William Lewis Manly and Early Los Angeles Crime

The Death Valley '49ers were among the best-known migrants to California of the masses of gold seekers and others who came to the Pacific coast in the early stages of Gold Rush.  Among their number was William Lewis Manly, whose memoir, Death Valley in '49, first appeared in print in 1894.

The horrors of the trip across Death Valley are the focus of the work, but, for the purposes of this blog, the interest is more related to Manly's arrival in Los Angeles in early 1850, after surviving the ordeal in the desert and then a return visit a little more than two years later.

It was March 1850, when he straggled into town, noting that

the houses were only one story high and seemed built of mud of a gray color, the roofs flat, and the streets almost deserted . . . we could not see any way to make a living here.  There was no land cultivated and not a fence, nothing to require labor of any kind . . . in our walk about this city of mud we saw many things that seemed strange to us.  There were more women than men, and more children than grown-up people, while the dogs were plenty.

There was an explanation, of course, for the demographic oddities that Manly discerned, as "the majority of the male inhabitants of this town had gone to the mines, and this accounted for the unusual proportion of women."  Then, before winter set in, he continued, "we learned that they would return in November, and then the gambling houses would start up in full blast . . ."

Evidently Manly did not stay around long enough on his first visit to Los Angeles to find out what "full blast" in the gambling dens of town could often lead to, but on his return to the City of Angeles in summer 1852, he did.

First, though, he discovered that one of the members of his expedition had arrived in Los Angeles a couple of months ahead of him.  In January 1850, Lewis Granger came to the town and quickly disavowed any idea of heading for the mines.  Instead, he became part-owner of a boarding house, before deciding to follow the occupation he had before coming to California—being an attorney.

In fact, when Manly returned to Los Angeles, he stated: "[Jonathan R.] Scott and Granger were lawyers.  Granger was the same man who read the preamble and resolutions that were to govern our big train as we were about to start from Utah Lake [Salt Lake City].  Scott was quite a noted member of the bar . . ."

What attracted Manly's attention more, though, was the fact that

the country was overstocked with desperate and lawless renegades in Los Angeles, and from one to four dead men was about the number picked uyp in the streets each morning.  They were low class, and there was no investigation, simply a burial at public expense.

As discussed in this blog previously, the statement that there was about a murder a day in Los Angeles during the time Manly was talking about, or slightly afterward, was expressed in print by other memorists, including merchant Harris Newmark and Horace Bell, whose colorful and embellished recollections have been recounted here at some length.

Other sources indicate that, while the homicide rate was astronomically high by modern or even contemporary standards, there was nowhere near the level of violence recorded by these writers, who may have inflated their figures to further dramatize their recollections.

This 1843 drawing purports to show what "Mexican Gentlemen" looked like.  William Lewis Manly, in his 1894 memoir, lauded the honesty, benevolence, and charity of Californios.

In any case, it is interesting to read how Manly saw the ethnic mixture in Los Angeles, writing, "the permanent Spanish [that is, Californio] population seemed honest and benevolent, but there were many bad ones from Chile, Sonora, Mexico, Texas, Utah, and Europe, who seemed always on an errand of mischief, a murder, thieving, or robbery."

Manly also had kind words to say about the Californios because of the assistance he was given by them after his travails during his trip to the region, stating

I became well acquainted with many of these old California natives, and found them honest in their dealings, good to the needy, and in all my travels never found more willing hands to bestow upon relatives, friends, or strangers ready relief than I saw among these simple natives.

Many American and European writers of the era expressed outright hostility and racism towards Spanish-speakers in California, so it is notable to see Manly's views, even if "simple" could be construed as paternalistic, or merely as "salt of the earth".

Several months before the murder of Joshua Bean, a former Indian-fighting militia general turned saloon owner, in the mission town of San Gabriel, Manly related a different event related to popular justice in that community.

Evidently, there were four men observed near the mission and acting suspiciously, so based 

on this information the Vigilance Committee arrested the man [the other three apparently having escaped] in camp and brought him to a private room, where he was tried by twelve men, who found him guilty of horse stealing and sentenced [him] to be hung at once, for horse stealing was a capital offense in those days

It was true that, for a time, grand larceny could be punishable by death after a trial, but there was no such example found in Los Angeles County during the brief time the statute was in effect.  More likely, the Vigilance Committee [where a standing or an ad hoc one] was applying its own stautory standards.

Manly continued,

To carry out the sentence they procured a car, put a box on it for a seat, and with a rope around his neck and seated on the box, the condemned man was dragged off by hand to an oak tree not far away, whither he was followed by all the men, women, and children of the place, who were nearly all natives [Californios, probably].

After some of the unnamed man's friends were alerted to the situation, they arrived

to try to save his life.  They talked and inquired around a little and then proposed the question whether to hang him or to turn him over to the lawful authorities for regular trial.  This was put to a vote and it was decided to spare him now.  So the rope was taken off his neck, and he was turned over to Mr. [J.S.] Mallard, the mission justice of the peace, much to the relief of the fellow who saw death staring him in the face.

Manly's description of this narrowly-averted lynching is not found elsewhere and, obviously, cannot be corroborated.  If true, however, it is a rare example of a popular tribunal electing to rescind its own verdict and death sentence.

Also rare is to find first-person sources of life in early American-era Los Angeles and particularly that dealing with crime, violence and the administration of justice.  Manly's memoir is an interesting one on many grounds and well-worth including and considering in any accounting of these issues.