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California Gold Rush Journal

PART 2

CHAPTER FIVE

San Francisco — July 1851

I met Gino the next day to review the bear’s grease advertising. He tendered me a hand-written note from his uncle for Manon praising her cooking and beauty and thanking her profusely for the wonderful evening. Though Salterini’s written French was full of grammatical and spelling errors, Manon would be pleased to soak up the praise and recognition from a fellow restaurateur and charming associate.

Gino surprised me by asking permission to woo Teri. He explained that he had discussed the matter with his uncle on their way home last evening and his uncle suggested he court her patiently and respectfully in the old-fashioned, Italian courtly tradition of a troubadour.

“You don’t need my permission to court Teri, but I do agree with Luigi that you should go slow. She’s had a bad experience with her last boyfriend who violated her trust, betrayed her, and left her with a bitter taste in her mouth. But, I’ll tell her that you asked my permission. She may take kindly to your approach.” I said.

“I have learned there will be a special French Ball later this month. I thought to ask Teri to go with me to dance and have fun. What do you think?”

I had heard talk from the French Consulate that a group of French merchants planned to rent the Cairo Saloon for an evening of dancing and light refreshments to include wine. It was to be a private ball by invitation only. “Why a French ball?”

“I thought maybe you, Manon and Giselle would like to come too. I think Teri might feel more comfortable with me on a first date if she had her friends around her.”

“How were you planning to get an invitation? I’ve heard it’s a private affair,” I replied.

“Well, since we do the consulate’s work, I figured we could secure an invite,” he said with a strait face.

I laughed. “You mean you expect me to wrangle an invitation for two non-French to attend their ball?” I said with mock reproach.

Gino shrugged sheepishly, then grinned broadly. “I knew I could count on you,” he said as if it was a done deal.

I could see that he’d planned his moves shrewdly. I hoped his romantic aspirations and machinations were a sign he would turn into a good investigator for my detective business. Time would tell. “I’ll talk to Manon and her partners and see if they are interested in the ball. Let’s get to work promoting our bear’s grease.” I handed him a directory of businesses in the city so he could plan his route to hand out the flyers and broadsheets from the printer.

“By the way,” he said as I was about to leave my office, “There was a lot of buzz on the street on my way here about the Committee. Most folks think the vigilantes will hang Stuart straight away before the governor, city officials or the Sydney Ducks can rescue him. Be careful where you go. You don’t want to run into a mob of angry Ducks.”

I gave Gino a friendly salute of thanks for the warning and headed straight for Les Bons Amis restaurant to see what information Pierre-Louis could add to Gino’s.

Pierre-Louis brought me a strong, black coffee and one of his best cigars and joined me for a chat.

“My new assistant warned me that the streets might be full of Ducks seeking revenge and an opportunity to free Stuart,” I said striking a Lucifer to fire up my cigar.

“It’s not only angry Ducks on the war path, but also Sheriff Hays with a posse of armed police who intend to seize custody of Stuart. That’s what my client told me this morning.”

“How so? Are they planning on shooting their way into the Committee’s heavily fortified quarters? It would lead to civil insurrection. We’d be involved in a war.” I exclaimed nervously.

“Apparently, Sheriff Hays secured writs of habeas corpus from judges who are his cronies to take Stuart and his lover, Mrs. Hogan, into custody. They’re both being held and interrogated by the Committee. They say it was Stuart’s corrupt attorney, Frank Pixley, who bought off the judges. They’re afraid of the growing power of the Committee. When the sheriff showed up at the Committee’s headquarters early this morning, several prominent members told the sheriff that Stuart was not in their “personal custody.”

“How can that be?”

“Evidently, they knew about the plan to serve the writs and spirited Stuart to a secret location. According to my informant, Stuart confessed to a whole series of crimes including horse stealing, robbery and organizing gangs of Ducks to set fires so they could steal from merchants during the chaos and stash their loot at Mrs. Hogan’s crib. He also fingered a host of accomplices including many Ducks, two policemen, a couple of sheriffs and attorney Pixley.”

I blew a couple of smoke rings. “Oh boy! Now everybody has a motive to see Stuart swing. What he said under interrogation is mostly hearsay and wouldn’t be admissible in court without corroboration. Stuart surely signed his death warrant. Why would he do it?”

“He probably knows the game is up and wants to settle some scores. He can’t count on being rescued. He saw how neither the police nor the Ducks could save Jenkins from the noose. He may have bargained to save his best friends and Mrs. Hogan by not implicating them and giving the Committee enough rabid dogs to pursue to satisfy their anger over the fires.”

