Gold! (19 page)

With any crime wave, there is always a point where the criminal goes too far. Even ordinary people with no taste for blood get that strange, salty taste in their mouth. Then, in February 1851, San Francisco was thrown into turmoil by one of the most audacious robberies that had ever been committed in the town.

Two Englishmen, Frank Dravat and Smythe Carnahan, ex-convicts from Sydney, had entered the San Francisco store of Tom Brewster. Located near the corner of Washington and Montgomery streets, Dravat and Carnahan came in the store at eight o'clock in the evening. Inquiring for some blankets, Brewster was in the act of showing them, when one of the scoundrels struck him a blow on the head with a slug shot, which some also called a blackjack. Brewster fell unconscious to the floor; the thieves jumped on top of him and struck him again.

Satisfied they would not be bothered, the Brits broke the lock off his desk, robbed it of nearly $2,000, and escaped. A short while later, Brewster recovered sufficiently to crawl next door and give the alarm, but the villains were gone. What made the crime different was that it happened on one of the city's most crowded streets in broad daylight. That not only showed the thieves' courage but also their desperation to make a score.

A few days later, a Sacramento cop, Chris Dalton, recognized Dravat. He was wanted for crimes committed in the mines. Dalton arrested him, along with his companion, Smythe Carnahan. There were inescapable similarities between their thieveries in the mines—where one of the men knocked out the unsuspecting victim and the other rifled his pockets. Carnahan and Dravat retained counsel, Willie Gingrich, who tried to show they had an alibi.

No one believed them, least of all the district attorney and the public who witnessed the testimony in a makeshift courtroom. A row ensued in which the mob
attempted to seize the prisoners to hang them. They were rescued by the police and a company of the Washington Guards, and conveyed to a recently constructed prison.

That was it. The mob hissed the Washington Guards and rushed the prison. Stones were thrown through the barred windows, shattering the glass. Some in the mob brandished rifles and revolvers; others, knives and pickaxes. Suddenly, the door to the prison was thrown open and a man in uniform appeared, Captain Bartol of the Washington Guards.

Bartol wore the standard issue scabbered sword on one side, with a holstered Colt Navy revolver in a waist-high leather holster, secured to his thigh by a drawstring of tough rawhide. Bartol addressed the crowd.

“I have acted only in obedience of the law. If the prisoners are guilty, and if required by the authorities, we will march out and assist you in hanging them.”

The crowd liked what they heard and backed off, deciding to act with brains instead of brawn. They organized a meeting, and appointed a committee of twelve to consult with the city authorities and to guard the prisoners. A meeting was called for the next day. As the time for said meeting approached, crowds began to gather around City Hall.

The streets and the roofs, windows, and balconies of adjoining homes all filled up with people. About ten thousand in all anticipated the meeting, which finally began with the mayor, as well as several other gentlemen, coming forward to address the mob. The committee of twelve advised the mob to leave the matter with the proper
authorities, while pledging themselves that justice should be administered.

During their speeches, the committee members were frequently interrupted by cries of “no more quibbles of law—no straw bail—the criminals all escape—give us justice.” But justice won out for the moment, and the mob once again backed off. A few days later, there was a major jail break. Among the escapees were Dravat and Carnahan.

The newspapers were not ignoring the crime wave, covering it in all its sensationalism. It provided a circulation boost and an opportunity for editors to pontificate on the conditions and, occasionally, solutions. From the
San Francisco Daily Courier
of June 10, 1851:

“It is clear to every man, that San Francisco is partially in the hands of criminals, and that crime has reached a crisis when life and property are in imminent danger. There is no alternative now left us, but to lay aside our business, and direct our whole energies, as a people, to seek out the abodes of these villains, and execute summary vengeance upon them.”

