*** This tour was published in March 2021, when the Covid-19 pandemic was active. Please wear a mask/face covering and maintain a social distance of 6 ft from people not in your household. Visit www.emergencyslo.org for the latest in public health advice. ***
A Self-guided Walking Tour of Mission Plaza in 1858 and the Committee of Vigilance
Site 2: Location of the Vigilante’s Gallows
This intersection of Monterey & Broad Streets is where most of the hangings of the accused victims of the Committee of Vigilance occurred in May and June of 1858.
And this is the place to begin the intersecting stories of four men who played “starring roles” in these events: Walter Murray, Romualdo Pacheco Jr., Jack Powers and Pio Linares. These four men squared off in 1858 from opposite corners of society: Two were Californios, and two were Anglos. Two of these men were ‘Establishment” leaders in the Committee that used this site to lynch the alleged members of the “Powers Linares Gang,” and the other two were the leaders of the gang.
Neither Powers nor Linares met their maker at this site, but most of the men who were executed here were reputed to be in their gang. Six alleged bandidos were summarily executed at this site without any due process. Five were suspected members of the Powers-Linares Gang. Who were these unfortunate men? What were the charges against them? And why did Vigilantes organize, ignore the Constitutional rights afforded to criminal defendants, and hang them here?
This intersection of Monterey & Broad Streets is where most of the hangings of the accused victims of the Committee of Vigilance occurred in May and June of 1858.
And this is the place to begin the intersecting stories of four men who played “starring roles” in these events: Walter Murray, Romualdo Pacheco Jr., Jack Powers and Pio Linares. These four men squared off in 1858 from opposite corners of society: Two were Californios, and two were Anglos. Two of these men were ‘Establishment” leaders in the Committee that used this site to lynch the alleged members of the “Powers Linares Gang,” and the other two were the leaders of the gang.
Neither Powers nor Linares met their maker at this site, but most of the men who were executed here were reputed to be in their gang. Six alleged bandidos were summarily executed at this site without any due process. Five were suspected members of the Powers-Linares Gang. Who were these unfortunate men? What were the charges against them? And why did Vigilantes organize, ignore the Constitutional rights afforded to criminal defendants, and hang them here?
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The spate of vigilante violence all stemmed from a gruesome triple murder: On May 12, 1858, Bartolome Baratie and Jose Borel, two Basque immigrants who had recently settled on the San Juan Ranch in the North County, were brutally murdered by a gang of assailants allegedly from the Powers-Linares Gang. Baratie’s wife Andrea was abducted by one gang member. Others murdered a third man, Jack Gilkey, on their return trip to San Luis Obispo. Baratie and Borel had been targeted for their cash, but Gilkey’s murder was based solely on the operating principle of the gang that “dead men tell no tales.”
One gang member failed to fulfill that commandment: Luciano Tapia, aka “El Mesteno” (mestizo, or mixed indigenous and European). He had secretly spared the lives of two household servants, Ysidro Silvas and Luis Morillo, releasing them in the dead of night. Though Tapia had also flouted orders to kill Baratie's wife, instead conveying her north over 8 days to San Juan Bautista where she escaped (or was released, in Tapia’s account). |
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The two servants fled to the nearby ranch of Captain David Mallagh. The following day, May 13, Mallagh escorted Silvas to San Luis Obispo where his testimony was taken before a judge. Mallagh and Silvas then searched the saloons and pool halls in the pueblo, and before long, Silvas identified one of the murderers, Santos Peralta.
The Sheriff arrested Peralta and threw him into the jail that local authorities had created in the old Mission convento (Site 3) – but Peralta did not survive the night: An angry mob of townsmen broke in and seized the prisoner. No testimony was taken; no confession was obtained. According to historian Pete Kelley, there was no evidence against him apart from Silvas’ placing him at the scene of the crime. He had no attorney, and the mob didn’t even wait to construct a gallows for the alleged murderer. They hanged Peralta from the roof of the jail. |
Neither Jack Powers nor Pio Linares were at the scene of the crimes in North County. Rumors about their involvement were sufficient to incite the crowd to find them, and to look for several Californios presumed to have been part of the murderous assault. The second victim of the public outrage following the murders was clearly NOT a member of the gang, “Joaquin” Valenzuela.
