The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors and Criminal Justice, 1859

The last year of the 1850s found the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors having relatively little business to conduct in the matter of the administration of criminal justice.

It may have been that, after the tremendous spate of violence that roiled the town and county during the tumultuous years of the Gold Rush and the peak of ethnic tension and violence of 1856 and 1857 with the Jenkins/Ruiz incident and the massacre of Sheriff Barton and his posse and the resulting manhunt, the situation was significantly calmer in terms of problems between the Latino and Anglo populations.  In fact, the next major community incident would not be until late in 1863 and even that didn't appear to be ethnically motivated.

Possibly, the economic downturn that came with the end of the Gold Rush by the middle Fifties, the national depression of 1857, and local malaise as cattle ranches were stuck with a glut in the inventory of livestock, kept some criminality lower than in the flush years before, especially property crimes like larcenies.

This isn't to say, however, that there weren't continuing spasms of violence.  For example, the 22 October 1859 edition of the Los Angeles Star lamented that "it is the misfortune of our city, to be infested by a band of worthless vagabonds, too lazy to work, but ready to steal, and murder, too, if necessary to carry out their depredations."

Vagabonds could imply that the moribund economy led drifters into the area, as the paper asserted they were "the offscourings of other localities."  The paper claimed none receny crimes could be attributed to local, permanent citizens.  Consequently, the article concluded "the crimes committed by these outlaws are charged against our community, and we have to bear the burden of their turpitude."

The Los Angeles Star of 22 October 1859 lamented the crimes committed by "vagabonds" from outside the county--a common complaint during the crime-ridden 1850s.

In any case, 1859 was a rather mundane year compared to its predecessors.  A sign of that was at the 7 February board meeting, when the county treasurer was ordered to transfer funds from the armed bandit fund, created to pay for expenses in hunting bandits during those rougher years earlier in the decade, to the Current Expense [General] Fund.

The following day the board reasserted the tax levy for the Jail Fund as 30 cents for each $100 of assessed property, which, again, shows how low tax rates were for a basic public service that took up a majority of the county's expenses.  Regarding the jail, the same 8 February meeting included an authorization by the board's Committee on Contingent Expenses to the jail physician to examine the quality of the food provided to prisoners, as per the order of 4 February 1858.

There had also been a change in the jailor.  Joseph H. Smith, who was defeated in the sheriff's race in 1858 by James Thompson, had been in charge of the facility, but was replaced by Richard Mitchell.  Mitchell years later would be among the several men deployed by Sheriff William R. Rowland in the well-planned and executed capture of famed bandit Tiburcio Vásquez in spring 1874.

Previous posts pointed out the matter of juror lists and the question of whether the ethnic imbalance in these pools were directly tied to whether defendants in the county's courts could receive justice.  After all, a trial by a jury of peers could, to some people, signify a balance of ethnicity (though not of gender, because women were not then allowed to serve on juries).  In the mid 19th century, however, peers simply meant persons from the community.

Moreover, as also stated here, an analysis by this blogger of over 1,200 criminal court cases from 1850 to 1875 and of those that had a stated disposition showed that the conviction rate differentials between those cases involving Spanish-surnamed defendants and those who were American or European were small.  In addition, even as juries became even more skewed towards American and European majorities after 1865, the conviction rate difference narrowed.

The only recorded jury lists in the 1859 minutes came in May and August, when 68 jurors were identified.  Of those, eight had Spanish-language surnames, comprising about 12% of the total, more or less consistent with previous lists, but still very low.  What isn't known, incidentally, is what proportion of Los Angeles County residents on the tax rolls were Spanish-surnamed and whether their representation on those rolls were significantly lower than for Americans and Europeans.

In 1858, a measure, approved by the California legislature, to put the matter of a $25,000 loan for a new court house before the county's voters was narrowly defeated in the early September election by a matter of just a few dozen votes.  The supervisors decided to take up the idea again in 1859 and secured the legislature's approval for a new ballot measure.

In August, as an aside, five new election precincts were created for Los Angeles County, with most of them having some connection to a mining boom that took place in what were then usually called the Sierra Madre, but later changed to San Gabriel, Mountains.  These precincts included two called the "Upper and Lower San Gabriel Mines" up in San Gabriel Canyon above the new precinct of Azusa, as well as San Francisco [San Francisquito] Canyon, near modern Santa Clarita and where there was mining activity, as well as Tehachapi.  The last of these was in Los Angeles County for seven years until the creation of Kern County in 1866.

Now all of these were sparsely populated regions of the county, so how much influence any or all of these could have had on the court house vote is questionable, given that most people either resided in the the city of Los Angeles or the township of that name that surrounded it.

Not that it really mattered, actually, as the published returns in the minutes of the 19 September board meeting revealed that the court house loan only secured 162 yes votes, while 1,766 persons voted no!  Is it any wonder that the county gave up the idea of trying to secure a loan for a new court house and turned once again to prominent citizen Jonathan Temple?

Recall that Temple, who paid for the Ord Survey of 1849, the first professional survey of Los Angeles, sold the Rocha Adobe to the county in 1853 for a little over $3,000 with the adobe housing the courts, as well as city hall and county offices.  In 1859, Temple, who two years before, built one of the earliest brick commercial structures in town, which became the first of several structures comprising the Temple Block, took an "island" between Main and Spring and between Temple and 1st streets, and built the Market House, which also contained the first true theater on its second floor--years before the Merced Theatre was constructed near the Plaza.

This has been discussed here on the blog before, but Temple's Market House, designed as a commercial structure after the fashion of Faneuil Hall in Boston, which was near Temple's hometown of Reading, Massachusetts, came at the wrong time because of the poor economy.  However, Temple and the city and county came to an agreement to convert the structure to the court house, as well as city and county offices.

