Tag Archives: Tuolumne

Brutal lynching in Columbia

Posted on November 2, 2011 by John Putnam

John S. Barclay, a New Yorker, became enamored of Martha, the owner of Martha’s Saloon, a disreputable house in Columbia, California. Barclay then married her and moved into the saloon. On October 10, 1855, John H. Smith, also from New … Continue reading →

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A case of robbery and murder

Posted on October 31, 2011 by John Putnam

On June 30, 1855, only a few months after the lynching of Edward Griffiths, four men snuck into the rooms of Thomas C. Brunton of Yorktown in the dead of night. Brunton was known to have $12,000 stored there in … Continue reading →

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The boy from Algerine

Posted on October 30, 2011 by John Putnam

About nine o’clock one morning in 1851 a man rode hard into Sonora and headed directly for the sheriff’s office. There he told a deputy, named Captain Stuart, that there had been a robbery in Algerine Camp, a supposed culprit … Continue reading →

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The murder of Joseph Heslep

Posted on October 27, 2011 by John Putnam

About nine o’clock on the night of January 18,1855 Joseph Heslep, deputy treasurer of Tuolumne County, was found brutally murdered, his body still warm and lying on the floor of his Sonora office. The alarm sounded, a huge crowd gathered, … Continue reading →

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Gold rush lawyers

Posted on October 24, 2011 by John Putnam

The reason the vigilance committee of Sonora did not go further and inflict more punishment on criminals than it did in 1851 was not because of the promise of greater efficiency by the courts, for no person actually made such … Continue reading →

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A Tuolumne County vigilance committee

Posted on October 23, 2011 by John Putnam

In June of 1851, soon after the execution of Jim Hill, with crime rampant in Tuolumne County and little confidence in the regular courts to administer justice, the residents decided it was necessary to form a committee of vigilance similar … Continue reading →

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Murder at Dragoon Gulch

Posted on October 19, 2011 by John Putnam

After an extraordinary lull of nearly two weeks without the occurrence of a single felony, one of the most diabolical murders in the short history of Tuolumne County happened at Dragoon Gulch near Shaw’s Flat. Three Mexican miners had bought … Continue reading →

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Failures of justice

Posted on October 18, 2011 by John Putnam

As we have noted, the early laws in the mining country had many loopholes that an accused man with a good attorney could slide through easily. Justice was often hard to come by in the legal courts of the mining … Continue reading →

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The foreign miner laws

Posted on October 3, 2011 by John Putnam

Prejudices of the early miners against foreigners soon translated into rules and regulations in some districts. And there were many men of bad character who came to California, particularly from Australia and Mexico. The Australians, known as Sidney Ducks, were … Continue reading →

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Mining law in the Southern mines

Posted on September 29, 2011 by John Putnam

Jackass Gulch, Soldier’s Gulch and other nearby sites in Tuolumne County were some of the first places with organized mining codes. In 1848 a man was limited to a ten square foot claim but over time this grew to one … Continue reading →

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