The Barbary Coast

The nucleus around which the Barbary Coast developed was the colony of Chileno harlots and thieves which clustered along the waterfront at Broadway and Pacific Street, and on the slopes of Telegraph Hill. To this whorish quarter naturally gravitated the human scum and riff-raff who, once the news of the discovery of gold had gained wide circulation, poured into San Francisco from the ports of the seven seas in ever-increasing numbers. There, in particular, gathered the ruffianly larrikins from the frontier towns of Australia, and the escaped convicts and ticket-of-leave men from the British penal settlements at Sydney, in New South Wales, and on the island of Tasmania, then called Van Diemen’s Land. This wave of undesirable immigration, which to all intents and purposes was one hundred per cent criminal, began to wash against the shores of California about the middle of 1849, in direct and open violation of an old Mexican statute which forbade the entry into the territory of persons who had been convicted of crime in other countries. No effort was ever made to enforce this law. By the early autumn of 1849 the arrivals from Australia had become so numerous, and so thoroughly dominated the underworld, that the district in which they congregated began to be known as Sydney-Town, and it was so called for some ten years. It was this area that later became notorious throughout the world as the Barbary Coast, although the latter designation did not come into general use until the middle eighteen-sixties.

The villainous inhabitants of Sydney-Town were popularly called Sydney Ducks or Sydney Coves, but more often the former. It was a common saying in early San Francisco, whenever a particularly atrocious crime was committed, that “the Sydney Ducks are cackling in the pond.” Unquestionably, these foreign felons gave San Francisco’s underworld its initial flavor; they were pioneers in the viciousness and depravity for which the Barbary Coast became famous, and the echo of their unholy cackling was not stilled for more than half a century. By the time they began swarming into the city in force, many of the tents and shanties of the Chilenos had been replaced by flimsy wooden and brick buildings, wherein the more commercial spirits among the Sydney Ducks opened lodging-houses, dance-halls, groggeries, and taverns. Their public houses bore such fanciful and typically English and Scotch names as the Magpie, the Bobby Burns, the Tam O’Shanter, the Noggin of Ale, the Hilo Johnny, the Bird-in-Hand, the Bay of Biscay, and the Jolly Waterman, but all were described by a contemporary journalist as “hives of dronish criminals, shabby little dens with rough, hangdog fellows hanging about the doorways.” Drunkenness, robbery, and all manner of strife and lewdness went on in these places. Most of them had harlots regularly attached to the establishment, and these women either sold their favors for a pinch or two of gold dust, or engaged in immoral and peculiar exhibitions, admission to which ranged from fifty cents to five dollars. He was a fortunate man who could visit a resort in Sydney-Town and escape without being slugged and robbed. Said the San Francisco Herald:

“There are certain spots in our city, infested by the most abandoned men and women, that have acquired a reputation little better than the Five Points of New York or St. Giles of London. The upper part of Pacific Street, after dark, is crowded by thieves, gamblers, low women, drunken sailors, and similar characters, who resort to the groggeries that line the street, and there spend the night in the most hideous orgies. Every grog shop is provided with a fiddle, from which some half-drunken creature tortures execrable sounds, called by way of compliment, music. Shortly after dark the dancing commences, and is kept up unceasingly to the sound of the fiddle, until broke up by a row or the exhaustion of those engaged in it. These ruffian resorts are the hot beds of drunkenness, and the scenes of unnumbered crimes. Unsuspecting sailors and miners are entrapped by the dexterous thieves and swindlers that are always on the lookout, into these dens, where they are filled with liquor—drugged if necessary, until insensibility coming upon them, they fall an easy victim to their tempters. In this way many robberies are committed, which are not brought to light through shame on the part of the victim. When the habitues of this quarter have reason to believe a man has money, they follow him up for days, and employ every device to get him into their clutches. . . .These dance-groggeries are outrageous nuisances and nurseries of crime. . . ."

Perhaps the lowest of all the Sydney-Town dives were the Boar’s Head, where the principal attraction was a sexual exhibition in which a woman and a boar participated; the Goat and Compass and the Golden Rule, both owned by one Hell Haggerty, a ticket-of-leave man from Sydney; and the Fierce Grizzly, so called because a live female bear was kept chained beside the door. The Goat and Compass was the particular hang-out of a Sydney-Town character known as Dirty Tom McAlear, who for a few cents would eat or drink any sort of refuse offered to him. When finally arrested in 1852 for “making a beast of himself,” McAlear testified that he had been drunk for at least seven years and had not bathed for so long that he had no memory of his last ablution. He thought, however, that it was about fifteen years before, in England. The Fierce Grizzly was especially noted for various exhibitions in which the bear and a man took part, and for the nectar-like quality of its milk punches, which were heavily laced with gin or brandy, and frequently with knock-out drops as well. Once when a San Francisco preacher was making a shocked survey of the district, and, of course, seeing all the sights in order to obtain material for future sermons, he was taken into the Fierce Grizzly and given a milk punch which had been copiously dosed with gin.

