The Los Angeles Jail and the 1870 Census

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Los Angeles Jail and the 1860 Census

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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