presided at his trial. The prisoner had no counsel and no licensed attorney was procurable, so Ide volunteered to serve him in that capacity. The offer was aeeepted and in the absence of any prosecuting attorney Ide aeted as counsel for the people, counsel for the defendant, and presiding judge. The verdict was guilty, with the penalty of death, which Ide solemnly pronounced, but the prisoner was subsequently pardoned by the governor. The anec- dote was vonched for by Judge J. C. Huls,50 one of the associate justices, and it seems to be confirmed by the entries in the Minutes of the Court of Sessions in Criminal Business, October Term, 1851, which are preserved in the arehives at Colusa. They contain this item in the record of the trial of one Joseph Wilson for grand larceny :51 "The prisoner having been informed of his wright to counsil there being no counsil the Court surved him as sutch." The case continues in accordance with the story as told by Huls.
30 %; Tinkham, History of Stockton, p. 162). José Corrales, for horse stealing, Sonora. Jan. 7, 1852 (History of Tuolumne County [by Lang], 149). Theodore Basquez, for horse stealing, San José, Jan. 30, 1852 (Hall, History of San José, 250). John Barrett, or Garrat, for robbery, Nevada County, July 16, 1852 ( History of Nevada County, 107-108; Bancroft, California, VII, 195 note 3). George Tanner, for grand larceny, Marysville, July 23, 1852 (Herald, 1852. March 23 34; May 15 2%; July 25 84; San Francisco Chronicle, 1904, May 22, magazine p. 5; "The People vs. George Tanner, " Second California Reports, 257-261). A Mexican convicted of grand larceny at Martinez was sentenced to be hanged July 8. 1852 (Herald, May 12 %), but his execution is not recorded in the list given in the Illus- trations of Contra Costa, 21.
50 History of Colusa County, 1880, pp. 46-47.
51 From a transcript of the Minutes in the collection of O. C. Coy. In November, 1851, Ide acted as judge of the County Court and Court of Sessions, as clerk of both, and of the District Court, as county recorder, and county auditor (Biographical Sketch, 230).
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The humorous reminiscence of the pioneer judge, and the grotesque souvenir of his court, must not divert our attention from the fact that just such men as Ide and the clerk of his court, by the sheer force of their common sense and their lay- man's acquaintance with American precedent, formed and vital- ized a body politic out of the nebulous swarm of the hundred thousand independent atoms of 1849. The great majority of these hundred thousand men came to California to dig a fortune from the earth, but as incidental accessories of their miners' outfits they carried such a knowledge of political constitutions and of legal codes that they were able, by the close of the first legislature, to equip a state with the full mechanism of govern- ment, and by the close of the second to correct the defects most obvious in the hasty adjustment.52
In those early months of statehood the interests of the com- monwealth were still, in a fashion, incidental accessories of mining and commercial life. The pioneer did not yet regard El Dorado as his permanent home. All local problems were but the responsibilities of a moment, to be met hastily, yet in a spirit that would secure his own rights and give fair play to his neighbor. The exercise of such a spirit was in itself a dis- cipline in social life. One of the most interesting comments made on Californian influences was recorded by the artist Borth- wick, who subsequent to a long visit in the state resided on the Isthmus of Nicaragua, and there had opportunity to observe that homeward bound miners "of the lower ranks of life" were far more orderly, more considerate, more alert to social obliga- tions, and more amenable to the regulations of the voyage than
52 " It may be safely asserted that no new country ever received as sud- denly, such a large population, so well fitted in every regard to found a great nation, as have poured into it [California] from the States" (Tyson, Geology and Industrial Resources of California, Introduction, xxxiii). "The condnet of the better portion of the inhabitants illustrates the force of American political ideas when displayed in a new land amid new con- ditions" (Thorpe, Constitutional History of the American People, II, 289).
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were the same class of men from the rougher localities of the eastern interior who crossed the isthmus on their way to the mines.53
But the pioneer was still an individualist of the deepest dye. Ile did not visualize himself as the keeper of his weaker brother or the guardian and tutor of a future generation. Whatever might be his own habits of self-control, or of license, he tolerated in his associates any manner of life that was not absolutely de- structive to the peace of the community, and the elergymen delivered sermons in the saloon and the barkeeper offered hos- pitality to the preacher with the same inntual allowance for personal liberty that had recognized the right of the whole camp to share in the deliberations of the miners' meeting.54 The pioneer left other men to set their own moral standards and to manage their own affairs, and in holding himself aloof from the personal life of his neighbor he detached himself, consciously or unconsciously, from the civie life of his community, except in the erises when publie disorder became a menace to his indi- vidual interests.
