The Historic Cary House Hotel

By Paisley Kirkpatrick

Built in 1857, the Cary House Hotel still stands in Placerville, California, and is still a functioning hotel. This jewel, built when the gold rush town was prospering, still treats its guests to an interesting night’s sleep. During the five years I worked in the Chablis Art Gallery across the street from the hotel, I was able to make friends with the manager who graciously let me take photos inside and out, and meet one of the two most active ghosts. I found it interesting to discover the hotel featured such luxuries as hot and cold running water (a novelty in its time), an elegant grand staircase, and a lobby handcrafted in mahogany and cherry woods.

Echoes from a colorful history still linger in the halls of the elegant place of lodging. Early days provided a regular stop for stage lines that brought travelers to the gold country. In some instances, the stage returned to the San Francisco mint with millions of dollars in bullion. Its trimmed wrought-iron balcony not only added to its grace but, also lent a great space for Horace Greely to give a speech. The world-renowned “Hangtown Fry” (consisting of oysters and scrambled eggs) was created at the Cary House by the request of a miner who'd struck it rich in the nearby gold fields.

As I mentioned before, two ghosts inhabit the Cary House Hotel. Stan is the ghost I tangled with the day I toured the hotel and took photos. He lives mostly in the lobby of the hotel. In the gold rush heyday, he worked as the clerk at the check-in counter. He loved the place, so has stuck around all these years since his death. At the beginning of his employment, he checked patrons in and out of the Cary House. He had a great love of liquor, especially brandy and whiskey. When he wasn’t working, he would head down to Rivendell’s Book Store where he could socialize. Back then, the store was a great place to visit with fellow patrons, and to get a drink, especially on the cold, damp days of winter. Stan would sneak out during his workday when no one was around, grab a drink, and hurry back to the hotel.

Stan loved women but was ignored by them. He was a short, stocky man with reddish brown hair, balding on the top and not what most people would consider a 'ladies man'. Truth be known, he also liked men somewhat. He was not really in demand by either. So, he did his job, was polite until the alcohol took effect, loved gossip and checking people out, and was known to be a bit 'mouthy' and insulting. He made a pass at a man, and the fellow stabbed him twice. Stan fell down the stairs to his death.

My encounter with Stan happened the day I wanted to ride the elevator upstairs. It's kept inside a room about the size of a closet. The wrought-iron door wouldn’t open. I tried but to no avail. So did the manager. It was no big deal as the staircase was grand and fun to walk up to the second and third floors. I was disappointed because it looked like a fun ride. On the way down to the lobby, the door opened, and I got my elevator ride. Maybe old Stan was so happy to see me leave his hotel that he gladly let me take the ride. Rumors from some of the patrons have said they've seen their doorknobs turn when they retire for the night. Some believe Stan checks the door to each room with a lady guest to make sure they are locked safely inside their rooms.

A television show that traveled around the country doing spots on the most haunted buildings filmed a twenty-minute show on the ghosts in residence at Cary House.

Information from “The Incredible World of Gold Rush Ghosts”

An Act of Desperation

By Paisley Kirkpatrick

I'm sharing a couple of my photos and stories of the life in Placerville, California during the gold rush era that began around 1849 and, in some circumstances, is still alive now. These two buildings have quite an interesting history as one gave immediate gratification in the form of a drink, and the second in the form of lust fulfilled. The Soda Works building was constructed in 1852, and is one of the oldest buildings in Placerville.

Soda water was bottled using a carbonation machine, which is still on display, and sold to miners because it has seen many different types of businesses inside its doors. I had the opportunity to enter the tunnel that still remains open at the back of the building. It is narrow and has cold rock along the edges. I had to stoop over to keep from banging my head. There is a cool draft as you proceed deeper into the dark. I can imagine it might have been an unnerving experience for the men who headed to the other end to find the Chinese bordello. Up until a couple of years ago, when there was a rock slide at the bordello end of the tunnel, it was still fully functional. The tunnel started at one end of town and went nearly the entire length of Placerville's Main Street, inside a mountain of rock. If you didn't know about it, you would never suspect it was there.

