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, 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, 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, 1850, Part Three

In the last few months of 1850, the year that city and county government began operations in Los Angeles, the flux that might be expected in any newly-organized frontier community manifested in varying ways.

With the Los Angeles Common (City) Council, one of the problems that arose early on had to do with the high turnover of its elected officials, including council members.  With regard to criminal justice administration, a key isue was compensation, starting with the town's first marshal, Samuel Whiting.

But, at the meeting of 13 September, Whiting reported that "for sundry reasons . . . he is not satisdied with the salary of six hundred dollars per annum" and, instead, requested the same compensation as the county sheriff, G. Thompson Burrill, which was based on fees.  These fees were for any service of process, for mileage traveled in the conduct of business, and so on, and were set by state law.

At the meeting, council member Jonathan Temple moved for the creation of a special committee to make a recommendation based on Whiting's request and he and new council member Benjamin D. Wilson were appointed.  Evidently, the results were not to Whiting's satisfaction, as he submitted his resignation on the following meeting of the 24th.

The council then called for a special election on 5 October, which was changed to the 7th and expanded when council member Alexander Bell and city treasurer Francisco Figueroa resigned their positions.  The election, held at the El Palacio adobe residence of Abel Stearns on Main Street, but, in the meantime, council member David W. Alexander proposed appointing a marshal pro tem, so that someone would be on the job.  When they asked a "Mr. Morton" to take the temporary position, he refused "not being familiar with the duties of that office."  Of course, the only prerequisite to serving was to simply be elected.  Alexander then asked that the mayor and recorder select a marshal pro tem and pay him $3 per day, which was approved by the council.

On 9 October, the election results were announced with Alexander W. Hope elected to the council, F.P.F. Temple as city treasurer, and Thomas Cox as marshal.  That same meeting the council's finance committee offered a fee schedule for the marshal, but this was not detailed in the minutes.  Council member Morris Goodman also proposed that the mayor be authorized "to establish a City Police Department, consisting of a Captain and two roundsmen; the Captain to receive one hundred dollars per month, and the roundsmen seventy-five dollars per month each."

Morris Goodman (1819-1888) was the first Jewish member of the Los Angeles Common (City) Council and proposed the formation of a city police department in October 1850.  Although the proposal was rejected by the council, a volunteer force was created the following year.  Later, Goodman was a partner with Theodore Rimpau in a mercantile house in Anaheim.  The photo is from the Jewish Museum of the American West, a great Web site, and their page on Goodman is here. 

Goodman's recommendation was rejected, likely not because it was a bad idea--in fact, it was almost certainly necessary given the amount of violence and law-breaking in town, but because it was just too expensive to expend $3,000 a year for officers, when the current system paid in the high hundreds.  In fact, not long after Francisco Bustamente, teacher at the only town-funded school, requested a raise from $60 per month to $100, the council decided, towards the end of the year to shut the institution down.

Another significant problem of the era was the dire situation with the local Indians, whose society was torn asunder from the time the Spanish missionaries arrived late 18th century and continued to struggle under Mexican and then American rule.  Among the many problems was a high rate of alcoholism in a region that counted wine and brandy manufacturing as one of its economic mainstays.  As noted here before, Indians were often paid in these articles, got drunk on Sundays (their one day off during the week), were arrested and jailed and, in lieu of having money to pay a fine for disorderly conduct, were farmed out to local ranchers and farmers, who paid them again with alcohol, fueling a vicious cycle.

On 16 October, then, the council resolved to ban "all mixing with the Indians of California during their feats [fetes] or reunions within this City."  This had specifically to do with gatherings in which Indians would drink to excess and violence, abuse and other behaviors would generally ensue.  The council then enacted an ordinance that stated "the police shall have the pwer to apprehend and arrest the transgressors and bring them before the Recorder, who may impose a fine up to twenty dollars or ten days in the chain gang . . ."

At the 27 November meeting, the mayor called the council's attention "to the destitute condition of the laborers employed on City works and asking that a sum of money be assigned to them to relieve their wants."  While it was not stated who these people were, it is safe to assume that many, or most, were Indians.  The council, however, chose not to address the matter.

