Eternity Street

by John Mack Faragher

  During the days and hours remaining before Alvitre’s scheduled execution on Friday, January 12, Los Angeles experienced the greatest public turmoil since the American conquest. The absence of a stay for Alvitre, wrote Judge Hayes, “inflamed the native Californian and Mexican portion of the population.” According to Horace Bell, Californios “raised a public clamor, claiming that when a Mexican was convicted of crime he was always promptly punished, but that an American in like circumstances always escaped.” Bell had to agree with them.

  Francisco P. Ramírez, hired by James Waite to edit La Estrella, the Spanish-language section of the Star, provided a Californio perspective on the crisis. Ramírez, only seventeen, was the son of an established Angeleno family of modest means. His mother, Petra Ávila de Ramírez, was the daughter of wealthy ranchero Francisco Ávila. His father, Juan Ramírez, of more humble background, made a living growing grapes and selling them to his neighbor Luis Vignes, Francisco’s godfather. The boy, known as Pancho, received no formal schooling but was exceptionally bright. In addition to his native Spanish he learned French from his godfather and English from the Americans. An organic intellectual, self-educated but well-read in the classics, Ramírez responded thoughtfully to the stirrings of the world around him. At fourteen he went to work as a compositor at the Star, assisting Manuel Clemente Rojo, who assumed a role as the young man’s intellectual mentor. In 1852 Ramírez left Los Angeles to train for a career in journalism, studying with Jesuit teachers in San José and apprenticing for a Catholic newspaper in San Francisco before taking a job as a reporter for a paper in the mining town of Marysville. In the fall of 1854 he returned to Los Angeles to revive La Estrella, dormant since Rojo’s departure the year before. Ramírez launched a lengthy career in journalism and politics in frontier Los Angeles with his coverage of the public clamor over Alvitre and Brown.

  Ramírez reviewed the history of Alvitre’s case. When the man was first arrested, he wrote, Californios considered him a vicious criminal who had “committed crimes unworthy of a rational man.” Californios captured him, and Californios made up half the jury that convicted him. But with the stays for Brown and Lee the sentiment of the community shifted. According to Ramírez, Alvitre had become a symbol of their discontent, attracting the sympathy “of the great mass of the Hispanic population.” Why no stay for the Californio? Ramírez thought it might be explained by the politics of Chief Justice Murray, a public advocate of white supremacy who had authored judicial opinions upholding and extending the legal restrictions on the rights of people of color. This looked like more of the same. “When you start playing that way,” Ramírez wrote, “better that the people take the law into their own hands, using lynch law to secure their rights and achieve their goals.” Writing in the English-language section of the Star, James Waite agreed with much of what his young assistant editor wrote. But he parted company on the question of extralegal action. Better that both executions be postponed, Waite argued. In any event, he would not condone lynch law.

  The exchange between the editors of the Star was temperate in tone and reasoned in argument. But editor John Wheeler of the Southern Californian employed the rhetoric of incitement. Were Angelenos “ready to take the life of the groveling, ignorant, half-civilized Alvitre, and at the same time fear the responsibility of carrying out their own verdict upon an individual who, to our own disgrace, claims a kindred tongue and nation with us?” If that was the case, wrote Wheeler, “better that we henceforth give ourselves over to utter contempt, and nevermore prate of law, order, or justice.” The time had come to act. Lynch law should be employed in the service of racial justice. “Citizens of Los Angeles, it is for you to say whether this gross and outrageous partiality shall be allowed; whether you will permit so flagrant and glaring an evidence of the omnipotence of birth and conditions to operate in widening still further the breach that already exists between our native and foreign population, so prolific of future disaster to this community, which we may all live to regret—perhaps in blood and tears.”

  On the evening before the scheduled execution a mass meeting of citizens to consider what should be done convened at the Montgomery House Hotel. Several hundred men, a majority of them Californios, filled the dining hall and overflowed onto Main Street. Numerous individuals spoke their minds, but the most important was Mayor Stephen Clark Foster, who “unequivocally proclaimed himself in favor of hanging Alvitre and Brown together,” and reaffirmed his pledge that “if justice was not done, he would resign his office and assist the people in carrying out the wishes of the public.” Adopting a resolution to that effect, the meeting chose a committee of two Anglos and a Californio to present it to Sheriff Barton. They found him at his office around ten that night. Barton listened respectfully but told them he was determined to carry out the law. The committee returned to the Montgomery, where they joined the others in making plans for an assault on the jail the following day.

