The Los Angeles Common Council and Criminal Justice, 1859

The last year of the tumultuous and turmoil-filled 1850s began with another nod to straitened financial circumstances in the post-Gold Rush economic environment, when, at its 17 January 1859 meeting, the Los Angeles Common [City] Council's finance committee reported that the contract it renegotiated with the city jailor, Joseph Smith, was "the best contract that could be made under the circumstances."  With this far-from-enthusiastic recommendation, the council went ahead and approved the deal, the details of which were not recorded.

At the same meeting, former council member and businessman/rancher Jonathan Temple petitioned to meet with the council concerning "public buildings" he was contemplating building.  Coucil members Stephen C. Foster, John S. Griffin, and David M. Porter were appointed to a committee to consult with Temple on his intentions.

On the 25th, the committee issued its report, stating the Temple "solely or in connectio with others," proposed to build structures that could be rented to the city at 1 1/4% of the cost of the building and the stated $5,000 value of the land as monthly rent for ten years, with the city having the opttion to buy the structure at the end of that period or before at cost.

The proposed building, designed by local builder W.H. Dearien and located between Main and Spring streets and Temple and 1st was to be exempt from taxation and kept in good repair by the city.  The committee recommended that Temple's terms be accepted and that the structure be specifically for butchers and green grocers.  It also recommended that total payments to Temple over the ten years not exceed $25,000, though this was increased to $30,000 by the council, which approved the idea, but stipulated that the structure had to be two stories, not one (after all, Los Angeles was ready to move a little higher skyward than usual!)

This circa 1870 stereoscopic photograph shows Jonathan Temple's Market House, with its landmark cupola and clock tower.  Completed in 1859, the structure was mainly a commercial building, but had quarters for city hall, and, on the second floor, the first true theater built in Los Angeles.  The worsening economy, though, led to changes in its use quickly.  From the Workman and Temple Family Homestead Museum collection.

On 21 February, a contract between Temple and the city was presented and approved, followed by an extraordinary (special) meeting two nights later, held to draft an ordinance concerning the proposal for what was then being called the "Market House and City Hall."  Dearien's design, in fact, was evidently modeled on that of Boston's landmark Faneuil Hall, reflected by Temple's upbringing in nearby Reading, Massachusetts.

In early May, Temple petitioned the council to allow him to add, at a cost of $1,500, a cupola and clock that would surmount the structure--this feature eventually became a major focal point of the building.  The issue evidently was put aside, because it was resubmitted in June.  A month later, a special meeting was held to devise a system for renting "stalls" or small stores in the building.

Not coincidentally, perhaps, Temple then petitioned the council for the creation of a new street to be named for him, which would extend west from what was then the intersection of Main and Spring.   This bordered the northern tip of what would be called the Temple Block, with the proposed Market House at the southern section.

This 30 July 1859 article in the Los Angeles Star describes the nearly-complete Market House of Jonathan Temple.

After Temple was able to buy land from the heirs of Antonio Valdez as well as from Francis Mellus to make way for the street, the council gave its approval.  Temple Street was only one block in its early incarnation, but it seems obvious that Temple felt future growth would move up into the hills to the west of town.  Unfortunately for him and others, that move would be great delayed by the economic doldrums that worsened in the first half of the Sixties.

Meanwhile work continued on the Market House and, by late September, the special committee assigned to monitor its progress, reported that the building should not be received by the city until it was determined to meet all contract specifications.  In fact, an ordinance was approved concerning renting stalls for three months, with a nine-month extension, and bills were to be posted about these terms because the structure was due to be open by the first of October.

A special meeting on the 30th was held for examination of the finished building, the renting of stalls and other related business and the council requested Temple and Francis Mellus to issue a two-year warranty on the mastic roof that Mellus's business put on the structure.  The vote to accept the building was not, however, unanimous as members Wallace Woodworth and Ezra Drown voted no, though their reasons were not given.  By then, however, a crime spree, including homicides, rocked the town (yet again) and there was some criticism of the time spent by the council on the Market House, rather than the rise in violence.

The 29 October 1859 issue of the Star featured this scathing letter decrying the Los Angeles Common Council's undue concern for the Market House, while murders were taking place in and near the town.

While, as stated before, most of the building was for commercial markets with a city-appointed "market master" to handle management, city hall was moved into the building and the mayor, Damien Marchessault, was empowered to rent the city hall portion for public uses as he saw fit--this was clearly a way to bring income to help pay for expense of renting the city's portion of the building.

There was some pushback from the city's merchants, though, about the conditions imposed by ordinance about green grocers and butchers being limited to using the Market House, so the council agreed to allow game, poultry and vegetable to be sold anywhere in the city between 9 a.m. and 4 p.m. from 15 September to 15 March--an interesting compromise that included sales at the Market House to be carried out on the Sabbath.  Later, some citizens requested permission from the council to build another market house "north of Old High Street" in what was the Sonoratown area north of the Plaza, though nothing came of the request.

