In a previous blog post, I shared some contemporaneous news reports I found in old newspaper archives of the hanging of a woman named Josefa at Downieville in July 1851. That event later became a popular story, and the woman's name became "Juanita" in later versions. I was curious when the name change began, so I looked for the oldest newspaper article telling the story of the event with the name of the woman being Juanita, and I found it, below, published twenty years later, in 1871. (Here is another copy from 1871.) The original isn't available digitally, so I can only find re-published copies of it. It appears it was published in the New York Sunday News sometime in June, 1871. Eight years later, it was republished with some modifications for the Sacramento Bee on December 27th, 1879 by Calvin B. McDonald in a series of articles by him. He was in Downieville in 1852, according to the census. He was editor of the first edition of The Sierra Citizen, published in Downieville, February 11, 1854. I think it's safe to say he was a witness to the event he describes below. I'm guessing the 1871 version was written by him, but I have no proof for that. I've got both the 1871 and 1879 versions, below, one after the other. He names some more names in the 1879 version, presumably because those people passed away in the interim, the text is clearly edited, the narrator changes from "we" to "I," and some chronological details are updated with relative time lapse information.
Interestingly, another article names her Josefa in 1893.
LYNCHING A WOMAN.
A Terrible Picture of Frontier Savagery - A Mexican Woman Hung by an Infuriated Mob of Miners - Heroic Conduct of the Victim.
A writer in the New York Sunday News, who was an eye witness to the affair, gives an account of the lynching of a woman in California about twenty years ago. The reminiscence is a graphic sketch of the savagery that prevailed on the Pacific coast during the early days of gold hunting. It is also interesting from the picture it presents of cool animal courage in the central figure, a Joan of Arc on the frontier - a Charlotte Corday in the rough:
“On the morning of July 5, 1851, there were some five thousand people in, and about the town of Downieville, California; traders, packers and gamblers thronging the village, and industrious miners at work in the river beds and banks, and among these we were engaged on the branch of the river, a mile or so from the centre of activity. The gold-seekers were scattered along so close together that a continuous line of vocal telegraph was available for several miles. About 10 o'clock in the morning, the
CRY OF MURDER
came up the river, quick repeating from one to another, and, as the cry was unusually earnest and startling, all the miners dropped their tools and made for the river bank to take an observation. Everybody was running toward town, four or five hundred in sight, and all under full headway. Of course our party went too."
"At the scene of action we found a vast throng surrounding a small clapboard shanty, and within a miner was lying dead. We happened to be one of the few who crowded in. The man was lying on the puncheon floor, and had breathed his last; the floor sloped a little in the rude structure of the tenement, and a broad stream of blood had flown from his breast, as much as ten feet. There was hardly any perceptible noise until after the murdered man had expired, and then began that ominous, deathly buzz which is so expressive and threatening on the border, where there is no law but that of superior strength, and no justice but that of popular impulse. Who was he? Who killed him? Where is the murderer? were the inquiries repeated a thousand times over, and presently the crowd began to surge in a peculiar direction, indicating that the homicide had been discovered.
"The man killed was Joseph Cannon, an Englishman, who had come from Australia, a man of giant stature and strength, considerable above six feet in height, and weighing perhaps 230, may be more. The person who killed him was
"A LITTLE MEXICAN WOMAN,"
from Mazatlan, unusually small even for her diminutive race. Cannon was a good-natured, carousing miner, and very popular with his associates, who were chiefly English and Scotch sailors with the usual portion of "Sidney ducks," as Australian people were then called. On the night of the 4th, immediately preceding the murder, he had been on a spree and ran all night with his friends, who in their hilarious intoxication went about knocking at people's doors and making them get up to drink; nobody minded that then; the sailors had plenty of money and were disposed to throw it around lavishly.