  FRIDAY, JANUARY 12, 1855, was one of those mild, picture-perfect winter days for which Los Angeles is famous. Following the precedent set at the Herrera execution, Sheriff Barton ordered a scaffold erected in the yard behind the jail. The view from the street was blocked by a tall plank fence, but spectators mounted the slope of Pound Cake Hill, which overlooked Spring Street. All the town’s shops and businesses closed for the occasion, and although the execution was scheduled for three in the afternoon, by midmorning hundreds of men, women, and children were swarming the hillside. On the grass, luxuriant from the rains of early December, families spread blankets and opened picnic baskets. From the western heights they commanded a majestic view of the surrounding landscape. The glistening Pacific to the south, the snow-capped San Gabriels to the northeast, and due east the willows and sycamores that marked the course of the Los Angeles River, as it rounded the narrows and flowed south, carrying snowmelt from mountain to ocean and providing irrigation for the city’s vineyards and orchards. In the foreground, spectators had an unobstructed view of the jail yard and the gallows.

  The previous day Sheriff Barton had issued a call for volunteers to join him at the jail to assist in upholding the rule of law, but only about a dozen armed men showed up. The Rangers were notably absent. At noon, with the crowd continuing to swell in size, the committee met once again with Barton. “Extensive and determined preparations are being made,” they told him. The Rangers had an armory where they stored rifles, ammunition, and several artillery pieces, which Barton had taken the precaution of having spiked. But the committee ordered the armory seized and the guns drilled out. Friends urged Barton to compromise in order to avoid “the effusion of blood,” but he remained intransigent, insisting he would stand by his oath to uphold the law. What was most feared, according to Francisco Ramírez, was a violent confrontation along ethnic lines, Californios battling Anglos. A rumor circulated that a group of hijo del país had stockpiled dozens of loaded cylinders they could snap into their revolvers in case of an extended gun battle. As the appointed hour approached, angry and armed militants filled the streets surrounding the jail.

  Shortly before three the heavy iron door to the jail opened, and Barton and his undersheriff William Osburn emerged with Alvitre between them, his arms bound behind his back. They were surrounded by an armed volunteer guard. Ramírez was standing near the gallows. “Alvitre was just a boy, of good appearance,” he observed. “It is a pity that one so young should have drenched his hands in the blood of his victims.” Barton and Alvitre climbed the scaffold, accompanied by Father Lestrade of Plaza church, chanting the last rites. Given the opportunity to make a statement, Alvitre spoke a few words in Spanish. No one outside the jail yard could hear him, but Ramírez reported that he asked forgiveness from all he had injured. When he finished, Barton adjusted the rope around his neck and pulled a canvas sack over his head. Alvitre did not so much as flinch. Barton stepped back and released the trap.

  Alvitre dropped. But the noose slipped and he crashed to the ground. A low moan rose from the crowd. A fe
w individuals cried out. “¡Arriba, arriba!” Get him up! Rescue him! A few stones were thrown from the hillside. Frightened deputies cocked and presented their rifles, fearing a rush to the gate of the yard. But it did not happen. The crowd seemed frozen in place, shocked by what they had seen. Alvitre, suffering from acute shock, “half-dead” in the words of one account, was dragged back up the scaffold by Osburn and Deputy Charles E. Hale. He was steadied, the noose tightened and placed around his neck, then the trap released again. This time the knot held, and the hard drop snapped Alvitre’s neck. “In a moment,” Ramírez wrote, “he was launched into eternity.” The crowd watched the entire spectacle in awed silence.

  The body remained suspended for some minutes before being cut down and taken back inside the jail. Only then did the crowd awake to the realization that the official events of the day had concluded. The tension built as men milled about the streets surrounding the jail yard. They required a leader to focus their energy. A call went out for Mayor Foster, and he came forward, climbed atop a barrel, and addressed the crowd in Spanish. He immediately identified himself with the hijos del país. “Señores,” he began, “being what might be called a Californio, my sympathies are with you.” Foster was married to a daughter of the country, and he had seved as their alcalde.

