Veterans of World War I

This board inside the Auburn Veterans Memorial Hall (built 1931, dedicated January 1932) tells us of the existence of Auburn Barracks 570, Veterans of World War I.

The Veterans of World War I of the U.S.A., Inc. was organized in 1948 and incorporated by Congress in 1958. It was a fraternal, civic, and social organization, with a constitution, by-laws, and rituals similar to those of the Grand Army of the Republic and the American Legion. The organization dissolved following the death in 2011 of its National Commander and last remaining member, Frank Woodruff Buckles, who was also the last surviving American veteran of World War I.

The board in Auburn has the first entry dated 1956. The last year with a Barracks Commander is 1986. The last year with an Auxiliary President (a veteran's wife) is 1989.

The Hangman's Noose

On display in the Superior Court Historic Courthouse in Auburn is the hangman's noose that sent Stephen B. Richards to his Maker.

A plaque gives the details:

On January 11, 1884 this rope hung Steven Richards from a scaffold in the Placer County Jail Yard. At 1:15 PM Placer County Sheriff A. Huntley placed this rope around Richards' neck and carefully adjusted the noose. The trap door dropped and nineteen minutes later Steven Richards was pronounced dead. 150 people came to Auburn and witnessed the hanging, including Sheriffs Galt of El Dorado Co., Carter of Nevada Co., and Cunningham of San Joaquin Co. Richards had murdered Thomas Nichols, 27, a miner on Sunday morning, March 11, 1883, outside the American Hotel in Auburn.

A note by the noose states that Richards directed the building of the scaffold from the jail windows.

The first floor of the courthouse (completed 1898) contains museum exhibits, and court cases are still heard on the upper floors. The noose sits in an alarmed display case in the old sheriff's office in Room 103, which contains furniture and books and firearms from a century ago. The Placer County Jail Register rests on the counter-top, its pages turned in synch with the current date. On my February 25, 2015 visit the Register was opened to the bookings from February 8 to February 28, 1897. There had been two bookings on February 25, 1897, for R. Stanley and Fred Snye, both from Rocklin and both for unnamed misdemeanors. Other bookings over this time period were for drunkenness, vagrancy, disturbing the peace, petit larceny, and lodging.

Stephen Richards wasn't the first person hanged on this hilltop where the courthouse stands. People gathered here for bull and bear fights and public hangings before Placer County was formed in 1851. Unfortunately there is a dearth of information on early executions in Placer County. People were in too much a hurry to pick up all those gold nuggets sitting atop the ground to keep detailed notes on executions. The best source of information I've found on Placer County executions is from History of Placer County, California by Thompson & West, published in 1882. The executions I focused on were those from due process of law, thus excluding the several recorded lynchings and vigilante executions.

The book notes:

During the first few years of gold-mining, crime was remarkably rare. There was very little security for property but the knowledge that punishment would be quick and terrible, without any intervention of the tedious processes of the courts, or the technicalities of the law now so universally used to shield the criminal.

Here are the executions from due process of law:

March 31, 1854 - Robert Scott was hanged in Auburn for the murder of Andrew King. Scott shot King in Auburn on October 20, 1853, for King's refusal to loan him $3 for gambling. Two thousand people assembled to watch the hanging, which took place at noon.

June 6, 1856 - James Freeland was hanged in Auburn for the murder of "Greek George." Freeland shot "Greek George" in Oak Flat after accusing the latter of cheating at gambling.

September 18, 1857 - Joseph Bradley was hanged on the outskirts of Auburn for the 1856 murder of Jacob Bateman. The murder occurred at the cabin of Bateman in Auburn. About 500 people witnessed the execution.

June 11, 1858 - Martin Rodriguez was hanged for the murder of Andrew Hollenberg. The murder occured on December 20, 1857, when Hollenberg refused Rodriguez entrance to his house.

September 21, 1860 - Two hangings this date. Joseph N. Maes was hanged for the March 8, 1859 murder of Joseph Thomas, of Dutch Flat. Genero Quintano was hanged for the July 3, 1859 murder of Joseph Reynolds, at Michigan Bluff. Reynolds kept a disreputable house at Michigan Bluff and Quintano, a Mexican, killed Reynolds for not letting him help himself at the bar.

No executions from September 21, 1860 to the book's publication in 1882? I find that odd, as just two years later, in 1884, Stephen Richards goes to the gallows. Were there were hangings between Maes/Quintano and Richards?