 “What do you call that?” he asked, smacking his reverend lips.
 “Just milk.”
 “Ah!” said the preacher. “ What a glorious cow!”

Little or no effort was made to check the rapidly increasing boldness of the denizens of Sydney-Town or to regulate the dives in which they drank, robbed, and caroused and in which innumerable criminals found refuge. During the early period of the gold rush government in San Francisco, particularly those phases of it that had to do with law enforcement and the administration of justice, was in the same chaotic condition that characterized life in general. The transition from the Mexican to the American systems of municipal management was not accomplished for more than three years after California had become American territory, partly because the military authorities insisted upon administering civil affairs, and partly because the men who would have ordinarily been the first to demand a stable rule were too busy making fortunes to bother with such comparatively trivial matters. Theoretically the business of the municipality was in the hands of the Ayuntamiento, or Town Council, but actually during this period of change the public treasury belonged to the man who could oftenest plunge his hands into it. Consequently it was soon looted by the politicians, who not only bankrupted San Francisco but saddled the town with a debt of almost two million dollars, most of which was afterwards repudiated.

The only official with power to hold court and try either civil or criminal cases was the First Alcalde, whose duties were roughly similar to those of the American mayor. But too often this dignitary was of the type of an early Alcalde named Meade, who knew little law, but who had a violent antipathy toward Mexicans and cigarette-smokers. To admit being either or both was tantamount to conviction in his court. Once when a Mexican was arraigned before him charged with stealing a horse, he asked but two questions:

“Do you smoke cigarettes?”
“Si, señor.”
“Do you blow the smoke through your nose? “‘
“Si, señor.”
“Then I find you guilty as charged, and may God have mercy on your soul! Constable, take this fellow out and shoot him! He stole the horse sure enough!”

The lawyers who practiced in these early courts were for the most part on the same intellectual plane as Alcalde Meade. One of the best-known and most successful was Ben Moors. He knew no law whatever, but he had memorized three speeches by John Randolph and one by Daniel Webster. Regardless of the nature of the case upon which he chanced to be engaged, he delivered one or another with magnificent gestures and impressive oratorical effects. His chief claim to fame in California, however, probably lies in the fact that he once publicly slapped United States Senator David C. Broderick. Moors was arrested for this heinous offense and in court described himself as “a gentleman of elegant leisure.”

The first attempt to bring order out of the chaos into which San Francisco had fallen was made by John W. Geary, later the first Mayor under the American system, who was chosen First Alcalde in August 1849, at an election ordered by the military authorities. Geary immediately appeared before the Ayuntamiento and urged the Councillors to take immediate steps for the protection of life and property. “You are now without a single requisite,” he told them, “for the promotion of prosperity or for the maintenance of order.”

Stirred by Geary’s appeal, and likewise fearful that the people would again take matters into their own hands as they had done in the affair of the Hounds only a month before, the Ayuntamiento appropriated sufficient money to purchase the brig Euphemia, which had been abandoned in the Bay when its crew deserted and went to the mines. For several years the vessel was used as a prison. It was San Francisco’s first jail—and was about as useful for the purpose as a chicken-coop would have been. The Ayuntamiento also appointed the town’s first peace officers—Colonel John E. Townes as Sheriff; and Malachi Fallon, who had been Warden of the Tombs, a Tammany politician, and a saloon-keeper in New York, as City Marshal. Not long afterwards a few policemen were employed to assist Colonel Townes and Fallon, and about a year later an ordinance was enacted requiring the dives and dance-halls of Sydney-Town to close at midnight.

But these were futile gestures. They made no difference in the conduct of the criminal element; nor did Geary, an able and upright man, succeed in checking the activities of the thievish politicians. The latter continued to loot the city treasury, while Sydney-Town remained a veritable cesspool of corruption. According to the authors of The Annals of San Francisco, “it was dangerous in the highest degree for a single person to venture within its bounds. Even the police hardly dared enter there; and if they attempted to apprehend some known individuals, it was always in a numerous, strongly-armed company. The lawless inhabitants of the place united to save their luckless brothers, and generally managed to drive the assailant away.”From this sink of sin and bawdy carousal issued murderers, sneak-thieves, footpads, burglars, harlots, arsonites, and swindlers of every variety and degree of skill, who plied their vocations throughout San Francisco without let or hindrance. They were protected, and frequently incited, by greedy and unscrupulous city officials and politicians. During the half-dozen years that followed Alcalde Geary’s first attempt to form a reputable municipal government, an average of almost two murders a day were committed in San Francisco—and at no time in that period did the city have a population of more than forty thousand. Robberies, assaults, and other crimes were so numerous that no effort was ever made to determine even their approximate number. Six times in less than two years—from December 24, 1849 to June 22, 1951—the town was devastated by great fires, each of which almost wiped it out of existence. Investigations showed clearly that at least four of the conflagrations had been started by gangs of fire-bugs led by two former convicts from Australia—Jack Edwards and Ben Lewis. But when these precious knaves were at length, after much difficulty and delay, brought to trial, they were promptly freed by venal judges under the sway of crooked politicians. Says the Annals:

“When the different fires took place. . .bands of plunderers issued from this great haunt of dissipation, to help themselves to whatever money or valuables lay in their way, or which they could possibly secure. With these they retreated to their dens, and defied detection or apprehension. Many of these fires were believed to have been raised by incendiaries, solely for the opportunity which they afforded for plundering. Persons were repeatedly seen in the act of kindling loose inflammable material in out-houses and secret places; while the subsequent confessions of convicted criminals left no doubt of the fact, that not only had frequent attempts been made to fire the city, but that some of these had unfortunately been successful. Fire, however, was only one means of attaining their ends. The most daring burglaries were committed, and houses and persons rifled of their valuables. Where resistance was made, the bowie-knife or the revolver settled matters, and left the robber unmolested. Midnight assaults, ending in murder, were common. And not only were these deeds perpetrated under the shade of night; but even in daylight, in the highways and by-ways of the country, in the streets of the town, in crowded bars, gambling saloons and lodging houses, crimes of an equally glaring character were of constant occurrence. People at that period generally carried during all hours, and wherever they happened to be, loaded firearms about their persons; but these weapons availed nothing against the sudden stroke of the ‘slung shot,’ the plunge and rip of the knife, or the secret aiming of the pistol. No decent man was in safety to walk the streets after dark; while at all hours, both of night and day, his property was jeopardized by incendiarism and burglary.

“All this while, the law, whose supposed ‘majesty’ is so awful in other countries, was here only a matter for ridicule. The police were few in number, and poorly as well as irregularly paid. Some of them were in league with the criminals themselves, and assisted these at all times to elude justice. Subsequent confessions of criminals on the eve of execution, implicated a considerable number of people in various high and low departments of the executive. Bail was readily accepted in the most serious cases, where the security tendered was absolutely worthless; and where, whenever necessary, both principal and cautioner quietly disappeared. The prisons likewise were small and insecure; and though filled to overflowing, could no longer contain the crowds of apprehended offenders. When these were ultimately brought to trial, seldom could a conviction be obtained. From technical errors on the part of the prosecutors, laws ill understood and worse applied, false swearing of the witnesses for the prisoners, absence often of the chief evidence for the prosecution, dishonesty of jurors, incapacity, weakness, or venality of the judge, and from many other causes, the cases generally broke down and the prisoners were freed. Not one criminal had yet been executed. Yet it was notorious, that, at this period, at least one hundred murders had been committed within the space of a few months; while innumerable were the instances of arson, and of theft, robbery, burglary, and assault with intent to kill. It was evident that the offenders defied and laughed at all the puny efforts of the authorities to control them. The tedious processes of legal tribunals had no terrors for them.” (3a)

It was this condition of affairs, the nearest approach to criminal anarchy that an American city has yet experienced, that ultimately brought about the formation of the first Vigilance Committee. About four months before the actual organization of this great popular tribunal, however, San Francisco was thrown into such a furor by a particularly brutal assault upon a respected storekeeper that an excited crowd gathered in Portsmouth Square, and only an unexpected display of energy by the municipal authorities prevented the immediate application of lynch law. Out of this assault grew one of the most amazing cases of mistaken identity in the annals of American crime. The principals were Thomas Berdue, an itinerant gambler, who had operated in a small way in the gold-fields and who twice narrowly escaped hanging for crimes he hadn’t committed; and James Stuart, better known as English Jim, a ticket-of-leave convict from Australia, and one of the most infamous of the Sydney Ducks. Stuart was deported from England at the age of sixteen, following his conviction of forgery, and served about twelve years in the British penal colony at Sydney. He received a ticket-of-leave some time during the late eighteen-forties and made his way to New York, where he became associated with a famous London burglar and sharper called Bristol Bill, whose father had been a member of the British Parliament and who had himself escaped from Sydney after serving a fourteen-year sentence. (3b) For several years these accomplished scoundrels operated successfully in Eastern cities, especially in Boston and New York, but eventually detectives got close upon their trail. In search of new fields for their activities, they went to Vermont in the late autumn of 1849. There, within a few weeks, they robbed half a dozen banks, floated a large quantity of counterfeit money, and swindled a score of merchants and other business men. The bucolic police, however, succeeded where their more sophisticated brethren had failed. They captured Bristol Bill, convicted him of burglary, counterfeiting, and other crimes, and sent him to state’s prison for fourteen years. English Jim escaped their clutches and came to San Francisco, where he at once became one of the chief ornaments of Sydney-Town. This was early in 1850, and throughout the next year English Jim pursued an extraordinary career of crime, not only in San Francisco, but in the gold-fields and other parts of the state as well—during these comparatively few months he is said to have committed or assisted in more murders and burglaries than any other man in the California of his time. In December 1850 he was arrested in Sacramento for killing Sheriff Moore of Marysville and stealing four thousand dollars from the Sheriff’s home, but escaped after a few days’ incarceration.

