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.

The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors and Criminal Justice, 1856

The year 1856 marked the fourth full year of the existence of the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors.  One of the newer elements of the minutes that started around this time was lists of jurors called for the several courts.

For example, the meeting of 9 February provided names of jurors who served in the lates term of both the Court of Sessions (renamed the County Court in 1864) and the District Court.  As noted here before, the Sessions court heard most criminal matters, excepting the most serious, such as murder, rape and, sometimes, arson, which were heard at the higher-level District Court.

At this meeting there were two dozen men attending each court and a breakdown of general ethnic categories, stated for this blog as "Spanish-language surnamed" and "American and European", showed that 9 of the 24 at the Court of Sessions and 4 of the 24 at the District Court had Spanish-language surnames.

The 4 June meeting provides lists of 55 jurors for the Sessions court and a dozen for the District Court.  In this case, while 10 of the Sessions jurors had Spanish-language surnames, 9 of the 12 at District Court did.  On 6 August, all dozen list jurors for the Sessions court were American or European.

With the unusual proportion of Spanish-language jurors at the District Court, as reported in early June, the total representation of 127 listed jurors for the year showed 32 had Spanish-language surnames, or about 1/4 of the total.

While Spanish-speakers were a solid majority of the population of the county then, it should be remembered that jurors were taken from the rolls of taxpayers in the county.  However, state law also provided that jurors were to be selected at random from those rolls according to specific instructions, though whether statute was complied with is another matter.

It has been stated by some historians, notably Richard Griswold del Castillo in his 1979 work Los Angeles Barrio that the low proportion of Spanish-surnamed jurors meant that defendants of the same classification could not get justice in Los Angeles' courts.  Del Castillo's analysis of jury composition largely squares with what this blogger has found.  The problem is that jury composition is only part of the equation--the better portion is to look at those cases that contain dispositions and then see what the conviction and acquittal rates show.

In hundreds of cases analyzed by this blogger, it was found that conviction rate differences between Spanish-language surnamed and American and European defendants actually narrowed over time, even as jury composition became even more skewed towards Americans and Europeans.  This runs counter to del Castillo's assertions, though it has to be said that there were many cases without disposition, some missing, and, besides, the dynamics of what drove any individual jury set to decide a case cannot be easily squared with statistics, either way.

As noted in the last several entries, financial matters also are a crucial part of what is found in these minutes, especially because criminal justice administration took up the lion's share of the county's expenditures and because, all too often, revenues were just not enough to keep pace.

Much of the expense had to do with maintenace of the jail, but sometimes revenue shortfalls came into place.  So, at the 11 February meeting, Francis J. Carpenter, the jailor had over $1600 in bills, but for the lion's share of that, he was expended 60 cents to the dollar "equivalent to cash," which sounds like scrip (or, basically, an IOU).  Yet, the next day, the board agreed to raise Carpenter's daily rate of compensation to $5.33.

On 3 June, he issued a claim to the board for another $1444.16.  Two days later, the board voted to issue more scrip to Carpenter for his bills.  In November, after another round of submitted bills by the jailor, the board voted to give him just 40 cents to the dollar in scrip.

Another financial matter had to do with the Rocha Adobe, which was purchased by the county from merchant Jonathan Temple in 1853 and which housed the courts and city and county offices.  In the courtyard behind the adobe which faced Spring Street, the two-story city and county jail was located.  In 1855, there had been an issue with a clear title and it appears that unresolved matters continued into 1856, because at the 12 February meeting, Luis Jordan presented a claim based on an assignment of an interest in the lot given to him by Antonio F. Rocha before the sale.  After discussion, the board agreed to give Rocha a receipt for $500 for a joint warrant on the property to settle Jordan's claim.

For unknown reasons, there are gaps in the record from 12 February to 5 May and then again to 2 June.  An interesting problem that confronted the supervisors in early June was a sudden spate of vacancies in the most of the justice of the peace offices in most of the county's townships, either because of resignations or failure of qualifications discovered quite a bit late after the September 1855 county election.

