Joaquin Murietta has been described in many ways. He is known as a bloodthirsty killer. He had been called a modern Robin Hood. He was shot and his head was put on exhibit in a jug of alcohol. He escaped capture and death and moved away from this area. He lived apart from people. He lived nearby, sometimes in the caves on Brushy Peak north of Livermore. He was a murdering, thieving scoundrel. He was a poor young Mexican boy driven to desperation by the cold-blooded murder of his brother and by the ruination and death of his lovely young wife.
Now, obviously, not all of these statements can be true. Geography seems to have something to do with one's view of this controversial man.
People who lived around here had this to say about him: "While the folks were in the Mission San Jose, prior to 1851, a very handsome, curly-haired young man and his lovely young wife arrived. She was only 16 or 17 and lovely, but very sick from the long journey and privations of the trip. Grandma said she had scurvy from lack of vegetables, etc. Great -Grandma Fallon and Mrs. Norris nursed her back to health through the winter while Joaquin worked about the Mission vegetable gardens. He was very grateful to the ladies and they always said there was no meanness in Joaquin. In fact, he did several kind things for quite a few folks our Great- Grandma knew of.
"Joaquin left the Mission San Jose and went to Sonora with his Rosita and his brother. The next word of him was that some men (white folks from Kentucky) had shot his brother while he was working the land. They came into the house and tied Rosita. They hurt her so badly that she died, but not until she had told Joaquin who had hurt her. The direction of his life changed after that and from then on, his whole purpose in living was to destroy the men who killed his brother and his wife. Eventually he did just that.
"After Great-Grandma and Great Grandpa Fallon moved to the house in Dublin, Joaquin would often come to the laurel trees near the house and whistle. If anyone was there, Great-Grandfather would not answer, otherwise he would respond with a quail call, and Joaquin would come in for a visit. Sometimes Great-Grandma fed him while he was on the run from the law.
"One time Joaquin appeared at the door and asked for food. Great-Grandma cooked him a meal and seated him at the kitchen table. While he was eating, a knock came at the door. A man, who was of the Sheriff's posse, asked if she had seen a man go past her house on horseback. She replied, 'No one on horseback has passed my house that I have seen.' She was telling the truth. She had not seen Joaquin on horseback, and he had not passed her house-he was in it. He had hidden his horse behind the haystack and walked to the house. The deputy sheriff thanked her and rode away; She was a little frightened. Joaquin finished his meal, slipped to his horse and disappeared.
"Once, late at night, Aunt Amelia (Uncle Michael Murray's wife) heard a knock at her door. It startled her considerably and she asked, 'Who is it?' in a very frightened voice. A soft-spoken man answered, 'Don't be afraid. No harm will come to you.' She opened the door to a nice looking stranger with black curly hair. She had never seen Joaquin before. He said, 'My men are very hungry; do you have some bread?' She had baked bread that day ( as she did every day) and gave him several loaves. He insisted on paying for it with a five-dollar gold piece. Later, Uncle Michael and Great-Grandfather told her whom she had befriended."
All of the above is a direct quote from My Grandma 1O1d Me by Veronica Kiefer, a direct descendent of Jeremiah Fallon, one of the pioneer settlers of Dublin.
In an interview with Manual Silva, a long time resident of Livermore, the name of Joaquin Murietta came into the conversation. Following is an exact quote from Mr. Silva: "Oh, that was a gag! They talk about bandits and robbers and all that. They were nice people. But the Mexicans or whoever it was, they came in and ruined his wife, so then he turned bad. Said he was going to get even on them. But they were pretty good people, you know. Mother, of course, she could talk Spanish like a Mexican. She was born in the Azores but she was well educated. So...but those people. They called them bandits, they called them robbers, they called them everything. They used to come down from their trading place- Maggie's (Mrs. Rowell) place now and Mother used to tell them, 'Put your horse in the barn and come and have a cup of coffee.' They'd do it. They went there and never harmed anybody.
"But don't ask them any questions. You knew who they were, all right. So they'd come in. They'd eat. They'd drink coffee or whatever it was and they'd go out and smoke and then come in the house and say, 'Gracias! Adios!' and that was it. They'd never bother you. But if you didn't treat them right, they'd steal the hat off your head."
Bessie Hargrove Drury is our next local informant. She was born at the ranch house at the northern boundary of the Harlan property. Her father farmed the Harlan Ranch from 1883 to 1888. Bessie was born there in 1884. She was the guest speaker at the El Nido Open House sponsored by the Amador-Livermore Valley Historical Society in April of 1971. Following her prepared speech, there was a question and answer period. Someone asked if Joaquin Murietta had ever come there.
