The Big House VI: San Quentin State Prison and Los Angeles County Inmates

The April 1855 term of the Los Angeles County Court of Sessions [renamed in 1863 the County Court] included the cases of four men tried for felonies.  One of these José María Fuentes, up on the charge of assault with the intent to commit murder against Santiago Arostes in a shooting affray led , in his trial on the 14th, to a verdict of not guilty.  The other three men, though, were convicted in their in the trials and sent up to San Quentin state prison to serve out their terms.

One trial involved that of Edward J. Welsh, who was charged with committing a robbery against J.P. Owensby, a carpenter who, in 1864-1865 served as Los Angeles marshal.  Welsh was tried on 22 April, found guilty, and was given a three-year prison term.

The other two individuals were Juan Gonzales and Juan Flores, convicted on a grand larceny charge for the theft of three horses valued at $225 from teamster Garnett Hardy.  The trial of Flores and Gonzales was on 14 April and they were convicted and sentenced to three-year terms.

The trio were taken by steamer north to prison and were registered at San Quentin on the 27th, with Welsh as prisoner 612, Flores as 613 and Gonzales as 614.  Welsh, whose occupation was given as a clerk (perhaps Owensby was his employer?) was 32, stood 5'9 1/4" and had a light complexion gray eyes and light (blond?) hair.  He was balding with a scar on his forehead and a number of tattoos, including one of a woman and a star on his right arm, a "savior and cross" on his left, along with "American arm below on left arm."

Gonzales was 27 years old, listed as a laborer, and was 5'7 3/4 " tall.  He had a dark complexion, hazel eyes and dark hair.  He had scars on both hands and a crescent-shaped on one his forehead, as well as a pair of moles on one cheek.  As for Flores, who was just 19 years old and also shown as a laborer, he was 5'9 3/4" tall and had the same skin, hair and eye color as his compatriot, Gonzales.  Flores had scars on his right eye brow and forehead.

Welsh did not serve his full term at San Quentin.  Governor J. Neely Johnson, elected as a candidate of the American Party, or Know-Nothings, who rode a brief wave of populism focused significantly on anti-foreign sentiment, pardoned the convict on 13 February 1857, 22 months into Welsh's term.  No details have been located about the reasons for the release, but typically the governor reviewed petitions offered from persons in the county where the crime and trial occurred.  Usually, friends, family, community leaders and even legal officials, such as a district attorney, presented reasons for the pardon, often based on prior conduct, extenuating circumstances with the case, undue excitement in the community that might lead to pressure for convictions, and the conduct of the prisoner at San Quentin.

The San Quentin state prison register listings for prisoners 612-614, being Edward J. Welsh, Juan Gonzales, and Juan Flores, 27 April 1855.  Welsh was pardoned by Governor J. Neely Johnson less than two years later, while Flores and  Gonzales escaped in October 1856.  Flores formed a gang that committed the heinous murders of several people, including Los Angeles County Sheriff James R. Barton and a small posse, in early 1857.  Flores was then lynched after being captured trying to flee the area.  Gonzales, whose whereabouts after escaping are not known, was recaptured and returned to San Quentin in July 1857, as noted on the register.  Click on the image to see it in an expanded view in a separate window.

As for Flores and Gonzales, they, too, had an early release--just not an official one.  San Quentin was operated by private contract and its lessee in 1856 was J.M. Estell, whose management of the prison was, at best, questionable.  One frequent use of prisoners was a very liberal application of the "trusty" system, in which convicts were allowed off site to do work for the prison or for locals who made arrangements with Estell and his staff for convict labor.

When the legislature in early 1857 convened hearings into Estell's (mis)management of San Quentin, they heard testimony from guard captain George W. Wells about frequent escapes, involving dozens of prisoners.  In one instance, Wells testified that

Francisco Abano, Jose Somerano [Zamorano], Ramon Miramontez [Miramontes], Juan Gonzalis [Gonzales] and Juan Flores escaped by overpowering and disarming the guard on a scow going for red wood to burn kiln [for prison purposes].  Fred. W. Russell was the only guard on the scow; the scow was near the mouth of a creek; they landed and escaped.  Baldwin, one of the guards, had previously landed.  They were lock-up prisoners.

This was 8 October 1856.  Within a short time, Flores made his way down to Los Angeles and joined forces with Francisco "Pancho" Daniel, Andres Fontes (an "Andrew Fontes" escaped in 1856 with Wells stating "[I] think he stowed away in an unburnt kiln" near the prison) and others.

Known as the Flores-Daniel Gang, the group committed robberies and the murder of a San Juan Capistrano merchant before slaughtering Los Angeles County sheriff James R. Barton and an undermanned posse in present-day Irvine.  The vengeful aftermath has been recounted here in significant detail and a new article by this blogger on the topic has just been published in Orange Countiana, the annual publication of the Orange County Historical Society.

For more on the article, the publication and the Society, click here.

Gonzales, apparently, went his own way after breaking out of confinement with Flores, as he did not show up in a list of gang members published in the Los Angeles Star on 7 February 1857.  Notably, when Flores was captured by a posse watching Simi Pass northwest of Los Angeles, he gave the name "Juan Gonzales Sánchez" to his captors, though the ruse was quickly seen through.

Whatever Gonzales did with himself in the months following his escape, he was captured and returned, with the San Quentin register entry reading "brot [sic] back July 24/57."  It is not known whether he served his original three-year sentence and was released or given additional time because of his escape.