This map from about the 1890s, shows downtown Los Angeles from Temple Street, top (north) to above First Street, bottom (south) and from Main, right (east) , to Broadway, left (west.)  The court house and jail in the Rocha Adobe, bought from Jonathan Temple, from 1854 on were located at the corner of Spring Street and what was called Jail or Court and then later Franklin Street at the lower center, where the Phillips Block No. 1, built by Pomona-area rancher Louis Phillips, is shown.  Note that the 1889 Court House was moved just slightly northwest of the Rocha Adobe site and due west of where the courthouse was located in Temple's Market House, on which site the Bullard Block was built about 1890, between Market and Court streets at the right center.  The Bullard Block and Temple Block, to its north, sites are now where city hall is located and Main and Spring have been straightened.

In any case, the board quickly appointed replacements for the remaining couple of months before the upcoming election.  One for the sparsely populated northern reaches of the county in the Tejon Township, where Fort Tejon had recently been founded, was Samuel A. Bishop.  Bishop, a native of Virginia, was a Gold Rush '49er who became involved in Indian wars and the transfer of natives to a new reservation in the Tejon Sinks.  He acquired to Rancho Castac [Castaic] and also briefly had a ranch in the upper Owens Valley during the early 1860s, for which a new town, Bishop, was named in his honor.  He lived in San Jose until his death in 1893.

At El Monte, Elijah Bettis, who came from Missouri to the "American town" settled a few years earlier, became the justice of the peace.  He left the office later to become deputy sheriff to James Barton, who lost his reelection campaign to the board of supervisors, but won election returning him as sheriff.  When Barton gathered a small posse just a few weeks into his term to hunt bandits at San Juan Capistrano, he left Bettis in Los Angeles and then was massacred with his compatriots.   Bettis became sheriff and served until the term was up and was later water overseer for Los Angeles.

Russell Sackett, the appointee for Los Angeles township, outside the town limits, was from New York and was an attorney there before he came to California in the Gold Rush and wound up in Los Angeles.  He practiced law, was superintendent of public instruction, postmaster and a one-term member of the state assembly, in addition to being a JP.  He died in Los Angeles in 1875.

San Pedro township's appointed justice was Thomas Workman, whose family arrived in 1854 from Missouri to join Thomas' uncle, William, co-owner of Rancho La Puente in the eastern San Gabriel Valley.  Although only 24 years old Workman demonstrated administrative ability and was a valued employee, as chief clerk, of Phineas Banning and his growing mercantile empire at the harbor area.  Workman, who lost a run for county clerk in the early 1860s, died in the April 1863 explosion of the steamer Ada Hancock, owned by Banning.

At San Juan Capistrano, Irish-born Thomas J. Scully, accounted as the first teacher in what later became Orange County and who married into the prominent Yorba family, was appointed JP, while he was engaged in his teaching duties.  He later lived in Corona in what became Riverside County and died there in 1895.

Yet another justice of the peace vacancy opened up in late October, when Los Angeles township JP Alexander Gibson died and Thomas F. Swim was appointed in his stead.

In the 3 June minutes, there was mention made in the minutes to 21-year old William W. Jenkins as a deputy constable--meaning that, unlike constables, who were elected, Jenkins was appointed by the local justice of the peace.  Jenkins, whose mother and step-father Elizabeth and George Dalton (the latter's brother was Henry Dalton, owner of several San Gabriel Valley ranches), came to town earlier in the decade and joined, at age 18, the Los Angeles Rangers, when the organization was formed in 1853.

A little over a month later, Jenkins was given a writ of attachment for a $50 debt in a civil matter before justice of the peace Gibson to serve on Antonio Ruiz.  When Jenkins tried to seize a guitar to satisfy the write, a struggle broke out with Ruiz and his common-law wife, and Jenkins shot and killed Ruiz who grabbed the deputy constable from behind during the altercation.

In the aftermath, a group of Latinos and French residents of Los Angeles gathered on a hill above the jail where Jenkins was confirned, after initially being freed on his own recognizance without bail, and tensions rose to a point where a riot was feared.

Eventually, after Marshal William Getman was grazed by a bullet in a foray to determine the position of those on the hill, the situation calmed.  Jenkins was acquitted on a manslaughter charge as was alleged ringleader of the hilltop gathering, Fernando Carriaga, tried for intent to incite a riot.