She replied: "I couldn't tell you if Joaquin Murietta came here, but Joel Harlan was coming from the mines one night, well about in 1852,1 guess, and he was followed, and he knew he was being followed, so he stopped at Robert Livermore's and told him he was being followed. He (Livermore) said, 'Well, Jose, you go on and I’ll hold them till you get home.' So he went on and Joaquin and his men came to Robert Livermore's and he told them that Jose was a friend of his and that he wanted them to let him go home and not molest him. So they waited and Uncle Joel got home and there was no trouble. That's as near as I know that Joaquin Murietta got."
There are caves on Brushy Peak and it is said by many that they were used as hideouts by the Murietta aggregation. This is possible because he seems to have made contact with people in the area. No one in our valley seems to feel that he was such a deep-dyed villain as he has been portrayed in some of the publications extant.
Now we shall see him through the eyes of people in the Mother Lode country. The contrast is so great that one cannot help feeling they are talking about someone else. But you make your own judgement. These opinions are based on newspaper articles and various other accounts of the period. The work was done about a century after his active period.
At first it seems that Joaquin really tried to become a part of the community. He tried mining but was treated very badly robbed, cheated, beaten-as so many non-Anglos were treated. When he was forced out of mining, he turned to gambling. He opened his gambling hall in the Blue Tent at Murphys. Toughs and hoodlums attacked that, too, but the local constable, Ben Marshall, protected him. This seems to be the only time any white man ever helped him in Gold Rush country; He was so grateful that he gave the constable a daguerreotype picture of himself.
He next made his headquarters at Sawmill flat near Columbia. This was in 1852 and a newspaper of that time wrote of him as a dangerous and desperate man.
He is blamed for the death of General Joshua Bean in San Gabriel. The story goes this way: Joaquin and his men had gone there to steal horses, which they would bring back north. General Bean, (brother of Roy Law "West of the Pecos Bean) was surprised riding alone one night and was gunned down for his work as a vigilante. The crime was attributed to Joaquin and his henchmen. The murder never has been completely solved but seven men and one woman were rounded up and three of the men were hanged. One of these was later proved to be innocent.
At this point Joaquin is believed to have returned to the Mother Lode area. From here on, the story becomes very violent and bloody; Joaquin and his men are reputed to have killed men at every turn. He must surely have had some special protection, because hundreds of men were searching for him and every robbery and murder was automatically charged to him, which kept anger at fever pitch.
He and his gang were able to keep ahead of his pursuers because they always had excellent horses. If they needed fresh horses they tried to buy them, but if the owner refused to sell, they just took the animals.
Constable Ellas of San Andreas was especially anxious to catch Joaquin and his gang because they delighted in baiting him. They knew him by sight but very few people really knew what Joaquin Murietta looked like. They struck time after time with lightning speed and were off and away before effective counter-action could be organized.
After one gun battle, a wounded bandit was captured and hanged. Before he died, however, he "made a confession which discovered a plan of a well organized bandit throughout the state. He was of Joaquin's party, but not a leading or conspicuous member. His obligations confined him to a certain district, out of which he dared not travel. He was compelled to be in readiness at all times and to turn out immediately on receiving an order from any of his superiors. He was also required to notice passing events and to appraise the company of anything that transpired affecting their welfare. He was bound to shelter and protect any of the brethren who were in danger, to procure horses and assist them in their escape at all hazards, rendering all the aid and comfort to the band which lay in his power. Such a combination as this cannot easily be broken up, and it shows a skillful generalship in the leaders greater than they have been given credit for."
The entire Mexican population was driven out of San Andreas in reprisal.
We shall now be involved in opinions of some people who wrote about him on the basis of reports and newspaper accounts that were published around 1852 and 1853. Not all accounts were made "on the spot" and there was rather poor communication between communities, so we can understand how a feeling of helpless panic could color some of the reports. People read and believed what they read and this, no doubt, compounded the confusion.
As the hysteria, grew mass meetings were held and all citizens were urged to unite to drive out all Mexicans. Any wild rumor was believed. Joaquin and his band were accused of stopping a stage and killing the driver and two women passengers. This was refuted the next day, but the panic was growing. Hundreds of men set out to track down the gang. The attacks on Chinese miners increased and all of them were attributed to Joaquin's gang. One must wonder how the bandits could ever carry so much gold. Gold dust and ore are not light. They were charged with stealing $6,000, then $600, then $30,000, then $10,000 plus $3,000-all within one month.
The governor of California offered a reward of $1,000 for the capture of Murietta. The citizens of the area under attack deemed it far too little. They suggested that $5,000 was a more appropriate reward for Joaquin and for his aide, Ruiz, and $1,000 for any of the subordinates, dead or alive. Inasmuch as they believed the gang to number 50 members, this was asking a lot. Actually, the governor was empowered to offer only the $1,000. Some of the miners decided to put distance between themselves and Calaveras County. Some went back home; some moved to Tuolumne County; and some moved all the way to Australia to hunt for gold there.
