The Los Angeles Common Council and Criminal Justice, 1855

In late 1854, a spate of murders rocked the city and county of Los Angeles.  Three, in particular, struck a chord with residents frustrated with continuing high rates of violence and the seeming inability of local officials to respond effectively.

One incident involved a feud in El Monte, in which Frederick Leatherman was shot and killed by William B. Lee.  While El Monte was known for its violence, due in no small part to a "culture of honor" practiced by its large population of men from the Southern states, this crime took place in the context of a pair of other high-profile homicides.

Just east of El Monte, across the San Gabriel River, which at the time flowed in the channel of today's Rio Hondo, James Ellington was found dead along what is now Valley Boulevard and Felipe Alvitre, a member of a large Californio family which settled in the Misión Vieja community, south of El Monte, was tracked down and arrested for the crime.

Finally, there was the shooting death of Pinckney Clifford in a Los Angeles livery stable by David Brown, a former constable who lost an election for city marshal in the early 1850s.  Brown was known for his criminal dealings and this incident occasioned a public meeting at a hotel, in which an immediate lynching seemed to be a consensus view until mayor Stephen C. Foster arrived.

Foster was an arrival from Maine in the Mexican era, married a daughter of redoubtable rancher Antonio María Lugo, and an alcalde (roughly mayor) in the transitional period after the American conquest of Alta California.  When Foster mounted a table to deliver an impassioned speech insisting that the courts be allowed to try the case and demonstrate their ability to delivery justice, talk of lynching ceased.  It helped that Foster offered to resign his office and join the vigilantes should justice be denied.

Given this popular sentiment and the blatant support of extralegal justice by the new weekly paper, the Southern Californian, it may not be surprising that a District Court jury quickly found Lee, Alvitre and Brown guilty of first-degree murder and sentenced all to be hung.  Lee and Brown, however, had stays of execution granted by the state supreme court and it was said Alvitre's request was misdelivered en route.

Lee did not appear to engender the emotion, though, that Brown did.  So, when Alvitre was legally hung in early January 1855 and Lee trembled in his cell, but went untouched, the growing crowd outside the jail bayed for Brown's blood.  Sure enough, Foster arrived, resigned his office, took up his place in the mob and participated in Brown's lynching.

On 13 January, the Los Angeles Common [City] Council received a written resignatin from Foster and promptly called for a special election to replace him for the 25th.  However, harsh words were offered for Marshal George W. Cole, who'd been elected the previous spring.  The council issued a resolution condemning

the improper conduct of the Marshal of the City, of which the council is satisfied, resolved, that the office of Marshal is hereby declared vacant, and that the same be filled by election on the same day & time that the Mayor should be elected.

Cole clearly did not, in the council's view, offer much of a resistance to the mob that took Brown from the jail to his doom.  The council appointed John H. Hughes, who had been a special policeman on appointment from the body, to be an "agent of police" while the marshal's office was vacant.

Less than a week later, council member and former mayor Antonio Franco Coronel resigned, though his reason for so doing was unstated.  Notably, the same day, 19 January, a petition was received by the council from 150 citizens calling for a reduction in the license issued for selling liquor.  Given that a goodly proportion of the violence in Los Angeles came from intoxication, this effort did not bode well for efforts to reduce mayhem in the City of Angels.

This 7 March 1855 article from the Southern Californian lambasts its rival, the Star and its "Waite-ty" editor, James S. Waite, concerning "Indians and Sonorians" who escaped from the city and county jail and who Waite felt were the main participants in the lynching of David Brown in mid-January.   The Southern Californian, however, noted that "some of our most worthy citizens" were involved in the hanging, while not naming Mayor Stephen C. Foster., who resigned his seat to participate and was rewarded by being reinstated by voters at a special election days later.

The day after the election, the council met and was informed that the successor to the vigilante mayor was none other than Foster himself.  Unquestionably, enough of his fellow citizens supported his actions to deliver him back to office comfortably.  The new marshal was Alfred Shelby.