Notably, Temple ran for supervisor in the September elections, along with his half-brother, former supervisor and city treasurer, F.P.F. Temple, Temple's father-in-law William Workman, half-owner of Rancho La Puente in the eastern San Gabriel Valley and thirteen other candidates.

This card taken out by Ezra Drown in the Star's edition of 27 August 1859 addressed accusations that he was a former "Know Nothing", a name for the nativist, xenophobic American Party that controlled local and state politics briefly in the mid-1850s and a "Black Republican" running for district attorney in a Democratic-dominated county, filled by Southerners.  As noted at the bottom by the paper, Drown actually worked on behalf of Democrats to counter "Know Nothing" politicians.

  There was an interesting political situation in Los Angeles, reflecting the national problem of the impending slide towards Civil War and respecting views of states' rights, slavery and so forth.  Mainstream Democrats, who ruled the political roost in Los Angeles, uniformly won elections, but there was an alternate group of Democrats, who weren't as solidly pro-Southern, who ran in this campaign, including Workman and a few others.

Yet, some office seekers were from the northern states and managed, on occasion, to secure election.  One of these was Abel Stearns, who came to Los Angeles in 1829, the year after his fellow Massachusetts native Jonathan Temple and, like him, became a prominent merchant.  Stearns managed to win a seat as a supervisor in the 1859 campaign, though both Temples were defeated (F.P.F. came fairly close at 160 votes behind Stearns, but Jonathan only secured 261 votes.)

The other winners for supervisor seats were Ransom B. Moore, Cristobal Aguilar, Antonio F. Coronel, and Gabriel Allen.  Aguilar and Coronel were prominent Californios, discussed here before, who held political office frequently in the first quarter century of the American era.  

Allen, a native of New York, came to California as a soldier in the Mexican-American War and then returned east for several years.  In 1852, he journeyed back to dig for gold, but shortly after came to Los Angeles.  He married a local Latina, and became known as a road builder, particularly the difficult Tejon Road, north from Los Angeles towards San Francisco.  After his single term oin 1859-60, Allen turned to ranching and farming, but returned to serving as a supervisor in the mid-1870s for a full term and part of another (they were then 2-year terms).  He owned property in what is now the Costa Mesa area of Orange County, near Tehachapi and mines in Arizona.  He lived in Los Angeles until his death at 80 in 1899.

Moore hailed from St. Joseph, Missouri, where he became a newspaper reporter and editor before migrating to California in 1853 and settling in the new "American town" of El Monte as a cattle rancher.  His only foray into politics was his single term as a supervisor though he was an election inspector for the "Old Mission" precinct south of El Monte, where the original site of Mission San Gabriel was at Whittier Narrows.  Moore later lived in San Bernardino and owned the Rancho San Gorgonio in the pass of that name. In the 1880s, he relocated to Arizona and died there in 1904.

This list of township justices of the peace and constables for Los Angeles County appeared in the 8 October 1859 issue of El Clamor Público.  Copies of this paper were provided courtesy of Paul Bryan Gray.

Other election results included the reelection of County Judge (who presided over the Court of Sessions where most criminal matters were heard) William G. Dryden by a vote of 1197-937 over attorney and federal district judge Kimball H. Dimmick; the election of Tomás Sánchez, who had a prominent role in the manhunt for Sheriff Barton's killers, as sheriff by a 938-815 margin over Joseph H. Smith, with Frank H. Alexander securing 439 votes; and Southern firebrand E.J.C. Kewen besting former incumbent Ezra Drown for district attorney, 1115-902.   

Among the several townships and elections for justices of the peace and constables, William C. Warren, a young, new arrival to town finished third as a constable for Los Angeles township, but he would later by marshal and get involved in an infamous gunfight with one of his constables--this will be recounted in a future post here.  At San Gabriel, Roy Bean, whose brother was murdered in another incident to be related later here, was reelected as a constable.  Bean would go on to notoriety in Texas as a judge known as "The Law West of the Pecos."

As for the latter part of 1859, news was pretty scanty regarding criminal justice administration matters.  On 14 November, the supervisors rejected a claim from Juan Sepulveda for guarding the jail because it stated that new sheriff Sánchez did not get board approval for Sepulveda's appointment. 

A week later, after proposals were sought for a jail physician, there was only one respondent, this being prominent doctor John S. Griffin, who came to Los Angeles with the invading American military in 1846 and became a well-known citizen (and staunch supporter of the South.)  Interestingly, another physician, J.C. Welsh, was given a contract on 2 December, to supply medicines to the jail and hospital at $50 per month, but this was rescinded and lowered to $19.25 per month.  It is not clear if this interfered with Griffin's contract, however.

On 21 November, the board ordered Sánchez to have a nuisance, involving some structure, in the jail yard at the Rocha Adobe abated "and caused the house to be removed and properly constructed," with the monies to come from the jail fund.  Former jailor Francis J. Carpenter was hired to carry out this work.  Two weeks later, at the 3 December meeting, the supervisors ordered the sheriff to have jail inmates build a ten-foot tall wooden fence around the jail yard.

As a tangential note, the 6 December meeting had a record of rumors reaching the supervisors of an impending effort to unite Los Angeles and San Bernardino counties (as noted here before, San Bernardino County was carved out of Los Angeles in 1853, which created what is still America's largest county by area).  The rumor seemed to have enough behind it that the board adoped a resolution protesting against such a move.  Whatever effort there was went nowhere, though.

Finally, it is worth pointing out that the end of 1859 also meant the final issue, on 31 December, of Los Angeles' first Spanish-language newspaper, El Clamor Público, which has been referred to many times in this blog, and will in future posts.  The economy, low subscriptions and the political and social problems felt by its proprietor, Francisco P. Ramirez, were among the factors for the shuttering of this remarkable newspaper.

