The Los Angeles Common Council and Criminal Justice, 1855

In late 1854, a spate of murders rocked the city and county of Los Angeles.  Three, in particular, struck a chord with residents frustrated with continuing high rates of violence and the seeming inability of local officials to respond effectively.

One incident involved a feud in El Monte, in which Frederick Leatherman was shot and killed by William B. Lee.  While El Monte was known for its violence, due in no small part to a "culture of honor" practiced by its large population of men from the Southern states, this crime took place in the context of a pair of other high-profile homicides.

Just east of El Monte, across the San Gabriel River, which at the time flowed in the channel of today's Rio Hondo, James Ellington was found dead along what is now Valley Boulevard and Felipe Alvitre, a member of a large Californio family which settled in the Misión Vieja community, south of El Monte, was tracked down and arrested for the crime.

Finally, there was the shooting death of Pinckney Clifford in a Los Angeles livery stable by David Brown, a former constable who lost an election for city marshal in the early 1850s.  Brown was known for his criminal dealings and this incident occasioned a public meeting at a hotel, in which an immediate lynching seemed to be a consensus view until mayor Stephen C. Foster arrived.

Foster was an arrival from Maine in the Mexican era, married a daughter of redoubtable rancher Antonio María Lugo, and an alcalde (roughly mayor) in the transitional period after the American conquest of Alta California.  When Foster mounted a table to deliver an impassioned speech insisting that the courts be allowed to try the case and demonstrate their ability to delivery justice, talk of lynching ceased.  It helped that Foster offered to resign his office and join the vigilantes should justice be denied.

Given this popular sentiment and the blatant support of extralegal justice by the new weekly paper, the Southern Californian, it may not be surprising that a District Court jury quickly found Lee, Alvitre and Brown guilty of first-degree murder and sentenced all to be hung.  Lee and Brown, however, had stays of execution granted by the state supreme court and it was said Alvitre's request was misdelivered en route.

Lee did not appear to engender the emotion, though, that Brown did.  So, when Alvitre was legally hung in early January 1855 and Lee trembled in his cell, but went untouched, the growing crowd outside the jail bayed for Brown's blood.  Sure enough, Foster arrived, resigned his office, took up his place in the mob and participated in Brown's lynching.

On 13 January, the Los Angeles Common [City] Council received a written resignatin from Foster and promptly called for a special election to replace him for the 25th.  However, harsh words were offered for Marshal George W. Cole, who'd been elected the previous spring.  The council issued a resolution condemning

the improper conduct of the Marshal of the City, of which the council is satisfied, resolved, that the office of Marshal is hereby declared vacant, and that the same be filled by election on the same day & time that the Mayor should be elected.

Cole clearly did not, in the council's view, offer much of a resistance to the mob that took Brown from the jail to his doom.  The council appointed John H. Hughes, who had been a special policeman on appointment from the body, to be an "agent of police" while the marshal's office was vacant.

Less than a week later, council member and former mayor Antonio Franco Coronel resigned, though his reason for so doing was unstated.  Notably, the same day, 19 January, a petition was received by the council from 150 citizens calling for a reduction in the license issued for selling liquor.  Given that a goodly proportion of the violence in Los Angeles came from intoxication, this effort did not bode well for efforts to reduce mayhem in the City of Angels.

This 7 March 1855 article from the Southern Californian lambasts its rival, the Star and its "Waite-ty" editor, James S. Waite, concerning "Indians and Sonorians" who escaped from the city and county jail and who Waite felt were the main participants in the lynching of David Brown in mid-January.   The Southern Californian, however, noted that "some of our most worthy citizens" were involved in the hanging, while not naming Mayor Stephen C. Foster., who resigned his seat to participate and was rewarded by being reinstated by voters at a special election days later.

The day after the election, the council met and was informed that the successor to the vigilante mayor was none other than Foster himself.  Unquestionably, enough of his fellow citizens supported his actions to deliver him back to office comfortably.  The new marshal was Alfred Shelby.