Meanwhile, council member and special committee member Griffin petitioned and was given permission to be allowed to rent the second floor "for the purose of lecturing and other entertainments."  This led to the creation of what was called the Temple Theater, the first true theater, though short-lived, built in Los Angeles.

Now, what this has to do with criminal justice will soon be seen in the next post or two concerning the fate of the Market House for that purpose.

As for other matters before the council concerning criminal justice, 1859 saw the first references to the hiring of special police officers, when, early in the year, Mayor John G. Nichols appointed four men to serve as a night watch.  Moreover, these men were partially paid by citizen subscriptions, though it was pointed out that, given the city's precarious financial condition, more funds would be needed.  Consequently, council members Foster, Griffin and Cristobal Aguilar were appointed to review how to continue with employing the special officers.

Also from the 29 October 1859 edition of the Star is this piece about the need for a city police force to deal with "the numerous outrages which have lately disgraced our city."

By mid-April, however, the quartet, who were paid $70 per month had to be let go after three months because the Common Fund couldn't sustain more work for them and they were discharged.  Early in December, a citizen petition to the council asked for the specific appointment of William McLoughlin as a city policeman for the area at Los Angeles and Commercial streets.  This was referred to the police committee, which recommended an ordinance giving the mayor, now Damien Marchessault, the power to appoint additional officers when necesary "particularly in certain localities, when the citizens thereof are willing to defray the expenses."  That part of town was the home of some of the town's most successful merchants, like Harris Newmark and others, but there had also been a spate of crimes committed in town recently, as well.

In early May, the new council was seated and heard reports on city prisoners.  The mayor was requests to make any contract regarding prisoner maintenance that he saw fit and then to return the document for approval.  At the meeting of the 9th, the council "resolved, that the clerk call the attention of the City Marshal, to the Ordinance defining his duties."   Marshal Frank H. Alexander's negligence was not specifically identified, however.

Mayor Marchessault returned the following week to report on a temporary arrangement made with jailor Smith for prisoner maintenance and one specification was that "for all Indians after trial and who are not taken out of jail—the jailor to be allowed for their board thirty-seven and a half cents per day.  White person detained in like manner—he shall be allowed fifty cents per day for their board."  In December, though, on the suggestion of the marshal, the police committee suggested equalizing the amount, so that Indians also had their board set at 50 cents per day and this was approved at the meeting of the 26th.

There were also problems with others and the mayor requested an ordinance that would prohibit "idle and lewd persons from running and loitering about the streets of the City."  This was followed the next week by a police committee suggestion, in which its members "recommend that the Statute of the State be put in force against vagrants and other idle vicious persons, in lieu of an ordinance."  There was a law on the books in California concerning "vagabonds and other suspicious and dangerous persons" and there was a vagrancy provision in the town's 1855 ordinances, but there seems to have been a desire for something stronger.

The Spanish-language newspaper, El Clamor Público, listed newly elected city officials, including the mayor, Common Council members, and the marshal in its 21 May 1859 issue.  Thanks to Paul Bryan Gray for providing microfilmed copies of this newspaper.

Later in the year, at the end of September, a citizen petition appears to have provided an example of the perceived problem as the document concerned "two saloons on Main Street in front of the house of John G. Nichols [former mayor], where large numbers of idle persons assemble day and night, where money is lost and won, and continued disorderly conduct is observed."  This matter was referred to the police committee.

Financial problems were referenced when Marshal Alexander asked for an increase in salary at an October meeting and nothing came of it and when jailor Richard Mitchell repaired the jail and asked for reimbursement for the use of lime and whitewash, but the request was rejected for unstated reasons.  Mitchell then resigned and Francis J. Carpenter, a former jailor, became the marshal.

The 1850s ended with many of the same issues in play as at the beginning of the decade, whether this be financial uncertainty, issues regarding the treatment of Indians, problems with the city marshal, and what to do with disorderly conduct.  There was a hint of improvement with the movement of the city hall into a new modern brick building rather than the decaying adobe houses that served this function, albeit cheaply for the city's meager budget.  The 1860s would lead to some further changes to try and improve conditions for the city's criminal justice administration system in a variety of ways.

The Los Angeles Common Council and Criminal Justice, 1858

The year 1858 started with an interesting situation.  City Marshal William C. Getman, who'd served in that office since May 1856, was also elected Los Angeles County's sheriff.  This circumstance had not happened before and wouldn't again, certainly not in later days when it would be impossible for one man to do both jobs.