We'll be coming back later to more of the Board of Supervisors minutes, but will move onto other criminal justice administration matters in the meantime.

The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors and Criminal Justice, 1858

If 1857 included plenty of high drama with the massacre of Sheriff James R. Barton and members of his posse hunting bandits near San Juan Capistrano, it would have been thought that the next year, 1858, would be much quieter.  To a significant degree that was true, if the Barton incident and its aftermath is viewed as the peak of lawlessness and disquiet in greater Los Angeles during the tumultuous decade.

But 1858 proved to have a shocking start.  In the prior fall's elections, Los Angeles marshal William C. Getman, a Mexican-American veteran and longtime city lawman, secured election as county sheriff.  Just days into the new year, however, Getman was called to the scene of a disturbance involving a man named Reed, who showed signs of violent mental illness.

Like Barton a brave, but reckless, individual, Getman stationed a few men around the scene where Reed holed himself up in a building, but brazenly approached the crazed man telling Reed to drop his gun and that he wouldn't shoot the sheriff.  Reed promptly fired, mortally wounding Getman, who died moments later.  William W. Jenkins, who was discussed in the blog for his role as a deputy constable in the homicide of Antonio Ruiz in July 1856, was one of Getman's sidekicks, and, stationed atop the building, fired through a space in a covered porch and killed Reed, ending the incident.

When the supervisors convened a special meeting on 7 January to honor Getman, it was supposed to nominate a successor to fill out the sheriff's term, but postponed this action until the 11th.  When that meeting was held, supervisor and prominent merchant Francis Mellus nominated Joseph H. Smith, an experienced lawman, while supervisor Francisco Ocampo put forward James S. Thompson, who had involvement in the manhunt for the Barton killers as a candidate.

Whatever the reason, the vote was 4-1 for Thompson, after which Mellus, who obviously voted for Smith, resigned, presumably because of his displeasure over the outcome, though nothing was stated in the minutes as to why Mellus quit.  His replacement was Ralph Emerson.

During February, there was some minor business, such as the creation of a new township of Los Nietos for areas on either side of the San Gabriel River (then the Rio Hondo) in modern Downey, Whittier, Pico Rivera and nearby areas and a requirement of new bondsmen for recently elected San Gabriel constable Roy Bean, who later became the famed "Law West of the Pecos" in Texas.

On the 4th, the supervisors reaffirmed the conditions of the maintenance of the county and city jail, located in the courtyard behind the Rocha Adobe, then used as the courthouse and city and county offices, situated on the west side of Spring Street just north of 1st Street.  It ordered Sheriff Thompson to be responsible "for the safe keeping and support of prisoners confined in the County Jail" by allotting 50 cents per person per day in food and other essentials, while providing Thompson $3 per day compensation.

Going to further levels of detail than previously recorded in the minutes, the board ordered that bedding, clothing and other articles that were requisitioned by the sherff was to be certified by a board committee and then approved by the entire body.  Moreover, each quarter a disbursement of $50 was to be provided for lights, fuel and water and the supervisors were sure to add that "the prisoners [were] to be furnished with plain wholesome food, and their persons as well as the Jail, to be kept clean."

Then, the body resolved that a tax levy of 30 cents per $100 of assessed property be implemented to pay for jail expenses, repealing previous orders of August and November of the previous year.  The vote, however, was 3-2, with members Stephen C. Foster, Emerson and Tomás Sánchez voting yes and Ocampo and Julián Chavez voting no. Incidentally, this was the only time that the supervisors had a Latino majority.

This 18 September 1858 article in the Los Angeles Star discusses statistics about the local economy provided by the deputy assessor, although the information was hard to gather, evidently.  Still, in the post-Gold Rush years, the economy was in stagnation, a condition that would considerably worsen in the first half of the 1860s,  For the administration of criminal justice, which consumed most of the county's meager budget, the hard times made matters much worse.

Financial issues were clearly continuing to be a problem, as noted here before with the Gold Rush petering out by mid-decade, a national depression breaking out in 1857, and the local economy in a serious downturn.  Revenues were never high because of low tax rates, but as property values dropped in the worsening economy, the problem became more acute.

Consequently, in a special meeting of 5 February, the board resolved that

a Court House and Jail Yard, are imperatively required as a Public necessity, and as the only means of effecting the same, that a loan should be effected, and that our delegation in the Legislature should be requested to use their best efforts to have a Law passed therefore.

As will be seen below, the legislature did pass an act allowing the county to put the matter of a loan before the voters in the fall election.

Matters were quiet for some time after this.  In the February and May meetings of the board, lists of jurors who served in the district court, where the most serious felony criminal cases were heard, were provided, showing that, of 120 voters who were called to service (though only some became trial jurors), 14 of them had Spanish-language surnames.  In August, a new listing for the district and sessions (which heard most criminal cases) courts, revealed that 7 of 44 jurors had Spanish-language surnames.  So, out of 164 persons, 21 were Latino, a rate of 13% generally matching that of previous years.

As mentioned in previous posts here, the disproportionate majority of Americans and Europeans on jury pools has led some historians to suggest that justice was not possible for Spanish-surnamed defendants in court.  This, however, is questionable as those surviving cases with dispositions do not show a dramatic difference in conviction rates for Latino defendants compared to their Anglo counterparts.