The business of the council was quiet and mundane for a period, though a new citizen militia, the City Guards was formed in those first weeks of 1855, likely as a response to the increase in crime.  In March, the council resolved to pay the paramilitary organization $50 "to be appropriated towards the payment of rent, exclusively for such length of time as said corps shall act in conjunction with the City authorities whenever called upon in support of the laws and the peace of said city."  By April, the City Guards had its headquarters in the home of Francis Mellus, who had recently vacated his council seat to serve in the state legislature.

In May, the annual elections were held and Stephen Foster did not stand for reelection.  His successor, Thomas Foster, was a doctor who was unrelated to his predecessor and who defeated council secretary William G. Dryden in a narrow contest of 192-179 votes.  The following year, 1856, Stephen Foster returned to the mayoralty and Dryden won the first of several terms as county judge.

Thomas Foster's message was the first to be printed in the council minutes and noted "the unrighteous traffic in spirits carried on between small vendors and Indians . . . [which led to] the disgusting scenes too often witnessed in our streets."  Foster, therefore, sought to more strictly enforce ordinances concerning this trade.  He also made reference to the fact that "the crimes of former years are fast departing from our midst" and added that "I would fain hope that under the benign influence of our equal laws, and by a just and fearless administration of our Municipal government, peace and prosperity may reign uninterruptedly."

Pretty words, to be sure, but hardly reflective of the reality of Gold Rush-era Los Angeles, but it was true that, after the tumult of the first days of the year, matters did settle down appreciably for most of the rest of 1855.

In fact, one of the principal items of busines in the middle portion of the year had to do with the continuing poor conditions of the city and county jail only lately built in 1854.  For example, when a committee of the council was assigned to report on the need for a reconstruction of the privy, the response was that such work was not possible.  Therefore, the council ordered the jailor, Francis Carpenter, "to purchase such vessels, as are indispensably necessary for the use of city prisoners confined & under his charge in the City Jail."  This seems to indicate the use of chamber pots!

Then, in late July, there was the need for the county to ask for the city's help in rebuilding "the fallen adobe wall which encloses the City and County jail" and city prisoners were requisitioned to help with that project.  Towards the end of the year, mundane business continued concerning the City Guards and support from the city, the need to extra policement to assist Marshal Shelby in September, a petition of citizens to repeal the onerous ordinance limiting horse riding to 5 miles per hour or less on city streets, and vacancies that cropped up on the council.  By the end of the year, city attorney Lewis Granger reported to the council of "a growing evil" in the theft of cattle within the city and a committee of attorney and council member Ezra Drown and Henry Uhlbrook wer called upon to investigate this issue.

At the same meeting, Marshal Shelby was granted an extraordinary leave of absence of six weeks starting 8 December.  As the new year dawned, Shelby wound up being another of those city marshals who proved to be a problem for the city--that story is coming soon.

1855 came to a close with Common Council member Paul R. Hunt got into a battle royale with jailor Francis Carpenter that including Hunt shooting and nearly killing Carpenter, as noted in this 22 December 1855 article.

Meanwhile, the year ended with a brawl between councilman Paul R. Hunt and jailor Carpenter, reported in the Star of 22 December, "for no other reason, as we are informed, than because Hunt voted against allowing a certian bill that Carpenter had presented to the Board for approval."  When Carpenter was found guilty of simple assault before a Justice of the Peace, Hunt, not satisfied with the $10 fine and costs that served as the sentence,

armed himself, and meeting Mr. C. last Saturday near the Court House, without any warning whatever, shot at him, wounding him severely, the ball passing through his arm and lodging in his side.  Although for a time the wound was considered fatal, we are happy in being able to state the Mr. Carpenter is now recovering . . .

It was bad enough to have criminals roaming the streets of Los Angeles in significant numbers, but to have a council member, jailer and marshal all engaging in their own forms of criminal mischief,  Thomas Foster's claims of better days were clearly belied!