  When Brown committed his murder during the days when crime eclipsed the flame of justice, the citizens of this town came together to punish him. Everyone wanted to execute him immediately, but I opposed such violence, declaring we should allow the law to fulfill its duty. We have all seen how Alvitre and Brown were tried and sentenced by the same judge to suffer the same penalty of death on the same day, thus uniting their destinies. We now see, my fellow citizens, that this will not happen, blocked by order of the Supreme Court to suspend Brown’s execution. This is an injustice, Señores, and I, who have given my word, feel the infringement of the law more than anyone else.

  He had officially tendered his resignation as mayor, Foster told them, and was ready to lead them in hanging Brown if that was what they wanted. The time had come for the people to make their decision. Would they allow the legal process to continue? Would they allow Brown to live so the Supreme Court could hear his appeal? Or would they take justice into their own hands and hang him now? The crowd roared its response. “¡Ahorcar!” Hang him! Foster waited for the shouting to die down. “And now,” he said, “there is nothing to do but bring Brown out and hang him. And I will die with all of you.”

  As his closing words suggested, Foster had every expectation that what would follow was an armed confrontation with Sheriff Barton and his deputies. But as a group of men began to batter the outer gate with heavy timbers, neither fire nor shouts of warning issued from inside the jail. Men poured into the yard and attacked the jailhouse door. Still no response from inside. Encouraged, other men came forward with axes and crowbars. It took time and effort, but the heavy iron door was finally forced open. The most daring men entered and soon their shouts could be heard. Sheriff Barton and his men had abandoned the building, leaving by an unseen exit and taking refuge in the courthouse, leaving Brown to his fate. “Words fail to describe the demeanor then of that mass of eager, angry men,” wrote Benjamin Hayes, who witnessed the entire episode from the hillside. Ramírez, inside the jail yard, compared the mob to a raging river.

  Brown had to be freed from his shackles by a blacksmith, and it was well after four in the afternoon by the time the crowd finally dragged him from the jail, out of the yard and across Spring Street to the gate of a corral directly opposite the sheriff’s office. A rope was tossed over the crossbeam and Brown, bound hand and foot, was lifted to a standing position on a chair with the noose around his neck. Pale and trembling, he looked out at the tumultuous mob and somehow regained his composure. “He evinced the utmost coolness,” reported the Southern Californian, “recognizing and speaking to his acquaintances in the crowd.” He had no memory of killing Pinckney Clifford, Brown said, “but if I did, I am ready to give my life in retribution.” His only objection, he declared, was to being strung up by a “lot of Greasers,” and he requested some American step forward to do the job. According to the Star, none did. A blindfold was tied over Brown’s eyes, and as he stood there, swaying slightly from side to side, the crowd fell silent. Someone tugged at the chair, and feeling the movement Brown jumped off on his own volition, swinging in a wide arc, his body violently convulsing in a macabre dance as he slowly strangled to death.

  In the gathering twilight of the January afternoon, the spectators drifted away as family and friends attended to the remains of the executed men. Their destinies had indeed been bound together, if only at the end. The next morning they made their final, separate journeys. Friends loaded David Brown’s coffin on a carreta and hauled it up cañada de los muertos at the backside of Gallows Hill to the Protestant graveyard at the summit. Meanwhile, at the Plaza church, Father Anacleto celebrated a requiem mass for Felipe Alvitre. Then the body, rolled in a shroud and laid on a wide plank, was carried up Eternity Street to the campo santo.

  “THUS ENDED THIS FEARFUL TRAGEDY,” wrote editor James Waite. “God grant that our citizens never witness the like again.” Waite’s was one of the few critical voices. John Wheeler’s reaction in the Southern Californian was more typical. “The omnipotence of justice has been vindicated in this city. We hope that hereafter its solemn and impressive lessons may have their effect in convincing the evil disposed that there is a power greater than all law, vested in the unity and purpose of an entire people.” Francisco Ramírez likewise celebrated the outcome. Californios, he wrote, “wished to see the law applied equally between Spanish and Americans, and it does not require great perception to understand their just reasons.” They had acted on principle. The episode, Ramírez thought, laid down a marker. “This was the only occasion in which the people”—by which he meant the Spanish-speaking majority—“have demonstrated their supremacy, and it will live long in the annals of Los Angeles.”