Notably, the board suspended meetings for a time, almost certainly because of the state of emergency that gripped community leaders during the Jenkins-Ruiz incident.  Moreover, Sheriff David W. Alexander resigned, though whether it was because of the incident is not known--Alexander did relocate to a ranch at the base of the San Joaquin Valley where he remained for some years.  Charles Hale, a Los Angeles constable, was appointed to fill Alexander's position and Charles K. Baker became constable in Hale's place.  When Sheriff Barton decisively defeated Hale in the early November county election by a vote of 821 to 346, and was killed two months later, Baker and newly elected constable William H. Little were among the posse members gunned down along with him.  Notably, William W. Jenkins ran for constable in that election, but finished last among the six candidates.  If he had won, he surely would have been killed in the Barton massacre.

Another interesting result of the election took place in the mission town of San Gabriel.  Dr. William B. Osburn, whose name has been mentioned here several times, had moved there from Los Angeles and was elected a justice of the peace.  In the aftermath of the Barton killing, Osburn was accused of brutalizing the corpse of Miguel Soto, said to have been in the gang that murdered the sheriff, which was a double accusation, given that Osburn was a judge and a doctor.  One of the losing candidates for constable was Roy Bean, the younger brother of a militia general and saloon keeper, Joshua Bean, whose late 1852 murder led to the lynching of an innocent man.  Roy Bean later became the famed judge in Texas known as "the law west of the Pecos."

It appears that there was either no meeting of the board after 11 November or the minutes have vanished, but this takes us to 1857 and the Barton massacre.

The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors and Criminal Justice, 1855

In 1854-55, the third full year of the operations of the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors, there was some reference early in the new year to the drama surrounding two murderers arrested in the fall of 1854 and then tried and convicted for their crimes.

These were Felipe Alvitre, who ambushed and killed James Ellington on what is now Valley Boulevard in El Monte, and David Brown, a short-term constable earlier in the decade, and who murdered Pinckney Clifford in a Los Angeles livery stable.  In addition, an El Monte dispute involved William B. Lee killing Frederick Leatherman and he, too, was convicted of the crime.

Lee and Brown were able to successfully appeal their death sentence and District Court Judge Benjamin Hayes, who tried all three cases, wrote in his diary that Alvitre's appear was delayed getting to the state supreme court.  So, when Alvitre was taken out for his legal execution in the jail yard and Lee trembled in his boots, a howling crowd stormed the jail, pulled Brown from his cell, sparing Lee, and hung him from the same gallows used for Alvitre.

Although the supervisors' minutes make no direct reference and, in fact, there is a gap of four months from the week just prior to the execution and lynching to early May, there are some notations about the cases.

At the 2 January meeting, for example, a bill was submitted from an unknown person who went hunting for Henry Hancock, best known for his surveying of regional ranchos for land claims cases, and who was a witness in the William B. Lee case, the dispute being over property boundaries.  William G. Dryden, a justice of the peace and later county judge from 1856-1869, submitted a bill for his role in Alvitre's defense, though this was disallowed for unspecified reasons by the board.

On the 3rd and the 6th, there were bills from jailor Francis J. Carpenter and Thomas Gordon for guarding the facility, though whether this was over concern for the safety of Alvitre, Brown and Lee is not stated.  On the latter date, there was a discussion amongst board members about paying the jurors their fees in the Lee case because the bill presented did not state whether Lee was convicted or acquitted.  Notably, the fee charged by County Clerk John W. Shore for writing up the transcripts and record of action in that matter totaled nearly $300, indicating how much work he had to do to document what took place in the case.

There were other matters including a report from District Attorney Cameron E. Thom that the title to the Rocha Adobe, which included the court house and city and county offices, was "vitally defective," though how was not indicated.  Thom was authorized by the board to take steps to quiet title and to let the City of Los Angeles know where the situation stood.

Then, there were the continuing large expenses involved in criminal justice administration.  For example, on 3 January, Sheriff Barton and jailor Carpenter submitted bills for their fees and expenses totaling over $1800 and Shore had hefty bills to present, as well.  The next day, P.C. Williams asked for payment of about $800 for repairs to the room of the District Court in the Rocha Adpbe.  As noted in recent posts, the financial picture was often precarious for the city and county in this period because of low revenues and major expenses in the administration of justice.