The business of the council was quiet and mundane for a period, though a new citizen militia, the City Guards was formed in those first weeks of 1855, likely as a response to the increase in crime.  In March, the council resolved to pay the paramilitary organization $50 "to be appropriated towards the payment of rent, exclusively for such length of time as said corps shall act in conjunction with the City authorities whenever called upon in support of the laws and the peace of said city."  By April, the City Guards had its headquarters in the home of Francis Mellus, who had recently vacated his council seat to serve in the state legislature.

In May, the annual elections were held and Stephen Foster did not stand for reelection.  His successor, Thomas Foster, was a doctor who was unrelated to his predecessor and who defeated council secretary William G. Dryden in a narrow contest of 192-179 votes.  The following year, 1856, Stephen Foster returned to the mayoralty and Dryden won the first of several terms as county judge.

Thomas Foster's message was the first to be printed in the council minutes and noted "the unrighteous traffic in spirits carried on between small vendors and Indians . . . [which led to] the disgusting scenes too often witnessed in our streets."  Foster, therefore, sought to more strictly enforce ordinances concerning this trade.  He also made reference to the fact that "the crimes of former years are fast departing from our midst" and added that "I would fain hope that under the benign influence of our equal laws, and by a just and fearless administration of our Municipal government, peace and prosperity may reign uninterruptedly."

Pretty words, to be sure, but hardly reflective of the reality of Gold Rush-era Los Angeles, but it was true that, after the tumult of the first days of the year, matters did settle down appreciably for most of the rest of 1855.

In fact, one of the principal items of busines in the middle portion of the year had to do with the continuing poor conditions of the city and county jail only lately built in 1854.  For example, when a committee of the council was assigned to report on the need for a reconstruction of the privy, the response was that such work was not possible.  Therefore, the council ordered the jailor, Francis Carpenter, "to purchase such vessels, as are indispensably necessary for the use of city prisoners confined & under his charge in the City Jail."  This seems to indicate the use of chamber pots!

Then, in late July, there was the need for the county to ask for the city's help in rebuilding "the fallen adobe wall which encloses the City and County jail" and city prisoners were requisitioned to help with that project.  Towards the end of the year, mundane business continued concerning the City Guards and support from the city, the need to extra policement to assist Marshal Shelby in September, a petition of citizens to repeal the onerous ordinance limiting horse riding to 5 miles per hour or less on city streets, and vacancies that cropped up on the council.  By the end of the year, city attorney Lewis Granger reported to the council of "a growing evil" in the theft of cattle within the city and a committee of attorney and council member Ezra Drown and Henry Uhlbrook wer called upon to investigate this issue.

At the same meeting, Marshal Shelby was granted an extraordinary leave of absence of six weeks starting 8 December.  As the new year dawned, Shelby wound up being another of those city marshals who proved to be a problem for the city--that story is coming soon.

1855 came to a close with Common Council member Paul R. Hunt got into a battle royale with jailor Francis Carpenter that including Hunt shooting and nearly killing Carpenter, as noted in this 22 December 1855 article.

Meanwhile, the year ended with a brawl between councilman Paul R. Hunt and jailor Carpenter, reported in the Star of 22 December, "for no other reason, as we are informed, than because Hunt voted against allowing a certian bill that Carpenter had presented to the Board for approval."  When Carpenter was found guilty of simple assault before a Justice of the Peace, Hunt, not satisfied with the $10 fine and costs that served as the sentence,

armed himself, and meeting Mr. C. last Saturday near the Court House, without any warning whatever, shot at him, wounding him severely, the ball passing through his arm and lodging in his side.  Although for a time the wound was considered fatal, we are happy in being able to state the Mr. Carpenter is now recovering . . .

It was bad enough to have criminals roaming the streets of Los Angeles in significant numbers, but to have a council member, jailer and marshal all engaging in their own forms of criminal mischief,  Thomas Foster's claims of better days were clearly belied!

The Los Angeles Common Council and Criminal Justice, 1854

In its fifth year of operation, the Los Angeles Common (City) Council started off its year by dealing with the pressing problem of the town's troublesome marshal, Alveron S. Beard.

As noted in other posts on this blog, Beard, a native of North Carolina who lived in Arkansas prior to migrating to Los Angeles, started off as a private school teacher before securing election as marshal in 1853.  He hadn't been in the position long before he complained about his pay and the council found problems with his record-keeping on reimbursements and fees.