The rash of prison breaks under Estell's tenure led to an interesting statement by Alexander Bell, a member of the San Quentin Board of Directors.  In a statement forwarded to the legislature during its hearings, Bell wrote

You, gentlemen, no doubt recollect the geographical position of the southern counties, particularly San Diego, Los Angeles and San Bernardino.  Exposed as they have been, not only to the ravages of a horde of robbers, thieves and murderers, who have been headed by escaped convicts, but the peculiar locality has invited all renegades; and to add to this is the misfortune of having had no rain for nearly twelve months past, Los Angeles and San Diego counties have been made the receptacle of two thirds of the villains who had left the Northern portion of the State, and as my home has been in the lower country [italics added], I desire in the discharge of my duties to particularly direct your attention to this matter.

Bell's mention of having lived in southern California is interesting because he might be the Alexander Bell, who came to Los Angeles in 1836 and was a prominent merchant for many years and whose nephew, Horace, has been covered extensively in this blog.  In any case, Bell's statement is notable for its reference to a common complaint uttered by "settled" Angelenos--that a great deal of the crime committed in Los Angeles was by "outsiders" such as the Flores-Daniel Gang that he clearly references.

Estell's contract was soon terminated and management of San Quentin handled directly by the state, as it has been ever since.  Convict escapes definitely lessened, although conditions in the prison, which were notorious may have improved only somewhat.

Check back here soon for more stories involving Los Angeles County convicts at San Quentin!

The Los Angeles Jail and the 1870 Census

In 1870, as Los Angeles was undergoing its first major development boom and was beginning to move from a frontier town to a small city, the federal census was conducted in the summer.

The official count of population in the city was just under 6,000, while the county tally was about 15,000 persons.  This was, as all censuses tend to be, an undercount, but it reflected a major change from the previous census in 1860 and, more importantly, reflected the growth that had ensued from the post-Civil War years.

As the last post discussed the 1860 census and the city and county jail, it is interesting to note that, not only was the jail in the same two-story (adobe first floor and brick second floor) structure behind the Rocha Adobe at Spring Street between Temple and First, but that the jailer was, once again, Francis J. Carpenter, who had the distinction of being the longest serving person in that position in early Los Angeles.

Here is the 1870 federal census listing for Los Angeles city and county jail keeper Francis J. Carpenter, who was in the position a decade prior, as well as the inmates in the facility.

Carpenter, as noted earlier, came to Los Angeles following his older brother, Lemuel, who owned the Rancho Santa Gertrudes in southeastern Los Angeles County until financial problems from debts owed to John G. Downey (California's governor in the early 1860s) led to his suicide.  Francis served as jailer for several years in the late 1850s and early 1860s and then returned to the position in time for the census.

He resided on the jail site with his second wife Ann, his son from a prior marriage, Alexander, and three daughters from his second marriage.  Reflecting a recent demographic change in Los Angeles, Carpenter had a Chinese cook, 41-year old Ku Ah.  The Chinese community in town had grown to over 200 persons in recent years from just 11 in the 1860 census.

As to the inmates at the jail, they totaled 22, compared to the dozen that occupied the facility ten years prior.  Unlike the 1860 census, when the enumerator noted the charges that the prisoners either faced or by which they were convicted, census taker Jonathan D. Dunlap, when he made his rounds on 18 August, did not list the charges.

Instead Dunlap recorded names ages, occupation and place of birth along with sex and race.  On that latter point, other major demographic shifts are in evidence.  Firstly, only 2 of the 22 men were Latino, both from Mexico, and the Spanish-speaking population of Los Angeles was, on a percentage basis overall, declining. .  Then, there were two black prisoners, which is also reflective of a small, but growing, community of African Americans in town, of whom there were about 110 enumerated in the census.

There was a disproportionate number of French and Irish-born prisoners in jail, four of the former and six of the latter, relative to their numbers in town.  One other European, a German, meant that fully half of the inmates were from outside the United States.  Of the nine Americans, four were from southern and the other five were from northern states.

As to ages, they ranged from 17 to 63 with the average age being pretty typical for prison and jail populations, at 27 1/2 years.  Occupationally, prisoners were overwhelmingly common laborers, comprising 16 of the 22, or about 73%.  There were three cooks, a sheep herder, a school teacher and a bookkeeper among the rest.  

Another interesting detail was that one of the prisoners actually had self-declared property values.  John Rogers, a 45-year old Tennessee-born laborer, gave his personal property value at $1,600 and his personal property value as $700.  None of the other prisoners had this distinction.

Court cases involving most of these men survive in existing files, with only a half-dozen of the prisoners unaccounted for.  John Baker, a 32-year old French-born cook, was tried on an arson charge on and found guilty.  There is, however, a record that a new trial in his case was ordered, though it is not known if one took place.  Patrick Carmody, a 22-year old Irish cook, was on trial just a week prior to the census, on the 11th, and pled guilty to second degree murder, which carried a 10-year term at San Quentin.  He was in the county lockup for just a short time until he was transferred to "the big house."

George M. Cox, a 30-year old bookkeeper from Maine, was tried on an embezzlement rap and was found guilty, but the state supreme court reversed the judgment and remanded his case back to Los Angeles for a new trial.  There is no record of one, however.

The oldest prisoner, 63-year old Mathew Wall, a native of Ireland, was in jail for an attempted rape charge and his trial was just nine days prior to the census taking, but there is no known disposition in the matter.  Henry Ryan, a 19-year old Irish native, was up for a grand larceny rap and had a 12 July trial but his case file only included indictments and an arrest warrant--there was no known disposition.

21-year old French native Martin Giraud was in jail on a charge of obtaining money under flase pretences and his case file from the same date as Ryan only contained an indictment.  A.B. Boyd, a 28-year old laborer hailing from Illinois, was found guilty of grand larceny on 18 July in stealing a horse.  Charles Wright, 23 and from France, and Charles Smith, 20, and from Germany, were tried together for grand larceny and breaking and entering and both found guilty.

