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 34
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While Cora complacently awaited retrial thirteen other men in San Francisco were under indictment for homicide with small prospect for their conviction,29 and murders were so common in the state that the attempt to record them was abandoned.30 James King of William, one time Vigilante, editor of the Bulletin and scourge of corruptionists, was himself fatally wounded on the afternoon of the fourteenth of May, 1856, by James P. Casey,
25 Alta, 1856, Jan. 4 31. Sam Brannan was taken into custody as a general precaution against a public outbreak (Alta, Nov. 18 2%; 19 %). For details see Popular Tribunals, II, 29-34; Hittell, California, III, 472. Long extracts from the papers of the day are given in F. M. Smith, editor, San Francisco Vigilance Committee of '56, 1883.
26 Alta, 1856, Jan. 5 2/4. J. Hawes Davis was member No. 216.
27 Alta, 1855, Dec. 8 31.
28 Alta, 1856, Jan. 17 21.
29 Alta, 1856, Jan. 21 21.
30 Alta, 1856, March 30 31. The violent deaths, including accident and murder, were estimated at 1400 yearly.
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Vigilance Committee of 1851
a supervisor of the city, whose past record as a Sing Sing convict had been held up to public opprobrium by the militant reformer.
King's personal qualities had won him many admiring friends, while his outspoken arraignment of political iniquity had made him a popular leader and hero. The cowardly attack that laid him at death's door immediately invested him with the crown of a martyr. As if in answer to the shot the bell of the Monu- mental Engine Company sounded once more the well remem- bered eall to action, and in less than an hour an infuriated multi- tude surged about the county jail, clamoring for the instant execution of the assassin. Our old acquaintances Charley Duane and Edward McGowan were already reinforcing the guard at the door. Detachments of the local military companies were rushed to the scene to hold the mob in check, but the men who hesitated before the rifles of the militia soon began to finger their own revolvers, and hysterieal orators urged them to storm the building regardless of consequences. Shouts of approval inter- rupted the speakers, cries of anger and oaths of rage arose in a hideous pandemonium above the surging mass, while in all the city there was not a single representative of the law whose prom- ise of justice could ring true, or carry an assurance of righteous retribution that might invoke patience.
Suddenly this tossing sea of heads reflected the ripples of a hidden current from its outer margin. Men swayed and turned and bent their faees to whisper, and lifted them again, sane and human, and cleansed from the blood lust of the brute. A brief message had passed from mouth to mouth, traversing the ranked thousands with incredible swiftness :
"The Vigilance Committee has organized!"
In less than five minutes the fearful tension was relaxed,31
31 The thrilling moment of announcement was described by W. O. Ayers in "Personal Recollections of the Vigilance Committee," Overland Monthly, ser. 2, VIII (1886), 166, and by J. D. B. Stillman in MS Vigilance Com- mittees-Miscellany. 7-8. Hittell cited Ayer's reminiscences as an authori- tative source (California, III, 482-488).
399
'51 to '77
for in the Vigilance Committee rested assurance of justice and righteous retribution, and the men of San Francisco, still gath- ering by thousands during all that tragie evening, waited and trusted in the promise of its speedy resurrection. The papers of the next day printed this notice:
The members of the Vigilance Committee, in good standing, will please meet at No. 1051% Sacramento Street, To-day, Thursday, 15 inst., at 9 A.M. By order of the Committee of Thirteen.
San Francisco, May 14 [sic], 1856.
The archives of the Committee of 1851 make no mention of the Committee of Thirteen, which appears in history solely on this occasion. From the statements of various Vigilantes, espec- ially those of William T. Coleman and George W. Frink,32 we learn that after various sporadic gatherings and much fruitless discussion Coleman was induced to take the initiative in reor- ganization, largely on account of his standing in the old Com- mittee, and of his membership in the last representative group, the Committee of Thirteen. No other allusion to it occurs in the manuscript recollections. Bancroft did not explain it, and inquiries now fail to discover its personnel or its proceedings.
