Letters to my Sons.

Michael Shannon

In 1874 the Cow Counties of Central California were still a wild and wooly place. It would be another two decades before the census bureau would finally decide the American frontier closed. In 1890 after finding that a continuous line of unsettled land no longer existed they declared it officially gone. On paper of course, perhaps one of governments chief accomplishments, it usually bears little relation to real life.

Consider that the Morse posse was going to be looking for a single man supposedly hiding in a an area of California that was sparsely settled, mostly by descendants of the original Californio’s.

In that year there was a single railroad from Sacramento south to Bakersfield. Everything else, south to the Mexican border was sparsely settled. It was crisscrossed by a few wagon roads and many old cattle and native trails. Travel was by coach, horse or “shanks mare.”

The city, it’s traditional historical name, Los Angeles is El Pueblo de Nuestra Señora la Reina de los Ángeles del Río de Porciúncula had a population of a little over 5,700 souls. San Diego de Alcalá numbered roughly 3,000. Spanish was still the dominant language and the majority of the people had Spanish, Mexican or native blood to some degree. As we’ve seen, state government made no secret of it’s racism.

San Diego 1874. San Diego Historical Society

In a country bisected by the rough Southern Coast Range of mountains which ran like a spine right down the center from San Francisco to Ventura forming a tangled mass of deep canyons, Oak forests populated by Grizzly and wolves formed barriers and it had but one trail crossing it. In the southern San Jaoquin the enormous Tulare and Buena Vista lakes and on its eastern border the formidable Southern Sierra Nevada. The southern end was closed off by too except for the old Camino Viejo pass which was the only way for the stagecoach or freight wagons to pass over the Tehachapi range and down towards Los Angeles.Travelers crossing the mountains north of Los Angeles primarily relied on earlier canyon passes and toll roads, such as Beale’s Cut (constructed in 1863) or the San Francisquito Canyon route used by the Butterfield Overland Stage.

Beale’s Cut on the Camino Viejo. It was hand dug and 90 feet deep. A great ambush site. LA Historical Society.

The posse left San Juan Bautista (Saint John the Baptist)* before dawn. Saddled and bridled the mounts waited at the open door of the stable. Rented for the duration of the chase as horse ownership was not as common as people think today. They were expensive to care for and were not common in cities and with towns folk.

The group chatted as they checked cinches and the rest of the tack. Where they were going they would find few towns just isolated ranches so it paid to be careful.

There were rumors that Vasquez was hidihg out up in the Pacheco pass somewhere. Pacheco was a robbers paradise, narrow with steep sided canyons and frequnt side canyons where the bandidos could flee. There were few inhabitants and being mostly Californios were pretty close mouthed when it came to talking to heavily armed Gringo lawmen, or any gringo whatsoever as a matter of fact..

“No se Senor.” or “No conozco a Vasquez.” There was much laughter amongst the locals after the posse rode on. I was entirely possible that the Tiburcio Vasquez gang was hiding in a nearby canyon or watching from a hilltop much as Pancho Villa watched General Pershing as his little American army traipsed around northern Mexico in 1917 trying to lay him by the heels. Might as well try to catch a mosquito with your hand in the dark. Think of it as nearly impossible.

California map from 1858 showing the two main roads or trails that encircled the Central section of the state. The Camino Viejo in the San Jaoquin and the Camino Real along the coast. No other roads of any other consequence are mapped. Finding someone who didn’t want to be found would have been extremely difficult.

Alfred Robinson wrote of the Salinas valley and Hollister in his famous book “Life in California” where his description of his travels through wilds of rural California spoke of hillside choked with Chaparral, streams and valleys so choked with wild berries, Horse nettles growing to ten feet, willow so dense that neither man nor horse could pass, all held together with the huge Encino, and magnificent Alamo trees. Top that off with Poison Oak (Toxicodendron Diversilobum), entwined in dense thicket made travel in those areas extreme. Grizzley bears found it attractive for its berries which just added a fillip of gut wrenching terror when attempting passage through what was a dangerous snarl.