Future Los Angeles marshal Alveron S. Beard was an unemployed 27-year old resident of Pine Bluff, Arkansas when the 1850 census was taken.

Consequently, at a special council meeting convened on 6 January, attorney Lewis Granger showed up to announce that he was withdrawing as a surety for Beard (sureties put up money to guarantee the efficiency of the office holder.)  The reason was soon made apparent as council minutes recorded that the body resolved "that the Mayor [Antonio Franco Coronel] should take possession of the Assessment Roll in the hands of the Marshal and all moneys by him collected and not turned into the City Treasury."

The following night was a continuation of the special meeting and it was there that the mayor reported to the council that

the Marshal had promised to turn over to him the Assessment Roll and his accounts, but had not done so, whereupon he [the Mayor] together with an interpreter, once more did go to make the same demand and received the same promise, which to this hour has not been fulfilled.

The council then voted for a resolution that ordered Beard and his sureties to appear at the next meeting or, failing this, the body would "fill his place."

Two nights later, on the 9th,  John G. Nichols, who had been mayor in 1852-53 and would be again in 1857-58, appeared to withdraw as the second of the embattled marshal's bondsmen.  The minutes then recorded that: "an excuse of the Marshal, A.S. Beard, was read and rejected as irrelevant" and the council then resolved to amend the city ordinance regulating the collection of taxes so that the marshal would no longer serve in that function and the duty handed over to the city treasurer, Samuel Arbuckle.

Another board-approved resolution showed just how poorly matters had gone with Beard:

The communication presented this morning to Council by A.S. Beard, City Marshal, is so grossly insulting in its language and tone and unworthy of an employee of this City that it does not deserve to receive any consideration from this Body.

A copy of this resolution was transmitted to Beard and it is too bad that his statement to his bosses has not survived.  As rough and violent as the City of Angels was in that period, his letter must've been something!

Six years after being ignominiously removed as Los Angeles marshal, Beard won election as a Justice of the Peace in San Bernardino as reflected in his 1860 census listing.

Two weeks went by and, on the 23rd, council secretary and future (and colorful) county judge, William G. Dryden, repoted that he delivered the council's damning resolution to Beard.  Mayor Coronel stated that he finally had the information on collected fines for November, being delayed in doing so by Beard's unfathomable actions in withholding that information for so long.  The council then issued a resolution asking Dryden to work with Arbuckle in getting from Beard that assessment roll and tax collection accounts which still had not been forwarded.

A week later, the pair appeared before the council and reported that they finally secured the role and accounts, but found that some 40% of the amount was missing and that Beard should be answerable for the shortfall.  Meanwhile, Arbuckle was ordered to send a bill to Granger and Nichols, as Beard's sureties, for the vanished $335.  Having taking these actions, the council followed by declaring the office of marshal vacant, appointing George W. Whitehorne as a temporary marshal, and an election was set for 16 February.

A week later, a chastened Beard wrote the council, with the minutes recording, "in which he confeses having used about four hundred dollars of the tax levy with which he had been entrusted, and asks for fifteen' days grace to pay it back."  Unimpressed and unmoved, the council issued a resolution that, because Arbuckle had already presented a bill to Nichols and Granger, "they insisted on being informed as to the date up to which Beard had caused the said shortage."  Moreover, they determined, because Beard had confessed, the bill to his sureties should be paid.

The special election included four candidates for office and, out of 280 total votes, Whitehorne was declared the winner with 122 of them.  Meanwhile, Arbuckle was preparing a new report on Beard's defalcation for the next meeting and January licenses and fines showed a deficit of $247.50 chargeable to the former marshal.

On 27 February, Mayor Coronel informed the council that Beard had forwarded $168 to him, which was the amount of the license fees collected in January.  Dryden was then appointed an attorney-in-fact to collect the rest of the money owed by Beard, with a commission of 10% rendered to the secretary for his work,

Two weeks later, Dryden presented a receipt for $162 from Nichols and Granger that was paid over to Arbuckle, who expected another $211 to be forthcoming. It was not recorded, however, whether that remaining sum ever was collected and remitted to the city's treasury.

Virginia City, Montana was a mining boom town that was the scene of some major vigilante activity in the 1860s.  Beard was a farmer in the community in the 1870 census.