I stepped inside the bordello several years ago to have a video copied. That was the current business that was operating in the building. The owner showed me their historical holes in the wall. I wish I had taken photos, but at the time didn’t think to do so. Along a hallway there are niches cut into a rock wall that were about five-foot long and maybe 2 ½ to 3 feet deep. Apparently, when the men finished with their drinks, they would walk the length of the tunnel from the Soda Works to visit the bordello. I am not sure how long that walk was, but I'd guess at least a quarter mile. When the gentleman reached the end of his walk, he was expected to shower before spending time with the girl in that small cubbyhole cut int the wall. What can I say except that they had to be tough, and they had to be a bit desperate. The saving grace of visiting the girls in that manner is that nobody knew they were there, if that was something they wanted to keep to themselves.

Adventures at the Empire Mine

By Paisley Kirkpatrick

The Empire Mine, located in Grass Valley, California, is one of the oldest, largest, deepest, longest, and richest gold mines in California. Between 1850 and its closure in 1956, the Empire Mine produced 5.8 million ounces of gold, extracted from 367 miles (591 km) of underground passages.

My grandparents lived in Nevada City, another town situated in the Mother Lode. Exploring gold mines became a summer ritual once I hit my teens. We'd find remnants lying on the ground in old garbage dumps and along the property not far from their house. Grandma and I found checks dated in 1901 from a gold mining company, crucibles (a ceramic container in which gold was melted at very high temperatures), and several other gold containers.

I remember the first time I visited the Empire Mine. We were able to step four feet into the mine to the place where the miners loaded and unloaded into the cart that carried them deep inside the mine.

We learned they kept canaries in cages. If one died, they knew methane gas (a colorless, odorless flammable gas that is the most common dangerous gas found in underground gold mines) was in the section they worked. The miners new they needed to vacate that area of the mine. They'd take mules down into the mines to carry what the miners dug out of the walls. They'd enter the mine before sunrise and come out after sunset.

The mules never saw daylight.

In Oct. 1850, George McKnight discovered gold in a quartz outcrop (ledge) called the Ophir Vein. It was bought and purchased several times until the Empire Mining Co. was incorporated in 1854. Miners from the tin and copper mines of Cornwall, England, arrived to share their experience and expertise in hard rock mining. Particularly important was the Cornish contribution of the Cornish engine, operated on steam, which emptied the depths of the mine of its constant water seepage at a rate of 18,000 gallons per day. This increased the productivity and expansion underground. Starting in 1895, Lester Allan Pelton's water wheel provided electric power for the mine and stamp mill. The Cornish provided the bulk of the labor force from the late 1870s until the mine’s closure eighty years later.

William Bowers Bourn acquired control of the company in 1869. Bourn died in 1874, and his estate ran the mine, abandoning the Ophir vein for the Rich Hill in 1878. Bourn's son, William Bowers Bourn II, formed the Original Empire Co. in 1878, took over the assets of the Empire Mining Co., and continued work on the Ophir vein after it was bottomed out at 1200 feet and allowed to fill with water. With his financial backing, and after 1887, the mining knowledge and management of his younger cousin George W. Starr, the Empire Mine became famous for its mining technology. Bourn purchased the North Star Mine in 1884, turning it into a major producer, and then sold it to James D. Hague in 1887, along with controlling interest in the Empire a year later.

Bourn reacquired control of the Empire Mine in 1896, forming the Empire Mines and Investment Co. In 1897, he commissioned Willis Polk to build the Cottage on land near the mine, using waste rock from the mine. The Cottage included a greenhouse, gardens, fountains and a reflecting pool.

PHOTOS:

Paisley Kirkpatrick

JERRYE AND ROY KLOTZ MD - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, c

Clark, W.B. - Gold Districts of California, Bulletin 193, California Division of Mines and Geology

Johnston, W.D. - The Gold Quartz Veins of Grass Valley, California, Professional Paper 194, USGS

Broken Promise is set in the California 1849 Gold Rush. The heroine inherits a gold mine and must discover its location to save her inheritance.

http://amzn.com/1612527485

Bandit Built Store

By Paisley Kirkpatrick

The following accounting was obtained from Roscoe Wyatt, Oscar John and Walter Ray. Oscar and Walter both remember the Younger brothers in person. Wyatt was a conscientious historian. Personal interviews included two of my family members: Emma John Weeks and Percy Weeks. Oscar John (87 at the time of the interview) worked on the Bandit Built Store. He knew the Younger brothers from when they hid out on his La Honda ranch.