Incidentally, to give an idea of how large the administrative townships could be in the county, take in this description of the redefinition of the Los Angeles Township, certified by the supervisors on 6 August:

From Arroyo Seco south from the mountains to the city boundary to the northern boundary of San Antonio to San Gabriel River, down to southern boundary of San Antonio, along said line to Rancho de Los Cuerbos to dividing line of San Pedro rancho and Palos Verdes, from the Sentinela [Centinela] and Sausal Redondo to the ocean, north to the line between Los Angeles and Santa Barbara counties, along this to the eastward connection to the north line of Rancho San Francisco and along this to its eastern terminues and south along the eastern boundary of Los Angeles County and southerly along to point of beginning.

This is basically from where the Arroyo Seco comes out of the San Gabriels at Pasadena and La Cañada/Flintridge all the way south to modern Downey area along the old San Gabriel River channel, now the Rio Hondo (the current San Gabriel was created in the winter floods of 1867-68 ).

Then the boundary moved westward to about where South-Central Los Angeles is and to the ocean generally where Redondo Beach is situated.  From there the line followed the coast up to what is now the Ventura County line--Ventura having been carved out of Santa Barbara County fifteen years later, in 1873.

Then the line went east along the boundary of Los Angeles and modern Ventura County and basically took in part of the San Fernando Valley (there was a San Fernando township) and through Tujunga, Sunland, north Glendale, La Crescenta and La Cañada before meeting back at the Arroyo Seco.

Initial county election returns published in the 4 September edition of El Clamor Público match those reproduced in the 11 September minutes of the Board of Supervisors. including the races for county judge and sheriff and the vote on a $25,000 tax levy for a new court house, which was narrowly defeated.  Thanks to Paul Bryan Gray for providing the microfilm of this paper.

Speaking of Los Angeles Township, the election of early September was recorded in the minutes of the board from 11 September.  The vote for a loan for the county courthouse was defeated and the minutes showed the tally as 237-176.   Returns printed in El Clamor Público on the same date were different, with the vote recorded as 236-194.  Interestingly, the measure passed handily in the city of Los Angeles, 115-68 and won in San Fernando and San Pedro, but all 72 voters in El Monte, all but 3 of the 26 in Santa Ana, and all 19 each in San Pedro and Tejon voted against it.  What isn't clear is why there were only some 430 votes, when the races for county judge (won handily by incumbent Benjamin Hayes) and sheriff (with appointee James Thompson easily defeating Joseph H. Smith and 1857 appointee Elijah Bettis) each had between 1400-1500 voters.  

Four days later, given the defeat of the loan measure, the clerk was ordered by the supervisors to send a letter to Mayor Damien Marchessault and the Los Angeles Common [City] Council to present the board's views "upon the present dilapidated condition of the Court House Building" and to seek out their views on the matter and "to place the same and the archives of the County beyond the Contingencies of the weather."  Clearly voters did not see the urgency for better court facilities, even if it meant, as was clear in the last statement, that there were some significant exposure to the elements in the Rocha Adobe!

On 21 September, the minutes recorded that there was a response from Marchessault and the council, though these weren't detailed (neither was the matter reflected in the council minutes, covered in an earlier post on this blog).  However, it is obvious that their concern was manifested similarly to that of the supervisors, because the board's building committee was authorized to expend up to $300 on repairs and instructed to find a new office for the clerk.

Election returns were amended for reporting in the 11 September edition of El Clamor.

The remainder of the year consisted of mundane matters when it came to criminal justice related questions, such as the disqualification (the reason was not stated) of José Antonio Yorba the elected justice of the peace at San Juan Capistrano and the appointment of his replacement, Michael Krazewski and the same for Los Nietos constable F. Bachelor, replaced by O.P. Passons, the runner-up in the justice of the peace contest in that township.

There was also a matter of requesting from San Bernardino County for the reimbursement of prisoner maintenance costs at the county jail for persons wanted for crimes committed in that other locale and for canceling scrip (IOUs) issued to jailor Francis Carpenter for fees that were disallowed in a district court case that went against him.

The next post takes us to the last year of the tumultuous decade of the 1850s.

The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors and Criminal Justice, 1856

The year 1856 marked the fourth full year of the existence of the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors.  One of the newer elements of the minutes that started around this time was lists of jurors called for the several courts.

For example, the meeting of 9 February provided names of jurors who served in the lates term of both the Court of Sessions (renamed the County Court in 1864) and the District Court.  As noted here before, the Sessions court heard most criminal matters, excepting the most serious, such as murder, rape and, sometimes, arson, which were heard at the higher-level District Court.

At this meeting there were two dozen men attending each court and a breakdown of general ethnic categories, stated for this blog as "Spanish-language surnamed" and "American and European", showed that 9 of the 24 at the Court of Sessions and 4 of the 24 at the District Court had Spanish-language surnames.

The 4 June meeting provides lists of 55 jurors for the Sessions court and a dozen for the District Court.  In this case, while 10 of the Sessions jurors had Spanish-language surnames, 9 of the 12 at District Court did.  On 6 August, all dozen list jurors for the Sessions court were American or European.

With the unusual proportion of Spanish-language jurors at the District Court, as reported in early June, the total representation of 127 listed jurors for the year showed 32 had Spanish-language surnames, or about 1/4 of the total.

While Spanish-speakers were a solid majority of the population of the county then, it should be remembered that jurors were taken from the rolls of taxpayers in the county.  However, state law also provided that jurors were to be selected at random from those rolls according to specific instructions, though whether statute was complied with is another matter.

It has been stated by some historians, notably Richard Griswold del Castillo in his 1979 work Los Angeles Barrio that the low proportion of Spanish-surnamed jurors meant that defendants of the same classification could not get justice in Los Angeles' courts.  Del Castillo's analysis of jury composition largely squares with what this blogger has found.  The problem is that jury composition is only part of the equation--the better portion is to look at those cases that contain dispositions and then see what the conviction and acquittal rates show.