Beard's problems, it turned out, wasn't just fiscal malfeasance.  In August 1853, he and Joanna Mulkkins Gunning were hauled into the Court of Sessions on a charge of bigamy, though there was no recorded disposition.

In late November, Beard appeared before the District Court on a charge of the false imprisonment of an Indian named José Antonio.  The case file noted that a writ of habeus corpus was filed on José Antonio's behalf and that Judge Hayes received a written explanation from Beard that

About dusk yesterday I found the within named Indian at the jail and without asking any questions or without knowing any cause I put him in jail, he or no other person ever told me why or for what he was there & he is now in my custody and is brought before the court.

Talk about a strange lack of application of due process! There was, however, no dispostion in the matter and it appears that Hayes granted the habeus corpus motion and had José Antonio freed.

Two days after that case, the Court of Sessions heard the matter of a murder charge against the marshal in the death of Joaquín Aguilar.  In the case file was an affidavit by William B. Osburn, a doctor, deputy sheriff and justice of the peace, who stated that he and attorney and judge Kimball H. Dimmick went to the home of Felicidad Carrion to care for Aguilar.  The mortally wounded man told the doctor "that he was shot by order of the Sheriff."

When Osburn replied that this was not possible, knowing that the sheriff was James R. Barton, Aguilar insisted that "he certainly was shot by order of the tall, big sheriff that goes always with the cane after Indians."  Now understanding, Osburn went on, "when I asked him if he meant the City Marshal Beard, he replied that he did."

The dying man admitted, however, "that he was a little under the influence of liquor but not much."  In this condition, Aguilar said there an argument and another man pulled out his knife, so Aguilar took out his for self-defense.  He stated that Beard arrived and ordered Aguilar to jail.   When he protested that Beard had no warrant or order, Aguilar told Osburn that Beard ordered a nearby man to shoot Aguilar.  The case file, however, had no stated disposition.

Finally, on 14 April 1854, the Sessions court convened a trial with the ex-lawman charged with embezzlement of public money; that is, of the tax money collected and not forwarded to Arbuckle in a timely manner.  The jury, however, was convinced that Beard was not guilty of embezzlement.

Two years later, in mid-April 1856, Beard came before the Court of Sessions again, this time on a charge of gambling by hosting games of "monte" at his house.  In this matter the indictment was set aside for reason unexplained--probably some fault with how it was worded.  It does not appear that a new indictment was secured, however.

Beard continued to live in Los Angeles on and off for years afterward.  Horace Bell in his Reminiscences of a Ranger did little to conceal his utter contempt for the disgraced marshal, claiming that in summer 1853, the marsha sent the Los Angeles Rangers, of which Bell was a member, to arreest some "Mexican thieves" but then played some unstated trick on the citizen militia.  According to Bell, the Rangers dragged Beard through a ditch and "left him more dead than alive."  Though Bell went on to say the incident led to a trial involving the Rangers, surviving court records and newspapers show no such matter appearing.  Moreover, Bell claimed Beard was forced to resign as marshal because of the Rangers incident, though it is obvious that it was the poor management of city funds that did the marshal in.

In 1880, the aging Beard was listed as a farmer in the San Pasqual township of San Diego County.

Referring to Beard as living a "life of vagabondism that has led down to the present day"  Bell went on to describe the former marshal as, in 1876, being

a living and hideous mass of human rottenness and festering corruption, shunned even by the canine street scavengers, viewed not with pity, but with loathing and disgust, even by the most debased of mankind . . . an outcast from society and a begger for alms.

This  remarkable, even for Bell, description, however, seems belied by a 28 May 1876 article in the Los Angeles Herald, which talked about an old cannon dredged up in town and which was believed to have dated to the time of the Mexican-American War some three decades prior.  The article noted that

Mr. A.S. Beard, an old resident of Los Angeles, informs us that it was discovered on the site of an old fort in Los Angeles . . .

Beard, who enlisted with the American army in 1846 in Louisiana, then gave further information as to the cannon's use after the war'e end.  The article does not hint at the debasement of Beard that Bell claimed was the case.