Among the men hired to build John Sears’ store, referred to as the ‘Bandit-Built Store’ in 1877, were the Younger brothers from Forsyth, Kansas. At that time no one in La Honda, CA, knew them as the Younger brothers, because they were posing as cousins to Oscar John and Walter Ray. Jim Younger actually lived behind the Redwood City Court House for one year using the name of Joe Hardin.

Cole, Jim, Bob and John Younger lived in Forsyth, Kansas on their father’s ranch in May 1861, when the Civil War broke out. Cole, the youngest son, joined the Confederate Army and became a colonel. In November of that year, a short leave gave him a chance to visit his parents. As he approached the ranch, he found the place engulfed in flames. A band of Union troops and local Northern sympathizers reached the ranch before him and stole all of the stock before burning the grain, corn, and feed. They also threw his youngest sister, who suffered from tuberculosis, out on the cold ground, causing her death. When their father discovered what had happened and put up a fight, they hung him from a tree on the ranch. This left their mother, oldest sister, Molly, and three younger brothers homeless.

Within hours Cole, along with a friend, organized local Southern sympathizers and within a few hours they started wiping out their enemies. It’s reported that Cole alone killed one hundred men that he knew had something to do with his father’s and sister’s death. By the end of the war, Cole had a price on his head for desertion, killing for revenge, and a long list of other charges. He left his family in the care of his cousin, John Jarret’s parents. He, John Jarret and a few friends left for California where they hoped to find sanctuary at his uncle’s ranch in San Jose, but ended up using a ranch in La Honda as their hideout.

Oscar John and his stepfather met the gang as they rode onto the ranch. Oscar was ten years old at the time. He recalls unsaddling ten horses. Everyone but Cole Younger and John Jarret left the ranch. They helped build the lakeside Ray ranch into a large two-story building. Cole and John traveled back to Kansas in order to bring the rest of their family west. They learned their mother had died and that Jim and Bob Younger had been accomplices to the James gang robberies. Cole was convinced the Ray ranch was the best place for the remainder of his family until everything blew over.

They arrived back in La Honda August 1876, when big changes were happening. A new sawmill belonging to R.J. Weeks (my ancestor) opened and John Sears just started clearing an old bear pit site for his store and hotel. At last luck was with the Younger family. Oscar John talked John Sears into hiring his cousins from the east, no questions asked. The three brothers and John Jarret went to work on the store. Oscar John recalls seeing Cole shingling the roof of the store. When the store was finished, the men returned to the Ray ranch to work the harvest.

John Jarret spent that season at the Ray ranch, one season in Redwood City and then went back east. He returned the next year and started work on my family’s ranch. While he was there, he married Molly Younger, thereby becoming Cole’s brother-in-law as well as cousin.

The James Brothers were planning to rob the Northfield Bank in Minnesota. They couldn’t pull the job by themselves and no longer trusted their gang. They sent a message to Cole by a man named Giles. Since the Youngers knew Northfield, they expected them to participate in the robbery. Frank and Jesse James sent a message stating that if the Youngers refused to come, they would have them exposed to the law. Cole decided to participate to save his sister and brother-in-law. He left a rare set of pearl handled pistols with Jarret at the Weeks Ranch. He realized if he got caught with them, they’d be a dead giveaway as to his identity.

Cole had an agreement with Jesse James that this bank robbery would be their last appearance in the mid-west. Jesse assured Cole that after this job, they would never have to worry about money again. Unfortunately, the robbery went wrong. During their escape Jim Younger was shot in the jaw. Jesse wanted to kill Jim because it would hinder to their escape. Cole absolutely refused. So, while Jim lay bleeding in a wet creek bottom, the James brothers made a clean getaway. The Younger brothers gave themselves up to the law to save Jim from bleeding to death. Cole, Jim and Bob Younger were sentenced to serve terms in the Minnesota Penitentiary.