On September 23, the
Alta California
, one of the state's best papers, published this editorial:

“We do not wonder that the whole city is excited, that every honest man feels indignant against the vile miscreants who have fired our houses, robbed our citizens, and murdered them. This feeling is natural. And the present apparent and expressed determination to take the administration of the law into their own hands is the inevitable result of a shameful laxity in the administration of our
lower courts. To them alone is chargeable the present state of public feeling.

“Examinations and trials of criminals have been a miserable tissue of trifling, quibbling, and nonsensical distinctions, and deductions unworthy to be used by a respectable bar, unworthy of any consideration by judges. Any persons have been allowed to testify. Every one of the thieves and robbers who infest our city has witnesses enough to swear an alibi and such evidence has been allowed! Every means, too, has been taken by unscrupulous advocates [usually lawyers] to postpone, and stave off trials, knowing that delay would absolutely destroy all incriminating evidence.”

It was an argument that would be used in the subsequent century when a crime wave hit the midwestern United States in the 1930s, and again the 1980s through the 1990s, when cases against members of organized crime fell apart with bought alibi witnesses. California has the dubious distinction to say that it happened there first on a regular basis.

On June 11, a notice appeared in both the
Daily Courier
and
Alta California
, requesting that San Francisco's citizens assemble in Portsmouth Square at three o'clock in the afternoon. At the appointed hour, the citizens assembled there to the astonishing spectacle of a man hanging by the neck from the porch of an adobe home.

Someplace under cover of darkness and civilized law, a shadowy, vigilante organization had formed. Composed of some of the city's wealthiest citizens, who had much to lose if crime continued to run rampant, the
newly organized Vigilance Committee was determined to execute justice, and criminals, with their own hands. This hanging was the first by their organization. The
Daily Courier
of June 10 covered the lynching this way:

“It is clear to every man, that San Francisco is partially in the hands of criminals, and that crime has reached a crisis when life and property are in imminent danger. There is no alternative now left us, but to lay aside our business, and direct our whole energies, as a people, to seek out the abodes of these villains, and execute summary vengeance upon them.”

A week later, Sam Jenkins, a Sydney convict, was arrested while robbing a safe. A jury was selected, “indubitable proof of his guilt was adduced, and he was hung immediately, about two o'clock in the morning. Shortly afterwards, the people of San Francisco were summoned by the most respected men of the city, to a meeting in the Plaza.

“The meeting was duly organized, and several among the most highly esteemed citizens addressed the people, briefly stating the condition of affairs and advocating the necessity of taking steps to arrest the career of crime. The existence of a Vigilance Committee was [publicly] announced.”

A resolution was then offered, approving their acts in hanging Jenkins. By loud acclamation the crowd accepted it, with one lone dissenting voice, from a lawyer, “whose interest it undoubtedly was to perpetuate this unwarrantable condition of things in our community. The meeting adjourned over to the next day, at the
same hour and place, when, it was understood, a series of resolutions would be presented.

“At the appointed time, the Plaza was again filled with anxious but not excited citizens, and there was a determined calmness in their demeanor, which plainly told that it proceeded from long suffering, and that they would coolly, deliberately, and surely protect themselves from further insult and outrage.”

The following eight resolutions were offered for public approval:

1. On account of circumstances over which we have no control, we are constrained to believe that the crimes of grand larceny, burglary, and arson should be punished with death, disclaiming the right to inflict this penalty after a proper time has elapsed to obtain the voice of all the people, through the ballot box.

2. That a committee of seven be appointed to call an election of the citizens in each ward, to decide whether or not these crimes shall be punished with death, appoint the officers of the election, and define the form of the ticket.

3. That at the same time and place, a judge and sheriff shall be elected (unless one of our judges and sheriff will serve), who shall enforce the will of the people in punishing the guilty, who shall have jurisdiction only on those criminal cases above-mentioned.

4. That we pledge our lives, our fortunes, and our
sacred honors, to protect and defend the people's court and officers, against any and all other jurisprudence.

5. That any person charged with crime shall have a fair and impartial trial by jury, nor shall he be deprived of the privilege of giving any evidence he can bring to prove his innocence.