The former marshal did move around during his later years, even securing election in San Bernardino as a Justice of the Peace when the 1860 census was taken and then later living in Elko County, Nevada; in the famed mining town of Virginia City, Montana, where vigilantism reigned supreme for a period in the 1860s; and in San Pasqual, where the Californios won their most significant military victory during the Mexican War, near San Diego, but any rottenness and corruption, begging for money and so on, as expressed by Bell, cannot be corroborated and he was listed as a farmer in the 1870 and 1880 censuses.

Still, Alveron S. Beard may stand in dubious distinction as one of the most corrupt and dishonest public figures in the City of the Angels at a time when the town was rife with problems.

The Los Angeles Common Council and Criminal Justice, 1853

In 1853, its fourth year of operation, the Los Angeles Common Council continued to deal with a range of criminal justice issues representative of an underfunded, understaffed frontier community.

One of these was about finances, as one of the main sources of revenue for the operations of the town of a few thousand consisted of fines for infractions of offenses of Los Angeles' ordinances.  In the first meeting of the year, on 4 January, the total submitted to the city treasurer from the prior month was a whopping $18.18.  At the next meeting, on the 17th, the council resolved to pay Francisco Alvarado a rent for two rooms used as the city jail at $16 dollars, so the fines of the prior month barely covered that expense.

On 5 February, the council reaffirmed its order "that the prisoners who are confirned for violations of the Ordinances be employed in cleaning the streets, and a few of them in canal and street repairs," this being in lieu of fines.

Speaking of the jail, while there had been movement in 1852 towards securing a better facility, the council's attention in the first part of the next year was towards raising funds for a city hall and a public school, the town having neither as dedicated structures.  However, when three bids were received by mid-April for a new city hall on Main Street not far from the Plaza, these were rejected and it was proposed that an existing house be purchased instead.  There would not be a city hall specifically built for that purpose until the late 1880s.

At the 13 May meeting, mayor Antonio Franco Coronel's message was included in the minutes and he discussed the issue of renting structures for the council chamber and mail noting the

importance of owning a building which would serve those purposes, and which not only would fill a long felt want, but also would save expenses, more particularly if in its construction the transgressors of the municipal ordinances were employed to serve out their punishment, which they could do by working in person or contributing with such fines as may be imposed for such offenses

The first day of May included the election for council seats and among the results was that Manuel Requena was again appointed president, while one of the two publishers of the Los Angeles Star newspaper, William H. Rand, was among the new council members.

William H. Rand, co-publisher of the Los Angeles Star, the city's first newspaper, served on the town's Common Council in 1853.  He then left Los Angeles and wound up in Chicago, where he formed what became the Rand McNally publishing empire.

He was to be joined by Pío Pico, former governor of Mexican-era California and one of the most prominent of the area's Californio elite.  However, on the meeting of 23 May, it was recorded that Pico failed to take his seat and was declared removed, with a special election held at the corridor the house of Ignacio Del Valle.  However, Pico was appointed the inspector, so it appears that his purchase of the Rancho Paso de Bartolo in 1852 was the main reason for his decision to forego serving on the council.  His home on that rancho is now a state landmark in Whittier.  As for Pico's replacement, that was Juan María Sepulveda of another prominent Californio family.

Another recurring issue came up at the late May meeting, when the town's new marshal, Alveron S. Beard, elected at the first of the month, made this request: "a petition of the Marshal was read wherein he asks to be paid a salary, and Council resolved that it considers the fees attaching to the office of Marshal as being sufficient."  Beard, it may be remembered, had just emigrated to Los Angeles and was appointed by the council as a school teacher for poor children.

It didn't take long for Beard to become a lightning rod for controversy.  At the 21 June meeting, the Finance Committee reported that Beard exceeded his authority in issuing licenses, rather than just collecting the fees for them, the issuance to be handled by Mayor Coronel.  Beard was at the meeting and "was given to understand that he has no authority to issue licenses."

Another problem raised at the same meeting had to do with a request for payment by the marshal for his arrest of two dozen Indians and four white men (this reflects the chronic problem of Indians arrested for public drunkenness and their consequent subjection to public labor in lieu of fines, referred to here before.)  Beard's claim was rejected because

Council resolved that since the persons arrested had not paid any fine because they succeeded in making good their escape owing to a lack of vigilance on the part of the Marshal, his claim must be denied, excepting two dollars charged for the arrest of a white man who served his sentence.