This article from the Southern Californian on 11 January 1855 discusses the recent meetings of the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors, including the fact that the board "audited and passed some $9000 of accounts, refusing some $2,000 or moe, which appeared to have been uncalled for and illegal."  While praising the board for its economizing, the paper also questioned decisions to disallow bills that could still be collected on a court order, racking up additional expenses.  The paper then complained about the refusal of the supervisors to allow one of its bills, while granting a similar one for much more money from its rival, the Star.

It is not clear why the minutes suddenly stopped on 6 January and did not resume until 8 May.  It is possible that, in the tumult surrounding the Alvitre/Brown affair, the board decided to postpone meetings for a time, but it seems inconceivable that there would be a cessation of record for that long. But, when the board met on 8 May, Williams submitted a bill for repair of the gallows and for the furnishing of a coffin, on order of Barton, for Alvitre.

Moreover, something of a backlog, suggesting meetings postponed for a lengthy period, are indicated by the submission of bills by Carpenter for $3000 at that meeting, on top of Thom's district attorney bill for $900 and about $600 requests by Barton.

The 8 May meeting also included a bill sent it by an unknown party or parties for the arrest at San Juan Capistrano for Jose Buenavida, Juan Gonzales, and Juan Flores.  The latter two were tried on 14 April at the Court of Sessions for grand larceny in the theft of three horses from teamster Garnett Hardy and were sent up to San Quentin.  In October 1856, the two escaped and Flores returned to San Juan Capistrano to wreak more havoc.  In early 1857, Flores, his co-captain Pancho Daniel and about a dozen other men ambushed Barton and a small posse searching for the gang, setting of a massive manhunt and series of executions that have been discussed here previously.

The next two days featured additional meetings, which may be indications of the long delay in gatherings of the board.  More bills were presented from William B. Osburn as both justice of the peace and jail physician, by a constable named Henry E. Lewis, from jailor Carpenter and from then-constable Alfred Shelby, who became marshal later in the year and, as noted here before, fled for Mexico when he killed a man while on duty and jumped bail before his trial.  There were orders to repair the jail, as well.

As stated here previously, payments to officials were sometimes down on scrip or warrants, which guaranteed future actual outlays for approved expenses.  On the 10th, with respect to Carpenter, the board authorized the county auditor "to indemnify him in accordance with an agreement with the Board, for the Discount that he has to pay on the account of Warrant No. 23—in order to make said warrant equivalent to cash, payable out of funds for current expenses,"  

Similarly, in July the board approved a warrant of $163.68 to Carpenter "to reimburse him for the discount on scrip issued to him . . . in order to make the same equivalent to cash."  This gives an indication of how expenses were met under the tenuous financial circumstances the county perpetually faced.

At the September election, there was a notable referendum presented to the voters of the couty, which was whether liquor should be abolished in Los Angeles County.  There were undoubtedly many reasons why temperance-minded sponsors would bring this to their fellow citizens and one might well have been the concern about the role of alcohol in the high rates of crime experienced in the region.  Yet, the vote was 606-75 against the imposition of such a law--this was about a resounding a defeat as could be imagined!

Notably, James R. Barton decided not to run for reelection as sheriff, after three years in the dangerous office, but did try for another term as supervisor, but he finished sixth, just missing out on a seat.  The new sheriff was former supervisor and board president, David W. Alexander, who edged out a victory over Deputy Sheriff George W. Work 

Other interesting result was in the race of justice of the peace in San Gabriel, where disgraced former Los Angeles marshal Alviron S. Beard was edged by ten votes, losing to future county sheriff James F. Burns (who was in office during the notorious Chinese Massacre of fall 1871). In early 1856, Beard was arrested and charged with allowing gambling at his home, but the indictment was set aside and the case dismissed.

The latter part of the year featured more news about the poor condition of the Rocha Adobe and the court house room, specifically the need to repair the roof, likely brought up before expected winter rains.