At eight o’clock in the evening of February 19, 1851 two men entered the store of Jansen, Bond & Company, in Montgomery Street, knocked J. C. Jansen, senior member of the firm, unconscious with a slung shot, and fled with two thousand dollars in gold coin, which they had taken from the till. Next day the San Francisco police arrested Thomas Berdue, believing him to be James Stuart, and lodged him in the jail to await transportation to Marysville and trial there for the murder of Sheriff Moore. A man named Windred, found in Berdue’s company, was also arrested, on suspicion. Berdue was recognized as English Jim by half a dozen men who had known Stuart well, and was also positively identified by Jansen as one of the two men who had assaulted him. As the other, Jansen identified Windred, though not so certainly. Berdue protested his innocence and attempted to prove that he was not Stuart, but his protestations and evidence were alike in vain against the overwhelming physical similarity between himself and the Australian convict. In weight, height, color of eyes and hair, shape of feature, and in every other general characteristic, the two men were identical. But the resemblance went even further. The notorious Sydney Duck was known to have a small scar over his left eye. So did Berdue. In English Jim’s left ear was a slit where he had been cut by a knife. Such a slit was found also in Berdue’s left ear. English Jim’s left forefinger had been amputated at the first joint. Berdue had suffered a precisely similar injury. So far as was ever known, Berdue and English Jim were not related. Nor did they ever so much as see each other.

The examination of Berdue and Windred was begun in the City Hall by the authorities on Saturday, February 22, and within a few hours the building was surrounded by a restless crowd of more than five thousand men. The authors of The Annals of San Francisco, who were present, described the gathering as “not a mob, but the people, in the highest sense of the term. They wanted only a leader to advise and guide them to any undertaking that promised relief from the awful state of social terror and danger to which they were reduced.” Because of the positive identification of the prisoners by Jansen, there was scarcely anyone in San Francisco who doubted their guilt. There was, also, scarcely anyone who was not convinced that the two men would eventually escape punishment through the connivance of politicians and crooked officials. From the moment the crowd started to assemble, the situation possessed very dangerous possibilities, which were made more acute by the circulation of several thousand copies of this handbill:

CITIZENS OF SAN FRANCISCO. The series of murders and robberies that have been committed in this city, seems to leave us entirely in a state of anarchy. “When thieves are left without control to rob and kill, then doth the honest traveller fear each bush a thief.” Law, it appears, is but a non-entity to be scoffed at; redress can be had for aggression but through the never failing remedy so admirably laid down in the code of Judge Lynch. Not that we should admire this process for redress, but that it seems to be inevitably necessary. Are we to be robbed and assassinated in our domiciles, and the law to let our aggressors perambulate the streets because they have furnished straw bail? If so, “let each man be his own executioner.” “Fie upon your laws.” They have no force. All those who would rid our city of its robbers and murderers will assemble on Sunday at two o’clock on the plaza.

This inflammatory document was unsigned, but it is believed to have been the work of Samuel Brannan, who was always willing and ready to hang every desperado who showed his head. Despite its anonymity, it was immediately effective. A great shout of “Now’s the time!” arose from the outskirts of the crowd, and several hundred men rushed into the court-room, where the prisoners were being questioned by the police. They attempted to drag Berdue and Windred into the street, but were repulsed by the members of the Washington Guard, a volunteer military organization, which had been mustered by the Mayor at the first sign of trouble and had been stationed in an adjoining room. While the Guardsmen cleared City Hall of the mob, Berdue and Windred were rushed into the basement of the building and locked in cells. Although the excitement continued, no further attempt was made that day to lynch the prisoners, and about the middle of the afternoon the crowd dispersed. It began to assemble again at dusk, and after several speeches by prominent citizens a committee of fourteen men was appointed to prevent the release of the two men on nominal bail—the usual procedure in such cases—and an additional patrol of twenty men was chosen to guard them during the night. Several hours later the Committee of Fourteen met to discuss the situation and determine how best to assure a proper trial. The feeling of the town in general was epitomized by Samuel Brannan in a brief speech, which he made in response to a suggestion that a jury of prominent men be impaneled to try the prisoners. Said Brannan:

"I am very much surprised to hear people talk about grand juries, or recorders, or mayors. I’m tired of such talk. These men are murderers, I say, as well as thieves. I know it, and will die or see them hung by the neck. I’m opposed to any farce in this business. We had enough of that eighteen months ago, when we allowed ourselves to be the tools of these judges. (3c). . .We are the Mayor and the recorder, the hangman and the laws. The law and the courts never yet hung a man in California, and every morning we are reading fresh accounts of murders and robberies. I want no technicalities. Such things are devised to shield the guilty.”

Brannan urged the immediate lynching of both Berdue and Windred, but the other members of the committee were unwilling to act so precipitously, and they finally adjourned without preparing a definite program. Next afternoon between eight thousand and nine thousand men gathered in Portsmouth Square, and at the suggestion of William T. Coleman, a leader in both the Vigilance movements, another committee was named to consider the matter and recommend a course of action, subject to the approval of the mass meeting. This committee advised an immediate trial, and accordingly the hearing of evidence was begun at once in the Recorder’s room of City Hall, before a judge and jury chosen from among the town’s leading citizens. About dusk the jury retired to find a verdict, but at midnight reported that an agreement was apparently impossible. At that time the jurors stood nine for conviction, and three doubtful, but unwilling to acquit. Cries of “Hang them anyhow! The majority rules!” burst from the disappointed crowd, and it was with great difficulty that Coleman and others prevented an immediate assault upon the jail. Soon afterwards the main body of the crowd dispersed, although hundreds of excited men remained in Portsmouth Square throughout the night, and several times small bands of men tried to storm the jail and capture the prisoners. All such attempts were repulsed by a police force of two hundred and fifty men, who had been sworn in as special officers by Mayor John W. Geary. They guarded the building for several days.

The politicians and lawyers who ordinarily would probably have procured the immediate release of Berdue and Windred on small bail were apparently frightened by the temper of the people, and the two men remained in jail for a week. They were then tried according to due process of law, found guilty of assaulting and robbing Jansen, and each sentenced to fourteen years’ imprisonment, the maximum penalty under the statutes. Soon afterwards Windred escaped by cutting a hole in the floor of his cell, and he was never again seen in San Francisco. Little effort was ever made to find him, for both the authorities and the Vigilantes soon learned that he had nothing whatever to do with the crime of which he had been accused. Berdue was sent to Marysville, again identified as English Jim, and convicted of the murder of Sheriff Moore. He was sentenced to be hanged, but fortunately for him the execution was postponed for several months.

Even English Jim’s followers among the Sydney Ducks were convinced that Berdue was their leader, and it soon became common talk among the dives of Sydney-Town that a suitable gesture of defiance would be made in revenge for the popular demonstration against their hero. Four of San Francisco’s great fires had already occurred—on December 24, 1849; May 4, 1850; June 14, 1850; and September 17, 1850. As the anniversary of the second fire approached in 1851, the city was filled with rumors, which clearly emanated from Sydney-Town, that it would be marked by an even more extensive conflagration, and several notorious Sydney Ducks openly boasted that they intended to destroy the town. Every possible precaution was taken by merchants and householders, but in vain. A few minutes before eleven o’clock on the night of May 4, 1851 a man recognized as an habitué of Sydney-Town was seen running from a paintshop on the southern side of Portsmouth Square, and a moment later the building burst into flames. At almost the same instant other fires started at various points in the downtown business district. Within ten hours the flames had consumed two thousand buildings, occupying twenty blocks and covering an area three-fourths of a mile north and south and one-third of a mile east and west. Many ships which had been discharging or loading cargo were endangered, but gangs of volunteer firemen demolished the wharves and created a gap which the flames could not cross. There was, naturally, a shortage of water, and any sort of liquid was used that might serve to quench the fire. A large warehouse in Commercial Street, occupied by the firm of DeWitt & Harrison, was saved by the use of vinegar, eighty thousand gallons of which were splashed against the board walls or poured upon the shingle roof.

While the fire raged, bands of plunderers swarmed out of Sydney-Town and reaped a rich harvest, carrying great quantities of valuable property into their dens. Several looters were shot by enraged citizens, and at least one innocent man was killed—a sailor who was fired upon as he picked up a burning brand with which to light his pipe. As on the previous occasions when San Francisco was well-nigh destroyed by fire, the incendiaries had chosen a night on which the wind blew from the east and the north. The flames were thus carried away from Sydney-Town, and that vicious quarter was almost the only section of the city left intact by the conflagration. Three-fourths of San Francisco lay in ruins when the fire finally burned itself out, but the task of rebuilding was begun with characteristic energy and dispatch. Within ten days the wreckage had been cleared away and three hundred buildings erected, while hundreds more were under construction. By June 1 business and life in general were proceeding almost as usual.