When John Jarret learned what had happened to his brothers-in-law, he happened to be working away from the Weeks ranch and only coming home on the weekends. Giles showed up at the ranch with a forged note from Cole. Molly wasn’t home so he gave the note to their housekeeper. It was written to Molly and asked that she give Giles the two rare guns. The note stated that Cole’s prison term was just about up and that he wanted to sell the guns so he could get a new start in life. The housekeeper, remembering Giles from his first trip, thought he was on the level and handed over the guns. Jarret, for some unknown reason, came home that night and found Giles there with the guns in his possession. After he read the letter, he knew it was forged because Cole always wrote in of care of him, not Molly. Giles confessed that he had a chance to sell the guns to an Illinois museum.

Jim Bartley, La Honda rancher and teamster, visited the Younger brothers at the Northfield, Minnesota Penitentiary. He learned that an old sweetheart of Jim Younger visited him regularly. She promised to marry him when he got out of prison. Jim looked forward to that day, planning once more to start life anew. However, the woman turned him down when he got out. His heart was broken. Having nothing to live for, he rented a room at a cheap boarding house and shot himself through the head.

Cole and Bob dropped into obscurity after serving their terms.

Ghosts Still Haunt the Site of the California Gold Rush

By Paisley Kirkpatrick

I've been enjoying all of the ghosts stories posted this past week. We used to live in a community that is known for its gold rush ghosts. In fact, the art gallery I worked in had its own resident ghosts so I am definitely a believer.

The gallery was housed in a renovated building located in Placerville, California. The building dated back to 1851. Originally it was called the 49er Corner Saloon and to this day a creek runs under the building. My first inclination of a live-in ghost was when I heard heavy footsteps overhead. I wouldn't have thought anything of it except all the tenants who worked above the art gallery were away for Christmas holiday. A man's footsteps walked back and forth; doors slammed. I mentioned this occurrence to my boss. She went upstairs and checked the entire floor. She found nobody. The next year around the Christmas holidays it happened again. Then a few months later, we found one of our wastebaskets missing. There were three gray and one pink left together in the middle of the backroom after we'd emptied them. In the morning, the pink wastebasket was missing and was never found. One of my jobs was to print out tags and tape them on the wall next to each painting. One morning I found all of the tags in the middle of the room on the carpeted floor and several paintings hung crooked on the wall. The final blow was when my boss and another clerk were working behind the counter on one side of the gallery. Across the room, a six-foot tall ceramic vase slammed against the wall hard enough to break into several pieces and the mahogany table that was next to the vase had a leg badly scratched. The ghost had turned violent for the first time. My boss called in a ghost expert and she worked her trade well. The ghost never came back after her visit.

Across the street from the art gallery is The Cary House Hotel, built in 1857. I have used this hotel in several of my books in the Paradise Pines Series. The inside has been kept in the same décor as it was when it was built. The hotel boasts of having two ghosts. The former television show that explored haunted places in the U.S. spent twenty minutes exposing Stan. I did encounter Stan when I was going upstairs to gather information for my stories. The owners have added an elevator to the hotel and it is kept inside a closet. We tried to open the door but it was stuck. The manager told me Stan wasn't happy about us intruding so we walked up the stairs. On the way down, there was no problem. The door slid open and we got our ride. It is rumored that Stan loved women and possibly the men as well. To this day he checks each doorknob in the hotel to make sure the guests are safely locked inside. He also rides the elevator up and down most of the night. Stan was the clerk in the lobby for many years. He was a short, stocky man with reddish brown hair, balding on the top and not what most people would consider a 'ladies' man. He did his job politely until alcohol took effect, loved gossip, and checking people out of the hotel. Sometimes he was insulting and sarcastic. He apparently made a pass at a man, the man stabbed him twice in anger, and Stan fell down the stairs to his death.

The hotel has many ghost sightings and it draws people to tempt their fate with the ghosts. Several other buildings in town are haunted. One day while I was taking notes in the Hangman's Bar I saw a tall man with a long black coat and tall black hat walk out of the women's bathroom. He reminded me of what Abraham Lincoln looked like. He just dissolved a few feet in front of me. No, I had not been imbibing.

