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 15
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Telegraph Hill flanked the eity on the north, and around its slopes clustered the wretched hovels of Little Chile and Sydney Valley, in which foregathered undesirable aliens from South Ameriea and Australia.14 On the other side of Telegraph Hill, towards the Presidio, lay North Beach, with a small wharf and planing mill owned by Williams & Meiggs. About this
11 Poorer immigrants camped in Happy Valley to avoid exorbitant rents nearer the Plaza. Poverty, dirt, and dissipation rendered the place the scene of misery and disease. See Ryan, Personal Adventures, II, 270-275.
12 See Borthwick, Three Years, 80. The editor of the Alta, 1851, June 10 21, suggested that a medal be awarded this incorruptible assistant in civic improvement. In spite of its personal name it was solemnly assured by a jealous Irishman: "If you can do the work of a hundred men, you can't vote!" (J. R. Garniss, Early Days of San Francisco, 1877, p. 30, MS in the Bancroft Library).
13 See Eldredge, San Francisco, II, 578-580. Relies of such built-in vessels are still unearthed beneath the streets of the city.
14 The Alta described the foreign quarters, 1851, June 29 24. The article did not tally exactly with the map in Popular Tribunals, I, which served as a guide for the map in the Committee of Vigilance Papers, III.
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point was another settlement of rough and dangerous charac- ters.15 South of Market street rose Rincon Hill, soon to become the first fashionable residence district ; starting from Market and Second streets, the Plank Road wound out to the Mission Dolores, affording the one comfortable driveway in the whole vicinity.16
The population at this time was about 23.000,17 gathered from all the ends of the earth.18 To this number must be added a constant swarm of non-residents, rushing from their ships to the mines, and then back again to take passage to other ports. The streets were filled with hurrying men; with laborers who piled freight upon sidewalks and vacant lots; with auctioneers who sold it on the instant; and with purchasers who removed it before nightfall. Reckless drivers dashed through the streets, pack animals struggled and fell under heavy loads, horsemen with a touch of Mexican color rode splendidly through the busy crowd, Chinamen chattered and shuffled along the wooden walks, while every shade of black and brown humanity known to the tropie sun drifted in and out of the barrooms and worked along the wharves. Far into the night lights from auction houses, saloons, and gambling halls streamed into the murk of drifting
25 The mill owners were Edwards C. Williams and John G. Meiggs. The small wharf was later replaced by a larger one, projected by Meiggs' brother, Henry, a spectacular financier who became a fugitive from his commercial obligations.
16 See Annals, 296-298; J. S. Hittell, San Francisco, 151-153.
17 The statistics relative to the growth of San Francisco are approxi- mate, but the following references may be of interest.
1846, midsummer, over 200, Annals, 173.
1847, June, 459. Census taken by Lieutenant Edward Gilbert, J. S. Hittell, San Francisco, 117.
1848, March, 812. School census, California Star, 1848, March 18. See also Annals, 174.
1849, Feb., about 2000, Annals, 219. July, about 5000, constantly changing, Annals, 226.
1850, May, about 40,000, Johnson, Sights in the Gold Region, 210. Over 36,000 arrived by sea in 1850, one half from foreign ports, Annals, 300.
1851, Jan., 23,000, Alta, 1851, Feb. 7 %.
18 A cemetery on Russian Hill showed inscriptions in thirteen languages (Herald, 1852, Dec. 12 3%).
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fog; otherwise the city lay in darkness,19 and evildoers crept unnoticed in the shadows or slipped noiselessly out over the Bay, where scarcely a beacon gleamed to direct or safeguard the shipping from a hundred ports.
Among the many descriptions of San Francisco, the picture presented by Édouard Auger, though little known today, de- serves wider recognition. He spoke of it as:20
Cette merveilleuse cité, bazar de toutes les nations du globe, création spontanée comme une de ces œuvres fantastiques des Mille et une Nuites * * * où les mineurs et les aventuriers de toutes sortes apportent sans cesse leur or, leurs passions, leur activité febrile et désordonnée. San-Francisco est la ville anx transformations brutales, aux changements de décors à vue; hier cité florissante, aujourd'hui monceau de cendres. Repassez dans un mois, vous retrouverez à la même place une autre ville avec ses rues bien alignées, ses magasins regorgeant de marchandises, ses temples, ses théâtres, ses cafés, et une population affairée qui parle de tout, excepté d'une catastrophe qui a déjà un mois de date.