The fire provided sufficient proof that the demonstration of February had neither terrorized the denizens of Sydney-Town nor appreciably checked their activities; they became, indeed, even bolder during the period of reconstruction, and murders and robberies were of nightly occurrence. Determined to find a remedy for a situation that instead of showing improvement was rapidly becoming unbearable, some two hundred prominent citizens held a secret meeting early in June 1851,  in a building at Battery and Pine streets, owned by Samuel Brannan. After many hours of discussion they formed the first Vigilance Committee. The following extracts from the committee’s constitution sufficiently summarize its avowed aims:

“WHEREAS, it has become apparent to the citizens of San Francisco, that there is no security for life and property, either under the regulations of society as it at present exists, or under the law as now administered:

“THEREFORE, the citizens, whose names are hereunto attached, do unite themselves into an association for the maintenance of the peace and good order of society, and the preservation of the lives and property of the citizens of San Francisco, and do bind themselves, each unto the other, to do and perform every lawful act for the maintenance of law and order, and to sustain the laws when faithfully and properly administered; but we are determined that no thief, burglar, incendiary or assassin, shall escape punishment, either by the quibbles of the law, the insecurity of prisons, the carelessness or corruption of the police, or a laxity of those who pretend to administer justice. And to secure the objects of this association we do hereby agree:

"1. That the name and style of the association shall be the COMMITTEE OF VIGILANCE, for the protection of the lives and property of the citizens and residents of the city of San Francisco.

"2. That there shall be a room selected for the meeting and deliberation of the committee, at which there shall be one or more members of the committee appointed for that purpose, in constant attendance, at all hours of the day and night, to receive the report of any member of the association, or of any other person or persons whatsoever, of any act of violence done to the person or property of any citizen of San Francisco; and if in the judgment of the member or members of the committee present, it be such an act that justifies the interference of the committee, either in aiding in the execution of the laws, or the prompt and summary punishment of the offender, the committee shall be at once assembled for the purpose of taking such action as a majority of the committee when assembled shall determine upon. . . .

“4. That when the committee have assembled for action, the decision of a majority present shall be binding upon the whole committee, and that those members of the committee whose names are hereunto attached, do pledge their honor, and hereby bind themselves to defend and sustain each other in carrying out the determined action of this committee at the hazard of their lives and their fortunes.”

Within a few days after the formal organization of the Vigilance Committee the first opportunity arose for the exercise of its functions. During the late afternoon of June 10, 1851 an Australian convict named John Jenkins, who was so thoroughly criminal that even in Sydney-Town he was known as the Miscreant, stole a small safe from George W. Virgin’s shipping-office on Long Wharf, at the end of Commercial Street. The theft was soon discovered, and Virgin raised the alarm. A little while afterwards Jenkins was seen hurrying along the wharf with a heavy bundle on his shoulder. Pursued by a score of citizens, he clambered into a boat and rowed into the Bay, where he threw his burden overboard. It was promptly raised from the mud and found to be the missing safe. Jenkins was thereupon taken to the rooms of the Vigilance Committee, the members of which were summoned by an arranged signal upon the bell of the Monumental Engine Company.

For several hours the full membership of the committee examined the evidence and questioned the Miscreant. There was no doubt of the man’s guilt, although he offered to produce a witness who could testify that he was asleep in a Sydney-Town dive at the time of the robbery. This witness was heard, but, under questioning, at length admitted that he had not seen Jenkins for several days. He was, it appeared later, a professional alibi witness for a large group of Sydney Ducks. About midnight Samuel Brannan came out of the committee’s rooms and addressed a large crowd which had assembled before the building. He reviewed the case and the evidence and said that Jenkins had been found guilty and would be hanged within two hours in Portsmouth Square. At two o’clock in the morning the members of the Vigilance Committee, heavily armed, filed out of the committee's rooms and marched in a body to the square. In their midst was Jenkins, his arms pinioned. A rope was tied around the Miscreant’s neck, and the other end was thrown over a wide beam which projected from the old adobe house on the western side of the square. A few policemen now appeared and demanded custody of the prisoner, but were told by the Vigilantes that they would be fired upon if they attempted to interfere with the execution. They immediately withdrew. Two men seized Jenkins by the arms and walked with him along the front of the building. When they had gone a few feet, a score of Vigilantes seized the slack end of the rope and ran backwards, quickly dragging Jenkins off the ground and raising him to the beam. There he was held until he was strangled, members of the committee taking turns at the rope, and every man holding it at least once. Until he felt himself being lifted from the ground, Jenkins was surprisingly calm; he said nothing, but chewed vigorously and with evident pleasure upon a large piece of tobacco which a Vigilante had given him. Later it was learned that he had expected the denizens of Sydney-Town to swarm into the square in overwhelming force and rescue him. However, the criminals were apparently awed by the unexpected strength of the Vigilance Committee and by the obvious approval with which the crowd viewed the execution.