The Committee of Thirteen remains to this day a shadowy and unnamed power, but that very secrecy was symbolic of the mysterious bonds that survived the lapse of years, for on the afternoon of May 14, 1856, the Committee of Vigilance of 1851 was no longer a corporeal organization. It was a name, and a
32 Frink arrived in San Francisco in June, 1852, and it is probable that he knew the old Committee only by reputation. He said that during the evening there was much confusion, and no definite action, but that Cole- man and he finally went to the office of the Alta, where Coleman wrote out the notice. "He said, 'How shall we sign it?' I said: 'Put your name to it, as you are oue of the thirteen of the old committee.' He said, 'No, put it one of the thirteen, as we disbanded under the name of the thirteen" (MS Statement, 4-5). Coleman's recollection coincided with this (MS Statement, 34), except for the modification of the signature to the form that appeared in the papers. As Coleman had lived in the East for two years prior to January, 1856 (MS Statement, 30; Phelps, Contemporary Biography, I, 272-280), it is permissible to infer that the Committee had disbanded before his departure.
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Vigilance Committee of 1851
memory; it was a spiritual force that restrained the men of San Francisco from mob murder in the twilight of that evening and enlisted them by thousands under the oath of the Vigilantes during the days to come.33
The response to the printed call was instant and overwhelm- ing. Old members hastened to the appointed place, and after a brief preliminary meeting threw open the doors for the reception of new registrants. Before midnight two thousand names were enrolled, headquarters were secured, an Executive Committee was selected, and the rank and file were grouped into military companies of one hundred men each. Coleman, who was by this time a merchant of wealth and prominence, reluctantly accepted the office of president, Bluxome was "Number 33, Secretary," and many other former workers were placed in offices of responsi- bility.
It has been necessary to touch lightly on five years of Cali- fornia's development in order to place the Committee of Vigilance of 1851 in its historical relation to the Committee of 1856. The latter is usually designated the "Great Committee," and the work of the former is obscured by the more spectacular features of the larger association. Yet in spite of the silence that lay between the last notice of the Committee of '51 and the call that rallied the Committee of '56, the organic unity of the two bodies is proved by many tokens : by the personnel of the leaders,34 by the adoption of the old constitution,35 by the membership cer- tificate with its significant "Reorganized," and by the silver medal struck for the committeemen, which bears the old symbol,
33 Mr. Charles B. Turrill, of San Francisco, has a photographic copy of the Oath of 1856. It reads: "I do solemnly swear to act with the Vigilance Committee and second and sustain [?] in full all their actions as expressed through their executive committee."'
34 Names of officers of 1856 are printed infra, p. 473.
35 Coleman said that the old constitution was adopted unanimously on the day of the called meeting, subject to revision at the leisure of the Executive (MS Statement, 41). See also Popular Tribunals, II, 111-113.
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'51 to '77
the Watchful Eye of Vigilance, encircled by the legend "Organ- ized 9th June, 1851. Reorganized 14th May, 1856."36
The work of the Committe of 1856 is another story. Bancroft has told it in his own way in the second volume of Popular Tribunals ; Royce has sketched it briefly, but well; and T. II. Hittell has given it at length with exact reference to contem- porary newspapers and to the manuscript records, which were familiar to him as well as to Bancroft.37 The Committee was supported by the active membership of eight or nine thousand men, about three quarters of all the white citizens of San Francisco.38 Barricades of sand bags were erected around its headquarters on Sansome Street below Front, and armed men stood there on guard, so that Fort Gunnybags became a citadel that defied both civil and military authorities. On the day that James King of William was borne to the grave the Committee hanged Casey, his assassin, and also Cora, who had killed William Richardson. A few weeks later it inflicted the same punishment on two other murderers, Philander Bruce and Joseph Hethering- ton. The latter had killed Dr. John Baldwin in a dispute over land titles, in August, 1853. On July 24, 1856, he also killed Dr. Andrew Randall, who had been robbed at Monterey by the Stuart gang in 1850. The papers spoke of Hetherington as a "recipient of the old Vigilance Committee's attention," and Bancroft identified him with the witness of 1851. If that identi- fication is correct, a strange fatality made the former collector of Monterey the victim of the very man who had been chief