In 1851 San Francisco had about half a dozen churches,21 and eight daily newspapers :22 among the latter, the San Fran- cisco Herald and the Alta California were the most important, with the Evening Picayune and the California Courier in the second rank.
There was, as yet, no public fire department. Volunteer companies had been formed after the first great fires, and had
19 The first street lights were installed by J. B. M. Crooks (Vigilante of 1831). The fire of May, 1851, destroyed them, and they were not replaced for some time (Herald, 1851, Oct. 16 24; Hittell, California, III, 424; Annals, 518).
20 Auger, Voyage en Californie, 98, 173. For interesting descriptions of San Francisco at this period, see especially Annals, 243-321; T. A. Barry and A. B. Patten, Men and Memories of San Francisco in the "Spring of '50," 1873; Borthwick, Three Years, 43-93; Bancroft, California, VI, 164- 220; Holinski, La Californie, 101-132; C. P. Kimball, Directory, Sept., 1850; J. M. Parker, Directory, 1852. Excellent pictures can be found in J. P. Young, San Francisco, 1912; C. B. Turrill, "Life in San Francisco, 1856," Overland Monthly, ser. 2, LXVIII (1916), 495-502.
21 Kimball's Directory, 1850, p. 127.
22 Six dailies were mentioned in Kimball's Directory, 1850, pp. 127-128; eight in the Alta, 1851, Jan. 23 %.
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been organized into serviceable cooperation by a city ordinance of July 1, 1850. The Empire Engine Company, one of the most active, was led by David C. Broderick, who used his experience in similar institutions in New York to mold the San Francisco company into a useful political tool. The California Engine Company, manned by residents of Happy Valley, had a house on the corner of Market and Bush streets; on the ground beside it stood a bell which was struck by hand in order to sound an alarm of fire. The Monumental Company, most famous of them all, was housed on Brenham place, facing the Plaza. From its belfry sounded a clear-toned bell which roused the citizens in many thrilling hours of conflagration and civic excitement.23 There were three more engine companies, the Protection, the Howard, and the Eureka, and two hook and ladder companies. All of them were influential in the social and political life of the city. The members drew no salaries, but in recognition of their services were exempt from jury duty. This privilege withdrew several hundred of the best men in San Francisco from that unwelcome but important attendance on the courts.24
To cope with all the criminal problems of the city, there was a force of about seventy-five policemen.25 From statements made before the Committee of Vigilance it is evident that some among them were confederates of thieves.26 The city station house was a disgraceful cellar, insecure and filthy. Although large funds had been expended on the preliminary work of constructing an adequate county jail, they had been so misapplied that the
23 The bells of the California and Monumental companies were used by the Committee of Vigilance. (See infra, p. 206.)
24 See California, Statutes, 1851, chap. 90, p. 401; Hittell, General Laws, secs. 3102-3124. For an account of the fire companies, see Annals, 614-625; Borthwick, Three Years, 87-90; Frignet, La Californie, 156-159; H. C. Pendleton, publisher, The Exempt Firemen of San Francisco, 1900.
25 Bancroft, California, VI, 214 note 68; Kimball's Directory, 1850, pp. 123-124.
26 See Papers, Index under "San Francisco-Police."
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building was far from complete.27 During this period criminal conditions grew steadily worse. The rogues who were driven ont of the mining eamps by the fear of lyneh law showed an inereasing tendeney to coneentrate in San Franeiseo. Crowded lodging houses and vieious resorts of the city offered shelter, without inconvenient curiosity, and any one might live at will beneath the scrub oaks and underbrush of the ontlying sand hills. The ever shifting stream of transient sojourners diverted attention from particular individuals, and the few guardians of public safety had no way of identifying old offenders, whether they came from the other side of the Bay of San Francisco or the other side of the Pacific Ocean.
San Franeiseo citizens had asserted themselves onee, in the affair of the Hounds. Since that oeeasion they had left the punishment of criminals in the hands of the authorities,28 al- though various mass meetings had voiced popular resentment at eivie mismanagement, and had occasionally been heeded for the moment by those in authority. The expectation of improvement which had influeneed men to adjust themselves to the incon- venienees of the military-eivil regime, now led them to hope that the state government would soon aecomplish the establish- ment of social order. In faet, the toleration of the eriminal situation of 1850 and 1851 was due in part to a patient aeeept- anee of transitional conditions, and not wholly to a selfish in- difference and a blunted eivie eonseienee.