Getman had only been in the sheriff's position for a few months when he went, on the morning of 7 January, to investigate a situation involving a mentally ill man named Reed.  When Getman confronted Reed and tried to defuse the situation, the latter shot and killed the marshal.  Constable William W. Jenkins, who was at the center of a major controvery involving his killing of a man in July 1856 just after Getman became marshal, was wounded by Reed and injured the assassin, who was finished off by constables Robert Hester and Frank Baker and Under-Sheriff William H. Peterson.

The next day, the council met in an extraordinary session called by Mayor John G. Nichols "to take into consideration the vacancy now existing in the office of City Marshal, owing to the sudden death of William Getman, the previous incumbent."  The council then appointed city jailor Eli M. Smith as a temporary replacement until an election on the 19th, which Smith won.

The Los Angeles Star's coverage of the murder of Los Angeles marshal and county sheriff William C. Getman, 9 January 1858.

At the regular council meeting of the 11th, a committee of Mayor Nichols and council member George N. Whitman were appointed to examine Getman's books and issue a report.  Two weeks later, the two came back and notified the council that they "report defalcation in the different City funds under his charge, amounting in the aggregate to the sum of $1696.24, as far as yet ascertained."

Here again was an instance of the city marshal being involved in detrimental conduct, starting with Alviron Beard in 1853-54, then Alfred Shelby the following year, and finally the resignation of George W. Cole before Getman seemed to bring some stability to the office.  Not only did the counci authorize the mayor to seek the missing funds from Getman's sureties, but it had an expired contract with jailer Francis Carpenter to attend to.  The council did renew a pact with Carpenter for 6 months, as well as a provision "that the extra sum of $10 be allowed the present City Marshal to pay an Indian Alcalde [a mayor-judge type position for Indian-related conflicts] monthly."

On 8 February, the council formed a special committee of Nichols, Antonio Franco Coronel, a veteran council member and former mayor, and John Frohling, a founder of Anaheim and vineyardist whose firm of Kohler and Frohling became a major player in California's wine industry.  The trio was appointed to determine with the consultation of an attorney what steps could be taken to recover the city's money from Getman's sureties.  A week later, they recommended, and the council agreed, to hire an attorney to be hired at a 10% commission to secure those funds.

On 1 March, John B. Winston, one of Getman's sureties petitioned the council with many citizens signing in his favor that current council member and the other surety Hiram McLaughlin was unable to pay his half of the amount because of a fire that affected his business as a blacksmith.  Winston proposed that the solution was "by his paying one half, which to him would correspond" and, to this, the council approved.

El Clamor Público, in its 24 April 1858 issue, had this article about the problem of securing $1,800 in city funds misappropriated from marshal and sheriff Getman and which was sought from his sureties, J.B. Winston and Hiram [Charles was an error] McLaughlin.  Thanks to Paul Bryan Gray for making microfilm of the paper available.

Then, two months after the Winston petition, the council took the extraordinary step of submitting the McLaughlin question of whether the council could release him of his obligations to the voters at the upcoming city election.  The result was an overwhelming 227-39 vote to allow the council to use its discretion in the matter. In fact, the council's decision to free McLaughlin of this commitment had to be taken to the state legislature which, in spring 1859, passed an act approving this relief to McLaughlin.

The remainder of the year dealt mainly with issues involving the jail.   At the 28 June meeting, the police committee of wagon-maker John Goller, David M. Porter, future mayor Cristobal Aguilar, Wilmington harbor developer Phineas Banning, and city attorney James H. Lander recommended that jailor's contract be rescinded.  Mayor Nichols was then given the power to issue an agreement with new jailer Joseph Smith for one year from 1 July using the terms of the previous contract, though the council decided to seek new proposals from both the police committee and from new marshal Frank H. Alexander.  It appears, though, that Smith's contract as presented by Nichols was maintained.

Another eternal issue was with Indian drunkenness and the vicious cycle of their arrest and then, in lieu of paid fines, their being hired out as free labor to local ranchers and farmers.  The council ordered that Alexander be empowered to "use effective diligence in preventing the sale of intoxicating liquors to Indians."  

This is a very rare example of an English-language section of El Clamor Público with discussion in the 16 January 1858 edition of the election of Eli M. Smith as marshal after Getman's killing.

The last half of the year was quiet with only minor business, such as the ordering of jail repairs by Joseph Smith, the request of Marshal Alexander to enforce a fireworks ban in the city, and other matters deliberated upon by the council.  

Notably there was no mention in the minutes regarding the dramatic and highly controversial end of November lynching of Pancho Daniel, the co-leader of the gang that assassinated Sheriff James R. Barton and members of his posse hunting Daniel and his associates in January 1857.

The Los Angeles Common Council and Criminal Justice, 1857

Considering how fateful 1857 was when it came to crime, violence and criminal justice in greater Los Angeles, mainly with the fearful drama that followed the brutal execution-style killings of Sheriff James Barton and three members of a posse he assembled to track down the Daniel-Flores gang which had terrorized San Juan Capistrano, then part of Los Angeles County, the minute books of the Los Angeles Common (City) Council are surprisingly devoid of material on these aspects.