36 See frontispiece.
37 Bancroft, Popular Tribunals, II; California, VI, 746-754; Tuthill, California, 432-524; Royce, California, 437-465; Hittell, California, III. 460-649; J. S. Hittell, San Francisco, 245-262; F. M. Smith, San Francisco Vigilance Committee of '56; The Vigilance Committee of 1856 [by James O'Meara ], 1887.
3º J. S. Hittell placed the membership at 9000 out of a white male population of 12,000 (Resources of California, ed. 1, p. 371). Bancroft said 8000 (California, VI, 747).
402
Vigilance Committee of 1851
informer against the gang that had despoiled him six years earlier.39
These executions announced to the violent that money and influence and eloquent counsel might no longer be trusted to provide immunity from punishment. But the Committee did not stop there. Very early in its work it broke through the defense of secrecy that had baffled the investigations of grand juries. It laid its hands upon an incriminating ballot box that was still stuffed with forged ballots; it obtained confessions from the ward heelers who had done the bidding of the powerful and efficient bosses ; then it announced its intention of cleansing the city from the plague of political corruption. It sent into exile over a score of the most valued tools of the machine." Among them were Charles Duane, who had evaded a like fate in 1851. and Rube Malony, who had been a committeeman in that year.41 Ned McGowan, also conspicuous upon the early black list, was forced to take refuge in flight.42 When David S. Terry, justice of the state supreme court, stabbed S. A. Hopkins as the latter
39 See Alta, 1856, July 25 %; Papers, 27 note 2; Hittell, California, III, 609-615; Popular Tribunals, Index under "Hetherington"; Vigilance Com- mittee of 1856 [by O'Meara], 31; Smith, San Francisco Vigilance Com- mittee of '56. p. 75; San Francisco Call, 1893, Feb. 5 163. Various notices reported that Hetherington was an Englishman of wealth. had formerly lived in St. Louis, and had resided in California sinee 1849 or 1850. Another rumor stated that in 1853 he had deserted a wife in Vermont, who intended to sue for his property (San Francisco Bulletin, 1860, July 19 1/3).
40 A list of sentences was given in Smith, San Francisco Vigilance Com- mittec of '56. pp. 82-83; reprinted in L. H. Woolley, California, 1849-1913, 1913, pp. 21-22.
41 Frink said that before the close of work some of the men who were fearful of arrest tried to join the Committee "to get under cover," and that Duane made such an application, but was refused (MS Statement, 21). For a note on Malony see supra, p. 198).
42 See his Narrative, 1857. In August, 1857, McGowan started the pub- lication of the Phoenix, a Sacramento newspaper that attacked the members and friends of the Committee without regard for truth or decency. After it was once prohibited in San Francisco, it was continued for a time under the title Ubiquitous. MeGowan was a familiar figure in San Francisco until his death, Dec. 8, 1893. In his last illness William T. Coleman contributed towards his hospital expenses (San Francisco Examiner, 1893, June 4 %; 5 1%; Chronicle, 1893, Dee. 9 51).
403
'51 to '77
was arresting Malony, the Committee seized Terry, kept him in custody until Hopkins was out of danger, and liberated him only after the most bitter dissensions over his fate.43 G. W. Ryckman, who refused to join the reorganized Committee, said that it even contemplated the arrest of Broderick,44 but such a radical step was never taken.