Nevertheless there was a limit to toleration, and that limit was reached on the night of February 19. 1851, when Mr. C. J. Jansen, a prominent merchant, was assaulted in his store and left for dead, while two men robbed his safe and eseaped with nearly two thousand dollars.29 The crime, of itself, was no more
27 See infra, p. 247.
28 Annals, 314.
29 Full accounts were given in the papers of the day; Annals, 314-320; Popular Tribunals, I, 179-200; Royce, California, 407-417. The last is especially good.
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heinous than many that had passed unnoticed, but the victim was so well known and so popular that his misfortune roused unusual indignation. Within the next twenty-four hours the police arrested an Australian who was supposed to be James Stuart, a Sydney convict responsible for many robberies in Cali- fornia and for the cold-blooded murder of Charles Moore, near Foster's Bar, in Yuba County.30 Certain clues led to the sus- picion that he was also guilty of the attack on Jansen, and he was immediately charged with that crime, although he protested his innocence most vehemently, and maintained that he was not Stuart at all, but a respectable British subject, honestly bearing the name of Thomas Berdue. Another Australian, Robert Win- dred, was arrested as an accomplice in the recent raid, and the general excitement rose to fever heat when the rumor became current that the desperado Stuart was actually in custody, while his latest victim hovered between life and death.
Stuart was, in truth, the murderer of Moore, the thief of common report, and the assailant of Jansen. Berdue's only fault was a strange resemblance to the notorious criminal, a resemblance which almost caused his death at the hands of a San Francisco mob, and imperiled his life and liberty in three successive trials for the crimes committed by another man.
Records of the evidence given at the different trials show that Stuart and Berdue were remarkably alike in height, figure, and complexion, in the color of their eyes and hair, in the English intonation of their voices, and in certain tattoo marks. Both of them had a stiff middle finger on the right hand and a scar on the right cheek.31 At one time or another men who had worked
30 See Herald, 1851, Feb. 21 31; 22 2%; and infra, p. 253.
31 See Popular Tribunals, I, 194-196; Alta, 1851, Feb. 24; History of Yuba County, 1879, p. 125. Members of the Vigilance Committee had an opportunity to compare the two men, and Schenck said: "Berdue ... was a man about five feet and 71% inches in height, with full oval face, dark browu or auburn hair, a well built and good proportioned man, with rather a fair complexion, and I think grey or blue eyes. Stuart was a man full
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with Stuart, offieers who had guarded him while under arrest, and judges who had tried him identified Berdue as the escaped murderer; other witnesses took the opposite position and were equally certain that Berdue was not responsible for the crimes of James Stuart, whatever share he might have taken in the attack on Jansen. It was not strange that the wounded man, himself, thought he recognized Berdue when the latter was taken to his bedside. When that fact was announced on the street an angry erowd tried to wrest the supposed Stuart from the police as the prisoners were being returned to the station house. When they were brought into court both men tried to establish an alibi. This device was the common resort of criminals, and their witnesses made a very unfavorable impression. The public irritation increased during the hearing and when the court ad- journed on Saturday afternoon there was another attempt to seize the suspeets and to hang them at onec. With the help of the Washington Guards, who had been ealled out by the authori- ties, the crowd was again beaten off, and the prisoners lodged in a place of safety ; but by evening several thousand people surrounded the city hall, some bent on violence, some anxious to prevent ill-advised action of any kind.
Popular restlessness was further increased by the radical expressions of the leading newspapers, and by the circulation of a handbill eouched in the most inflammatory terms.32 After
five feet 9 or 91/2 inches high, with sharp features, narrow chin, darker com- plexion than Berdue, and very dark brown or black hair, much darker than Berdue's, with longer arms, a slighter built man. There was really no strong resemblance between the two men, and there was no such distinguish- ing feature as the loss of a finger on the hand of each, as was mentioned in the public prints about six years ago" (MS Statement, 30-31). G. W. Ryckman confirmed this view (Statement, 8, MS in the Bancroft Library ), but A. M. Comstock found them remarkably alike (MS Vigilance Commit- tees-Miscellany, 39). It was rumored that Berdue was an ex-convict (Papers, 506).
32 The handbill is printed infra, p. 453. On Feb. 21, the editor of the Alta severely criticized the failure of justice in the courts, and wrote: "We deprecate Lynch Law, but the outraged publie will appeal to that soon unless some far more efficient measures be adopted in other quarters." Similar sentiments were repeated on Feb. 23.