The last three men on the enumerated list: John Davis, F.G. Peters and John Downey, all were rried for grand larceny and burglary, but were found not guilty.  Ismael Romero, the youngest of the prisoners at 17 and a native of Mexico, was tried on a grand larceny charge, but this was reduced to petty larceny in the theft of a horse and some personal property and he was found guilty.

John Kelly, a 22-year old Illinois native and a laborer, went to trial on 16 September on a grand larceny charge and was found guilty.  His crime was stealing a box used in the popular gambling game of faro!  Trinidad Castro, a 28-year old laborer from Mexico, was likely in jail the longest, as his trial on grand larceny for stealing over two dozen horses in Anaheim was held 25 January and he was found guilty.  Frank Hail, a 25-year old Georgia-born laborer, went to trial on 9 September for grand larceny and pled guilty, for which he received a 15-month sentence.

As to jailer Carpenter, he later joined the ranks of the Los Angeles Police Department, being appointed in the late 1870s as a policeman.  The accompanying photo is of Carpenter in his uniform with badge and can be dated to about 1879 because the photography studio of Tuttle and Parker only existed in Los Angeles for a very short period around that time.  Carpenter is also enumerated in the 1880 federal census as a policeman, as shown in the image above.  More interestingly, this photo, recently acquired by the Workman and Temple Family Homestead Museum, appears to be one of the earliest, if not the oldest, surviving photos of a LAPD officer in uniform.

The Los Angeles Jail and the 1860 Census

There have been many posts on this blog that have referred to the Los Angeles city and county jail and the next two posts will examine the censuses of 1860 and 1870 and the enumeration of the jailer and the residents of the calaboose at the time the census taker made the rounds.

As for the first federal census taken in Los Angeles during the American era, the 1850 enumeration was actually carried out in January and February 1851, because of the late admission of California as the thirty-first state in the Union the previous September.

Census taker John R. Evertsen, however, did not enumerate the jailer or its convicts--though it should be said, again, that Evertsen's count as a whole was grossly inexact (a claim made upon the whole state count, as a matter of fact.)  Evertsen's count of 1,610 residents in Los Angeles and 3,530 in the county was so low that, when the state conducted its own census about a year and a half later, in summer 1852, the county total was nearly 8,000--one of the problems was that Evertsen only counted a couple hundred Indians, whereas the state tallied almost 4,000.

In any case, the first census to include the jail in the enumeration was in 1860.  On 16 June, census taker James C. Pennie made the rounds and, after counting city marshal John J. Trafford and his deputy (future marshal and shooting victim of one of his constables a decade later) William C. Warren, he made his way to attorney Samuel Reynolds and publisher of the little known newspaper, The Southern Vineyard, J.J. Warner.  This was followed by a printer, probably for Warner, Joseph M. Peru, and then merchant Louis Jaszynsky.

Pennie then visited Francis J. Carpenter, listed as "county jailor."  Carpenter, aged 40 and a native of Kentucky, was the brother of Rancho Santa Gertrudes owner Lemuel Carpenter (who had recently committed suicide over debts he had incurred to soon-to-be California governor John G. Downey and a partner, which caused the loss of the ranch.)  Carpenter self-declared his property value at $3,750 and had a separate listing on an agricultural census for 630 acres of land valued at $700, on which were 33 horses valued at $750.  Carpenter did buy part of the Rancho Centinela in the modern Inglewood area and, presumably, this is where his agricultural census property was located.  In his household was his 27-year old wife Ann, a native of Missouri, his 19-year old son by an earlier marriage, John, also born in Missouri and his two children with Ann, 7-year old Alexander and 5-year old Josephine.

Also on the jail property was an Indian family, comprised of Domingo Tarrata, age 30 and working as the cook, his wife Polonia, age 24, and listed as servant, and their two daughters, 7-year old Rita and 5-year old Angel.

A dozen inmates were counted that day in the jail.  6 were Latinos from California or Mexico, 1 was an American, another a European, and 3 were Indians.  The last was a mixed race individual, Jose J. Chapman, whose father, Joseph, was the first Anglo to live in Los Angeles.

Here is the section of the 1860 federal census of Los Angeles, showing jailer Francis J. Carpenter and his family, the jail's cook and servant Domingo and Polonia Tarrata, and the twelve inhabitants of the combined county and city lockup.

Of interest is that, in the far right column, were the charges by which the men were either accused or convicted.  Two men were in for "assault to kill," including 47-year old vaquero (sublisted as "herdsman") José [Serbulo] Varela (shown as "Barelas") and Chapman, age 34 and also a vaquero.  Samuel Goldstein, a 23-year old peddler orignally from Prussia, was in for "assault with the intent to commit murder," which sounds similar to the "assault to kill," but was akin to a charge of first or second degree murder instead of manslaughter; that is, the intent was preplanned for Goldstein and more spur of the moment for Varela and Chapman.

Three prisoners were in for "grand larceny," including 19-year old vaquero Juan Carbajal, 24-year old laborer George Watson, and 19-year old laborer Jesús López.  Two others were in for "petty larceny," including 53-year old shoemaker, Agustín "Montion" and 21-year old vaquero Francisco Tapia.  Trinidad German, a 35-year old laborer was jailed on an assault rap.

All of the above were technically in the county jail on serious charges and this left the three Indians who probably comprised the inhabitants of the city facility on the first floor of the two-story jail erected in 1854 in the courtyard of the Rocha Adobe, which served as city and county offices and the courthouse.  A photo of the site was recently posted on this blog.

The Indians were 18-year old José, 20-year old Juan, and 26-year old Tomás Feliz.  June 16 was a Saturday, so it is possible the trio were arrested on a Friday night and held over for the weekend, but this is not established with certainty.

Chapman was charged with assaulting Francisco López, but his court file in the Court of Sessions lists the crime as "assault to murder."  on 30 August 1859 he was convicted and sentenced to a year, so was a few months shy of his release.