We both jumped at the frantic clanging of the bell on the Plaza and the sounds of other bells adding to the intense clangor throughout the city. We rushed to the door. No smoke anywhere in the sunny morning air freshened by a mild sea breeze. The angry clanging could only mean the Committee was calling its members to assemble for a hanging.

The streets were soon clogged with pedestrians dodging carts, horses, teamsters and the usual loafers about town.

Pierre-Louis called out to a well-dressed merchant he knew was a member of the Committee of Vigilance, “where is the meeting to be?” as the merchant rushed past the restaurant.

“We’re to assemble in front of the Committee’s headquarters on Battery Street,” he replied over his shoulder as he raced toward the waterfront.

“I want to see the bastard hang. You were here when they torched the city last month. They nearly got me that time. They’ll need help keeping the sheriff and the Ducks at bay to get the job done. We need to join them.”

I was torn. I don’t like violence and had no desire to witness a frenzied mob string up an individual, even if he proved to be guilty as charged. Our business had not been threatened the way Pierre-Louis’ had been. Had the wind not died, he surely would have lost his restaurant which was his life’s investment and his pride and joy. He arranged with his staff to close the restaurant until he returned. He pulled two Colt revolvers from behind the bar and handed one to me.

“Let’s go,” he commanded. I tucked the loaded firearm in my belt beneath my waist coat and took a last puff on my cigar on my way out the door behind my friend.

We muscled our way through the Plaza which was clogged with citizens streaming towards the waterfront. The bell on the Plaza continued to sound like a metal war drum in its call to arms. As the Committee’s headquarters were not far from my small office, we took the smaller, narrow side alleys to circumvent the mob and arrived at the bay side of Battery Street, which was not yet overcrowded.

A group of about four to five hundred men with pistols drawn sealed both sides of Battery Street in front of the Committee’s headquarters. We took a position on the loading dock of a warehouse opposite the headquarters where we could look down on the scene as it played out. On the side of Battery Street nearest the Plaza, a mob of at least three thousand were jostling for position in anticipation that Stuart would be hung from a yardarm run out of the Committee’s upper windows where their prisoners were held and interrogated. The men sealing both sides of the street with their revolvers kept the mob from surging forward. Many in the crowd were chanting, “Hang the bastard now!”

“The men restraining the mob are Committee members,” Pierre-Louis whispered over the noise of stamping feet and hooting calls for action now and demands of “bring him out now.” After several minutes a Committee member, calling himself “Colonel Stevenson,” emerged from the barricaded headquarters. He waved for the crowd to be silent.

“I am here to inform you good people who seek justice in the matter of the recent incendiary and criminal acts against the law abiding citizens and businesses of San Francisco that James Stuart, also known as ‘English Jim,’ has been fairly tried before a jury of the Committee of Vigilance and has freely admitted to his crimes to wit: he was one of the robbers who viciously assaulted and robbed the hardware store owner, Jansen; that on his escape from the gallows at Marysville, he stole a horse to make his getaway and later sold it for profit; that he organized a gang of criminals who preyed on citizens and businesses alike; that he and his accomplices, who were named and will be arrested and interrogated by the Committee of Vigilance, planned and were prepared to set fire to the city again. As a consequence, the trial jury has convicted him of those crimes and sentenced him to hang…” At this point, the crowd interrupted him with cries of “hang him now!”

Col. Stevenson motioned the crowd to be quiet. “The Executive Committee has summoned you good people of San Francisco to serve as a court of review before any sentence is carried out. Do you agree to convict Stuart? What is your verdict?” The mob howled, “Yes.”

“Shall he hang for his crimes?” An immediate and almost unanimous roar of approval erupted from the mob. “Hang him.”

With that, the armed members of the Committee formed in columns of two to thwart any rescue attempt and Stuart, with hands tied behind him, was marched out of the Committee’s headquarters, placed in the middle of the armed phalanx of Committee men and marched past us south down Battery Street towards the Market Street pier.

The throng following behind was boisterous and ugly as members jostled and trampled others to get to the scene of the execution. Pierre-Louis and I waited patiently for the last stragglers to leave the scene before heading back to the restaurant. Neither of us had a stomach for the last act. Pierre-Louis opened a bottle of red wine to go with a platter of hard cheeses and sausage slices. The distant roar of the mob told us that the execution had taken place.

“HANGING OF JAMES STUART,” 1851.