From 1860 to 1880, the pass was known as Robber’s Pass due to the highwaymen who robbed, raped, and murdered travelers along the route. Part way up the canyon was Hollenbeck Station where there was a post office, tavern and the stop for the Butterfield coaches traveling between the coast and the Tulare (Now the San Jaoquin) valleys. The ride across the Santa Clara valley to Hollenbecks was thirty miles, a long days ride especially for men who were likely townsmen.

The Salinas and Santa Clara valleys are notorious for their high winds which howl in through the afternoon coming up from the Pacific at Monterey. (King’s Mountain. Named for the Conde de Monterey viceroy of new Spain when the bay was first discovered in 1602.) Enormous dust clouds rise above the horizon and on sizzling hot days travelers found little or no relief from them.

Arriving at the station, little or no information was likely gotten on any bandido’s whereabouts. They would have camped at the tavern, eaten supper, talked in the barroom on the whereabouts of Tiburcio, then retired to fight fleas all night, Some they do not bite but only crawl over the body in active troops. Grabbing their blankets that they might go outside to sleep would have been the smartest thing to do.

Brewing coffee in the morning the rubbed sleep out of their eyes, dressed while picking cockleburrs from their long johns before watering and feeding the horses and pack mules before saddling up and heading farther up the pass. With the sun below at the ridgeline a bandido would be able to see the posse before being seen themselves. Make no mistake the hunted men were forajidos mal and had shown they had no problem with killing. Both sides were heavily armed with modern weapons and knew how to use them.

Decades later my Grandfather, son of Dad Shannon had in his top dresser drawer the pistol his father carried on this expedition. It was a Smith & Wesson .45 caliber Schofield designed for the US army, a six shot top break single action revolver.

Smith & Wesson Schofield .44 Jesse and Frank James were just two of gimlet eyed outlaws who saw the value of the Schofield revolver.**

The mountains were covered with oats, now dry, giving them a soft straw color. At the top of the pass they must have lingered, the shadows long and dark on the plain, the canyons dark and gloomy, the sunny slopes bathed in soft golden light as if painted by the Masters. The chain of the Diablos mountains is about thirteen to fifteen miles through the base, rising in an innumerable number of ridges to the height of about two thousand feet, furrowed into countless canyons, the whole elevated mass running northwest and southeast. To the east is the great Tulare Valley, often a dense cloud of dust rises from it and forms an opaque white veil that shuts out the view of the Sierra Nevada beyond. Maybe they could see the still massive Tulare lake shining in the light like a great blue mirror. They could view eighty or a hundred miles of the Diablo chain from Mount Diablo hulking above the Sacramento river to Orchard Peak in San Luis Obispo county.

It must have been daunting to think that Vasquez and his gang could be hiding out anywhere around them. They tried to ne careful as they made their way south. Always keep watch for ambush sites, stay out of narrow canyons if you can, ride below ridges so you can’t be seen at a distance, guard your campfires, keep them small and be wary of other riders. Though there was a rudimentary wanted poster no one in the posse had ever seen Vasquez in person and if your recall the so-called head of Jaoquin Murietta in a jar was never proven to actually his. Murrietta was very likely one of many Mexican Californio freebooters and may never actually been captured or even existed.

Tiburcio may have been anybody and as newspaper accounts recount, even ignoring the hyperbole, a very dangerous man. According to the San Francisco Examiner he was the hero of more than thirty murders. Hero, sounds a touch like myth making, probably designed to sensationalize and increase readership in a place which was perfectly safe from consequence.