In fact, other than the fact that the usual regular meetings of the council were postponed for about a month, between 20 January and 18 February, while the crisis was taking place, nothing was actually stated in the recor, other than that there a vague reference that business needed to be conducted because a quorum had been lacking for the gathering scheduled prior to the latter date.

Whatever was discussed tended to be focused on what to do with city prisoners and the notorious chain gang that operated on a vicious cycle that was tantamount to an institutionalized variant of slavery for Indians arrested on Saturday night, tried on Sunday and, unable to pay the sentence of a fine, were hired out for labor, either on the chain gang or to nearby ranchers and farmers.

Just prior to the awful slaughter of Sheriff Barton and his men, city marshal William C. Getman called for the council to determine "the propriety and necessity of the formation of a chain gang," which petition was directed to the special committee on the jail.

At an extraordinary (not regularly scheduled) council meeting in early March, a new ordinance was written for street cleaning, using "all Indians imprisoned or under sentence for a term according to ordinance."  A clarification was added that, "no Indian imprisoned for any offense agains the ordinances of the City shall be detained for more than twenty-four hours in which time he will be tried and sentenced, liberated, or given over to the contractor for cleaning the streets."

While this last sounded liberal and progressive, it could be read to mean that a rushed trial and the quick assignment of Indians to the chain gang was the goal.  Yet, in April a bill presented for expenses incurred in the maintenance of Indians at the jail was disallowed because of the ordinance "which declares that no Indians shall be detained at the City Jail, at the charge of the City."  This evidently was interpreted to signify that it was the county's problem, but the finance committee did recommend paying much of the bill "in consideration of extraordinary services."  It appears that the incarceration of Indians in the jail necessitated this recommendation.

At the same time, the city numerous purveyors of liquor petitioned the council for a reduction in the license to sell spirits.  This would have the double effect of allowing more liquor to be sold in the City of the Angels, but of reducing revenues needed to deal with the problem of intoxicated citizens through the town's criminal justice system.

In mid-April, there was some discussion about a citizen petition for "the rent of a room to be paid for by the Common Council, to serve as an Armory Hall, for a voluntary company called the 'Southern Rifles."  The rise of citizen militias, no doubt as a reaction to real or perceived inefficiencies with law enforcement, was a major question in greater Los Angeles during the 1850s and, in some ways, mirrored issues throughout the United States.

This 1857 lithograph by Kuchel and Dresel and published by Britton and Rey of San Francisco as part of a series of California views, is a rare and detailed though highly sanitized view of pre-Civil War Los Angeles.  It was issued four years before the first photograph of the town was taken and about fifteen years before images were commonly published in stereoscopic form.  

While militias were the reason for the second amendment to the federal constitution and it was presumed these citizen-staffed organization were essential for common defense, the reality turned out to be very different than theory.  It can be said that there were several citizen companies that mobilized in the aftermath of the Barton slayings and some did good work in tracking the bandits, reconnaissance, and other duties, while others did shoddy work, such as letting some bandit members escape during simple guard duty.

The Civil War later would reveal just how poorly organized and train citizen militias really were and writers have observed that these groups were more social clubs for drinking and fraternizing than for defense.  Much of the reason for the formation of the National Guard was to retool the concept of citizen militias into more reliable organizations.

In any case, the Council responded that it was "considering itself without the power to dispose of city funds for the support of any volunteer company."  The use of volunteer citizen companies did continue for some time after, however--mainly, as noted above, during the Civil War, when Los Angeles was a secessionist hotbed and militias of Southern sympathizers and of northern leaning citizens were formed.

Also, in April, the council returned to the question of how city prisoners were maintained and processed through sentencing and a draft ordinace was written, followed by a police committee suggestion that the word "Indian" in the street cleaning ordinance be replaced with "Person."  Again, this has the look of a forward-thinking recommendation, but it might also have been a way to mask reality with something official that looked non-discriminatory.  On 29 April, the council approved this change and sent it to the mayor for his signature.

This was just in time for a change in personnel after the spring election in early May.  Not long afterward, an acute problem with the town's finances was shown when Mayor John G. Nichols told the council that a prevailing agreement reached with the jailer, Eli M. Smith, that would pay Smith $50 a month for all prisoner board and services was in the breach because the jailer had not been paid in four months.

In June, Nichols returned to present to the council a new contract executed with Smith "for Board of City prisoners and other matters connected therewith, whereby the City will be in a  great measure relieved from expenses on account of her prisoners."  While the council promptly approved the new agreement, the terms were not specified--it is assumed that the county agreed to shoulder some of the financial burden for prisoner maintenance.

