The Formation of the Los Angeles Rangers, 1853, Part Two

In the late spring and early summer of 1853, a spate of robberies, murders and other crimes taking place in the Los Angeles region spurred a movement to combat the growing scourge.

The 16 July edition of the Los Angeles Star reported on "a large and highly respectable meeting" at the El Dorado Hotel at which "it was resolved to organize a mounted force for the purpose of protecting the public" from rampant crime.

Among the resolutions was the statement that this force be given the power of "arresting all suspicious persons wherever we may find them and ridding the community of the same in such manner as may be advisable."

Another addressed "all persons who have heretofore harbored robbers or assassins ot furnished them means of escape," warning them that such activities would "be punished with the greatest severity."

Then, there was a "three days warning to the whole vagrant class," including the taking of names and physical descriptions and that "their failure to leave the county in the specified time" would lead to their removal "at all hazards."

Finally, these resolutions concluded with the statement "that we continue the system here adopted until the peace and seciroty of the community are perfectly established."

The 16 July 1853 issue of the Los Angeles Star covered a meeting the previous evening at the El Dorado Hotel which led to the formation of an organization to use broad powers to seek the control of rampant crime in the county.

Whatever the exasperation felt by citizens at the seemingly unstoppable criminal activity taking place, there were many problems of due process involved in the resolutions, starting with the profiling of people who were deemed, without any criteria at all, to be "suspicious" and that their explusion could be "in such manner as may be advisable," which left the door open to any forms of violence those involved felt were "advisable."

Along a similar vein, what were the conditions applicable to punishing persons deemed to be assisting criminals and what would the "greatest severity" mean with respect to the punishment?

Vagrancy could, presimably, imply a wide variety of attributes imputed to someone deemed to be a "vagrant."  Was such a person unemployed or seasonally employed?  What other factors would be taken into account to determine vagrancy?  And, again, their removal from the county "at all hazards," implied that any sort of force would be available for use.

Finally, how would the community, or at least those taking it upon themselves to act for the community, know that there was a "perfectly established" sense of "peace and security," at which time the measures adopted at the meeting would be relaxed?

Notably, this addressing of vagrancy predated by two years the passage of a state law, titled “An Act to Punish Vagrants, Vagabonds, and Dangerous and Suspicious Persons,” that addressed all manner of miscreants, from prostitutes and drunks to "healthy beggars" and ordered that those "with no visible means of living" get a job within ten days and that "lewd and dissolute persons" as well as prostitutes and drunks serve up to 90 days at hard labor for their indiscretions.

Another result of the meeting was that "a company was then formed" to carry out the mandate ratified at the gathering.  Leadership of the organization was given to Benjamin D. Wilson, late mayor of Los Angeles and a future state senator, who had no subordinates.  Even though the meeting was held just the previous day, the Star reported that "some have already started out" on the work of protecting the county.

Meantime, it was said that sixteen men at El Monte organized at their own meeting to support Wilson's company and that Charles H. Wurden of that community was elected captain of that auxiliary.

The 8 June 1853 issue of the Star reported on the formation of the Los Angeles Guards, another organization intended to fight crime in the region.

This followed a slightly earlier effort from early June, in which a meeting held on the 7th led to the creation of an organization called the "Los Angeles Guards," featurng thirty members, led by David W. Alexander, a future sheriff, attorney and judge Myron Norton, future Southern Californian publisher John O. Wheeler, common council member and future state treasurer Antonio Franco Coronel, and Samuel K. Labatt.  The Star observed that "such an organization would be a great means of securing good order in our city."  A little more than two weeks later, a formal election of officers was held, with Wheeler named Captain, Norton first lieutenant, Alexander second lieutenant, and merchant Solomon Lazard elected as third lieutenant.  It was also reported that the member roll had doubled to sixty.

It is unclear how much actual crime-fighting was undertaken by the Guards and by Wilson's company, but the Los Angeles Rangers, which also organized during the summer, definitely had more activity.  The 6 August 1853 issue of the Star reported that there were 100 enrolled members and a quarter of them were deemed to be active.  Moreover, the paper continued, "their horses [are] to be furnished gratuitously [sic] by the rancheros, as a loan to the company, with other costs to be assumed by the county "and private subscription."  For example, the Board of Supervisors earmarked $1000 for arms and expected to be reimbursed for such by the state.

The 6 August edition of the Star listed members and the elected officers of the Los Angeles Rangers paramilitary group.  Note the article underneath announcing the supposed capture of the famed bandido Joaquin Murrieta (or, at least, someone said to have been the legendary criminal.)

Among the listed members were William Little (later killed as a member of Sheriff James Barton's posse, ambushed by bandits in today's Orange County in early 1857); Thomas Rand, brother of the former publisher of the Star; Alexander W. Hope, who'd been the chief of the short-lived 1851 police department covered earlier in this blog; marshal William C. Getman, later killed in his first month as sheriff in early 1858; future under-sheriffs Eli Smith and Edward C. Hale, and a young man identified only as H. Bell.  More on him later.

A little over a month later, the first major reported activity of the Rangers appeared in the Star.  More on that and other developments in a post coming soon.