To quote, “He began his murderous career by killing a Constable in Monterey during a fight over a pretty Senorita. This shooting sent him scampering into the Diablo Mountains where he commenced his deadly career except when spending time in San Quentin or lurking in the pueblos of central California. He defied Vigilantes, organized authority and continued his robbery, thieving, rustling and highway robbery in the most reckless and daring manner. The life he led does not lead the ordinary man in spite of its romance. There is too much of the Mongrel, the filthy “Greaser” the debased Californio character who must by need be displaced or wiped out by the superior white race who now occupy this state. When all the romance of Vasquez’ life is stripped away there is no more hideous object of this animal without heart, conscience, pity or remorse, this man with the hand and foot of a woman and the nature of a vicious hyena for which the hempen necktie surely awaits.” Wisconsin Mirror, April 2nd, 1875

Traveling south the posse declined to enter Beal’s cut and rode up and over the pass where they were not subject to ambush. Vasquez likely knew where they were and would simply avoid a heavily armed legal authority whose only purpose was to end his life and collect the reward. Altruism isn’t normally a feature of mankillers out for reward.

Stopping at Gorman’s ranch on San Emidio creek seeking information they found none. The road southwest to Elizabeths Lake and Jose Juan’s ranch where, being Californios they were tight lipped the found nothing of interest. They turned southwest and crossed Fransequito pass and down into the San Fernando valley.

On November 10, 1873, Tiburcio and his gang robbed the Jones store at Millerton in Fresno County and on December 26, 1873, he and his band sacked the town of Kingston (Near todays Laton) in Fresno County, robbing all the businesses and making off with $2,500 in cash and jewelry. They were headed south.

Kingston, CA A major ferry site on the King’s River. A ghost town today.

It was reported the gang had moved to Elizabeth Lake and Soledad Canyon in the northwest corner of Los Angeles county, robbing a stage coach there of $300, and stealing all six horses from the hitch leaving the coach stranded. They had robbed and killed several lone travelers along the trail.

Sheriff Morse didn’t know it but Vásquez was hiding out at what are now known as Vásquez Rocks. Near Aqua Dulce the shallow caves, deep crevices, and numerous overhangs created a maze that any posse would find difficult. The tallest rock, 150 feet high, provided an excellent lookout point.

Vasquez Rocks, Agua Dulce, California

Reaching the Pueblo Los Angeles and finding no information other than the Los Angeles Sheriff believed that Vasquez had crossed over the Santa Susana mountains and then rode down the Santa Clara river to the coast near San Buenaventura. Morse traded for fresh horses and rapidly headed back up San Fernando pass and then west. He had heard by telegraph that the governor had raised the reward to $15,000 which added to the incentive to run the gang down.

Backtracking north through Santa Barbara they rode up the Santa Ines mountains, crossing the Slick Rock where they found the desiccated bodies of two men, miners by their dress, canvas riveted trousers and plaid wool shirts lying just off the trail frozen as they died their heads arched back and mouths open as if trying to call out to heaven. They were left unburied by all the travelers who had passed by. The casual brutality of the time, which is hard to understand today where death is sanitized to the point of disappearance.

As the hurried north through the Santa Ines valley and over through the Salomon Pico Rancho home of another famous outlaw who they were lucky to avoid, his land being the last resting place of many a victim of his pistolas. Crossing William Foxen’s Rancho Tinaquaic who famously led the floundering and incompetent John Fremont’s troop of California Volunteers with the horses stolen from Captain Dana’s Rancho Nipoma over the San Marcos down to Santa Barbara.

Other than a scattering of the old Rancho communities few people were to be seen. The posse rode across the Arroyo Grande near Ziba Branch’s adobe home on the the Santa Manuela crossing the beautiful secluded valley at the old San Luis Obispo Mission’s corralitos where they had kept their horses in the old days. Eddie Shannon had no idea that he would end his days in that same valley 51 years later.

San Luis Obispo county was an outlaws paradise. Brothels, saloons and Chinese opium dens rubbed elbows with the municipal courts and law offices. The same men frequented them all. Bandidos could murder on the Cuesta grade and be at the bar a half hour later. The Arroyo Grande where dad Shannon would live and raise his family was officially just a year old in 1874 and the entire valley had a population of around thirty familys including 25 Chinese. It was beautiful though and he would not forget it.