The General Committee adjourned sine die August 18, 1856. Over six thousand men marched in the final parade, and the banner of 1851 led a company of one hundred and fifty members who represented the original organization.45 As a factor in Cali- fornia life the Committee long survived the formal adjournment, and Executive meetings continued as late as November, 1859.46
Nor was that all! The men of San Francisco had learned many lessons in civies since September, 1851, when they tried to purify their government by selecting for endorsement the better nominees of the regular political parties. Before they disbanded the Committee of '56, they took the first steps towards the for- mation of an independent People's Party, which was recognized as the organ of the Vigilantes. In the fall election their ticket was first in the field; it was later endorsed by the new Republican party, and was overwhelmingly successful in November, when there was held perhaps the "first honest election that had taken place in the city."47 A permanent and efficient political organ- ization was created that practically controlled the government of
43 See Trial of David S. Terry by the Committee of Vigilance, 1856; A. E. Wagstaff, Life of David S. Terry, 1892, pp. 97-136; also general ref- erences on the Committee.
44 Ryckman, MS Statement, 19-20; The Vigilance Committee of 1856 [by O'Meara ], 55-56.
45 J. S. Hittell, San Francisco, 259; Popular Tribunals, II, 531-533. The Wide West, October, 1856, printed illustrations of the procession, but placed the number of old members at a somewhat lower figure. The banner was certainly carried although Ryekman said that it was never given to the Committee of '56 (MS Statement, 18).
46 Popular Tribunals, II, 541.
47 See Hittell, California, III, 636-665; J. S. Hittell, San Francisco, 262-266; Bancroft, California, VI, 770-772; Popular Tribunals, II, 639-
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Vigilance Committee of 1851
San Franeiseo for more than ten years. Although many former committeemen served in various positions there was never any attempt to establish a distinctive Vigilante ring, and the People's Party was loyally supported by the better men among both Democrats and Republicans. Royce said that for years after the Committee of Vigilance of 1856 the people of San Francisco "boasted not without warrant, that they possessed, and for nearly a generation retained, the purest and soundest municipal govern- ment then known in any city of the size in the whole country. "48
Charges have been made that the Committee of 1856 gave evidence of a sentiment that favored the political independence of the Pacific Coast."" If that were so the spirit of secession was effectively checked and was never diverted toward affiliation with the cause of the Confederacy. Indeed, there has been some speculation of late as to whether the organization of the ('om- mittee of Vigilance was a conscious effort to oppose the influenee of pro-slavery and secessionist Southerners. In studying the work of 1851 an effort has been made to collect any data that might indicate a latent partisanship in the sectional interests of the slavery discussions, but nothing of importance has come to light beyond the fact that in later years most of the leading committeemen, irrespective of parties, were loyal supporters of
663; Tuthill, California, 518-524; Davis, Political Conventions, 68-69, 73, 74, 79; Joseph Weed, "Vigilance Committees of San Francisco," Overland Monthly, XII (1874), 357; Woods, Lights and Shadows of Life on the Pacific Coast, 7, 45-48; MS Statements of Frink, 23; J. P. Manrow, 11-12; H. P. Coon, 6 et seq .; C. J. Dempster, 20.
4% Royce, "Provincialism," Putnam's Magazine, VII (1909), 236. "This change [the purification of elections] was brought about by the organization of a Vigilance Committee, and they completely revolutionized the politics of the state" (Tinkham, History of Stockton, 245). The People's Party has even been charged with economy to the point of parsi- mony (J. P. Young, Journalism in California [1915], 33-35). The Con- solidation Act of April 19, 1856, had prepared the way for more efficient local administration (California, Statutes, 1856, chap. 125).
49 See references supra, p. 102 note 36; Popular Tribunals, II, 371; Royce, California, 456; Life, Diary, and Letters of Oscar Lovell Shafter, 1915, p. 182; MS Statements of Coleman, 79-81; Dempster, 53-55; Green, 60.
405
'51 to '77
the Federal Union. The subject may assume greater significance if the archives of the Committee of 1856 become available for more thorough research.5º Generalizations relative to the in- fluence of that body should be based on the original records rather than upon the accounts of secondary historians.