At the 7 November meeting, the problem of meeting jail expenses again came up when Carpenter submitted bills totaling nearly $2500, more than half of which was for prisoner maintenance.  The board resolved "to make his compensation equivalent to cash, as per previous special contract with the Board of Supervisors."  The jailor then appeared before the board to appeal this and it was declared that the contract was voided and that his payment "not be equivalent to cash" except for the portion related to prisoner maintenance.

Carpenter then appeared ten days later to request ventilation for his apartment at the jail, because he had his family living there with him and he claimed that they were ill, submitting a certificate fron Dr. John S. Griffin acknowledging this to be the case.  The board's building committee was asked to promptly address the matter.

With that, we'll continue the next post with the work of the board in 1856.

The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors and Criminal Justice, 1854

In October 1853, the third edition of the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors convened, with David W. Alexander the chair as he was the previous year,  He was joined by Stephen C. Foster, who filled a vacancy created a few months as noted in the last post; Samuel S. Thompson, who was an early settler in the new "American town" of El Monte in 1852 and who died there about thirty-five years later; Juan Sepulevda (1814-1898), who was from a prominent Californio family; and Cristobal Aguilar (1816-1886), who served four terms on the Common Council, three as a supervisor, and was a three-term mayor.

As was discussed in the last post, the board confronted problems with the expenses of maintaining the jail with a paltry budget and the last board's decision to support the Los Angeles Rangers paramilitary group meant further expenditures, including $1000 given for materials as submitted by board member Foster and Collins Wadhams.  Sheriff James B. Barton had well over $500 in fees due him for his services and $100 for transporting prisoners from San Diego.  Jailor George W. Whitehorn sent in a bill for $566.75 for his salary and maintenance of prisoners.  To be confronted with over $2000 in bills at one meeting was a hefty expense for the board.

Not only that, but the board, on 4 October, approved a bill submitted by constable William B. Osburn for $320 in the matter of two brothers in the Lugo family and associated of theirs in a notorious matter involving accusations and a long drawn-out legal nightmare for the Lugos back in 1851.

There was also the matter of the county's recent agreement to buy the Rocha Adobe off Spring Street from merchant Jonathan Temple for the court house and county offices.  A building committee was asked to secure $1500 from the city of Los Angeles as part of their share in the structure and its improvements for public uses.

Jonathan Temple (1796-1866), seated at right, with his wife Rafaela Cota and son-in-law, Gregorio de Ajuria, was a prominent merchant and land owner in greater Los Angeles.  He sold the Rocha Adobe on the west side of Spring Street to the city and county of Los Angeles in 1854 for use as a courthouse and public offices.  In the rear of the structure, a two-story jail was built that served in that capacity for many years.  Photo courtesy of the Workman and Temple Family Homestead Museum.

Some of these improvements involved board chair David W. Alexander and his business partner, new arrival in town, Phineas Banning, later the father figure of the harbor at San Pedro/Wilmington.  This kind of conflict of interest, of course, would be disallowed today, but not in the looser operations of frontier Los Angeles.  OThere were others bills submitted by those involved in the work and the board gave $2000 to Foster and W.T.B. Sanford to distribute to contractors, while also empowering the two to collect $1000 from the city for its share of the work.

On 8 November, came an urgent request from the county clerk, John W. Shore, which led to a board resolution

that the room designated for his use in the County Buildings is insufficient for the proper performance of his duties . . . [and] for the safe custody & proper arrangment of his archives, therefore [it is] ordered that the room designated in the County Court House as a Jurors room, be taken possession of by the said Clerk and appropriated for his use in addition to the front room already intended for the use of said County Clerk.

It is not stated where the jurors were supposed to meet for the deliberations, but, if the clerk's quarters were not improved, who knows what would have happened to the minute books (and, this post would not have been possible!)  In fact, there was a fire in the county clerk's space later that also threatened to destroy the archival material, some of which has survived.

