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.