Research in the council minute books found nothing for the last half of 1857, so that all that can be given here is for the first six months of the year.  As a recurring problem, however, the management of the jail, particularly in the outlay of funds, was a major preoccupation for a small town with a lean budget based on low tax revenues.  The Gold Rush had ended, a national depression broke out in 1857, the local cattle economy was in a doldrums and fiscal issues were becoming tougher for city officials to handle.

The Los Angeles Common Council and Criminal Justice, 1856

In the seventh year of its operations, the Los Angeles Common Council started off 1856 with relatively little excitement when it came to law enforcement and criminal justice.  The only significant incident of note was when Marshal Alfred Shelby had to refunded $460 in mid-March "for money lost through and by his deputy George Sexton."

These funds were almost certainly license fees and fines collected by Sexton and Shelby's behalf, but how exactly the monies were misplaced was not explained.  Whether this incident had any effect of Shelby's failed attempt at reelection in May is not known.  The election on the 10th found Shelby tallying 124 votes to William C. Getman's 167, but there could have been a more important reason for the marshal's defeat.

On 14 April, less than a month before the election, Shelby was involved in a confrontation with two men, one of whom was killed and the other seriously wounded by the marshal.  El Clamor Público in its 19 April edition didn't have much detail to offer about the shooting of Burgess, which also involved the serious wounding of a man named Tate.  The paper did say that Shelby "uso tan libremente de su pistola [freely used his pistol]" in the confrontation, the circumstances of which went unexplained.

A portion of an article from El Clamor Público, 19 April 1856, covering the killing of William Burgess and the wounding of a man named Tate by Los Angeles marshal Alfred Shelby.  When it came time for Shelby, who lost a bid for reelection in May, to appear for trial in late July, he skipped bail, evidently for Sonora in northern Mexico.  Thanks to Paul Bryan Gray for providing microfilm of this paper.

Shelby was arrested and, after a preliminary hearing, was released on his own recognizance without bail by District Judge Benjamin Hayes.  This was later reconsidered and Shelby was arraigned and posted $2500 bail using saddler John M. Foy, lawyer and former district attorney Ezra Drown, former mayor Thomas Foster, and jailer Francis Carpenter as his bondsmen.

But, when it came time for him to appear in court on 28 July for his trial, Shelby was nowhere to be found.  Getman engaged in a concerted search for his predecessor, but found that Shelby skipped town (and bail) and was, evidently, high-tailing it to Sonora in northern Mexico.

Another interesting development came in mid-May when the council resolved that the finance committee "with the Marshal arrange with the Sheriff of Los Angeles County [David W. Alexander, who was newly elected], [for] the future support and care of city prisoners."

This editorial, from the 5 April 1856 edition of the Los Angeles Star, was critial of the common [city] council's handling of dinances, including large expenditures to the town's jailer, calling such spending mismanagement.

At the next meeting, on 26 May, the finance committee reported "that it had contracted with the Sheriff of Los Angeles County for the support and future care of the City prisoners" at 25 cents per person "until the prisoner shall be sentenced, which shall take place within twenty-four hours after entrance in the City Jail."  Moreover, the report continued, "all prisoners that remain [in] the City Jail after their receiving sentence, the jailor shall be allowed fifty cents per day for each so remaining."  It is notable that "if any prisoner should come into the City Jail on Satirday night and remain Sunday, for each the jailor shall receive 50 cts. each one, although not sentenced."  This seemed to refer to the regular flow of intoxicated persons who were taken to jail after benders on Saturday evenings.

A likely reason for the policy change, came with an announcement in a 19 June letter to the council by Stephen C. Foster, who in the May election was returned to the mayoralty that there were "two suits, which have been commenced against the Corporation [city] by the City Jailor, in the aggregate for the sum of $280."  This amount appears to have represented costs he was charging the city for his services and which led to the policy change of having the sheriff care for prisoner maintenance.

In any event, the finance committee was charged with investigating whether it was Carpenter or the city treasurer, Samuel Arbuckle, who was responsible for the disputed sum and to resolve the issue amicably.  The result was that, four days later, the committee reported that both officials agreed to pay half the $280 and settle the matter.

A portion of listings of city and county expenses, published in El Clamor Público, 14 June 1856.  Note the $800 annual salary of the marshal, relative to other officials, the $500 in the Jail Fund, and another $500 expended towards "maintenance of the prisoners and other costs of the jail in the fiscal year."

A month later, a crisis rocked Los Angeles when a deputized citizen, William W. Jenkins, was charged with serving a writ of attachment for a $50 debt on Antonio Ruiz.  When Jenkins seized a guitar in Ruiz' household, the latter's live-in girlfriend grabbed the instrument, claiming a letter from her mother was in it.  Jenkins pulled a gun and, when Ruiz seized him from behind, Jenkins fired over his shoulder delivering a fatal chest wound to Ruiz.