As 1854 dawned, major bills were submitted by the district attorney, Kimball H. Dimmick, for $345, William Osburn, who was also a doctor attending on the jail and charging $175,Sheriff Barton for $350, and for jailor Whitehorne for nearly $600.  There was also an interesting notation in which the board "allowed a/c/ [account] of Nelson Mason for dunner for 12 hungry jurymen."  Funds were also expended for the funeral of constable John (Jack) Wheelan, the first law enforcement officer in Los Angeles killed in the line of duty, when he was cut down in Sonoratown, north of the Plaza, a few weeks prior.

Another expenditure was the rent of the buildings used as the jail in recent months, including from Juan Dominguez for $200, although a quarter of that was in scrip (I.O.U.), a common procedure at the time for a frequently cash-strapped county, and from Francisco J. Alvarado, for the last two months of 1853, for $28.  As work on the jail continued, a bill for $216 was submitted by Alfred Foster for his contributions.

Another indication of financial stress and efforts to mitigate the rising costs payable by the county came with a petition from the board on 4 January to the state's supreme court calling for a reduction in fees paid to the sheriff for attendance at the courts, this "being too high and disproportionate to the fees of other offices and from the multiplicty of our Courts causing a heavy burthen [sic] on the revenues of this county,"

In March, Los Angeles witnessed its first legal execution, with Manuel Herrera was hung for the murder of Nestor Artiaga and, in early April, carpenter Ira Gilchrist was compensated an unknown amount "for services as Carpenter making Gallows &c."  At the same meeting of the 3rd, jailor Whitehorne submitted bills totaling nearly $700 for maintenance of prisoners and the facility, while Barton charged almost $750 for attendance at the courts.  It also appears that the appeal to the state's highest court for relief on the sheriff's fees went nowhere, because in early July, Barton and Whitehorne submitted bills totaling over $1000.

However, it was generally pretty quiet when it came to criminal justice matters for the remainder of the year, at least as reflected by County Clerk Shore in the minutes.  A new slate of supervisors took office on 2 October, led again by Alexander, who was obviously highly respected given his consistency in being elected and named chair of the board.

The only returning supervisor for 1854-55 was Cristobal Aguilar.  Newly seated members included David Lewis, another early settler in El Monte, when it was established a couple of years previously and two prominent men with long ties to the criminal justice system and politics in Los Angeles.

The first was James R. Barton, who was still serving as sheriff when he secured his seat with the supervisors (as seen a few times on this blog, it was possible then to hold two elected offices at the same time).  Yet, Barton would only serve the single term, perhaps finding that the excitement and, probably, the fees earned, as sheriff were preferable to being a politician.  As covered here in detail, though, Barton was killed, along with members of a posse, while hunting for the Flores-Daniel gang of thieves in what later became Orange County in early 1857.

The other major figure was Agustín Olvera, who had a number of positions of authority in the Mexican period, and was the first county judge, serving until 1853 and was simultaneously a member of the common council, before he went into private practice as an attorney for a couple of years.

What is interesting, though, is that, although there was a spate of crimes, including notorious murders committed in the latter part of 1854, these warranted almost no mention in the supervisor's minute book.  It was stated in early October that district attorney Benjamin Eaton submitted $175 in bills for charging criminals in indictments.  At the same meeting of the 3rd, a special constable, W. Burt, was mentioned briefly--perhaps he was hired because of the crime wave.

A week later, the board was presented with an account by Charles O. Cunningham of El Monte, E. O. Johnson, and John Weir for $30.75 in the pursuit of criminals.  It may be that the trio went hunting for the killers of James Ellington, a fellow El Monte resident of Cunningham.  Later, Felipe Alvitre and two others were found hiding in Soquel Canyon, in what is now the borderland of Orange and San Bernardino counties near Chino Hills and Brea.  Alvitre's story will be told later in this blog.

The same meeting, on 10 October, the board ordered an increase, despite the fiscal fragility with the county's budget, in prisoner maintenance, so that whites (this would include Spanish-speakers) would have their needs met at 75 cents per day, while Indians would have to get by on materials costing 50 cents.  At the end of November, it was ordered that, despite the lowering of it before, the salary of the district attorney was insufficient and that it should be increased by $150 per month, "considering the increasing amount of labor of his office."  Again, the recent crime wave was almost certainly a factor.

The next post takes us to 1855, which started off with a great deal of drama, but more on that next time around . . .