When some Frenchmen were murdered near Mariposa a newspaper article reported that it was supposed that the assassins belonged to Joaquin's band and were, perhaps) headed by Joaquin himself. However, no one could ever catch him, so rumors multi- plied and fears grew.
The California State Legislature declined to offer a reward, lest doing so would result in dozens of Mexicans being killed and their heads being offered for reward. The lawmakers tended to discount the printed reports in the newspapers. One Stockton paper, calmer than some, noted that Joaquin Murietta was reported to be in Placerville and in San Diego at the same time.
The people of Mariposa County were desperately afraid. Their own posse had never been able to cope with the problem. They finally petitioned the State for creation of a group to be called the California Rangers. These men were to hunt down Murietta and were to be paid by the State. There was so much public pressure by this time that the Legislature did act. On May 17, 1853, the California Rangers were authorized, to be led by Captain Harry Love. The band was not to exceed twenty men nor to last more than three months. Each man was to be paid $150 per month and was to supply his own food, horses, guns, and ammunition.
Once the California State Legislature authorized the organization of the California Rangers with Captain Love to recruit and lead them, things happened fast. Captain Harry Love had had experience in the Texas border wars. He was six feet, two inches tall, was 34 years old and would look completely natural today with his shoulder length hair and his mustache.
Twenty men (the authorized complement) were soon selected. They were not just bloodthirsty rabble. In the group were legislators, doctors, and even a judge. The fact that only one man in the whole group could positively identify Joaquin Murietta, if they found him, did not seem to bother these men at all. They were so incensed and so wrought up over the recent killings and robberies that their judgement might have been somewhat warped. They traveled light, each carrying a rifle, a pistol, and a Bowie knife. Food, tin cup, tin plate, coffee can and spoon were rolled in a blanket and then in a tarp. Membership in the group varied from time to time as some men dropped out and others joined. One must wonder if some of the dropouts might have had a doubt or two about the whole project.
Because of the confusion surrounding the last name of Joaquin, the Rangers were authorized to capture the band of robbers led by the five Joaquins: Muriati, Carrillo, Ocomorenia, Valenzuela, and Botellier. They were trying to cover all bases. The public was impatient with any delay, demanding immediate action of some kind. So when two Mexicans, accused of stealing horses, were captured and taken in for trial, the citizens dispatched them with bullets without waiting for the formality of a trial. Captain Love and his Rangers found many stolen animals and the crime rate in Mariposa County dropped to nearly zero.
In the course of their widespread hunt for Joaquin Murietta, they met a large group of Mexicans one-day who said they were hunting wild mustangs. Love claimed that his party was doing the same thing. When the Mexicans left the camp he trailed them. The gang split and regrouped near Tulare Lake. The Rangers closed in on the camp just as the men were settling down for the day; The man sitting by the campfire was immediately identified as Three Finger Jack Garcia. Byrnes, the only man in the Rangers who had met Joaquin Murietta, identified him as the man washing his horse in the creek. At this point, Three Finger Jack is said to have fired at Love but just clipped off a lock of his hair. Then general gunfire broke out. The man in the creek jumped onto his horse and galloped away bareback. He was pursued and when his horse was disabled and fell, Joaquin was shot in the back. & he fell wounded, he shouted something in Spanish but no one heard what it was. At this point several other Rangers galloped up and, despite the fact that Joaquin was wounded and unarmed, they all shot him. They loaded the corpse onto a horse and took it back to the camp. Jack was already dead. They severed Joaquin's head and Jack's head and mutilated hand. This was in July, so it was important to get the trophies to some place where they could be preserved. They were put into a flour sack and two Rangers started a 90-mile ride across the San Joaqin Valley; by the time they reached a saloon, the trophies were in a bad condition. In fact, they threw Garcia's head to the coyotes and plopped his hand and Joaquin's head into a keg of whiskey; Meantime the other Rangers tried to capture the remaining outlaws who had fled into the hills, but were so weary that they started back with only two captives. One of these was drowned before they ever reached Mariposa. On the word of the remaining prisoner, a jury of 18 citizens declared that the severed head was indeed that of Joaquin Murietta. Other people corroborated this. Captain Harry Love was paid the $1,000 reward as agreed. Later, the State Legislature passed an act awarding him an additional $5,000.
The head and hand were displayed around the State in a glass jar of whiskey; At one time the display was in New Orleans. It was returned to San Francisco where it was exhibited in a curio shop that was destroyed in the earthquake of 1906.
But, you know, rumors still persists that they did not get the real Joaquin Murietta -- that he was one who escaped the posse. What do you think?