By the end of the year, there had been another change to the composition of the council, as Jonathan Temple and Morris Goodman both resigned their seats, for reasons unspecified.  An election was called for on the 30th and the remainder of the business of the council before December concluded had mainly to do with the role of the recorder in dealing with both city ordinances and state statutes, relative to collecting fines for infractions of both.  It was noted that a little less than $300 was accrued to the treasury from fines in November and most of it expended.

The next post takes the activities of the council into 1851, including the reconsideration of Morris Goodman's idea of a dedicated police force, so check back soon for that.

Horace Bell: Reminiscences of a Ranger, Part Three

Generally speaking, if Horace Bell, in his 1881 memoir Reminiscences of a Ranger, liked someone, he would not only lavish praise on them, but refer to them by name.  If, however, he had contempt for an individual, they were referred to by some usually mocking phrase or title, such as Old Horse Face (Abel Stearns) or "the man from Arkansas," the latter being the subject of this post.

Bell's book began with this arrival in the rollicking Gold Rush town of Los Angeles just in time for a popular tribunal, presided over by "Old Horse Face", in judgment of men accused of the murder of San Gabriel saloon-keeper and militia general Joshua Bean.  In his colorful way, Bell described his version of this extralegal proceeding and then went off on a variety of tangents and diversions, some covered here in the previous two posts.

He then returned to the matter of the sentencing of the several prisoners, with Stearns calling for and receiving a motion for the death sentence of hanging and the motions were entertained for each, including one that turned over one man, who Bell claimed was the true killer, over to the legally-constituted authorities.  That story will have to wait for a fuller discussion of the Bean murder, however.

Horace Bell's fantastical tale of how the Los Angeles Rangers engineered a "court martial" of marshal Alveron S. Beard seems totally fabricated, but sure is fun to read.

When it came time to execute those found guilty by the vigilante tribunal, Bell stated that "an immigrant from Arkansas had been stalking around the streets for some days previous, in a ragged and half-clad condition" and then offered to serve as the hangman.  Bell continued, "a purse was accordingly raised in his behalf, and the great man from Arkansas became the hangman of the mob."  Moreover, the day afterward, it was stated, "the uncouth Arkansas man appeared on the streets dressed in the very extreme of elegant and expensive fashion."  The unnamed individual "soon thereafter became the village pedagogue" and took out an advertisement in the Los Angeles Star for a school he had opened.  Finally, Bell reported that "at the next municipal election, the elegant hangman was honored by our people by being elected City Marshal."

Bell then told a tale about how, about June 1853 when "the southern counties were overrun with Mexican banditti" two contingents of Rangers were formed, the one in Los Angeles that Bell joined, and another in Calaveras County.  On a Sunday evening, he went on, the marshal called for the newly-constituted Rangers to arrest some thieves said to be at a fandango (dance) in town.  When the Rangers arrived, they were disposed to enjoy the festivities instead, while the marshal evidently made an excuse about having to get his revolver before going to the party.

After awhile the Rangers believed they had been deceived by the marshal, Bell claimed, and went to his home where they "found the delinquent chief in the arms of his newly wedded bridge, who, by the by, had another husband, then living, I believe, at El Monte."  After waking him up, the Rangers allegedly told the marshal that there had been a terrible fight, two of their members had been killed, and the official was needed to assist in the preservation of order.

Then, it was stated that "it required at least half an hour for him to make his toilet" before he made his appearance wearing kid gloves and carrying a gold-headed cane.  Bell went on to assert that he was then seized by the Rangers, who carried the marshal to a ditch where "a court-martial was organized, which proceeded to try the marshal on a charge of treason and desertion."  Naturally, the account continued, "he was found guilty, and the military code was read to him from a greasy pack of monte cards."  The penalty was decreed to be "cat-hauling in the public water-ditch."

Bell only referred to Beard as "the man from Arkansas" rather than by name and, indeed, Beard, a native of North Carolina, resided in Pine Bluff, Arkansas in 1850 just after his service in the Mexican-American War.  Within a few years, he relocated to rough-and-ready Gold Rush-era Los Angeles.