The mining camps were always of such an unstable nature that the temporary residents had little incentive to make per- sonal sacrifiees for the improvement of general conditions, and the growing towns, with a more permanent total of population, were still so shifting in their units that any spirit of common enthusiasm and loyalty was a slow development. The ineorpor- ated cities-Sonora, Benieia, Monterey, San José, Sacramento,
53 Borthwick, Three Years, 149-150. H. J. Coke, an Englishman, wrote of one of his experiences in 1851: "I found myself about to pass a night in a small tent designated the 'miners' home.' in which over forty of these gentlemen were assembled to drink, board and lodge ... only one unarmed. But strange to say, I never saw a more orderly congregation, or such good behaviour in such bad company" (Ride over the Rocky Mountains, 1952, pp. 359-360).
54 See Rev. William Taylor, California Life Illustrated. 300; Rev. James Woods, Recollections of Pioneer Work in California, 1878, p. 140. Borth- wick said that California was a community of isolated individuals, each regardless of the opinion of his neighbor (Three Years, 67).
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and San Francisco-made definite efforts towards municipal im- provement, but everywhere the mad rush of feverish speculation absorbed the men of the state in unremitting attention to busi- ness.
Even in San Francisco there were no citizens of assured incomes, much less of independent leisure, who could occupy themselves with altruistic social service. Every sunrise might be the herald of fortune or ruin, turning on the hazard of wind and tide, of fire or flood, and many merchants slept, like cats, in their tiny offices, that they might roll from their blankets with the dawn and profit by the added hours of commercial opportunity.55 They did not spend their overcrowded days wait- ing in the criminal courts to serve as jurymen in the trials of brawlers of the gambling house and thieves of the water front. They did not devote themselves to the petty politics of their city wards. With the long desired franchise of American citi- zens safely within their grasp, they forgot the dangers and clamors of the interregnum, and neglected to defend the court and ballot box from the manipulation of unworthy hands.
55 W. T. Sayward, of San Francisco, who purchased gold dust from the miners arriving from Sacramento on the night boats, said that he often handled $5000 or $10,000 worth of dust before the banks opened at nine o'clock (Statement, [1877?], 13-14, MS in the Bancroft Library). A mason who built chimneys in San Francisco at $15 a day, wrote home to Nantucket that time was so valuable he could not afford to dot his i's or cross his t's (B. H. Nye, "Letters," History Teachers' Magazine, VI [1915], 211).
PART II THE SAN FRANCISCO COMMITTEE OF VIGILANCE
CHAPTER VIII
THE PRELUDE TO THE COMMITTEE OF VIGILANCE
San Francisco was always the center of life and interests in California. Very early in the months of 1851 it became the scene of exciting and disturbing events.
For some time after the suppression of the Hounds in July, 1849, and the subsequent election of the reform ayuntamiento, the town had been free from political sensations and compara- tively safe from acts of violence.1 Alcalde Geary and his council had given a conservative and honest administration, but their term was too brief to accomplish many improvements, for Riley's proclamation of June 4, 1849, provided that the officers elected in August should serve only until the close of that year. When the next election took place, January 8, 1850, the Mexican system was still in force; the first and second alcaldes were returned to office, five members of the ayuntamiento were re-elected and seven new members chosen.2
On April 15, 1850, San Francisco was incorporated by act of the legislature,3 and on May first the citizens approved the charter and elected the officers for which it called. Alcalde Geary was chosen mayor, and Frank Tilford, a member of the last ayuntamiento, was made recorder .* All other positions were
1 G. E. Schenek, later a member of the Committee of Vigilance, said that from November, 1849, to February, 1850, everything seemed to be quiet in San Francisco, there was little robbery, and both life and property were safe, althongh personal quarrels between gamblers and their ilk were not uncom- mon. He recollected that a safe containing some $25,000 or $30,000 stood unmolested outside an office on Clay street, near Montgomery (Statement on the Vigilance Committee, 1877, pp. 22, 48, MS in the Bancroft Library ). See also Johnsou, California and Oregon; or Sights in the Gold Region, 215.
2 See Annals, 265-266. Great confusion attended the election.
3 California, Statutes, 1850, chap. 98, p. 223.
4 The recorder of a city had jurisdiction over violations of the city ordinances, and exercised other powers similar to those of a justice of the peace (California, Statutes, 1850, chap. 98, p. 225, secs. 11, 12).
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filled by new men.5 Three city elections in the space of ten months had obliterated the reform movement initiated at the time of the Hounds excitement. The rapid development of party and personal issues made the campaigns increasingly strenuous, and it was not possible for merchants whose business demanded the most alert attention to devote themselves so con- tinnously to city politics.