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listening to a number of speeches the assembly voted to appoint a committee to guard the prisoners during the night, and to consult with the authorities concerning the course to be pursued. Some of the actors in the Hounds' trial reappeared : W. D. M. Howard was chairman, Samuel Brannan took a leading part, and A. J. Ellis, H. F. Teschemacher, and T. H. Green were again chosen to represent the people.33 The committee held a long and stormy meeting, and their debates can still be read in the papers of February 23 and 24. A minority of four, led by Brannan, wished to recommend immediate execution, but the majority desired more deliberate action. In the end it was found impossible to make any unanimous report.34
On Sunday a still larger crowd collected in the Plaza, where both parties of the committee presented their views,35 while the mayor and other officials appeared on the balcony of the city hall and urged the citizens to disperse, promising that the pris- oners should be tried without delay and promptly punished if their guilt were established.
The report in the Alta California stated that the five or six thousand persons present were as orderly and quiet as so large a body could be, but it is evident from the recollections of
33 The committeemen were: W. D. M. Howard, Samuel Brannan, A. J. Ellis, H. F. Teschemacher, W. H. Jones, Ralph Dorr, E. A. King, J. B. Huie, T. H. Green, Benjamin Ray, A. H. Sibley, J. L. Folsom, F. W. Macondray, Theodore Payne (Alta, 1851, Feb. 23 %). The first eight became members of the Committee of Vigilance.
34 " We are the mayor, and the recorder, the hang man and the laws!" cried Brannan, "The law and the courts never yet hung a man in Califor- nia!" (Alta, 1851, Feb. 23 2%).
35 The following report of the minority was distributed as a handbill, and printed in the papers of Feb. 24:
TO THE PEOPLE OF SAN FRANCISCO
The undersigned, the minority of the committee appointed by you, report as follows: That the prisoners, Stuart and Wildred [Win- dred] are both deserving of immediate punishment, as there is no question of their guiltiness of crime. The safety of life and property, as well as the name and credit of the city, demand prompt action on the part of the people.
[Signed] Samuel Brannan, Wm. H. Jones, E. A. King, J. B. Huie.
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spectators that the spirit of the crowd was one of intense excite- ment. There was a universal distrust of promises of reform, and a universal determination that this crime, at least, should be avenged ; many were armed, and the issue of the day waited upon the appearance of some one able to dominate and unite the opposing elements. Such a leader was recognized when William T. Coleman, a man still under thirty years of age, pushed his way through the crowded balcony of the city hall, leaned far out over the railing, caught the attention of the impatient thousands with a dramatic arraignment of the intoler- able miscarriage of justice in the eity eonrts, and then proposed the formation of a peoples' court, which should give the pris- oners a fair trial without an instant's delay, and either discharge or hang them before sunset.36 A shout of approval greeted his suggestion and a unanimous vote carried the motion that organ- ization should immediately be effected. This was done. Judge, jury, and counsel were selected and they spent the afternoon and evening listening to evidence. The trial was held in the recorder's room in the city hall, but from motives of prudenee the prisoners were not allowed to attend.
G. E. Schenck, who later became a member of the Committee of Vigilance, was one of the jury, and spoke of the trial as follows :37
The result of the trial was, from the testimony, that these men were decided to be guilty, and the verdict was about to be brought in accord- ingly, when I suggested that they should have a fair trial by the author- ities, as we had not seen the prisoners, they not being before us, and as
36 For a biographical note on Mr. Coleman see infra, p. 190. The papers stated that he was the head of the committee, but they ignored the exact moment when he suggested organization. The details given in the text are from his MS Statement in the Bancroft Library. His recollections tallied so well with the printed reports that an extract is given, infra, p. 453. See also his "San Francisco Vigilance Committees, " Century, XLIII (1891), 134-135.
37 MS Statement 25-26. Hall MeAllister was also in substantial agree- ment with Coleman, Schenck, and the narrative presented by Royce. See MS Vigilance Committees-Miscellany, 16-17.
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Mr. Jansen had not fully identified them, there was room for doubt. Two others coincided with me in regard to it, and we agreed to bring a verdiet that we could not agree; there were nine for conviction, and three had doubts. This was about nine o'clock at night. On our coming into the Court Room and announcing this fact, the outside crowd broke in the windows, and rushed in at the doors, and broke up the railing round the bar, and were about to make an attack on the jurors. The jury drew their revolvers, and rushed back into the jury room until the excitement subsided. The jury was then discharged. It was one o'clock before we got away. In the meantime, Mr. Wm. T. Coleman was haranguing the crowd, endeavoring to persuade them to disperse, while Brannan was urging them on, and was for hanging the prisoners anyway.