In hundreds of cases analyzed by this blogger, it was found that conviction rate differences between Spanish-language surnamed and American and European defendants actually narrowed over time, even as jury composition became even more skewed towards Americans and Europeans.  This runs counter to del Castillo's assertions, though it has to be said that there were many cases without disposition, some missing, and, besides, the dynamics of what drove any individual jury set to decide a case cannot be easily squared with statistics, either way.

As noted in the last several entries, financial matters also are a crucial part of what is found in these minutes, especially because criminal justice administration took up the lion's share of the county's expenditures and because, all too often, revenues were just not enough to keep pace.

Much of the expense had to do with maintenace of the jail, but sometimes revenue shortfalls came into place.  So, at the 11 February meeting, Francis J. Carpenter, the jailor had over $1600 in bills, but for the lion's share of that, he was expended 60 cents to the dollar "equivalent to cash," which sounds like scrip (or, basically, an IOU).  Yet, the next day, the board agreed to raise Carpenter's daily rate of compensation to $5.33.

On 3 June, he issued a claim to the board for another $1444.16.  Two days later, the board voted to issue more scrip to Carpenter for his bills.  In November, after another round of submitted bills by the jailor, the board voted to give him just 40 cents to the dollar in scrip.

Another financial matter had to do with the Rocha Adobe, which was purchased by the county from merchant Jonathan Temple in 1853 and which housed the courts and city and county offices.  In the courtyard behind the adobe which faced Spring Street, the two-story city and county jail was located.  In 1855, there had been an issue with a clear title and it appears that unresolved matters continued into 1856, because at the 12 February meeting, Luis Jordan presented a claim based on an assignment of an interest in the lot given to him by Antonio F. Rocha before the sale.  After discussion, the board agreed to give Rocha a receipt for $500 for a joint warrant on the property to settle Jordan's claim.

For unknown reasons, there are gaps in the record from 12 February to 5 May and then again to 2 June.  An interesting problem that confronted the supervisors in early June was a sudden spate of vacancies in the most of the justice of the peace offices in most of the county's townships, either because of resignations or failure of qualifications discovered quite a bit late after the September 1855 county election.

This map from about the 1890s, shows downtown Los Angeles from Temple Street, top (north) to above First Street, bottom (south) and from Main, right (east) , to Broadway, left (west.)  The court house and jail in the Rocha Adobe, bought from Jonathan Temple, from 1854 on were located at the corner of Spring Street and what was called Jail or Court and then later Franklin Street at the lower center, where the Phillips Block No. 1, built by Pomona-area rancher Louis Phillips, is shown.  Note that the 1889 Court House was moved just slightly northwest of the Rocha Adobe site and due west of where the courthouse was located in Temple's Market House, on which site the Bullard Block was built about 1890, between Market and Court streets at the right center.  The Bullard Block and Temple Block, to its north, sites are now where city hall is located and Main and Spring have been straightened.

In any case, the board quickly appointed replacements for the remaining couple of months before the upcoming election.  One for the sparsely populated northern reaches of the county in the Tejon Township, where Fort Tejon had recently been founded, was Samuel A. Bishop.  Bishop, a native of Virginia, was a Gold Rush '49er who became involved in Indian wars and the transfer of natives to a new reservation in the Tejon Sinks.  He acquired to Rancho Castac [Castaic] and also briefly had a ranch in the upper Owens Valley during the early 1860s, for which a new town, Bishop, was named in his honor.  He lived in San Jose until his death in 1893.

At El Monte, Elijah Bettis, who came from Missouri to the "American town" settled a few years earlier, became the justice of the peace.  He left the office later to become deputy sheriff to James Barton, who lost his reelection campaign to the board of supervisors, but won election returning him as sheriff.  When Barton gathered a small posse just a few weeks into his term to hunt bandits at San Juan Capistrano, he left Bettis in Los Angeles and then was massacred with his compatriots.   Bettis became sheriff and served until the term was up and was later water overseer for Los Angeles.

Russell Sackett, the appointee for Los Angeles township, outside the town limits, was from New York and was an attorney there before he came to California in the Gold Rush and wound up in Los Angeles.  He practiced law, was superintendent of public instruction, postmaster and a one-term member of the state assembly, in addition to being a JP.  He died in Los Angeles in 1875.

San Pedro township's appointed justice was Thomas Workman, whose family arrived in 1854 from Missouri to join Thomas' uncle, William, co-owner of Rancho La Puente in the eastern San Gabriel Valley.  Although only 24 years old Workman demonstrated administrative ability and was a valued employee, as chief clerk, of Phineas Banning and his growing mercantile empire at the harbor area.  Workman, who lost a run for county clerk in the early 1860s, died in the April 1863 explosion of the steamer Ada Hancock, owned by Banning.

At San Juan Capistrano, Irish-born Thomas J. Scully, accounted as the first teacher in what later became Orange County and who married into the prominent Yorba family, was appointed JP, while he was engaged in his teaching duties.  He later lived in Corona in what became Riverside County and died there in 1895.

Yet another justice of the peace vacancy opened up in late October, when Los Angeles township JP Alexander Gibson died and Thomas F. Swim was appointed in his stead.

In the 3 June minutes, there was mention made in the minutes to 21-year old William W. Jenkins as a deputy constable--meaning that, unlike constables, who were elected, Jenkins was appointed by the local justice of the peace.  Jenkins, whose mother and step-father Elizabeth and George Dalton (the latter's brother was Henry Dalton, owner of several San Gabriel Valley ranches), came to town earlier in the decade and joined, at age 18, the Los Angeles Rangers, when the organization was formed in 1853.