Varela was a veteran of the Mexican-American War fighting for the Californios against the Americans.  He was highly respected by the latter, however, for his defense of protecting Americans captured at the headquarters of the Chino ranch (today's Boys Republic troubled youth facility in Chino Hills) against Californios who wanted to execute the captured Americans in the heat of the fighting during the war.

It will be recalled in an earlier post here about Los Angeles County prisoners at San Quentin that Varela was sent up to "the big house" for a year on petty larceny and perjury convictions in 1854-55.

Here again is the Henry T. Payne photo from the mid-1870s of the two-story jail, lower right of center, in the courtyard of the Rocha Adobe, which was the courthouse until 1861, when the facility, along with city and county offices, were relocated to the Market House at the upper left.

In this matter, Varela was charged with "assault to murder" according to his case file for an attack on Marcos Vera and on 14 March 1860 pled guilty to assault and battery.  His sentence was a $200 fine or 100 days in jail.  Presumably he was locked up in lieu of the fine and should have been released imminently at the time the census was taken.

Yet, his freedom after leaving jail was short-lived.  In September 1860, Varela's body was found in the zanja madre (mother ditch supplying water for Los Angeles), having been stabbed to death in a crime that went unsolved.

Juan Carbajal went to trial on 14 July for grand larceny in stealing 2 horses from José Garcia, though there was complaint at the end of 1859 for the same charge in a crime committed against Fernando Sepulveda.  In the Garcia matter, Carbajal was found guilty and sentenced to four years at San Quentin--more about him in "The Big House" series of posts later.

As for George Watson, there was a case against him for grand larceny in the stealing of a horse from the livery stable of Taft and Edwards, but that was on 23 March and the district attorney filed a "nolle prosequi", or a decline to prosecute.  Perhaps, however, Watson was reindicted and retried, though there is no case file for this.

A case against José de la Cruz López for perjury in a horse theft case went to trial on 26 November 1860, but also ended with a "nolle prosequi" filing by the D.A.

Francisco Tapia was tried for grand larceny, not petty larceny as the census listing shows, in some kind of theft of property of Ira Thompson, a hotel keeper in El Monte, and was convicted on 16 March.  His sentence was the same as Varela, a $200 fine or 100 days in jail, and he, too, must've not had the funds to pay up, so served his time and was due to be released very soon after the census was taken.

There were no case files found for German, "Montion" or Goldstein and mayor's court cases against the Indians do not appear to have survived.

The next post will take up the 1870 census of the jail, so check back for that!

The Big House V: San Quentin State Prison and Los Angeles County Inmates

In the late January through mid-February 1855 term of the Los Angeles County Court of Sessions, three men were convicted of serious felonies warranting incarceration at San Quentin State Prison.

Clark Judson, a 21 year old native of Indiana, was sent up for grand larceny in the thirf of two steers from John R. Evertsen (who may be best known as the enumerator for the grossly undercounted 1850 federal census, actually taken in early 1851 and which was significantly improved upon by the state's only census taken in mid-1852).

Judson's trial was completed on 13 February and he was given five years. The following day Manuel Bojorquez and Enrique Cayetano had their day in court.  Bojorquez, who was 25 and a naive of Mexico, was up for a robbery charge, accused of stealing a pistol worth $40 from Jesus Soto.  Cayetano, a native of California who was just 17 years of age, was in the dock because of an assault with the intent to kill an Indian named Benigno by stabbing.  Bojorquez was given a five-year term, while Cayetano was sent up for three.

The trio were escorted up to San Quentin from Los Angeles by ship and were registered at the prison on 24 February.  Judson became prisoner 566 and was listed at 5'7 1/2" with a fair complexion, gray eyes and light (presumably, blond) hair.  He had scars on his forehead and the back of one hand as well as on a finger.  Bojorquez, prisoner 567, was 5'8" with a dark complextion and black hair and eyes.  He had a scar between his eyebrows and a mole on the corner of his right eye.  Cayetano was just under 5'4" and also was dark complexioned with black hair and eyes. He had scars on his right eyebrow, the bridge of his nose and between the thumb and forefinger of his left hand and a mole on his left cheek.

The register at San Quentin State Prison recorded the arrival on 24 February 1855 of convicts 566-568, being Clark Judson, Manuel Bojorquez and Enrique Cayetano.

Their fates could not have been more different.  Judson, even though he was within seven months or so of his release, escaped from custody on 3 July 1859 while he was boarding a newly built schooner called the "William Hicks" presumably to do some work "off campus" as a "trusty" [someone who was allowed more freedom, ostensibly because of good behavior.]

This break involving several prisoners was just about a week after a massive escape attempt involving over 40 convicts took place--one of them being the notorious bandit Tiburcio Vásquez. In fact, escapes were all-too-frequent in the early years of San Quentin. Judson's taste of freedom lasted a couple of months, but he was tracked down, captured and returned to prison on 14 September.  Notably, no time was added to Judson's sentence and he was released on schedule on 15 February 1860.

Bojorquez, however, was only at San Quentin about seven months when he died on the last day of September 1855.  Nothing has been located about the cause of death, though conditions at the prison were such that death from an illness is a strong possibility.  As for Cayetano, he quietly served out his term and was discharged as scheduled on 14 February 1858.

Speaking of escapes, the next entry in "The Big House" series will focus on three convicts sent up from Los Angeles County in April 1855, two of which escaped and one of these led a criminal gang that, in early 1857, killed Los Angeles County Sheriff James R. Barton and three members of a posse he formed to hunt the gang.

This Picture's Thousand Words: The Los Angeles City and County Jail, ca. 1870s

A stereoscopic photograph taken by Henry T. Payne in the first part of the 1870s from a hill takes in a panoramic view of a growing Los Angeles.  The town was in the midst of its first significant boom, with the population rising from about 6,000 in the 1870 census to approximately 15,000 within five years.  The first railroads came to town during that period, as did streetcars, banks, the first high school, a public library and a host of other additions and innovations.