The "astonished representative of official pomposity" was tied up with a rope "and the irate Rangers amused themselves until the break of day in dragging the produ dignitary up and down the water ditch, when they left him more dead than alive and retired to their barracks."  Bell wrote that the Rangers were then arrested and a trial was held in the Justice Court, which ended when the merchant, only identified as Tom H------, who supposedly represented the Rangers went on a rampage "capsizing the court, bench and all, whereupon the Rangers went to work, and smashed the tables, broke the chairs, and tore things up generally . . . so ended this remarkable episode."

Finally, Bell claimed, this event "ended the official career of that illustrious character, born of the first great Los Angeles mob."  He went on to assert that "the boys would hoot him on the street, and he was forced to resign."

Not content with stopping there, however, Bell could not resist another story, adding "then I will consign him to the life of vagabondism that he has led down to the present day."  This had to with a welcome party for Ezra Drown, who would be a prominent attorney, common council member, and district attorney in Los Angeles, in May 1853, at which "the pompous marshal" was in attendance ostensibly for "official protection" but allegedly "to get a deluging supply of gratuitous liquid comfort."  When a fight broke out between attorney Lewis Granger and the federal district attorney, who was unnamed, and "the officious head of the infantile city police" jumped in, Granger "downed the Arkansas man, and chawed his nose until it resembled a magnificent pounded and peppered beefsteak."  Bell claimed the marshal had the federal district attorney arrested, but the matter was handled without a trial and the two walked "arm in arm  . . . to the Bella Union, where they smiled at the bar and swore eternal friendship."

As is so often the case with Bell, there are grains of truth, uncorroborated statements, and an array of falsehoods in his characterization of the "man from Arkansas," who was Alviren S. Beard.  There is not a great deal of information available on Beard, who was a native of Davidson County, North Carolina and born about 1820.  He was married in his home county as a young man in the early 1840s and then served in the Mexican-American War.  Within a few years, he was in Pine Bluff, Arkansas, before making his way to Los Angeles.

There is no corroboration that Beard was the hangman in the lynching of the men accused of involvement in Joshua Bean's death.  District Court Judge Benjamin Hayes's voluminous papers at the Bancroft Library at U.C. Berkeley, include material on the lynchings of the accused men, and there are lengthy articles in the Los Angeles Star--none of which mention Beard, which is not to say Bell was wrong.

The same is the case with Bell's "rags to riches" description of Beard before and after the hangings, but it is true that Beard in mid-December 1852 received Los Angeles Common Council approval to operate a school and be paid $35 a month for teaching poor children, the number of which were to be determined by the council.  This is the earliest documented record of Beard being in the town, though it is certainly possible he was there earlier, including when the Bean lynchings took place.

Several months later, he did secure election as Los Angeles city marshal in early May 1853, about a half year after the lynchings.  Perhaps akin to the situation in which Tomás Sánchez, who had a major role in the capture and lynching of suspects in the murder of Sheriff James Barton in January 1857, was elected county sheriff in 1859 and retained that seat for several years, it is possible Beard was "rewarded" for his services in the Bean lynchings be being elected marshal--but there is no proof that this was the case.

Interestingly, however, Beard's sureties to guarantee his behavior in office were former mayor John G. Nichols and Lewis Granger, who Bell claimed pummeled Beard's nose into "beefsteak" around the same time as the election.  Why Granger would, at virtually the same time, beat Beard up and then put up bond money as the new marshal's surety is puzzling, unless Bell expansive storytelling impulses created the Granger pummeling to make Beard look more comical than he was.

But, none of Bell's tales are as outlandish as his claims of the Rangers' "court-martial" of the marshal.  Again, no other sources mention any event remotely similar to this and the Star would certainly have covered it if it had happened.  Moreover, the claim that the entirety of the militia was arrested and tried before the Justice Court--a serious case of assault and battery for the serious injuries Bell claimed were inflicted would have gone before the Sessions Court, anyway--just defies belief.  This is especially true with the part about the trashing of the courtroom.

Despite his many misadventures in Los Angeles, Beard was elected as a Justice of the Peace in San Bernardino and it is listed as his occupation in the 1860 census.