A little over a month later, Jenkins was given a writ of attachment for a $50 debt in a civil matter before justice of the peace Gibson to serve on Antonio Ruiz.  When Jenkins tried to seize a guitar to satisfy the write, a struggle broke out with Ruiz and his common-law wife, and Jenkins shot and killed Ruiz who grabbed the deputy constable from behind during the altercation.

In the aftermath, a group of Latinos and French residents of Los Angeles gathered on a hill above the jail where Jenkins was confirned, after initially being freed on his own recognizance without bail, and tensions rose to a point where a riot was feared.

Eventually, after Marshal William Getman was grazed by a bullet in a foray to determine the position of those on the hill, the situation calmed.  Jenkins was acquitted on a manslaughter charge as was alleged ringleader of the hilltop gathering, Fernando Carriaga, tried for intent to incite a riot.

Notably, the board suspended meetings for a time, almost certainly because of the state of emergency that gripped community leaders during the Jenkins-Ruiz incident.  Moreover, Sheriff David W. Alexander resigned, though whether it was because of the incident is not known--Alexander did relocate to a ranch at the base of the San Joaquin Valley where he remained for some years.  Charles Hale, a Los Angeles constable, was appointed to fill Alexander's position and Charles K. Baker became constable in Hale's place.  When Sheriff Barton decisively defeated Hale in the early November county election by a vote of 821 to 346, and was killed two months later, Baker and newly elected constable William H. Little were among the posse members gunned down along with him.  Notably, William W. Jenkins ran for constable in that election, but finished last among the six candidates.  If he had won, he surely would have been killed in the Barton massacre.

Another interesting result of the election took place in the mission town of San Gabriel.  Dr. William B. Osburn, whose name has been mentioned here several times, had moved there from Los Angeles and was elected a justice of the peace.  In the aftermath of the Barton killing, Osburn was accused of brutalizing the corpse of Miguel Soto, said to have been in the gang that murdered the sheriff, which was a double accusation, given that Osburn was a judge and a doctor.  One of the losing candidates for constable was Roy Bean, the younger brother of a militia general and saloon keeper, Joshua Bean, whose late 1852 murder led to the lynching of an innocent man.  Roy Bean later became the famed judge in Texas known as "the law west of the Pecos."

It appears that there was either no meeting of the board after 11 November or the minutes have vanished, but this takes us to 1857 and the Barton massacre.

The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors and Criminal Justice, 1855

In 1854-55, the third full year of the operations of the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors, there was some reference early in the new year to the drama surrounding two murderers arrested in the fall of 1854 and then tried and convicted for their crimes.

These were Felipe Alvitre, who ambushed and killed James Ellington on what is now Valley Boulevard in El Monte, and David Brown, a short-term constable earlier in the decade, and who murdered Pinckney Clifford in a Los Angeles livery stable.  In addition, an El Monte dispute involved William B. Lee killing Frederick Leatherman and he, too, was convicted of the crime.

Lee and Brown were able to successfully appeal their death sentence and District Court Judge Benjamin Hayes, who tried all three cases, wrote in his diary that Alvitre's appear was delayed getting to the state supreme court.  So, when Alvitre was taken out for his legal execution in the jail yard and Lee trembled in his boots, a howling crowd stormed the jail, pulled Brown from his cell, sparing Lee, and hung him from the same gallows used for Alvitre.

Although the supervisors' minutes make no direct reference and, in fact, there is a gap of four months from the week just prior to the execution and lynching to early May, there are some notations about the cases.

At the 2 January meeting, for example, a bill was submitted from an unknown person who went hunting for Henry Hancock, best known for his surveying of regional ranchos for land claims cases, and who was a witness in the William B. Lee case, the dispute being over property boundaries.  William G. Dryden, a justice of the peace and later county judge from 1856-1869, submitted a bill for his role in Alvitre's defense, though this was disallowed for unspecified reasons by the board.

On the 3rd and the 6th, there were bills from jailor Francis J. Carpenter and Thomas Gordon for guarding the facility, though whether this was over concern for the safety of Alvitre, Brown and Lee is not stated.  On the latter date, there was a discussion amongst board members about paying the jurors their fees in the Lee case because the bill presented did not state whether Lee was convicted or acquitted.  Notably, the fee charged by County Clerk John W. Shore for writing up the transcripts and record of action in that matter totaled nearly $300, indicating how much work he had to do to document what took place in the case.

There were other matters including a report from District Attorney Cameron E. Thom that the title to the Rocha Adobe, which included the court house and city and county offices, was "vitally defective," though how was not indicated.  Thom was authorized by the board to take steps to quiet title and to let the City of Los Angeles know where the situation stood.

Then, there were the continuing large expenses involved in criminal justice administration.  For example, on 3 January, Sheriff Barton and jailor Carpenter submitted bills for their fees and expenses totaling over $1800 and Shore had hefty bills to present, as well.  The next day, P.C. Williams asked for payment of about $800 for repairs to the room of the District Court in the Rocha Adpbe.  As noted in recent posts, the financial picture was often precarious for the city and county in this period because of low revenues and major expenses in the administration of justice.

This article from the Southern Californian on 11 January 1855 discusses the recent meetings of the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors, including the fact that the board "audited and passed some $9000 of accounts, refusing some $2,000 or moe, which appeared to have been uncalled for and illegal."  While praising the board for its economizing, the paper also questioned decisions to disallow bills that could still be collected on a court order, racking up additional expenses.  The paper then complained about the refusal of the supervisors to allow one of its bills, while granting a similar one for much more money from its rival, the Star.

It is not clear why the minutes suddenly stopped on 6 January and did not resume until 8 May.  It is possible that, in the tumult surrounding the Alvitre/Brown affair, the board decided to postpone meetings for a time, but it seems inconceivable that there would be a cessation of record for that long. But, when the board met on 8 May, Williams submitted a bill for repair of the gallows and for the furnishing of a coffin, on order of Barton, for Alvitre.