What had not changed was the condition of the city and county jail, which has been often discussed on this blog.  In 1853, the city and county purchased the Rocha Adobe, the former townhouse of the family that once owned the Rancho La Brea west of town, from pioneer merchant Jonathan Temple.  The house, a long, narrow structure fronting the west side of Spring Street south of Temple and north of First, became an all-purpose municipal building, housing city and county offices and the courthouse.

In 1854, in the expansive courtyard behind the adobe, a two-story jail was constructed.  The first floor was adobe and used as the city lockup, while the second story was constructed of brick and housed county prisoners.  Grand jury reports and newspaper articles in succeeding years generally alternated between noting unclean, unsanitary and unhealthful conditions in the facility and stating that the jail was in decent repair, working order and cleanliness.  It is possible that much of this was dependent on the good offices of the jailer.

The county courthouse moved in the early 1860s just a bit north on Spring Street to Jonathan Temple's Market House, a two-story brick structure topped by a cupola with a clock on it and which failed, during a poor economy, as a commercial building with leased market stalls.

This detail of a stereoscopic photograph taken by Henry T. Payne in the first half of the 1870s shows the Market House at the top left, which served as the county courthouse and city hall from 1861 to  the late 1880s.  At the lower right is the Rocha Adobe, the courthouse from 1853 to 1861 and in its courtyard, closer to where Payne took the image on a hill to the west, is the two-story city and county jail, used until the mid-1880s.  The street at the lower right was known as Court Street and Jail Street, until the name Franklin was bestowed on it--this was used by Payne in his titling.  Spring Street runs just above the Rocha Adobe and Main just past the Market House/Courthouse.

The jail, however, remained in its location in the courtyard of the Rocha Adobe, which became a police station house.  In 1863, a mass lynching of five men (three American/European and two Latino) took place on the front veranda of the adobe.  Eight years later, during the horrors of the Chinese Massacre of 24 October 1871, several Chinese men were being led towards the jail, or were alleged to have been, when they were diverted to a local corral, used for the lynching of Michel Lachenais the previous December, and hung there.

The structure remained as the city jail even as Los Angeles experienced its first significant period of growth during the late 1860s to mid 1870s.  Then, after almost a decade of stagnation from 1876-1886, a renewed boom, usually denoted as the Boom of the Eighties, ensued after the completion of the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe transcontinental railroad link directly to the city in 1885.

With the Rocha Adobe jail over thirty years old and woefully inadequate even in some of its earlier years, it was time for a change.  A new jail was constructed nearby and opened in late 1886.  The adobe remained for a time, serving as a commercial structure and a well-known image of the building shows a real estate and insurance business and a railroad ticket office in the adobe.

As for the photo, it was taken from that hillside location looking east.  At the far left is the Market House, which remained the county courthouse and city hall until new facilities were built in the late 1880s, during the great boom of that era.  Main Street runs left to right behind that building and Spring Street in front of it.  The clock read 11:45 a.m., probably a good time to get a photo while the sun was off to the right or south!

The Rocha Adobe is the long, low structure at the lower right with what, in the 1870s was known as Franklin Street coming down from Payne's vantage point to meet Spring Street just to the right of the adobe.  In the courtyard behind the adobe and closer to Payne, is the two-story jail.  A variety of smaller structures and lean-tos are in the yard, as well, which looks to be in a generally well-kept a condition.

This photo was taken at a time, as mentioned above, when Los Angeles was in transition from a relatively isolated frontier town to a small, but growing city.  The image reflects that, as newer brick structures and some wooden ones, as well, are in the mix along with adobe buildings.  There were few distinctions between residential and commercial areas at the time, though clearly the latter were becoming more predominant in this part of town.  This was because the area south of Temple Street, along Main and Spring, was becoming the commercial district of the city.

Payne, an Illinois native who came to Los Angeles from Santa Barbara in the late 1860s, bought the photo studio and inventory of William M. Godfrey and reissued many of Godfrey's photos under his name, as well as took a great many images through the 1870s.  He was a partner with Thomas Stanton for a period in the 1880s and later worked as a journalist in San Francisco, before returning to the Los Angeles area, dying in Glendale in the early 1930s in his eighties.

"American Homicide" by Randolph Roth

Another interesting book on violence in the United States mentioned in John Mack Faragher's excellent Eternity Street, published earlier this year and detailing Los Angeles violence in the 19th century, is Randolph Roth's American Homicide.

This hefty 2009 book from Ohio State University Press, clocking in at 475 pages of text and almost 200 additional pages dealing with methods, sources, notes, references, acknowledgments and the index, is an exhaustive chronicing of homicide throughout American history.  In fact, sometimes the individual instances of heinous murders committed can be overwhelming.

What makes Roth's book significant is that he advocates the position that, when there is a basic mistrust in government; when government is ineffective and weak; when citizens do not feel connected to one another, generally patriotically; when people's ideas about violence are set and pased on; and when young men are involved, violence is likely to rise, sometimes dramatically.  He also points to the lack of empathy people feel about others as being contributory to the conditions that lead to endemic violence.

There could be lots of discussion about whether this thesis is as well-founded as Roth presents it, but it does seem true that, in frontier Los Angeles from the 1850s to the 1870s, some of these conditions were most definitely present, though he discussed this region sparsely in this section.  How we can know by the evidence, rather than by the circumstances, that this is true is another matter, especially if there may be particular factors in locality, demographics and time that might not reflect the general terms of the thesis.