As it was in real life, Beard was already pretty amusing or worse on his own without embellishment.  For example, shortly after taking office as marshal, Beard petitioned the Common Council for a salary and did so again in October and November, but the council replied that the schedule of fees paid to the marshal for various services was considered sufficient.  After the last attempt, the council's minutes for 23 November included the admonition that, if fees were not sufficient compensation for Beard, "he is at liberty to resign."

Other conflicts between the town's governing body and Beard included his issuing business licenses instead of collecting the fees, which was his job as dictated by ordinance and question about fees he was charging for services, such as arrests made of individuals who, as the council recorded in its minutes of 21 June 1853, "had not paid any fine because they succeeded in making good their escape owing to the lack of vigilance on the part of the Marshal."  Consequently, his claims were reduced only to account for those prisoners who did not escape and who paid their fines!  At one point, Beard requested fees for burying a dead Indian, but the council rejected this, noting that such an action was under the auspices of the county, nor the city.

The marshal also had a trio of legal problems within months of his assuming office, involving bigamy, unlawful detainer of an Indian and his role in the homicide of a man he ordered to jail.  These incidents will be discussed later in a more detail post about Beard.

Beard's resignation in early 1854, however, was not due to being shamed by the Rangers. Instead, he failed to forward money to the city treasurer in his role as the town's tax and fines collector.  More on this will be presented in that forthcoming post on Beard, but it turned out that Beard was hundreds of dollars in arrears.  The Los Angeles Common Council pressed him for the assessment book and funds until the matter led to the vacating of his office and the demand of the monies from his sureties, the same Lewis Granger mentiond above and former mayor John G. Nichols.  Eventually Beard ponied up some cash, as did Granger and Nichols, though it looks like a couple hundred bucks never made it to the city's coffers.

As to Bell's claim that Beard was a vagabond for the next few decades, it is true that the former marshal moved around a good deal.  In 1860, he was in San Bernardino serving as Justice of the Peace--an indication that, despite his misadventures in Los Angeles, voters in his new home found him worthy of a judicial position.

Within a decade, though, Beard decamped to Virginia City, in what was then Idaho Territory.  The settlement was new, having been founded as a mining boom town in 1863, but within months crime became rampant, as was often the case in western American mining communities.  The response was a vigilance committee that operated at the end of that year and into the next, which also was when Montana was declared a territory of the U.S. by President Lincoln.  Dozens of men were killed by so-called "road agents," and, in turn, about fifteen or twenty of the latter were executed by what were known as the Montana Vigilantes.  

Whether Beard was in Virginia City, which served as Montana's capital from 1865-75, during this period is not known, but it is ironic that he may have been a vigilante executioner in Los Angeles in 1852 and then happened to live in Virginia City eighteen years later, a few years removed from its own vigilante period.

In any case, by the mid-1870s, he had moved once more, this time to Elko County, Nevada, where he was a rancher.  He appeared in an 1875 state census there and just afterward was quoted in a Los Angeles Herald article about a cannon said to have been used in a notorious fight at an 1852 party in town.  

In 1880, he had roamed back to California, this time taking up residence in San Pasqual, near San Diego, which was the site of the famed 1846 battle when Californios defending their homeland defeated American forces in the main victory for locals in the Mexican-American War in California.  It appears that Beard remained at San Pasqual into the 1890s and may have died during that decade, while in his seventies.  Whether this frequent moving from place to place constituted "vagabondism" or not is arguable.

In Bell's telling, Alveron S. Beard was a dirty, dishelved volunteer vigilante hangman, an effete and cowering marshal, and a discredited vagabond.  Bell's pungent penchant for elaboration, exaggeration and embellishment can obscure those elements of documented history that are present in his work, as well.  Other sources, however, indicate that Beard certainly had some significant character flaws--as he was a bigamist, a marshal with questionable discretion, and an (ab)user of public funds while Los Angeles's marshal. 

As is so often the case, parsing out accounts of first-person history (if Bell can be viewed as a reliable chronicler) can be a challenge and sorting out fact from fancy frustrating!