The men who were elected had unusual difficulties to face. San Francisco not only changed its officers with unprecedented frequency but during the period from December, 1849, to Sep- tember. 1850, the city suffered four devastating fires, each of which swept away block after block from the center of the town and necessitated emergency measures of considerable magnitude." Heavy expenses were also incurred in improving streets and wharves, in acquiring public offices, and in commencing the erection of a county jail. Unfortunately, in all these depart- ments city funds were spent lavishly and unwisely, while the official salaries were placed at an exorbitant figure.
The citizens were not indifferent to this mismanagement. They held large indignation meetings and adopted resolutions instructing the councilmen to revise their financial policy or to retire from office in compliance with the "sovereign will" of the people of the city. The fire of June 14, 1850, interrupted the work of a committee that had been charged with the delivery
5 See Annals, 273. The following future members of the Committee of Vigilance were elected: Charles Minturn, William Sharon, Robert B. Hamp- ton, Francis C. Bennett, John P. Haff. John Middleton was subsequently elected to fill a vacancy.
6 The successive fires were described, as follows, in the Annals, 241, 275, 277, 290, 598-613. First, Dec. 24, 1849. Destroyed nearly all the buildings on the east side of the Plaza, and the south side of Washington Street, between Montgomery and Kearny. Damage over $1,000,000. Second, May 4, 1850. Destroyed about three blocks, between Montgomery and Dupont, Clay and Jackson streets. Damage nearly $4,000,000. Supposed to be incendiary. Third, June 14, 1850. Burned the whole space between Clay and California streets to the water's edge. Damage, nearly $5,000,000. Fourth, Sept. 17, 1850. Swept the district between Dupont, Montgomery, Washington and Pacific streets. Damage about $300,000.
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of the resolutions, but the obnoxious salaries were ultimately reduced.7 In spite of this the indebtedness of the city increased rapidly. Payments of accounts were made in scrip, which greatly depreciated in value and became a prolific source of scandal owing to the manipulation of speculators and of un- serupulous officials.8
San Francisco by this time had spread far beyond the limits of the little town over which the Stars and Stripes were raised in 1846. The old Plaza, where that ceremony took place, was thenceforth officially known as Portsmouth Square, though the Spanish name still lingered in common use. All the early build- ings about it had been burned, with the exception of the "Old Adobe" on the northwest corner, which had formerly been used for public purposes and was subsequently rented for private business.º This landmark of the past was elbowed by the frame structures of the hour: the postoffice, the city hall improvised from the old Graham House, and a host of saloons and gambling resorts, of which the El Dorado, on the corner of Kearny and Washington streets, was the most gaudy and notorious. In front of the Adobe rose a flagstaff, one hundred and eleven feet high, a gift from the people of Portland, Oregon.20 The unkempt and dusty space about it served as a rallying point for the mass meetings which for many years were a feature of the city.
North, east, and south of the Plaza ran the narrow streets of the business section, rescued from engulfing mud by wooden
7 See Annals, 278-281; Moses, Establishment of Municipal Government, 61-71; Bancroft, California, VI, 215-220; Hittell, California, III, 367-369.
8 By March, 1851, the liabilities of the city were $1,099,577.56, and on May 1, the legislature passed an act to authorize the funding of the floating debt of the city of San Francisco, and to provide for its payment (Califor- nia, Statutes, 1851, chap. 88, p. 387). See also Hittell, California, III, 395-399; Annals, 327-328.
9 The Old Adobe was built in 1835, and was occupied by the Mexican officials. It was one of the three pre-'49 buildings that survived the fire of May 4, 1851, and it met its end in the fire of June 22. See Alta, 1831, June 1 94; 27 32; Eldredge, San Francisco, II, 529.
10 Annals, 281. The city was charged $100 for digging the hole, and $200 for rigging the halyards (Alta, 1851, March 25 1/3).
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sidewalks from which the unwary might easily plunge waist deep into treacherous pools. On the eastern water front the streets reached out over the bay in wharves which bore lodging houses and offices, while other buildings, supported on piles, hovered above the unfilled water lots. Reelamation work was in vigorous progress. Behind the protection of the line of sand hills south of Market street, in a quarter known as Happy Valley,11 a dredger christened the Steam Paddy12 tore down the dunes. Cars impelled by gravity transported the sand through Battery Street and dumped it to fill the shallows of Yerba Buena Cove. Already the vessel Niantic, moored at San- some and Clay streets, and converted into a large hotel, was well removed from high tide, and the hulks of other ships, deserted in the gold rush, lay forgotten beneath the new ground.13 Still others. moored near shore, served as store ships for the receipt of merchandise, or made more comfortable homes than could be found on land.
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