Spanish-speaking residents gathered on a hill overlooking the town and demanded justice. Rumors of a mob of these individuals looking to storm the jail and lynch Jenkins was met by a popular meeting and an organization of citizens to forestall any potential violence.  Consequently, at an extraordinary session of the council on the same night as the meeting, 23 July, the body received a statement from Mayor Foster about "the propriety of making an appropriation for the maintenance of peace & public order, and to take such measures, as the present circumstances may demand.

In response, the council resolved

that in view of the present critical circumstances, the Corporation upon its part, in conjunction with the County of Los Angeles, does hereby make an appropriation of a sum not to exceed five hundred dollars, for the present to be applied exclusively to the support and maintenance of public order.

William H. Peterson, a former special police officer and deputy sheriff, was appointed the disbursing agent of these funds, but the outlay was not detailed with respect to who would receive monies.  Moreover, the council issued another resolution in which

the Common Council repudiates and condemns all the irregular proceedings that have taken place in this City lately by acts of insubordination and will give its aid and support in suppressing the same and it is further resolved that the foregoing resolutions [this and the previous about the financial appropriation] be read at the public meeting now assembled in front of the Montgomery house [Hotel] on Main Street in the City of Los Angeles.

More will be featured on this blog about the Jenkins-Ruiz affair, but any large-scale violence was avoided.  Still, on 4 August, Peterson appeared before the council to report that about 60% of the appropriation for the suppression of civil unrest was spent--almost certainly on citizen patrols during the tensest moments of the crisis.   Though a week later Peterson was asked to present a full report on the disbursement of funds, there is no surviving record of his statement, if any was given.

The remainder of the year was relatively quiet for the council.  Mayor Foster resigned in mid-September, with El Clamor Público reporting that it was for business reasons and lionizing him for his efficient work.  A special election, presided over by council member and ex-mayor Antonio Franco Coronel, resulted in the elevation of John G. Nichols to the office.

At the end of the month, the council admomished Marshal Getman in a resolution calling his attention to fulfulling his duties by maintaining regular office hours at city hall and to attending council sessions, as per the town's ordinances.

Other than that, 1856 ended on a mundane note, especially considering the problems with yet another marshal in Alfred Shelby and in the concerns expressed by the council about the tension and emotion involved in the Jenkins-Ruiz affair.

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.

The Los Angeles Common Council and Criminal Justice, 1852

Many of the same problems that concerned the Los Angeles Common [City] Council in its first two years continued into 1852, its third.  This included ongoing issues with public disturbances, the inadequacy of the city and county jail, the frequent turnover of city officials, and more.

One interesting development early in the year came at the 21 January meeting when council member Joseph Lancaster Brent presented a draft memorial, or resolution, that he wanted state senator Stephen C. Foster to take to Sacramento which would request the senate to take Los Angeles' existing boundaries, established in the Spanish era as four square leagues, or just under 18,000 acres, and expanding them.

On 4 April 1850, the first California legislature passed an act incorporating the city of Los Angeles and limited its jurisdiction to four square miles, but the common council claimed an area of authority of far more than this, embracing 111 square miles, in an ordinance passed in July 1851.  Meanwhile, the preceding April, the legislature amended its incorporation act to state that, while the city's rights were limited to what the 1850 statute mandated, there were some exceptions with respect to water, because, clearly, water sources needed for the city's use were outside the established boundaries.

Though not stated in the council records, the memorial drafted by Brent and presented to the board on 21 January 1852 requested an area of authority of nine square miles, more than double what the city currently embraced.  With Foster's sponsorship, the legislature did amend the incorporation act on 1 May so that the city's control resided throughout the area of the original limits under Spanish fiat, provided that a majority of electors within that area signed a petition presented to the County Court.  That court had to adhere to the statute governing the incorporation of cities in the state.  It was not, though, until 1855 that County Judge Kimball H. Dimmick ordered the city's boundaries set to the original pueblo standards and a new map drawn to reflect this.

In 1859, the legislature approved an act extending the city's boundaries to a maximum of 1500 yards on any side and that August the southern boundary was extended 400 yards southerly.  After that, there was no change until 1874 when the boundaries were enlarged by legislation to roughly 5 miles in every direction in the form of a rectangle that was longer north and south.

In the meantime, the federal act concerning California land grants issued under Spain and Mexico and passed on 3 March 1851, led the common council to request the city attorney, former council member Brent, to submit an application to the Board of Land Commissioners formed to hear claims for sixteen square leagues.  This area was large enough that Brent's application was written so that, should the sixteen square leagues, based on a radial line of two leagues from a cardinal point at the Old Plaza Church, extend to the Mission San Gabriel, the request would adjust the proposed limits in a westerly direction to make up for the affected amount of land!