We have moved from the Placerville area so I no longer watch for ghosts. They give the town a sense of the past and a bit of mystery.

Declan Grainger, the hero in my Night Angel story, was the owner of Chaumers Hotel, which I modeled after The Cary House. Chaumers Hotel took on a life of its own, but as far as I know no ghosts live there...yet.

http://amzn.com/B00909PON0

The Incredible World of Gold Rush Ghosts written by Nancy Bradley and Robert Reppert give a great accounting of all the ghosts living in this area. I recommend it to anyone with a ghostly imagination.

My Life in a Nutshell

By Paisley Kirkpatrick

I was born at the end of WWII. Right after the war ended, life was easy and people were happy to have the horrors over with. We were an average family - probably considered boring in these times. Santa Rosa, California, is where my younger brother, Steven, and I grew up. My mother was the 'happy' housewife and stay-at-home mother. My father walked to work at the gas and electric company every day.

My education was in the public school systems. After graduating from Santa Rosa High School, I studied business at Commerce Business College and came out with secretarial skills that I still use in my writing career. I always wanted to be a secretary and ended up spending several years working for Certified Public Accountants in Santa Rosa and then Sacramento. It's a good thing I loved to type because we had to type every tax return page without error. It's why I became a qualified statistical typist.

 

I met my husband at an Air Force picnic when I was 23 years old. I knew the minute I saw Ken that he was the man I wanted to marry. Four months after we met, I put him on a plane and watched him fly off to Vietnam for 366 days. Five days after he returned to the states, we got married in a beautiful chapel in Sacramento and have been happy for 45 years. Our daughters were nine and half years apart. We lost our older daughter to cancer when she was 32 years old. Our younger daughter is married and works in a County Clerk's Office.

Writing has always been part of my life. In school I went a bit overboard with term papers. I don't think I ever turned in a project less than 2 inches thick. In 1989 I joined an International Pen Friends Organization and wrote to 41 foreign pen pals for years. Now I am down to fifteen from the original group and think of them as good friends. Cristache from Romania spent three weeks with us, one of my German pen pals and his wife visited us for a day, and we spent three days with in the home of my Scottish penpal and her husband. It's been an amazing part of our lives to have friends in so many foreign countries.

Our 'foreign children' have been a major part of our lives for what seems like forever. We met Bert on a camping trip 33 years ago. He was 21 and touring the states with several other young people at the time. When he got married, we traveled to his homeland of Holland and were part of the wedding party in a grand castle. Our Swedish daughter, Maggie, was an exchange student from Malmo, Sweden for the school year 1986-87. To this day she and her husband consider us their 'other' parents. Luckily for us, we have been able to visit their homes and they ours on many occasions.

In 1996 I became the president of country singing artist, Kevin Sharp's fan club. Those 12 years I worked for him are some of the most treasured moments in my life. I was so proud of Kevin when his first song, Nobody Knows, was No. 1 on the charts for four weeks. My fan club partner and I spent five summers in Nashville running Kevin's fan club booth for a week of greeting his fans and supervising his meet and greets. An extra bonus was standing on the stage of the Grand Ole Opry while Kevin sang.

I started making quilts after we lost our daughter. I have given away 54 quilts in her honor over the years. The first quilts were for babies. I make them out of brightly colored flannel. My husband is the one who finds the best prints and colors in the fabric stores. I have also made quilts with bookcovers on fabric and one wedding quilt.

I actually started having that 'I want to be a published author' dream in 1989. I joined Romance Writers of America in 1999 and after 22 years of practicing the craft, making lots of writer friends, and finishing two novels with a third one started, I received an offer for five books from Desert Breeze Publishing on Christmas Eve, 2011 at 10:35 -- but who is remembering? My sixth historical romance novel is what I am working on now. Since we were living in the Sierra Mountains of California, near where the gold discovery happened, I was able to write about the 1849 gold rush. I loved the history surrounding the area and I wrote what I loved.

Three months ago, we left my native state of California and moved to my husband's hometown in northern Wisconsin. We love living here with the Tomahawk River as our back border. I have the greatest view from my desk in my sunroom office. As I finish writing Paradise Pines Series: Stealing Her Heart, the last book in my Paradise Pines Series, I am looking forward to getting to know my new area and writing the Northwoods Series. This is an exciting time in our lives. We are getting to know my husband's classmates and they are involved in selling my books and making me feel part of their community.