In any case, Roth core discussion of the region and time in his book is about twenty pages, under the sub-heading "Homicide in the Southwest."  Obviously, the Southwest is an enormously large region with a great deal of differentiation in its component parts, from Texas to New Mexico to California, and the latter with its large area having differences between, say, the gold fields relative to San Francisco, Los Angeles or the far northern part of the state.

So, almost by the nature of Roth's decisions to look at the Southwest very broadly, a great deal of generalizations will be employed, but there is still much of interest and value in his summary.  This includes the staggering violence being reflective of the chaotic conditions of the Mexican-American War followed immediately by the Gold Rush.

Roth also identified the proclivity for violence among men coming from such areas as the American South, New York, southeastern China and central Mexico, places known for their violence.  Clearly, migrants coming to places that were on the frontier with gambling, drinking, consorting with prostitutes and so forth meant that homicide would be a major problem.

There is not a great deal about Los Angeles in this book, but American Homicide provides interesting and useful context for violence in the City of Angels on national and sectional levels.

Many incidents were spontaneous, stemming from fights in bars, brothels and gambling halls, but others "stemmed from political, ethnic, racial, or religious conflict, from vigilante and predatory violence, or from personal quarrels or property disputes."  Copious amounts of alcohol and prodigious levels of testoterone, amplified among those who valued honor and self-defense as cardinal virtues were even more dangerous with the improvement in the technology of guns, such as the Colt revolver.

Roth wrote that, for most of the Southwest, "it was obvious that there was no stable, legitimate government or reliable legal system." Moreover, "there was a marked shortage of empathy, especially among people of different ethnic backgrounds, and earning status and respect was a struggle."  Economic inequality compounded by prejudice and discrimination towards ethnic minorities made matters worse and this, Roth posed, led to greater violence within ethnic groups as frustrations led to internal battles.  When people are at "the bottom of the social hierarchy," there are likely to lash out at people of their own ethnic group.

He also observed that the Mexican-American War "left the region in a state of near anarchy," then followed later with a discussion of the sudden shock that the Gold Rush brought to California with its massive migration, ethnic diversity, preponderance of young, single men, access to alcohol and guns, and so on.

Political divisions were strong in the postwar era with Latinos and Indians bitter about the American conquest and Anglos fighting over such issues as ethnicity, immigration "and the distribution of the spoils of conquest."  Here, Roth claimed that these probpems made it difficult for "any government to represent the values and interests of the majority of citizens or to win their trust" and "the rapid oinflux of so many alien cultures did little to help foster harmony."

This blogger has found that, in Los Angeles, there were certainly many instances of racial discord and battles over political positions and issues, but there were also many concerns about the ineffectiveness of government and the legal system to mitigate crime and adjudicate cases to convict those committing crime.

With a general lack of interethnic crime, at least compared to intraethnic violence, trust and harmony may have had less to do with the eruption of violence than personal matters like pride and status or the uncertainty of what young men might do when raging with testosterone and plied with copious alcohol.  Moreover, what Roth calls "kinship" that brought a more settled environment to the region might also be called "dominance" by one ethnic group (Anglos) over the others in the political and economic speheres.

Roth's analysis of the brutality of the Mexican-American War, which was largely, in his view, "to carry slavery, Protestantism, and white supremacy into the Mexican borderlands" is mostly written with an eye on Texas and the specific conditions there.  While California certainly had its share of slavery-sympathizing southerners, Protestants and white supremacists, conditions were different than those of Texas, even in "southern" California.  This is not to suggest that the situation was the opposite of Texas, but there were examples of relationships forged, more on social and economic class, between wealthier Californios and Anglos, at least until the latter had a significant majority in population and power after the 1870s.

The statement that Los Angeles had some 200 homicides per 100,000 adults through the mid-1860s can be questioned, based on sources, definitions of homicide and how homicides occurred, but there is no question it had a high rate compared to most places in America and that there was a significant drop by the 1870s as government was more stable, law enforcement improved, and the population included more women and children, to give some examples.

There is also discussion in the book about the ruthlessness of "Mexican guerrillas" and bandits, though, again, his focus is further east in New Mexico and northern Mexico or in northern California, which also experienced the brutality of the Bear Flag revolt of 1846 and the extraordinary violence of the gold mines in northern California in following years.

Roth does devote a small amount of space to the horrific Chinese Massacre of October 1871 in Los Angeles, correctly noting that Anglos and Latinos both pursued victims mostly indiscriminately.  This is followed by a statement about the perceived Chinese threat to Anglo labor through examples in Chico in the north of the state.  Yet, in Los Angeles, while labor might possibly have played some role, fundamental racism and hatred, including by Latinos who saw their historic neighborhood of the Calle de los Negros occupied by the Chinese, are almost certainly the major motivations.

As for Indians, Los Angeles is briefly mentioned with regard to alleged inter-Indian slaughter after a game of peon (mentioned previously in this blog), after which it was claimed 50 Indians were killed.  The systematic rooting out of Indians in the north was pervasive, but in Los Angeles there are little examples of Anglos or Latinos killing Indians, though the treatment by both of native peoples in terms of labor exploitation, targeted sales of liquor and other issues was, in in its own way, brutal by other standards.

Roth also analyzed Latino violence, stating that "it is likely that immigrants from Spain, Mexico, Chile, and Peru brought violent habits with them and contributed to the homicide problem" and that "murders across national lines was probably common."  He claimed that "murders among unrelated Hispanics were usually caused by spontaneous disputes" including fights in taverns, whorehouses and dances, though this was also, as Roth noted, true among Anglos, as well, particular among the working class.

Roth is certainly correct in stating that murder declined "as law enforcement improveed, the pace of immigration slowed, and more families and family-oriented businesses appeared" by the mid-1860s.  Still, rates afterward were generally much higher than elsewhere in the United States as frontier life continued to hold sway in much of the Southwest.  Yet, as he observed, California "remained one of the most homicidal places in the United States—and one of the most homicidal in all of American history." California's divisiveness, in Roth's opinion, mirrored that of the South after the Civil War and he linked the two regions together historically by claiming "that is why homicide rates among Anglos in California, like homicide rates among whites in the South, remain elevated to this day."