Capital punishment at the county level in California ended in 1891. After that, executions were conducted at the state prisons of Folsom and San Quentin.

Sacramento Daily Union, January 12, 1884

More on J.W. Beardsley

Yesterday a reader sent additional information on my April 22, 2014 post regarding Joshua Beardsley, the unfortunate miner drowned in 1876 in the North Fork American River at Green Valley, leaving behind a wife and two children in Michigan. It explained why he was taking the small boat across the river - he was going to feed his dog.

My information to this point came from old California newspapers imaged to the California Digital Newspaper Collection, a project of the Center of Bibliographical Studies and Research at the University of California, Riverside. The search engine on this site greatly speeds research.

Many more historical California newspapers have yet to be digitized. They are found in libraries, either in original form or on microfilm. I've wanted to visit the Auburn Library with its microfilm collection of Placer County newspapers. Figuring J.W. Beardsley's death would be a good search topic, today I went for a visit.

Of course I had to search for his name the old-fashioned way: page by page, column by column. No fancy computer search engines when dealing with microfilm. The rolls were kept in the drawers of a metal cabinet. Newspapers from 1876 included the Dutch Flat Forum, Placer Herald, and Placer Weekly Argus. I started with the first issue following his death, to an issue or two following the discovery of his body.

Here's what I found:

Dutch Flat Forum, April 20, 1876: "News was brought here this morning from Green Valley by J. Harper, which strongly indicates that Joshua Beardsley was accidentally drowned in the American river at that place last Monday night. He was seen by several of his neighbors where he expressed a determination to return home to the opposite side of the river, which it is evident he attempted to do so in a rudely constructed ferry boat, which was discovered next morning capsized in the middle of the river. All efforts to discover his whereabouts up to the present time have proven futile." (There was much mining activity in Green Valley in 1876. Nobody lives there today.)

Placer Herald, Auburn, April 22, 1876: "During the storm of Monday morning snow fell in the mountains as low down as Blue Canon." (This article was unrelated to J.W. Beardsley, but the storm may have raised the river level.)

Dutch Flat Forum, May 11, 1876: (This contains numerous errors, corrections are in brackets) "FOUND - in our issue of April 20 we stated that Goshua [Joshua] Beardsley was supposed to be drowned in Bear River [American River]. The conclusions were correct, as the body was found at Sacramento [downriver of Sacramento] about ten days afterward [J.W. Beardsley drowned on April 17 and his body was recovered May 3]." 

Placer Herald, Auburn, May 13, 1876: "Early in the week a body was found in the Sacramento river, some distance below the city of Sacramento, which was identified by his brother, as that of J.W. Beardsley, who was drowned on the 17th of April, in the North Fork of the American river, at Green Valley, while attempting to cross in a boat. His body had been carried by the current at least 75 miles."

Historical newspapers contain valuable information, but for those not yet digitized, finding a particular subject absent specific dates can be daunting, the proverbial needle in the haystack.

No Hands Bridge

No Hands Bridge is just downriver from the Confluence of the North Fork and the Middle Fork of the American River. (Not to be confused with the North Fork of the Middle Fork of the American River in previous posts.) The story goes that, after the Mountain Quarries Railroad abandoned the bridge and before guardrails were installed, there was a horse rider who would cross the bridge without holding the reins.

The drop to the river is 150 feet.

Here's a pencil drawing I did of the bridge:

Here's a photo of it:

Early Summer Early Evening Foothills Walk

The summer solstice passed but a few days ago and the days are slowly getting shorter, but there is plenty of light after the workday ends to get some nice walks in the foothills around Auburn. And the angle of the sunlight on the hillsides provides some good photographs.

Here are some photos taken today along Stagecoach Trail, part of a toll road built in the 1850s to connect the county seat of Auburn and the mining town of Iowa Hill.

Unfortunately on this walk, the sunlight did not allow for a good photograph of a particular outcrop of metavolcanic rocks. (I'll get a photo later.) The folding and twisting of these rocks attest to the incredible subduction forces that created these parts. The rocks began as oceanic volcanoes hundreds of miles to the west, and were jammed into place here in the Jurassic Period, some 145 to 199 million years ago.

Or, if you take a fundamentalist view of things, just a few thousand years ago.

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Update: I returned to Stagecoach Trail to get photos of the outcrop of metavolcanic rocks. Here's the outcrop from a distance.

And here are closer views.