 
My newest book, Broken Promise, was released on May 21, 2014. It can be purchased in ebook or print format at Desert Breeze Publishing at

 http://www.desertbreezepublishing.com/paradise-pines-broken-promise-epub/ and at Amazon http://amzn.com/B00KI268Z6  

Wheelbarrow John Returns to Old Hangtown

By Paisley Kirkpatrick

The El Dorado Republican and Nugget got out a special edition in honor of the occasion of John Studebaker returning to Placerville, California, fifty-nine years after he left the gold rush town. (April 1907)

More than fifty-nine years ago a gaunt youth of nineteen stepped down from an emigrant wagon and took his first look around at the country where he had come to make a fortune. In his pocket was a lone 50-cent piece. Today a kindly-faced aged man stepped from a luxurious automobile and looked around him at the area where he had laid the foundation for his fortune. It was J.M. Studebaker returning to take perhaps his last look at the scenes of his early struggles.

The auto had drawn up in front of the Ohio House where on the wooden porch stood a score of grizzled men. As Studebaker stepped down from his auto he spied a face in the crowd. ''Hello Newt, you around here yet?" he said, by way of salutation.

"Yes, I'm here yet," answered Newton T. Spencer with his Missouri drawl, "but they call me judge now, Mr. Studebaker, ye see I'm the Justice of the Peace."

"Huh! What did you ever know about law when you and Hank Monk used to stop in the road and decide with your fists which of your stages was going to back up to let the other pass?" exclaimed Studebaker in jocular tone.

"And you, too, Charley Von Weidierwachs, where's that rip-snortin' Jayhawk, Blackhawk, Mohawk father of yours?" asked Studebaker, shaking hands with a bent figure, beneath whose black hat hung locks of silver gray.

"City clerk Weatherwax, if you please," he drew himself up with a mock show of pride, "that name bothered me worse than all tarnation, so I had to change it."

"Well, this town hasn't changed," Studebaker paused to glance about him as he shook hands with the men who were young and full of hope when he first came here.

"And where's Mike Mayer, one of the men who worked with me?" he asked.

Studebaker was told. A few minutes later he was driven up to a white painted cottage and was shown inside. His visit must be brief, he knew.

"Is that you, Wheelbarrow John?" a tremulous voice asked the question as a thin and emaciated hand came out from beneath the coverlet and groped for a hand to press in greeting.

"Yes, it's I, Mike," answered Studebaker, as he looked into the sightless eyes and drawn face of Michael Mayer.

There was feeling in his voice as Studebaker said, "I must go now, Mike."

They clasped hands for a minute more -- these two relics of the days of 1849 -- one worth millions and the other -- well, not so rich.

Before Studebaker would sit down to the banquet in honor of his return to Hangtown he must see some of the old places he knew. He saw not many. Hangtown was swept by the fire while he was here in the early days; it was destroyed again many years after he left. But the old-timers who rode alongside of him pointed out the place where he went to work for Joe Hinds to make wheelbarrows for $10 each.

The dining room of the Ohio House where the banquet was served had been elaborately decorated. The tables held bouquets of wild flowers, and the walls of the room were banked with yellow poppies against a solid background of ferns. The menu card, on which was emblazoned a picture of a man swinging from a tree, and another representing a man with overalls in boots trundling a wheelbarrow load of gold, was printed after the manner of pioneer typography, the clever imitation winning compliments for the craftsmen of the Placerville "Republican and Nugget office." The catalogue of eatables was replete with early-day references.