This latter statement is very interesting and is one that could be debated in terms of trying to link conditions of 150 years ago with those of modern life, even if the statistics seem to bear the statement out.  Weren't the conditions of the Gold Rush very specific to that place and time?  Aren't the conditions of early 21st century life, even if linked very broadly by some elements (economic dislocation, racial tension, acting out of frustration because of inequality, spontaneous violence), so different that they have their own interpretive storylines?

In all, for those interested in America's peculiar homicidal history, Roth's book should be read and considered as essential.  The anecdotal catalog of violence can be mind-numbing and some of his conclusions might be reasonably debated, but he makes many good points about rising violence in times of poor government and criminal justice administration, as well as racial and ethnic tension.  Los Angeles is rarely discussed and in generalized terms, but there is still a lot of context to absorb and appreciate in this very interesting study.

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, 1857

The year 1857 began with the horrific ambush of Sheriff James R. Barton and four members of the posse he led against a gang of thieves, known as the Flores-Daniel Gang, who had been committing robberies and a murder at San Juan Capistrano.  This incident has been discussed in detail here in this blog.

The first meeting of the year was on the 28th, soon after the murders, and the board's primary business was to order that the vacancies of the office of sheriff and for the two constables, Charles Baker and William Little, killed in the incident be filled.  The board then set the date of 7 February for their next meeting and to make those appointments.

Four of the five members, Manuel Dominguez being absent, were present and the chair was Tomás Sánchez, whose service under Andrés Pico, in the manhunt to capture the killers was very important.

A new supervisor was El Monte resident Richard C. Fryer, who was among that town's settlers in 1852.  An ordained Baptist minister, the first in the Los Angeles region, Fryer later moved to the town of Spadra, founded by former El Monte settler William W. Rubottom, in what is now Pomona and served in the state assembly.

Another neophyte to the board was San Gabriel-area farmer William M. Stockton, who was among the first to travel across Death Valley in 1849 on his way to the newly discovered gold fields of California.  In 1852, Stockton, who did well in the mines, moved to Los Angeles and acquired part of the Huerta de Cuati, a grant of land made to native Indian Victoria Reid.  Stockton acquired what was known as the "Pear Orchard," a remnant of the Mission San Gabriel's former fruit orchards and where he had a vineyard, and moved into an adobe home in what is now San Marino.  When times were bad in the drought-ridden mid-1860s, Stockton lost the property to two men, including his fellow Death Valley traveler William M. Manly, whose published reminiscences were widely read.  He remained in the area, however, and died in 1894.  Stockton was among those present when Miguel Soto, said to have been in the Flores-Daniel gang, and a few other Latinos were killed by San Gabriel-area citizens just as this meeting took place--his role is not certain, however.

Then there was Jonathan R. Scott, who has been mentioned in this blog before several times.  A native of New York, who lived in Missouri for a period, Scott abandoned a wife and children in his home state when he moved west.  Upon arriving in Los Angeles in 1850, he opened a law practice and was a justice of the peace.  He was the 6'4" giant who could reach up and crush termite-ridden ceiling joists in the Rocha Adobe courthouse not long before his election to the board, though he didn't complete his term.  Scott died in 1864 in Los Angeles, having owned considerable property downtown and a vineyard in what is today Burbank.

The four supervisors each voted for a candidate: Charles E. Hale, a lawman mentioned here before; El Monte resident Frank Gentry, John Reed, whose father-in-law, John Rowland, owned half of the massive Rancho La Puente in the eastern San Gabriel Valley, and Elijah Bettis, also mentioned in the last post.  After a second route stalemate, it was decided to wait until the next meeting, presumably with Dominguez, who was owner of the Rancho San Pedro and a delegate to the 1849 constitutional convention, could cast the deciding vote.  Meantime, William H. Peterson was appointed to serve out Little's term as constable, but Baker's position was not filled.

On the 14th, again with Dominguez assumed to be present, Baker's constable slot was filled by B.B. Barker and the vote was to appoint Bettis as sheriff.

The 2 March meeting contained more material related to the Flores-Daniel gang, in which District Attorney Cameron E. Thom suggested that the board appoint someone to petition the state legislature for approval of funds as provided for in a statute "to suppress armed banditti," in both Los Angeles and San Bernardino counties which was passed on 4 February in response to the Barton massacre.

Benjamin D. Wilson, a former city clerk and mayor in Los Angeles and later supervisor and state senator, who moved to the same Huerta de Cuati mentioned above and established his "Lake Vineyard" estate, where San Marino's Lacy Park is situated, was appointed to this task of obtaining a warrant from the state and, if the funds were not available from the treasury, to sell the warrant for cash.  The monies were to go into a special fund called the "Fund to Provide for the Arrest and Suppression of Bands of Armed Banditti in the County of Los Angeles."

This editorial from the Los Angeles Star, 25 April 1857, discusses the "disorganized state" in Los Angeles County that kept the region from assuming the "position and prospects" it deserved.  See below for the rest of the piece.

At the same meeting, Thom suggested that the board also approach the legislature about approving a special tax of 1/8 of 1% of the county's assessed property value for payment of the debt attached to the court house.

When three weeks later, on the 23rd, a special meeting was called to deal with unfinished business that did "serious injury" to the county, discussion was had about the county's finances going back to the previous summer and the meetings continued for two days, but there was no record of what transpired.  It was revealed at that meeting that Scott resigned and his replacement, former Los Angeles mayor, state senator, and constitutional convention delegate, Stephen C. Foster (who famously resigned the mayoralty to participate in the early 1855 lynching of convicted murderer, David Brown, and then was promptly returned to the office in the resulting special election), was elected chair.