Valenzuela was a victim of mistaken identity. Some sources indicate that this “Joaquin” was actually Jesus Valenzuela, younger brother of the real Joaquin, but to the State of California, Jesus had been mis-identified five years earlier - in 1853 - as “Joaquin” Ochomorenio – a childhood nickname. Both brothers had been named as two of the “Five Joaquins” led by the infamous bandit Joaquin Murietta. A special unit of State Rangers had killed the “real” Joaquin Valenzuela in an 1853 shootout, along with Murietta – whose pickled head was displayed throughout California for many years, and for a price, to thousands of curious onlookers. By 1858, however the younger brother Jesus had long since left the gang. In fact, he was employed as a ranch hand on Rancho San Emidio in Cuyama.
On May 14, just two days after the triple murder, and one day after the lynching of Santos Peralta, Sheriff Francisco Castro organized a 15-man posse to search for the men who had committed the murders at Rancho San Juan. The posse got close enough to identify four riders as belonging to the gang, but they eluded the posse. After several days of searching, the posse arrived at Rancho San Emidio in the Cuyama Valley, and there they found Jesus Valenzuela, aka “Joaquin Ochomorenio." They brought him back to San Luis Obispo and threw him in the jail in the convento of the Mission [Site 3]. There they interrogated him and held him overnight on unrelated murders and other unspecified crimes.
The day after his arrest and incarceration, May 20, the newly-formed “Committee of Vigilance,” led by one Walter Murray (see Site 4) held a public “trial,” built a gallows at this site, and hanged Jesus Valenzuela (aka “Joaquin”) in broad daylight and in full public view, including that of the children cowering in Ramona Wilson’s home [Site 1] only a few feet away.
Valenzuela had been allowed to write a letter to David Alexander, his employer at Rancho San Emidio and a leading citizen and elected official in Los Angeles. Alexander was outraged to learn of Valenzuela’s execution at the hands of the Vigilantes, and authored a blistering editorial denouncing vigilante killings in a Spanish language newspaper in Los Angeles.
Site 3, across the road, follows the stories of the next five hangings.
Valenzuela was a victim of mistaken identity. Some sources indicate that this “Joaquin” was actually Jesus Valenzuela, younger brother of the real Joaquin, but to the State of California, Jesus had been mis-identified five years earlier - in 1853 - as “Joaquin” Ochomorenio – a childhood nickname. Both brothers had been named as two of the “Five Joaquins” led by the infamous bandit Joaquin Murietta. A special unit of State Rangers had killed the “real” Joaquin Valenzuela in an 1853 shootout, along with Murietta – whose pickled head was displayed throughout California for many years, and for a price, to thousands of curious onlookers. By 1858, however the younger brother Jesus had long since left the gang. In fact, he was employed as a ranch hand on Rancho San Emidio in Cuyama.
On May 14, just two days after the triple murder, and one day after the lynching of Santos Peralta, Sheriff Francisco Castro organized a 15-man posse to search for the men who had committed the murders at Rancho San Juan. The posse got close enough to identify four riders as belonging to the gang, but they eluded the posse. After several days of searching, the posse arrived at Rancho San Emidio in the Cuyama Valley, and there they found Jesus Valenzuela, aka “Joaquin Ochomorenio." They brought him back to San Luis Obispo and threw him in the jail in the convento of the Mission [Site 3]. There they interrogated him and held him overnight on unrelated murders and other unspecified crimes.
The day after his arrest and incarceration, May 20, the newly-formed “Committee of Vigilance,” led by one Walter Murray (see Site 4) held a public “trial,” built a gallows at this site, and hanged Jesus Valenzuela (aka “Joaquin”) in broad daylight and in full public view, including that of the children cowering in Ramona Wilson’s home [Site 1] only a few feet away.
Valenzuela had been allowed to write a letter to David Alexander, his employer at Rancho San Emidio and a leading citizen and elected official in Los Angeles. Alexander was outraged to learn of Valenzuela’s execution at the hands of the Vigilantes, and authored a blistering editorial denouncing vigilante killings in a Spanish language newspaper in Los Angeles.
Site 3, across the road, follows the stories of the next five hangings.