Moreover, something of a backlog, suggesting meetings postponed for a lengthy period, are indicated by the submission of bills by Carpenter for $3000 at that meeting, on top of Thom's district attorney bill for $900 and about $600 requests by Barton.

The 8 May meeting also included a bill sent it by an unknown party or parties for the arrest at San Juan Capistrano for Jose Buenavida, Juan Gonzales, and Juan Flores.  The latter two were tried on 14 April at the Court of Sessions for grand larceny in the theft of three horses from teamster Garnett Hardy and were sent up to San Quentin.  In October 1856, the two escaped and Flores returned to San Juan Capistrano to wreak more havoc.  In early 1857, Flores, his co-captain Pancho Daniel and about a dozen other men ambushed Barton and a small posse searching for the gang, setting of a massive manhunt and series of executions that have been discussed here previously.

The next two days featured additional meetings, which may be indications of the long delay in gatherings of the board.  More bills were presented from William B. Osburn as both justice of the peace and jail physician, by a constable named Henry E. Lewis, from jailor Carpenter and from then-constable Alfred Shelby, who became marshal later in the year and, as noted here before, fled for Mexico when he killed a man while on duty and jumped bail before his trial.  There were orders to repair the jail, as well.

As stated here previously, payments to officials were sometimes down on scrip or warrants, which guaranteed future actual outlays for approved expenses.  On the 10th, with respect to Carpenter, the board authorized the county auditor "to indemnify him in accordance with an agreement with the Board, for the Discount that he has to pay on the account of Warrant No. 23—in order to make said warrant equivalent to cash, payable out of funds for current expenses,"  

Similarly, in July the board approved a warrant of $163.68 to Carpenter "to reimburse him for the discount on scrip issued to him . . . in order to make the same equivalent to cash."  This gives an indication of how expenses were met under the tenuous financial circumstances the county perpetually faced.

At the September election, there was a notable referendum presented to the voters of the couty, which was whether liquor should be abolished in Los Angeles County.  There were undoubtedly many reasons why temperance-minded sponsors would bring this to their fellow citizens and one might well have been the concern about the role of alcohol in the high rates of crime experienced in the region.  Yet, the vote was 606-75 against the imposition of such a law--this was about a resounding a defeat as could be imagined!

Notably, James R. Barton decided not to run for reelection as sheriff, after three years in the dangerous office, but did try for another term as supervisor, but he finished sixth, just missing out on a seat.  The new sheriff was former supervisor and board president, David W. Alexander, who edged out a victory over Deputy Sheriff George W. Work 

Other interesting result was in the race of justice of the peace in San Gabriel, where disgraced former Los Angeles marshal Alviron S. Beard was edged by ten votes, losing to future county sheriff James F. Burns (who was in office during the notorious Chinese Massacre of fall 1871). In early 1856, Beard was arrested and charged with allowing gambling at his home, but the indictment was set aside and the case dismissed.

The latter part of the year featured more news about the poor condition of the Rocha Adobe and the court house room, specifically the need to repair the roof, likely brought up before expected winter rains.

At the 7 November meeting, the problem of meeting jail expenses again came up when Carpenter submitted bills totaling nearly $2500, more than half of which was for prisoner maintenance.  The board resolved "to make his compensation equivalent to cash, as per previous special contract with the Board of Supervisors."  The jailor then appeared before the board to appeal this and it was declared that the contract was voided and that his payment "not be equivalent to cash" except for the portion related to prisoner maintenance.

Carpenter then appeared ten days later to request ventilation for his apartment at the jail, because he had his family living there with him and he claimed that they were ill, submitting a certificate fron Dr. John S. Griffin acknowledging this to be the case.  The board's building committee was asked to promptly address the matter.

With that, we'll continue the next post with the work of the board in 1856.

The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors and Criminal Justice, 1854

In October 1853, the third edition of the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors convened, with David W. Alexander the chair as he was the previous year,  He was joined by Stephen C. Foster, who filled a vacancy created a few months as noted in the last post; Samuel S. Thompson, who was an early settler in the new "American town" of El Monte in 1852 and who died there about thirty-five years later; Juan Sepulevda (1814-1898), who was from a prominent Californio family; and Cristobal Aguilar (1816-1886), who served four terms on the Common Council, three as a supervisor, and was a three-term mayor.

As was discussed in the last post, the board confronted problems with the expenses of maintaining the jail with a paltry budget and the last board's decision to support the Los Angeles Rangers paramilitary group meant further expenditures, including $1000 given for materials as submitted by board member Foster and Collins Wadhams.  Sheriff James B. Barton had well over $500 in fees due him for his services and $100 for transporting prisoners from San Diego.  Jailor George W. Whitehorn sent in a bill for $566.75 for his salary and maintenance of prisoners.  To be confronted with over $2000 in bills at one meeting was a hefty expense for the board.

Not only that, but the board, on 4 October, approved a bill submitted by constable William B. Osburn for $320 in the matter of two brothers in the Lugo family and associated of theirs in a notorious matter involving accusations and a long drawn-out legal nightmare for the Lugos back in 1851.

There was also the matter of the county's recent agreement to buy the Rocha Adobe off Spring Street from merchant Jonathan Temple for the court house and county offices.  A building committee was asked to secure $1500 from the city of Los Angeles as part of their share in the structure and its improvements for public uses.

Jonathan Temple (1796-1866), seated at right, with his wife Rafaela Cota and son-in-law, Gregorio de Ajuria, was a prominent merchant and land owner in greater Los Angeles.  He sold the Rocha Adobe on the west side of Spring Street to the city and county of Los Angeles in 1854 for use as a courthouse and public offices.  In the rear of the structure, a two-story jail was built that served in that capacity for many years.  Photo courtesy of the Workman and Temple Family Homestead Museum.