CHUCK LIST:

Chili Gulch Rib Warmer

Sluice Box Tailings, flavored with Chicken

High-grade Olives

Spanish Flat Onions

Cedar Ravine Radishes

Coon Hollow Pickles

Sacramento River Salmon paved with cheese

Indian diggings Spuds

Tertiary Moisture

Slab of Cow from the States

Bandana Fries with Bug-juice

Lady Canyon Chicken, Hangtown dressed

Webbertown Murphy's Shirt-tailed Bend Peas

Dead Man's Ravine Asparagus

Cemented Gravel a la emigrant Jane

Butcher Brown Fizz Water

Assorted Nuggets

Amalgam Cheese, Riffle Crackers

Mahala's Delight en tasse

Texas Hill Fruit

Pay Day Smokes

Hard Pan Smokes

Juanita -- First White Woman Lynched in California

By Paisley Kirkpatrick

On the fourth of July, 1851, Downieville celebrated the anniversary of the birth of our republic. Tents, cabins, and buildings were decorated with flags, and hundreds of miners were in town for the event. They consumed large amounts of alcohol and presented lively speeches from a large platform in the town square. One after another, the orators proclaimed the right of liberty for all and declared all men were free.

However, something went wrong in Downieville. The next day these same people participated in one of the most shocking crimes in California history -- they allowed a frenzied mob to hang a woman without the constitutional right to a fair trial. The speeches about equality and liberty for all obviously were not meant to include women, especially of the Mexican race. The victim was Juanita, and her name will be forever linked with the area's colorful past.

Juanita (no last name was ever recorded) was considered attractive, with long, lustrous dark hair; delicate features; and passionate black eyes. She was a graceful young woman from Sonora, Mexico, who was reputed to have been a saloon girl at one time. In Downieville, however, she was considered a better class woman than the camp followers. She lived with her lover in a small cabin, and, although many men sought her favors, Juanita was content with her man, Jose.

They were a happy couple. Jose was a quiet man who dealt cards at Craycrofts' Saloon. In contrast, Juanita was noted for her hot-blooded Latin temper and brightly colored skirts. She met Jose after work every night, and they would walk home together holding hands in the moonlight.

On the day of the crime, July 5th, the Independence Day celebration had continued into the early morning hours when several of the revelers staggered from the saloons. Some were in high spirits, singing and laughing; others were drunken vandals who sent down the streets breaking open the doors of houses. Jack Cannon was one of the latter. He was a large Scotsman who was popular with the men and considered to be a camp rowdy.

On this particular morning some say Cannon fell against the door of Jose and Juanita's cabin, knocking it from its hinges. When Juanita asked Cannon to leave her alone, he called her obscene names in Spanish and accused her of being a prostitute. Juanita swore back at him and he left.

After a few hours of sleep, Cannon returned to Juanita's cabin. Jose politely asked Cannon to have his door repaired. Cannon, who was suffering from a hangover, started once more to insult both Juanita and Jose. The argument became louder, and a crowd began forming. Juanita, upset by the insults and the audience's jeers, asked Cannon to be quiet and invited him into her house to talk. At this point, it is not clear what happened. Either the large man lunged at her, or her temper became too violent. She grabbed a Bowie knife, and small and slender though she was, she managed to plunge the knife into Cannon's chest, instantly killing him.

The stunned spectators, realizing their friend was dead, started yelling. "Lynch them!" In fear, Juanita and Jose ran to Craycroft's where they thought they would find protection. The angry mob surrounded the saloon, and the couple's defenders were forced to run for their own lives. There was no escape for Juanita. She was dragged to the main plaza and forced upon the same platform where the public speeches were heard the day before. Cannon's body, with its ugly wound, was placed nearby to inflame the crowd.

The scene was set for a mock trial. The crowd's mood became uglier as the trial continued. Juanita was found guilty and sentenced to death by hanging within the hour and denied the solace of a priest. They took the trembling 22-year old woman to a nearby cabin to wait for her death. Alone I the cabin, it can be assumed she prayed for forgiveness and the courage to accept her fate.

A rope was hung from the top of ta bridge, beneath it a plant swung out over the river. Townspeople lined the streets to see the hanging. The air was hot, and empty whiskey barrels still lay on the ground from the night before.

Juanita was taken from her cabin, and with her head held high, she bravely faced the crowd. She took the noose in her own hands and placed it around her neck. They tied her arms, skirt, and feet together -- within seconds Juanita was dead. It will never be known if she was guilty or innocent. She was the first woman who was denied the right of a trial. She was buried next to Cannon, and the legend of her hanging lives on.

Photo of Downieville at present.

Women of the Sierra by Anne Seagraves