Jail breaks were, in fact, somewhat common, but this mass escape was egregious enough to be recorded in the minute book.

Then, at the 21 June meeting, Beard submitted a bill for $20 for cleaning the streets, repairing the jail and for the burial of an Indian and this was sent to the Finance Committee for its review.  On 7 July, the committee returned with its recommendation that payment of $10 be forwarded for the first two items, but that Beard's claim for $10 for the burial was "a matter which should have been attended to by the County officials," another example of the marshal's penchant for overstepping his bounds.

At the same July gathering, Mayor Coronel "explained the difficulties arising from employing City prisoners in the cleaning of the streets, and recommended that some steps be taken" to remedy the problem, though it was not stated that the issue was about the marshal's (mis)management.  The result was that the Council decided to take bids for street cleaning from a private contractor at rates up to $40 per month for the remainder of the year.

The matter of the jail and city offices returned to the agenda in August.  On the recommendation of William T.B. Sanford, a two-person Jail and City Offices committee of himself and Requena was formed to confer with the new county Board of Supervisors (the 5-person body took over county management from the Court of Sessions in 1852) "for establishing a jail and City offices in the same building that the County is using for a like purpose."  The two men were directed to not commit the city to any sum higher than $2500.

On 12 September, William H. Rand, a member of the Police Committee with Jose María Doporto, resigned and eventually returned east, where, in Chicago, he formed a printing firm that evolved into the Rand McNally corporation.  A special election brought newly-arrived Iowa attorney Ezra Drown to the council and to a seat on the police commission.

At the meeting of 6 October, county supervisor Stephen C. Foster submitted to the council a resolution from his board "inviting the city to come in jointly [with the county] with the City Offices and Jail" and a draft ordinance was submitted.  The total financial commitment was $2500, with $1500 of that going to the county for the house and lot and the balance due "when the house shall be finished and that portion of the jail belonging to the City according to resolutions of the Board of Supervisors shall have been turned over to the City."  The following day, at a special council meeting, this resolution was approved.

Work finally began late in the year at a building acquired west of Spring Street from former council member Jonathan Temple and, in late November, the key of a room for an office for city use was turned over, with the council agreeing to begin using that space in December.  Requena then reported that he was told by the construction superintendent for both the jail, which was a new structure in the courtyard, and for the city and county offices that it would "be a timely service . . . to anticipate the payment of one thousand dollars which the [city] is under obligation to pay for its share of the said buildings."

A circa 1870s photograph, later printer engraved, of Antonio Franco Coronel, mayor of Los Angeles in 1853 and later state treasurer.  From a biographical sketch of Coronel by Henry D. Barrows, published in the annual of the Historical Society of Southern California, 1900.

Meantime, on 13 December, Mayor Coronel reported to the council that Judge Benjamin Hayes of the District Court issued a ruling "that the City is not entitled to possess a Jail" and the council resolved to form a committee to meet with the judge "to ascertain the true state of affairs."  This discussion, to be led by council member Henry Myles was to be scheduled before members of the state assembly from Los Angeles were to leave for the next session of the legislature, presumably in case statutes needed to be changed.  At the same meeting, $1000 were forward to Sanford by the Jail and City Offices Committee as the city's share of the construction costs to be handed over to the Board of Supevisors.

Finally, as the year headed towards a close, the situation with Marshal Beard continued to be problematic.  In early October another bill from Beard was rejected as not being in proper form, to which three days later, the marshal again petitioned for a monthly salary and, once more, the council rejected his request "because his services are considered sufficiently compensated with the fees stipulated by ordinance."

Beard was nothing if not persistent and, on 23 November, he returned again to ask for a salary and wanted to be paid $65 per month for his services and work.  Exasperated, the council voted for a new resolution, stating that "if he is not satisfied with the fees appertaining to his office, he is at liberty to resign."  Moreover, his bills were such that, he was ordered to provide proof of the services and fees he was claiming, to which the council would give the bills due attention.

As 1854 dawned, the city had the good news of having a new building for city offices as well as a new jail readied, but it also had continuing problems with Marshal Beard to address.  More on that in the next post.