The Los Angeles County Courthouse, November 1856

There were several Los Angeles County courthouses in the first dozen years or so of the American era.  For a few months after the formation of the county in 1850, the adobe house of longtime merchant Abel Stearns, called El Palacio, was used.  The large one-story structure sat on the east side of Main Street and later was razed by Stearns' widow, Arcadia Bandini, and her second husband Robert Baker for the construction of the ornate Arcadia Block.  The site is now where Main crosses the 101 Freeway.

Then, the county contracted with another prominent American, Benjamin D. Wilson and his partner Albert Packard, to use a portion of the Bella Union Hotel, also on Main Street, but a bit south of El Palacio, for court uses.  The hotel served in this function from Summer 1850 to early in 1852.

From there, the courthouse relocated to the adobe house of Benjamin Hayes, who was a city attorney and, for a dozen years, the District Court judge.  From early January 1852 to November 1853, the courthouse actually functioned in the former home of one of its own judges.

The county had explored the idea of building its own courthouse and would do so for years to come, but the only feasible financial option was to acquire another adobe building.  The Rocha Adobe was acquired from yet another prominent American, merchant Jonathan Temple, in August 1853 for just over $3,000.

The Rocha Adobe, situated on the west side of Spring Street, between Temple and First streets, needed some work, so the county budgeted $1,000 for repairs and renovations.  It was also decided to construct a new county and city jail in the courtyard of the adobe, but more on that in a subsequent post.

Despite the moderate improvements to the adobe, the deplorable condition of the building sometimes elicited comment in the press.  None of these was more pungent and potent than an editorial in the Los Angeles Star, dated 29 November 1856.  Likely the piece was penned by the paper's colorful editor, Henry Hamilton, though there is no way to know for sure.  In any case, this jeremiad is worth some attention.

The article began by asking "who was the architect . . . or in what age it was built."  After mockingly observing that the structure bore "marks of genius," he went on to say that "no other man than the projector could have succeeded in placing his victims in positions ensuring them such torture, as the judges, jurors, lawyers and officers must endure, condemned to long sessions in this terrestrial purgatory."

The first paragraph of a Los Angeles Star editorial concerning the decrepit condition of the county courthouse, 29 November 1856.

The court room was denoted as a "hog-pen" in the form of a "compressed parallelogram . . . with the smallest possible modicum of breadth."  In the northern portion, there was "a crib . . . in which the Judge is condemned to ruminate, chewing the cud of bitter fancy."  It was suggested that a judge would be so bitter to toil from that locale that "God help the poor sufferer who is condemned from that box—the verdict of a jury is bad enough, but when it comes, double-distilled, from that judgment-seat, the acrimony of misanthropy must, unwittingly, mix itself up with the gall of defeat."

After expressing the hope that a judge may someday have quarters befitting the name of a true courthouse, instead of an "augean stable," the piece continued that the bench was so cramped that "if he shifts his position, his heels must go up and his head down" and that "set him right side up . . . [and] nothing can be seen but the tip of his nose, or two keen eyes."

In sympathy, the editorial lamented, "Alas, poor judge, often have we silently sympathized with you, in your solitary cell."

Yet, it appears the judge had it fairly easy compared to the gentlement of the jury, according to the piece.

But the jury box, Gracious powers!  The man who constructed the "iron cage," was tender-hearted as a woman, in comparison with the projector of this device of Satan.  The builder must have been fresh from the culprit's doom—a verdict of guilty,  That's certain.

In fact, the article went on, those who concocted the concept of the jury box "should be, in the first place, convicted under the statute against cruelty to animals" and then sentenced to "occupy the same position for double the length of time [as jury service]—if they survive that, they should be excused from jury duty for the remainder of their natural lives."

As for the clerk, his space was "in a cage just big enough for one side of his record book—the other half has to trespass on his neighbor's grounds."  There was no discernible means of entering and exiting, evidently, and the author asked "why a clerk of a court, who is supposed to require, and usually has ceded to him, considerable space for his books and papers, should be thus cooped up, no one but the renowned architect of this building could conceive."

The end of the mocking jeremiad about the deplorable state of the Rocha Adobe.

All paled, however, in comprison to "the accomodations for the Bar—the caps the climax."  The space for attorneys "is an immense four-by-nine area.  It can accomodate one man and a chair at a time. If you put in a second man, you must take out the chair."  A table was considered a luxurious item, so an attorney "may write on the crown of his hat, if it be a stovepipe—if not, he must borrow one or do without writing."  Consultations between clients and their counsel had to take place outside the structure.

Finally, there was the matter of cleanliness, or the lack thereof, according to the writer of the tirade.  Aside from the "cribbed, cabined and confined dimensions of the room, is to be considered the quantity of dust and filth . . . which no amount of sweeping or cleansing can keep away."  With all of this in mind, the editorial concluded

we cannot sufficiently admire the ingenuity of the builder in the construction of such a house for such a purpose, nor the patience of the public—judges, jurors, and lawyers, who quietly submit to the infliction.

Whether there was a good deal of exaggeration or not in this piece, the Rocha Adobe continued as the courthouse for a few more years and this will be the subject of the next post.