Some of these improvements involved board chair David W. Alexander and his business partner, new arrival in town, Phineas Banning, later the father figure of the harbor at San Pedro/Wilmington.  This kind of conflict of interest, of course, would be disallowed today, but not in the looser operations of frontier Los Angeles.  OThere were others bills submitted by those involved in the work and the board gave $2000 to Foster and W.T.B. Sanford to distribute to contractors, while also empowering the two to collect $1000 from the city for its share of the work.

On 8 November, came an urgent request from the county clerk, John W. Shore, which led to a board resolution

that the room designated for his use in the County Buildings is insufficient for the proper performance of his duties . . . [and] for the safe custody & proper arrangment of his archives, therefore [it is] ordered that the room designated in the County Court House as a Jurors room, be taken possession of by the said Clerk and appropriated for his use in addition to the front room already intended for the use of said County Clerk.

It is not stated where the jurors were supposed to meet for the deliberations, but, if the clerk's quarters were not improved, who knows what would have happened to the minute books (and, this post would not have been possible!)  In fact, there was a fire in the county clerk's space later that also threatened to destroy the archival material, some of which has survived.

As 1854 dawned, major bills were submitted by the district attorney, Kimball H. Dimmick, for $345, William Osburn, who was also a doctor attending on the jail and charging $175,Sheriff Barton for $350, and for jailor Whitehorne for nearly $600.  There was also an interesting notation in which the board "allowed a/c/ [account] of Nelson Mason for dunner for 12 hungry jurymen."  Funds were also expended for the funeral of constable John (Jack) Wheelan, the first law enforcement officer in Los Angeles killed in the line of duty, when he was cut down in Sonoratown, north of the Plaza, a few weeks prior.

Another expenditure was the rent of the buildings used as the jail in recent months, including from Juan Dominguez for $200, although a quarter of that was in scrip (I.O.U.), a common procedure at the time for a frequently cash-strapped county, and from Francisco J. Alvarado, for the last two months of 1853, for $28.  As work on the jail continued, a bill for $216 was submitted by Alfred Foster for his contributions.

Another indication of financial stress and efforts to mitigate the rising costs payable by the county came with a petition from the board on 4 January to the state's supreme court calling for a reduction in fees paid to the sheriff for attendance at the courts, this "being too high and disproportionate to the fees of other offices and from the multiplicty of our Courts causing a heavy burthen [sic] on the revenues of this county,"

In March, Los Angeles witnessed its first legal execution, with Manuel Herrera was hung for the murder of Nestor Artiaga and, in early April, carpenter Ira Gilchrist was compensated an unknown amount "for services as Carpenter making Gallows &c."  At the same meeting of the 3rd, jailor Whitehorne submitted bills totaling nearly $700 for maintenance of prisoners and the facility, while Barton charged almost $750 for attendance at the courts.  It also appears that the appeal to the state's highest court for relief on the sheriff's fees went nowhere, because in early July, Barton and Whitehorne submitted bills totaling over $1000.

However, it was generally pretty quiet when it came to criminal justice matters for the remainder of the year, at least as reflected by County Clerk Shore in the minutes.  A new slate of supervisors took office on 2 October, led again by Alexander, who was obviously highly respected given his consistency in being elected and named chair of the board.

The only returning supervisor for 1854-55 was Cristobal Aguilar.  Newly seated members included David Lewis, another early settler in El Monte, when it was established a couple of years previously and two prominent men with long ties to the criminal justice system and politics in Los Angeles.

The first was James R. Barton, who was still serving as sheriff when he secured his seat with the supervisors (as seen a few times on this blog, it was possible then to hold two elected offices at the same time).  Yet, Barton would only serve the single term, perhaps finding that the excitement and, probably, the fees earned, as sheriff were preferable to being a politician.  As covered here in detail, though, Barton was killed, along with members of a posse, while hunting for the Flores-Daniel gang of thieves in what later became Orange County in early 1857.

The other major figure was Agustín Olvera, who had a number of positions of authority in the Mexican period, and was the first county judge, serving until 1853 and was simultaneously a member of the common council, before he went into private practice as an attorney for a couple of years.

What is interesting, though, is that, although there was a spate of crimes, including notorious murders committed in the latter part of 1854, these warranted almost no mention in the supervisor's minute book.  It was stated in early October that district attorney Benjamin Eaton submitted $175 in bills for charging criminals in indictments.  At the same meeting of the 3rd, a special constable, W. Burt, was mentioned briefly--perhaps he was hired because of the crime wave.

A week later, the board was presented with an account by Charles O. Cunningham of El Monte, E. O. Johnson, and John Weir for $30.75 in the pursuit of criminals.  It may be that the trio went hunting for the killers of James Ellington, a fellow El Monte resident of Cunningham.  Later, Felipe Alvitre and two others were found hiding in Soquel Canyon, in what is now the borderland of Orange and San Bernardino counties near Chino Hills and Brea.  Alvitre's story will be told later in this blog.

The same meeting, on 10 October, the board ordered an increase, despite the fiscal fragility with the county's budget, in prisoner maintenance, so that whites (this would include Spanish-speakers) would have their needs met at 75 cents per day, while Indians would have to get by on materials costing 50 cents.  At the end of November, it was ordered that, despite the lowering of it before, the salary of the district attorney was insufficient and that it should be increased by $150 per month, "considering the increasing amount of labor of his office."  Again, the recent crime wave was almost certainly a factor.

The next post takes us to 1855, which started off with a great deal of drama, but more on that next time around . . .