At the outbreak of the Civil War California was still a Democratie state with pro-slavery Southerners strongly in- trenched in office. The contest for governor in 1861 was con- sidered a matter of the most vital importance, for the advocates of secession hoped to strengthen their hold on local affairs, while the Republican party was determined to assume control. We must not linger over those exciting times, except to record that San Francisco, already purged of the Southern machine and con- trolled by the People's Party, was the strategic center of the whole campaign and polled nearly one fifth of the total vote cast for Leland Stanford.51 It was the fulcrum for the lever that wrenched the secessionists from their places of power, and the steel of that fulerum had been forged by the hands of the Committee of Vigilance.
A valuable contribution to the history of this period is con- tained in a paper read before the Panama-Pacific Historical Congress of 1915, by the late Horace Davis, who emphasized the value of loyal San Francisco in the state campaign of 1861, and told of the secret formation of a Home Guard to protect the polls
50 See infra, note in Bibliography on Archives of the Committee of Vigilance.
51 The vote is reported as follows, in the Annual Statistician, compiled by J. P. Mains, 1879, pp. 427-428:
State
San Francisco
Leland Stanford, Republican 56,036 10,728
J. R. McConnell, Democrat 32,750 1,243
John Conness, Union Dem. 30,944 3,178
See also Hittell, California, IV, 290; Kennedy, Contest for California in 1861; Carr, Pioneer Days, 392-408; J. J. Earle, "Sentiment of the People of California with Respect to the Civil War," American Historical Association, Report, 1907, I, 123-135. It is said that abont this time "an old hero of the Vigilante days" frustrated a plot to attack the arsenal at Benicia (R. T. Platt, "Oregon ... in the Civil War," Oregon Historical Society, Quarterly, IV (1903), 106-107).
406
Vigilance Committee of 1851
from corruption.52 Their muster book contains a list of about 1650 San Franciscans whose Union sentiments were so unqualified that they were ready to respond to a call for service under any sudden emergency. In the list are a few familiar Vigilante names. Selim E. Woodworth, George M. Garwood, James C. Ward, A. L. Tubbs, and Henry Wetherbee, all committeemen of 1851, took charge of five enlistment sheets. Oliver B. Crary, of 1856, headed another, and other members of the later body may have been prominent in the Guard. None of the rolls shows any concerted action by members of '51, except the one in charge of Woodworth. That was signed by several of his former associates. who formed the nucleus for a company of seventy-one in which ten of the first Committee were enrolled.53
In this connection it is interesting to read in the manuscript statement of Dr. II. P. Coon, a member of the Committee of 1856, that previous to 1864 no line was drawn by the People's Party between Republican and Democratie nominees. In 1865, how- ever, the nominating committee resolved to endorse only candi- dates who had voted for Lincoln and Johnson in the last presi- dential election. Dr. Coon felt that this action "was the end of the successful career of the Old People's Party at the ballot- box. ''54
The San Francisco Committee of 1856 did not attempt to establish any coordinated branches in the interior towns.53 For
52 Horace Davis, "The Home Guard of 1861," in Panama Pacific His- torical Congress, The Pacific Ocean in History, 1917, pp. 363-372. Mr. Davis was a member of the Guard, and presented the muster book and sixty- two enlistment sheets to the Bancroft Library.
53 S. E. Woodworth, F. E. [A. ? ] Woodworth, J. C. Ward, T. A. Barry, C. R. Bond, G. W. Ryckman, W. A. Darling, G. M. Garwood, J. D. Farwell, E[dgar ?] Wakeman. No attempt has been made to check the whole list for members of the Committee.
54 Coon, MS Statement, 27. Dempster said the Committee of '56 would have disbanded earlier if it had not been for the "pro-slavery chivalry" (MS Statement, 22).
55 Manrow, MS Statement, 10-11. Frink said that some men from out of town signed the rolls just to add their influence to the effort (MS State- ment, 23).