Next day, June 11, the Coroner held an inquest upon the body of the Miscreant, and a verdict was returned that he “came to his death. . .at the hands of, and in pursuance of a preconcerted action on the part of an association of citizens, styling themselves the ‘Committee of Vigilance.'" Samuel Brannan and eight other members of the committee were specially mentioned as having been implicated by direct testimony. Nothing more was done, or probably contemplated, but the Vigilance Committee promptly published its entire membership, numbering at that time almost two hundred prominent citizens, together with an announcement that all were equally responsible for the hanging of Jenkins. At the same time the committee took further action toward ridding San Francisco of the murderers and robbers who had several times burned the city and had committed other crimes almost without number. All known felons were waited upon and warned to leave the city within five days under penalty of forcible deportation or death, and a subcommittee of thirty was appointed to visit incoming vessels and examine all suspicious persons. Unless they could furnish proof of honesty and good character, they were to be reshipped immediately “to the places whence they came, and not be permitted to pollute our soil.” Two weeks or so later the committee usurped still greater powers, announcing that “we the Vigilance Committee DO CLAIM to ourselves the right to enter any person or persons’ premises where we have good reason to believe that we shall find evidence to substantiate and carry out the object of this body. And further, deeming ourselves engaged in a good and just cause—WE INTEND TO MAINTAIN IT.” So far as the records show, the committee exercised this “right“ with commendable restraint and discretion, and there was much less complaint about it than might naturally have been expected.

For a few days after the hanging of the Miscreant the small steamers which made frequent voyages up the Sacramento River to the gold-fields were crowded with frightened rascals. But it soon became apparent that the exodus was confined almost entirely to the small fry; the really dangerous inhabitants of Sydney-Town remained under cover in San Francisco, confident that they could still depend upon their friends the politicians. On June 22, 1851 the Sydney Ducks made their final defiant gesture—they started a fire in a vacant house at Powell and Pacific streets and once more destroyed a large portion of the city. “There was no doubt that the fire was the work of an incendiary,” says the Annals. “No fire had been used about the house in which it started for any purpose whatever. As it progressed, the flames would suddenly start up in advance, and in one or more instances persons were detected in applying fire.” (3d) These scoundrels, however, escaped and were never caught. Before the conflagration was brought under control, it had burned the greater part of eighteen blocks, from Powell Street east to Sansome Street, and from Broadway south to Clay Street. As usual, the wind blew from the north and the east, and Sydney-Town was practically untouched.

Early in July 1851 the real James Stuart, for whose crimes Thomas Berdue awaited execution in Marysville, returned to San Francisco from the interior and made a bold attempt to rob an English ship anchored in the harbor. The captain and his wife awoke to find the robber ransacking their cabin, and English Jim promptly struck each of them a terrific blow with a slung shot. The captain fell unconscious, but his wife was made of sterner stuff. She clutched Stuart’s coat, and although he hit her several times, she succeeded in holding him until her cries had aroused the crew of the ship. The sailors disarmed Stuart, gave him a sound beating, and then delivered the battered burglar to the Vigilance Committee, which immediately began a thorough investigation of all his activities in San Francisco.

At nine o’clock in the morning of July 11, 1851 the trial of English Jim was begun before the entire membership of the Vigilance Committee, which now numbered more than four hundred influential men. It was necessary to present very little evidence, for Stuart at once confessed to a long list of crimes, including the murder of Sheriff Moore at Auburn and the assault upon the storekeeper Jansen in the preceding February. He thus exonerated Berdue, and Windred also, for he said that his accomplice in the Jansen attack had left San Francisco soon afterwards. After English Jim’s confession had been read, the committee decided, by a unanimous vote, to hang him immediately. Colonel Jonathan D. Stevenson was delegated to announce the proposed action to an enormous crowd which had gathered outside the meeting-rooms. He described what had occurred, and then asked the people whether they would confirm the sentence. A tremendous affirmative shout arose, with a few dissenting voices from the outskirts of the throng. The dissenters were recognized as Sydney Ducks, and several were severely beaten by the indignant citizens.

While preparations were being made and while Colonel Stevenson was addressing the crowd, English Jim, heavily manacled, was held under a strong guard. He appeared to be quite indifferent to his fate. When asked if he wished to make a final statement, he replied: “This is a damned tiresome business. Get it over with.”