  When the mob broke into the jail, while the blacksmith removed Brown’s shackles, convicted murderer William B. Lee lay cowering in the adjoining cell, terrified that he too would be seized and hanged. After Brown was dragged away, Lee heard the pulsing excitement of the crowd outside. He survived the episode, but remained in a state of fevered and anxious apprehension for the next several months, awaiting the ruling of the Supreme Court on his motion for a new trial. In July 1855, in an opinion written by Chief Justice Murray, the court remanded his case back to district court, ruling that Judge Hayes had erred in not granting attorney Joseph Lancaster Brent’s motion for a change of venue. Public prejudice in Los Angeles had made a fair trial impossible, Murray argued. “No man should be put upon his trial in a community thus excited. It would be a judicial murder to affirm a judgment thus rendered, when the reason of the people of a whole county was so clouded with passion and prejudice as to prevent mercy, and deny justice.”

  Hayes granted the change of venue at the next term of his court and transferred Lee’s case to the jurisdiction of Santa Barbara. But when he came to trial there in December 1855, the uninformed and uninterested county prosecutor failed to summon the state’s witnesses, and in the absence of direct testimony the charges against Lee were dismissed and he was released. “Lee has returned to his family at the Monte,” reported the Star. “No one, we believe, regrets his acquittal. His confinement for more than a year in our jail, among vile criminals, and in a loathsome atmosphere, has debilitated his system to such a degree that he will probably never recover. His punishment has already been very severe, and the success of his counsel in freeing him from prison and from merited death will, we hope, make him a wiser and better man.” David Brown’s appeal had been the model for Lee’s. Had Brown’s life been spared, he too would have been the beneficiary of Justice Murray’s logic. The lesson was not lost on Angelenos. They had looked for a turning point—and they got one. But rather than strengthening the legally constituted system of justice, it broaden
ed the power and appeal of lynch law. The calamitous consequences of this turn would become apparent all too soon.

  •

  CHAPTER 20 •

  VINDICTA PÚBLICA

  THE MONTE, the American community on the east bank of the San Gabriel River, was the fastest-growing settlement in Los Angeles County during the 1850s. “Within four or five years past,” a visitor reported in 1855, “it has rapidly filled up with American families, almost exclusively from the extreme South and West of the Atlantic States.” William and Ezekiel Rubottom came from the town of Spadra on the bluffs of the Arkansas River. “Uncle Billy,” as the elder brother was universally known, opened an inn that became locally famous for “plain country fare, well cooked, and plenty of it.” He planted the grounds of his place with seeds, slips, and rooted scions brought from home and took pride in conducting tours of the property. One admiring guest compiled a list of the exotics he found growing there. “Red and slippery elm, ash, black mulberry, Chickasaw plum, black walnut and chestnut, and blackberry vines, the roots of which first drew their sustenance from Missouri and Arkansas soil, all testify to the pains the old man has taken to renew the surroundings of his youth.” Arkansas on the banks of the Río San Gabriel.

  The settlers of the Monte grazed their cattle and horses on the open range of the San Gabriel Valley. When rustlers helped themselves to the livestock, the settlers responded with traditions of order and justice also imported from the South. They were experienced in the methods and means of vigilantism. So when, in the spring of 1855, a turncoat rustler provided a justice of the peace in the Monte with information regarding the whereabouts of his compatriots, instead of turning the matter over to the county sheriff, the justice alerted his friends and neighbors, who formed a vigilante posse. Early one morning they attacked the gang’s hideout deep in the mountains, capturing four men and bringing them back. After harsh interrogation—including the torture of one prisoner who had suffered a serious wound in the affray—the men confessed. They were part of a “large organized band” of three hundred men, one of them boasted, led by a Texan claiming to be the brother of David Brown, whose lynching he vowed to avenge. The braggadocio infuriated the Monte Boys, and they decided to hang the rustlers themselves.