6. That in case of any doubt as to the guilt of any person, he shall have the benefit of such doubt, in accordance with established usage.

7. That the people's court shall have no jurisdiction after the next legislature has been convened five days.

8. That all expenses of such court shall be paid by the contribution of citizens.

Once again by loud acclamation the resolutions passed.

The Vigilance Committee controlled San Francisco. It was 1850, California was a state, but the seat of government was still Monterey, far south. It was therefore no surprise that San Franciscans saw the handwriting on the wall.

Soon, the vigilance organization's ranks were swelled by the voluntary enrollment of great numbers of the best and most effective citizens. Opposition was offered at various times to the Vigilance Committee's holding sway, usually by lawyers “who were losing a fruitful source of revenue in the defence of scoundrels.” But the vigilantes maintained their ground.

Within ten days, criminals seemed to have gotten the message. They could be hung quickly for a variety of crimes. Suddenly the crime wave stopped. Assaults, robberies, and murders were dramatically lowered. An effective and active police force was formed. The rogues were caught, killed, or kicked out of the city. Change was not felt in San Francisco alone. Taking a page out of justice in the big city, in the mining towns, vigilante committees were organized and also held sway. Those found guilty by a miners' court were summarily punished, including by hanging.

The most famous of these hangin' miners' towns was Placerville. Its nickname was, and is, Hangtown.

It hadn't taken long. Coloma was so crowded with gold seekers by the summer of 1848 that prospectors had no choice but to search elsewhere for gold. Three ranchers from the Sacramento Valley—Perry Macoon, William Daylor, and Jared Sheldon—traveled east of Coloma, ten miles down the American River, onto a branch of Walnut Creek. There they discovered pay dirt. In one week in June 1848 they took out $17,000 from a small ravine “not more than a hundred yards long by four feet wide and two or three feet deep.”

The creek tended toward dryness in the summer. The dirt had to be physically transported to water for the washing. The miners thus named their new camp “Dry Diggings.” With rumors spreading throughout the area that Dry Diggings paid a man six ounces of the gold dust every day, miners came by the droves, some even
abandoning already good claims to join the second phase of the Gold Rush, to Dry Diggings. Maybe there they could get even richer.

By December 1848 fifty log cabins had been built. During the following year, the population multiplied to a total of two thousand hearty souls camped out on every conceivable patch of ground, from ravines to hillsides, in all manner of protection from the elements. There were muslin tents, the aforementioned log cabins, lean-tos with one wall opened to the wind and rain, and then the more commercial establishments—saloons, whorehouses, restaurants, gambling houses, all charging exorbitant prices, anything to get that precious gold off the miners.

Crime flourished in the lawless environment as it did in San Francisco. Here, too, people decided when enough was enough. The change occurred in January 1849, when five men entered a gambling hall without the best of intentions. They stole their way into the office of the owner, John Vivyan. They put a gun to the unlucky man's head and rifled his office and clothing for gold.

In some way, Vivyan managed to tip off his employees, who waited for an opportunity and then crashed into the room, catching the robbers without firing a shot. The following day the five were found guilty of attempted robbery by a miners' court and sentenced to receive thirty-nine lashes.

Public punishment for crimes was still common in many other states as well as in California; people were used to viewing it. A large crowd of miners came out the next day for the spectacle. Each of the robbers in his turn
was tied to an old oak tree, and the shirt ripped off his back. The man representing the state flung his cat-o'-nine-tails made out of toughened cowhide and leather. It flashed across bare backs thirty-nine times, baring some of the flesh close to the bone.

No sooner had that sentence been carried out than new charges were made against three of the five, Manuel, a Chileño and Frenchmen Garcia and Bissi. The charges were robbery and attempted murder in Stanislaus County. Too weak to stand for an arraignment, they were taken to a nearby house to “recover” while they were tried in absentia by a lynch mob. The trial took thirty minutes, and the sentences were immediate.