On 26 October 1852, as the board held its only hearing in Los Angeles (the rest of the time it met in San Francisco), the application was submitted.  As was typical, a decision was not rendered until February 1856, when the board rejected the sixteen league claim, confirming the city's limits at the four square leagues created under Spain.  The city appealed to the federal district court, but this was rejected.

A detail of the 1858 Hancock survey of Los Angeles, from Maps and Surveys of the Pueblo Lands of Los Angeles by Neal Harlow,.

Consequently, Henry Hancock completed a survey in 1858 that reflected the land claims decision and a patent was finally issued by President Andrew Johnson in 1866.  However, the federal General Land Office determined the patent was invalid because the Hancock survey did not meet federal statutory standards for patents.  Another patent was then issued by President Grant in 1875.  In June 1876, the common council rejected the Grant patent, claiming the Johnson one was correct.  An 1878 lawsuit determined at the state supreme court confirmed that the 1866 patent was the valid one and it was recorded by the city clerk.  In subsequent decades, the City of Los Angeles grew dramatically, so that its area is the twelfth largest in the United States.

Another resolution soon followed the one about the city's area of authority and dealt with its lack of real power to deal with crime.  Brent and council member John O. Wheeler asked the council on 9 February to approve a resoltuion asking General Ethan A. Hitchcock, commander of the Army's Pacific Divsion, to trasnfer one or two companies of infancy "as near as possible to this City, for the purpose of helping, as occasion may arise, in the preservation of good order."  This was duly approved.

Notably, Brent was the recipient of an inadvertent assist from Army troops in April 1851 when he was the defense attorney for two Lugo brothers charged in the murder of two men and jailed. A gang of bandits arrived from northern California and hatched a scheme to extort money from the Lugo family by freeing the brothers from custody.

When the Lugos rejected the offer, the bandits threatened to abduct the brothers after a bail hearing.  Brent, according to his later accounting of the incident, tried to arrange a defense and was astonished when a squadron of troops happened to march into town just as the hearing was about to begin.  With the Army as support, the brothers were escorted to jail without incident.  If this incident is as Brent described, it might explain his request with Wheeler a year later.  More, by the way, on the Lugo case is to be presented on this blog very soon.

On 6 March, council secretary William G. Dryden informed the council that the approved memorial was sent to the general, but is not known if Hitchcock responded or if any troops were sent to Los Angeles.  A decade later, when the Civil War broke out, however, the federal presence in the Los Angeles area was a whole different matter as troops were stationed in several areas, notable Camp Drum near the harbor at Wilmington, due to the overwhelming Confederate sympathies manifested in the region.

Meanwhile, Marshall William Reader found himself at odds with the council, though not directly over matters of criminal justice.  Instead, the issue was in the cleaning of city street, which was to be done by prisoners held by the city in jail.  When Reader submitted a bill in May for $150 to cover three months of work, the council ordered it referred back to the Police Committee, composed of attorney Myron Norton and Antonio Franco Coronel, for reconsideration "in the light of the opinions advanced during debate and of the contract itself."

When Norton and Coronel reported back at the 15 May meeting, they stated "they they had ascertained that the Marshal had failed to clean the streets and is consequently not entited to receive" any money as claimed, although the pair then did state that "some of the work had been done."  Coronel proposed that Reader receive half the amount "to indemnify him for what work he did so, and it was so ordered."

On 3 June, board president Manuel Requena proposed that the contract paying Reader $50 a month for street cleaning be canceled because citizens were, by ordinance, required to clean in front of their houses, and the mayor, then John G. Nichols, was to enforce the ordinance.  When Reader submitted his latest claim, it was rejected as lacking (presumably, the work was not done or was poorly.)  Twelve days later, Reader resigned and George Bachelder was appointed in his stead by Nichols.  Bachelder was then elected to the position on 18 August with the porch of the home of Ygnacio del Valle being the polling place.

The need for a dedicated jail occupied the council for much of the year.  On 3 June, council member and future governor John G. Downey asked what the city's rights were respecting the existing jail shared with the county.  Myron Norton then stated that Mayor Nichols implored the council the consider "the urgent necessity of providing the City with a Jail."  Norton then proposed that Nicols "be authorized to secure and equip a room which shall serve as a Jail under the care of the Marshal."

On the 15th, Nichols submitted a report that "he had secured two rooms, at a rental of fifteen dollars per month each, for use as a Jail."  The council readily assented to this with the provision that it was "reserving itself the benefit of any reduction of the rental should occasion arise."  For a city constantly on the edge of financial want, these kinds of statements were essential.

Articles from the 7 August 1852 edition of the Los Angeles Star regarding two matters discussed by the town's Common Council.  The first was for a new jail, which the article notes the construction of which was let out to J.D, Hunter (he did not complete the project, however).  The other was about a new property tax of 25 cents for every $100 of property, 20% of which was to go to the Jail Fund.