In meetings in April and May, lists of jurors who served at the recent terms of the Court of Sessions and District Court were provided.  The last post noted that this was a new feature of the minutes and the ethnic breakdown of these juries have been the focus of speculation about whether justice in these courts was possible when the juries were so skewed towards European and American membership.

For these two months, the proportions were obvious.  Of 120 men listed, 17, of only 14%, had Spanish-language surnames.  In November, a smaller list of Sessions jurors, showed 3 of 21, also 14%, were Latino  Yet, surviving case files with dispositions noted for trials do not appear to suggest any bias solely because of jury composition given the relatively close rate of convictions for defendants who were Latino compared to those who were Anglo.

At the 8 May meeting of the board, there was a list of payments made out to those who provided a variety of materials and services in the hunt for the Flores-Daniel Gang.  These included medical care by doctors, the rent of rooms to posses, the hiring of horses, sundry supplies, food, ammunition and the building of gallows and provision of coffins for the men who were summarily executed (lynched).

Of the total of 51 items, about a third were from persons with Spanish-language surname, a notable point given that some historians argue that Flores and Daniel were vaguely identified "social bandits," who emjoyed substantial support and succor from fellow Latinos.  Whether this was true or not, it appears there were some Latinos who were willing, or perhaps were forced in some circumstances as there is no way to tell, to provide aid to those hunting the bandits.  In early November, another 12 persons were reimbursed for ammunition, horses and supplies.

An important financial matter was addressed at the meeting of 5 August, which was a levy of 35 cents on every 100 dollars of assessed property for expenses for the maintenance of the jail, always a major expense for the county, as well as payments on the Rocha Adobe, which comprised the court house and city and county offices, with the jail in its rear courtyard.

At the same meeting, the board voted, correspondingly, to increase the allowance, taken from the Jail Fund, for prisoner maintenance to 75 cents for each "white" person, including Latinos, and 50 cents per Indian.  Jailor Francis Carpenter had his salary increased to $1600 per year, though it was also resolved that

the jailor is to furnish at his own proper cost the necessary lights, water, wood, and to keep the jail in good order, and also to furnish the prisoners with good, wholesome food.  He is also to have the jail swept and whitewashed when necessary for which purpose the County is to furnish the necessary brooms and whitewash

In the September county election, there was only one candidate for county judge, incumbent William G. Dryden, but whether it was because of his popularity, or the difficulty and lack of desirability for the job cannot be determined.  The race for sheriff was between John Reed, who was one of four candidates for appointment earlier in the year after Barton's death, and Los Angeles marshal William C. Getman, who was reelected to that post (it was possible then to hold both!).  The campaign for district attorney was decisive, when Ezra Drown bested Samuel R. Campbell, 1262 to 107.  The new Los Angeles justices of the peace were Russell Sackett and Narciso Botello, the latter a long-time member of the Californio elite, but one of the few to hold elected office in those days.  Constables elected were Frank H. Alexander and Robert A. Hester, both of whom were to serve for extended periods in those positions.

The second portion of the Star editorial of 25 April 1857.

In San Gabriel, Roy Bean, mentioned in the last post and who later went on to be a notorious Texas judge, barely secured election by one vote over Felipe Valenzuela as a constable.  Another interesting character in town, disgraced former Los Angeles marshal, Alviron S. Beard, ran for justice of the peace but garnered only 3 votes!  

Then there was William W. Jenkins, the young deputy constable mentioned in the last post and previously in the blog.  After his killing of Antonio Ruiz in July 1856, which led to a standoff between Spanish-speakers and Anglos in Los Angeles and near violence, and, after his acquittal, Jenkins unsuccessfully sought a constable's position (but his loss saved his life, probably, because he would have been with Sheriff Barton when that massacre took place.)  In any case, Jenkins moved to the San Pedro township, by the harbor, and won election there as a constable.

At El Monte, a young man, Andrew Jackson King, whose family was embroiled in at least two Southern-style feuds in the 1850s and 1860s, was elected a constable.  He later went on to be a newspaper publisher, city attorney, judge , assembly member, and ran a prviate law practice for many years, dying in his 90th year.

At the 30 September meeting, there was an interesting reference to a District Court civil case in which jailor Carpenter was sued by the people and a judgment of $2500 was found against him--the matter needs further research, but it would appear it had something to do with his claims for fees and services.

Perhaps not coincidentally, at the 5 November meeting with the new board seated, his compensation was slashed to $3 per day (a good $500 or more reduction annually) and the prisoner maintenance costs were reduced to 50 cents a head with no distinction between whites and Indians.  It is possible that the worsening post-Gold Rush economy (a national depression also broke out in 1857) was the cause of the reductions, however.

In the last post, it was noted that payments for the purchase of the Rocha Adobe for the court house and city and county offices were being made to Luis Jordan, who held a note on the property before it was sold by the Rochas to Jonathan Temple, who then conveyed the adobe and lot for $3160 to the city and county.  At the 5 November meeting, the board authorized payment of over $2200 to Jordan's minor daughter, who had an appointed guardian, vineyardist Mathew Keller, for her interest in the structure.

Finally, another disgraced city marshal's situation came before the board at this meeting.  Alfred Shelby, who skipped bail and headed to Mexico as he was being readied for trial in a homicide he committed, had a surety who posted a bond for Shelby's good conduct in office.  The same situation applied to two Latinos for another individual and the board resolved to these three parties could satisfy and cancel in county scrip (an IOU) their forfeited amounts of bond within ten days.  Otherwise, District Attorney Drown was empowered to pursue legal action in court to recover those funds.

It was quite a busy year in 1857 and the situation would be calmer the following year as the next post will discuss.