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'51 to '77
many years, however, sporadic Committees of Vigilance appeared in places where roughs and criminals congregated, and ejectment proceedings, more or less violent, often took place. Occasionally there was a lynching by a so-called Vigilance Committee, but in the absence of such records as exist for 1851 it is impossible to tell whether or not the organizations were any more responsible than angry mobs.56 They do not seem to have prolonged their existence beyond some passing emergency except in Truckee, where a committee known as the "601" effected desirable reforms in 1874, and for more than a decade remained a name of menace to the desperadoes of the vicinity.57 Gradually the disorderly element in the state shrank to a more normal ratio, violence was more controlled, jails were made secure, popular tribunals ceased to usurp the functions of the criminal courts, and the number of lynchings dropped to two or three a year.58
There was a notable reunion of the San Francisco Vigilante personnel in 1877, when the city was in the throes of labor agitation and of anti-Chinese demonstrations which the authori- ties were impotent to control. There was such danger of incen-
56 I have not attempted extended research regarding later Committees of Vigilance, but have verified the following references in the Sacramento Union (Record Union after Sept. 1, 1875).
1860, Sept. 20 14, Protective League of Altaville, Angel's Camp, and vicinity; 1863, No. 26 32, and 1870, Dec. 21 21, V. C. in Los Angeles (see also Popular Tribunals, I, 507, 511-512; Newmark, Sixty Years in South- ern California, 204-210, 324, 420) ; 1873, Nov. 10 % and Nov. 13 %, V. C. in Gilroy; 1873, Dec. 12 33 and Dec. 19 %, V. C. in Visalia (see also Popular Tribunals, I, 470-474) ; 1880, July 8 % and 1884, March 27 +3, V. C. at Merced; 1882, Jan. 9 1%, rumor of a V. C. in Sonora; 1882, Oct. 2 24, V. C. in Yreka; 1884, Oct. 25 86, V. C. in Lundy; 1887, Sept. 5 14, V. C. in Jackson; 1888, Aug. 16 4%, and 1889, July 13 1/1, rumors of a V. C. in Fresno.
57 Popular Tribunals, I, 463-465. So far as I have ascertained, there was no execution by "601," but one of their own members was accidentally shot in a raid on armed rowdies. The Committee was unsuccessful in quell- ing disturbances, according to the Sacramento Union, 1874, Dec. 16, 3%; 19 14. It was condemned by the grand jury of Nevada County (ibid., 1875, Feb. 11 34). The same paper alluded to renewed activities at Truckee in the issue of 1876, Jan. 7 31; at Grass Valley (1885, March 30 17), and again at Truckee (1889, Aug. 17 +3).
58 Statistics in Cutler, Lynch-Law, 184.
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Vigilance Committee of 1851
diary attacks against the coolie laundrymen and the docks of the Oriental steamers that the eitizens assembled as in pioneer days and called upon the former president of the Vigilance Com- mittee. William T. Coleman, to organize a Committee of Safety for the aid of the eity forces. Within twenty-four hours over five thousand men had volunteered their services, funds were col- lected, headquarters were established, and by the orders of the President of the United States, the Secretary of War, and the Governor of California, ammunition and Federal forees were placed at Coleman's disposal. The ranks of the Committee were furnished with stout hiekory pick handles, as emergency weapons, and firearms were held in reserve for extreme necessity. This "pick handle brigade" patrolled the city by day and night, suppressed incipient riots, prevented any disastrous conflagra- tion, and demonstrated to the lawless that the slender equipment of the municipal poliee had behind it an effective army of well disciplined civilians. The pass word of the Committee was "'56 to '77," and the spirit that had intimidated the criminals and the corrupt politicians of an earlier generation now overawed the hoodlums of the sand lots and re-established order within a few days. Then, as before, the swift mobilization of the man power of the city had prevented the horrors of mob conflicts, and again as before, when its work was accomplished the association quietly disappeared from public activity, though no one knew how long its leaders remained on guard against further disturb- ance.59
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