After riding nearly twelve hundred miles the posse returned to Oakland and dispersed. The joke was on them. Dusty dirty, and dog tired fannies sore from saddle sores they soon found out that Tiburcio Vasquez had beaten them home.

Moss and his men found out Vásquez had moved into the adobe home of “Greek George” Caralambo in the northwest corner of Rancho La Brea*** while they were trekking up the San Fernando valley. Greek George was a former camel driver for the US Army’s Camel Corps. Vásquez quickly seduced and impregnated George’s niece. Either the girl’s family or Greek George’s wife’s family betrayed Vásquez to Los Angeles County Sheriff William R. Rowland. Rowland sent a posse to surround the ranch house and captured Vásquez on May 14, 1874. He gave up peacefully. The posse from Alameda county had no idea they had missed their quarry by just a few miles. Vasquez was sent to ‘San Francisco by ship where he was mobbed by the press wanting interviews. He was famous across the country and was the recipient of numerous proposals by many, many damsels. He turned them all down rightly supposing than any marriage would be short lived.

He told the press his aim was to return California to Mexican rule. He insisted he was an honorable man and claimed he had never killed anyone. Visitors flocked to Vásquez’s jail cell, many of them women. He signed autographs and posed for photographs. Vásquez sold the photos from the window of his cell and used the money to pay for his legal defense.

Transferred to San Jose he was put on trial and in January 1875, Vásquez was convicted and sentenced to hang for murder. His trial had taken four days and the jury deliberated for only two hours before finally finding him guilty of one count of murder in the Tres Pinos robbery. There were no actual witnesses to the crime.

In an interview he gave shortly before his execution, Vázquez was clear about what motivated his choosing a life of crime: “A spirit of hatred and revenge took possession of me at a young age.”

After his conviction, he appealed for clemency. It was denied by Governor Romualdo Pacheco. Vásquez calmly met his fate in San Jose on March 19, 1875. He was 39 years old.

Robbery and murder were his game and he was good at both. Neither one brought him down and there is little doubt that he took great pride in his outlawry. No revolver or rifle laid him by his heels but as is often the culprit was Cupid who he could not resist.

Charlotte Alder at Tiburcio Vasquez original grave at Santa Clara Mission Cemetery. A ladies man to the end and then some

John Edward Shannon aged 25 turned in his spurs and got out of the lawman trade. He found a job as a bartender in the Toronto House, a boarding hotel and restaurant in Oakland, owned by a woman named Kate Brennan who just happened to be a “Boarding House widow.” As you will see it suited him just fine.

Next: Eddie and Kate

*Translations should be unnecessary for people from California and the other former Spanish colonies. Place names in El Norte have a sibilant, mellifluous pronunciation, pleasing to the ear and were still in common use in 1870’s California.

**When Dad Shannon was searching for Vasquez the James, younger gang was still active in the midwest. On July 21, 1873, the James–Younger gang robbed their first train, derailing a Rock Island Line locomotive west of Adair, Iowa, and stealing approximately $3,000. (About 81,000 today)

*** Rancho La Brea: Rancho La Brea consisted of one square league of land of what is now Wilshire’s Miracle Mile, Hollywood, and parts of West Hollywood. The grant included the famous La Brea Tar Pits. As happened to other rancheros, the claimants’ legal expenses left them broke. In 1860, Antonio José Rocha’s son, José Jorge Rocha, deeded Rancho La Brea to Henry Hancock. his lawyer who had unsuccessfully defended the original Mexican title. Hancock paid $20,000 for the Mexican grants (at $2 or $3 per acre). Henry was the father of Allan Hancock of Hancock Park and the founder of Allan Hancock College in Santa Maria. He was precisely the type of man Tiburcio Vasquez hated for his exploitation of the original Californios. Tiburcio went to the gallows, Hancock got rich as is frequently how those things end.

Michael Shannon is a native Californian and lives in Arroyo Grande in the old Cow Counties.