Two hours after the committee had decided to hang him, English Jim was led into the street, surrounded by armed Vigilantes. Behind this escort, in column of twos, marched the remaining members of the committee, and after them swarmed practically the entire population of San Francisco. A derrick had been erected upon the Market Street wharf, and as the procession came in sight of it, English Jim finally lost his nerve. He collapsed, and during the last few hundred feet he was supported by four of his guards. Within a few minutes a rope had been looped about his neck, and a score of men jerked him to the top of the derrick—and the earthly career of the most notorious of the Sydney Ducks was ended. The Coroner’s jury returned a verdict similar to that in the case of John Jenkins, but soon afterwards a special grand jury, impaneled to report on the state of crime in San Francisco, virtually endorsed the work of the Vigilance Committee. In its presentment the jury said that in its opinion the “members of that association have been governed by a feeling of opposition to the manner in which the law has been administered and those who have administered it, rather than a determination to disregard the law itself.” The jury also acknowledged that to the committee “we are indebted for much valuable information and many important witnesses.”

English Jim was scarcely dead before the Vigilance Committee had taken steps to right, as far as possible, the injustice which had been done to Thomas Berdue. A special committee rode to Marysville, informed the authorities there that the real James Stuart had been hanged, and procured Berdue’s release. He was at once brought to San Francisco, where the sentence of imprisonment imposed upon him for his supposed share in the assault upon Jansen was officially annulled. He was, at last, a free man. The Vigilance Committee publicly announced that Berdue was innocent of any crime and gave him a purse of several thousand dollars. An hour after he received the money, he was seen operating a monte pitch on Long Wharf. That was his last appearance in San Francisco. What ultimately became of him is unknown.

During the few weeks that followed the hanging of English Jim the Vigilance Committee arrested two more Sydney Ducks—Samuel Whittaker and Robert McKenzie—and speedily convicted them of robbery, arson, and burglary. They were sentenced to be hanged, but no date was set for the execution, although it was popularly believed that it would take place soon after the middle of August. On August 21, 1851 Governor John MacDougal issued a proclamation, addressed to the people of San Francisco, in which he denounced “the despotic control of a self-constituted association, unknown and acting in defiance of the laws.” The Vigilance Committee promptly retorted with this statement, which was sworn to by several prominent members and published in all the newspapers:

 “We, the undersigned, do hereby aver that the present Governor, MacDougal, asked to be introduced to the Executive Committee of the Committee of Vigilance, which was allowed, and an hour fixed. The Governor, upon being introduced, stated that he approved of the acts of the Committee, and that much good had taken place. He hoped that they would go on, and endeavor to act in concert with the authorities, and in case any judge was guilty of mal-administration, to hang him, and he would appoint others. . . ."

MacDougal made no direct reply to this accusatory document, but a few minutes before dawn on August 21 Sheriff Jack Hayes, accompanied by a large force of policemen, appeared at the headquarters of the Vigilance Committee with a writ of habeas corpus, signed by the Governor and calling for the surrender of both Whittaker and McKenzie. The Vigilantes then present were few in number, and they offered no resistance when Sheriff Hayes removed the prisoners to the town jail under City Hall. The Sheriff posted a strong guard about the prison, and the authorities announced that in due time the two Sydney Ducks would be tried by the regular courts.

For two days the Vigilance Committee made no move, but on Sunday, August 24, thirty-six heavily armed Vigilantes overpowered the Sheriff’s guard and forcibly entered the jail. They seized Whittaker and McKenzie and rushed them in a carriage to the rooms of the committee, where the entire membership had assembled. Within twenty minutes after their arrival Whittaker and McKenzie were dangling from heavy redwood beams which had been run out of the windows of the main meeting-room. Outside, a crowd of several thousand citizens had gathered, and as the struggling bodies were swung from the windows, the multitude expressed its approval by a great shout of triumph and satisfaction. The two Sydney Ducks remained hanging for half an hour, while the crowd was addressed by Samuel Brannan and other leading members of the committee. They declared that the Vigilantes were not to be deterred in their purpose by the opposition of the Governor, and vigorously reiterated the committee’s determination to hang with scant ceremony every felon who did not leave San Francisco. During the late afternoon the crowd quietly dispersed. Next day the Coroner’s jury returned the usual verdict, and, as before, nothing further was done by the authorities.

The execution of Whittaker and McKenzie was the last official action of the first Vigilance Committee, although the organization was never formally dissolved. The hanging of the two men, together with the committee’s bold and successful defiance of Governor MacDougal, caused a veritable panic in Sydney-Town; its rascally inhabitants left San Francisco in droves, and within two weeks there remained in that vicious quarter only a few dance-halls, saloons, and houses of prostitution, all of which were carefully operated in strict accordance with the law.