Joaquin Murrieta and the Los Angeles Rangers

On this day in 1853, the Los Angeles Star newspaper had two articles of interest regarding crime and justice in early LA.

The first was about the recent formation of a citizen militia organized to defend the town and county against what was perceived as rampant, unmitigated, unchecked criminal activity.

The Rangers were formed at a time when, throughout the United States, citizen militias were very popular.  The captain was A.W. Hope, who was the first designated police chief, when a small force was created in 1851, during another time of grave concern about crime.  The treasurer and clerk was David W. Alexander, later a two-time sheriff (1856, 1876-77) of the county.

Part of a 6 August 1853 article in the Los Angeles Star newspaper discussing the recent formation of the citizen militia called the Los Angeles Rangers.

Members included Horace Bell, whose 1881 memoir Reminiscences of a Ranger was noted in the last post; William Little, a member of the posse led by Sheriff James Barton which was mowed down by Latino bandits in present-day Orange County in January 1857; William C. Getman, who was a city marshal and briefly sheriff before he was killed in the line of duty just a year after Barton; C.E. [listed as E.C.] Hale, who replaced Alexander as sheriff in 1856; Eli Smith, a future deputy sheriff; Octavius Morgan, who was publisher of the short-lived, but colorful (and vigilante supporting) newspaper, the Southern Californian; Thomas Rand, whose brother William was a founder of the Star and of the famed Rand McNally firm; and W.T.B. Sanford, whose brother-in-law Phineas Banning became one of the region's most prominent citizens and a vigilante.

There were quite a few citizen militias in Los Angeles through the 1870s, but the Rangers appeared to have been the most active by far, at least for a stretch there in the middle Fifties.  Bell's colorful and exaggerated book burnished and expanded the group's image significantly, but it is also fair to suggest that its presence was helful in trying to put a crimp on crime.  More on the Rangers in future posts.

Meantime, the other article of interest was one that reported on the supposed capture and extralegal execution of the famed and semi-legendary bandido Joaquin Murrieta.  The San Francisco Alta California, the week prior on 30 July, published a report stating Joaquin and six of his bandits were confronted by a militia called the California Rangers, led by Captain Harry Love, who was, however, absent when Joaquin was captured and killed.  The report continued that Love had returned with prisoners "and the head of Joaquin preserved in spirits."

Here's more on the membership and leaders of the Rangers, as well as an article about the purported capture of the semi-mythical bandido Joaquin Murrieta from the same issue of the Star.

According to some sources, it is unclear if there was one Murrieta or several. There have also been claims that Murrieta wasn't caught and that someone else was taken and killed instead.  Histories purporting to tell the story of the notorious bandit have been published, but have to be taken as largely imaginary, given that contemporary sources are sketchy and spotty at best.

Murrieta' s legend was enlarged significantly when it was reported that his picked head, said to have been long displayed in San Francisco, was reported destroyed in the great earthquake and fire of April 1906.

As for the Los Angeles area, it was said that Murrieta frequently appeared in town and, in one particular case, involving the murder of San Gabriel saloon keeper and Indian fighter Joshua Bean, he may have had a direct role.  More, too, on that in a subsequent post.