Wanting something better than existing adobe buildings of generally poor quality for the purpose, the council, on 2 August, heard a motion to institute a property tax of 50 cents for every $100 of value and "twenty per centum of the amount thus collected shall be set aside to form a fund for the construction of a City Jail."  Six members were present and it was split with half voting for the suggested rate and the other wanting 25 cents per $100, rather than 50.  Council member Mathew Keller proposed a compromise of 37 1/2 cents and this was referred to the Finance Committee.

At a special meeting the following day, the committe suggested a vote for either the Keller proposal or the 25 cents per $100 suggestion and, with seven members present, the vote was 4-3 to go with the lower amount.  Clearly, council members were concerned with imposition of taxes and, probably, their prospects at the next election.

On 7 August, Mayor Nichols reported "that the City has no premises that could be used as a jail," evidently his previous location did not pan out, "and it was accordingly resolved that the rooms in Mr. John Temple's house, which appeared suitable for that purpose, be engaged." Temple, who was the second Anglo to settle in Los Angeles, owned a home south of the Plaza on Main Street, and was frequently involved in civic matters, including the loan of the money to pay for the first survey of Los Angeles, done by Lt. Edward O.C. Ord in 1849, and, in 1859, built a two-story brick building that was leased two years later to the city and county for a courthouse and municipal and county offices.

In conjunction with the county, the city hired J.D. Hunter, to build a 30'x15'  two-story, with the lower story to be of stone and the second, consisting of the jailer's [this was also the town's marshal] residence to be adobe.  The $7000 cost was to be split among the two entities and the structure was to be finished by the end of the year.  Unfortunately, the project was not completed and it was another two years before a jail was built, as noted in previous posts.

Finally, the question of dealing with public disturbances occupied some considerable time in the summer.  At the 12 August meeting, the minutes stated that

It having come to the knowledge of the Council that excesses are being committed at the 'Maromas' or tight rope performances, subversive of public morals, and, furthermore, several citizens having complained of the noise caused by said shows which penetrates the neighborhood for a great distance, and considering the danger of a cruel epidemic, threatening to invade the country, which would be fed by late hours and excesses, Council resolved that the Mayor be invited to abate these abuses, prohibiting the beating of drums before and during the performances and not allowing them to continue after eleven o'clock at night, or by resorting to other measures which his prudence may suggest.

A maroma traditionally has been a one-man performance practiced in rural Mexico that included acrobatics, including tricks with tight ropes, but there seems to have been a variation here in Los Angeles involving enthusiastic accompaniment by drumming and, perhaps more public display, creating, at least for sme, a nuisance.

Notably, though, this statement was signed, not just by council member Downey, but also by Coronel and Requena, suggesting that the concern was not necessarily ethnic.

At the 22 September meeting, the minutes contained a statement that "having been informed of the abuses which to the detriment of good order are being committed by Indians when arresting other Indians who are disorderly," the council asked Mayor Nichols to attend to the situation, as well as "to prevent that the Indians put under arrest by the Marshal" were not treated with abuse.

It is worth pointing out here that there was an Indian alcalde who had jurisdiction in arresting Indians caught committing crimes, but also that in early 1853, Nichols was tried by the District Court on a charge of "misconduct in office" for the way Indians were treated, though, the matter was dismissed because there was no provision in state law for the alleged misconduct.

This article from the 16 November 1852 issue of the Star concerns the recently completed session of the Board of Land Commissioners in Los Angeles, where it heard land grant claims, including that of the city of Los Angeles.

While, generally, city and county prisoners held at the jail were available, in lieu of fines, for hiring out as free (some would say, slave) labor to farmers and ranchers, Coronel, who was tasked to report on the state of the city's zanjas, or ditches supplying the town with water from the Los Angeles River, proposed at the 5 November meeting "that all city prisoners available next Monday, shall be put to work on the ditch by the Mayor, provided the punishment is not disproportioned to the offense committed and that it lasts as long as they work."

One more little tidbit closes out this entry.  At the 17 December meeting, the council received a petition from a new resident who desired to open a school for instruction in English.  It should be noted that public schools were a couple of years away from creation and any education was conducted by private tutors or, on occasion, a small school.  There were two mentioned in the minutes for this meeting, one conducted by the priest at the Old Plaza Church and another by council member Coronel.

The new petitioner was an immigrant from Arkansas and a native of North Carolina named Alveron S. Beard, who was mentioned in some detail in an earlier post concerning the writings of Horace Bell.  The council, at this meeting, voted to hire him at $35 per month for the express purpose of teaching poor children, many of whom were to be designated by the council.  Once this was decided upon, Coronel recommended the creation of a schools committee and Downey and del Valle were named to serve.

As for Beard, more about him in a later post concerning his checkered career as city marshal.