The disapproval of the waiting crowd was even more violent than Schenck depicted. During the evening several attempts had been made to seize the prisoners, but the police, assisted by some two hundred and fifty volunteers, had repulsed the attacks. When the disagreement was announced a rush was made for the jurymen, and there were loud cries of "Hang them, too!" An indignation meeting was held in the street and the excitement did not subside until after midnight, when it was voted to adjourn indefinitely, and the watchers quietly dispersed.
Windred and Berdue were tried about the middle of March and both were convicted.38 Windred was given a ten-year sen- tence, but he quickly escaped.39 Berdue, under a sentence of fourteen years, was sent to Marysville to stand trial for the murder of Moore. His case came up in June, and for the third time the prisoner made a fruitless effort to establish his inno- cence in spite of the fatal resemblance to his ill-reputed country- man. Judge B. F. Washington, who had tried Stuart in Sacra- mento, positively identified the accused as the fugitive, and some fifty other witnesses agreed with him. Judge O. P. Stidger, who had tried Stuart for robbery at Marysville, was equally definite on the other side. Several witnesses supported Judge
38 See the court reports in the Alta and the Herald, 1851, March 15-21. 39 Sce infra, p. 311.
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Stidger, but in spite of their evidence Berdue was pronounced guilty on July 4. By this time his funds were entirely exhausted, and his hopeless state of mind is clearly shown by a pathetic letter which he wrote to a friend, and which was later copied for the files of the Committee of Vigilance.40 There was, indeed, little chance of a reprieve, but a later chapter will show how Fate, which had played him such sorry tricks in the past, came to his rescue with incredible and dramatic caprice.41
In an effort to improve eivie affairs the residents of San Fran- cisco procured from the second session of the legislature a new charter that corrected some of the defects in the first.42 This necessitated a new election for local officers, which took place in April. Nearly six thousand votes were cast, and the major- ities given to the Whig candidates made a sweeping change in the city administration.43 The editor of the Alta California interpreted this as a sign that the people were so tired of the corruption of the previous officials that they sought new men in the hope of securing reform. "They will be watched," he as- serted, "and they will be held to a striet accountability for the manner in which they shall exercise the powers vested in them. . They will be watched by a vigilant party. They must be watched by a vigilant people."" These were the men who served through the months of the activity of the Committee of Vigilance. The names of some of them are frequently men- tioned in the archives of the society. Charles J. Brenham was
40 See letter to John Goff, Papers, 222-223.
41 See infra, pp. 257, 303.
42 California, Statutes, 1851, chap. 84, p. 357. The first months of municipal experiments in California had resulted in great waste of public funds in other places besides San Francisco, and during the second legis- lature several cities secured new charters.
43 The Whig vote was about 3162, the Democrat, 2748, Alta, 1851, April 30 %.
14 Alta, 1851, April 30 31.
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chosen mayor, R. H. Waller, recorder, Frank M. Pixley, city attorney, and Robert G. Crozier, marshal.45
The former county judge, R. M. Morrison, having resigned in April, the governor appointed Alexander Campbell to the vacant position.46 He was assisted in the Court of Sessions by Associate Justices Edward McGowan and H. S. Brown, who held over from the county election of 1850. Campbell's judicial integrity was never questioned, Judge Brown seems to have made no particular impression, either for good or evil,47 but "Ned" McGowan, friend of criminals aud ward heelers, was an example of. the worst sort of California magistrate. The Vigi- lance Committee of 1851 refrained from prosecuting him; the Committee of 1856 made strenuous though unsuccessful efforts to take him into enstody.48
Another incumbent who remained in office was Judge Levi Parsons, who had been elected to the District Court by the first legislature. Parsons had no sympathy with efforts at reform, and he became so irritated with the constant agitation carried on by the press that he charged the grand jury to take measures against editors whose libelous publications might incite to acts of violence. At the same time he warned the jury not to return indictments against criminals except on evidence strong enough to insure conviction before a trial jury, an admonition which evoked the strongest censure from the San Francisco papers. The Herald was particularly emphatic, and remarked: "Thus the district court instructs the grand jury to aid the escape of criminals." This expression led Judge Parsons to cause the arrest of William Walker, the editor in charge, to try him for contempt, to fine him $500, and to imprison him when payment
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