"In the course of their raid Cannon and his carousing friends kicked at the door of a certain clapboard shanty, which, having only frail leather hinges, fell in and the rude visitors ran away. The cabin was inhabited by a young Mexican and his reputed wife. The man dealt monte in a neighboring saloon and the woman took in washing. In the state of society at that time the two were living respectably, and by their united exertions were making money. The wife was rather a pretty little woman, showing the Indian features very distinctly, and was about twenty-four years old. It was said she had been of rather loose character and had killed two other men; but of that we never had any authentic information, and so far as their neighbors said the pair were living honestly and reputably, with no more scandal than generally fell to the lot of a young and good-looking woman in those rough old days.
"On the following morning, having somewhat recovered from his big drunk, Cannon heard that he had broken in the family's door, and started off to pay the damages and make an apology. While standing on the outside, talking in Broken Spanish to the Mexican, Cannon placed a hand on each door post, and while in that situation the little woman sprang out from a place of concealment, and, with a long sharp bowie-knife, stabbed him through the centre of the breast bone and clear to the heart. The blow must have been tremendous, to thus cut through his strong and gigantic anatomy. Cannon reeled back into the middle of the street, fell with a groan, and was carried into an unfinished house, where the murder cry was given, as related in the foregoing.
Cannon having been a popular leader among the rougher sort of miners, a cloud of indignation rose rapidly, and with ominous portent. There was a standing feud between the rusty looking miners and the flashy-dressed gamblers; the homicide woman belonged to the latter class, and, woman though she was, it was resolved that she must die. The crowd continued to increase and gather resolution and fury; the woman had not only murdered a popular miner, but she was also the wife of one of the hated tribe of gamblers, and die she must! Some of the more human citizens offered to interfere and stay the horrid proceedings, but they were at once intimidated and put down, one or two of the more demonstrative having been driven out of the village, in fear of their lives.
"A LYNCH COURT"
was summoned, and twelve jurymen eagerly responded. One or two lawyers volunteered for the prosecution, but none for the defense. There had been a Fourth of July celebration the day before, and the shed - something like a campmeeting preacher's stand - was still there; and to that Judge Lynch and his court, together with the prisoner, repaired, and the trial began. A leading physician was called as a witness, and, wishing to save the poor wretch, gave his opinion that she was enciente; a howl of incredulity was raised, and he was driven from the stand, had to fly the town, and durst not return for two or three days. A certain Mr. Thayer, from Nevada, undertook to make a speech in defense of the prisoner, but he was kicked off the platform, and the crowd below opening a gangway, he was kicked off the ground, driven across the river, and fled up the hill, leaving his hat and mule behind.
"A certain man with a white bandage on his head took an active part in the prosecution, aided by a young lawyer who thought to gain popularity with the miners. The trial lasted four hours, a rope was thrown around a small inclosure, like a prize-ring, and every now and then the crowd would make a surge, breaking down the ropes and interrupting the proceedings. Nobody had the courage to face the furious mob and speak for the woman, who sat by with the stolidity and coolness of an Indian warrior in council. The Hon. J. B. Weller, who was then running for Congress, was then at the hotel over-looking the lynch court, and was besought to go out and speak to the people, but he was afraid.
"As the delicate condition of the prisoner had been suggested, a committee of doctors was appointed, who took her into an adjacent house, stripped her, examined, and reported to the court that the statement of her situation was untrue. She was then found guilty.
"SENTENCED TO BE HANGED,"
and given four hours to prepare for death. All through the prisoner had borne herself with the stolid fortitude belonging to the race. In the interval, the doomed Juanita made her verbal will, gave away her little property for the use of various friends, and was ready for the awful moment when men tremble and pray; but so did not that little incarnation of human heroism, as she looked out at the preparation of the scaffold,
"THE GALLOWS
was constructed on a bridge over the Yuba River, at the lower end of town. The
middle of the bridge had two uprights and a beam, overhead - almost a
ready-made scaffold. A piece of scantling was lashed across from one post to
another, about four feet from the flooring; the rope and noose were in place;
a step-ladder was procured for the prisoner to ascend to the scantling, which
answered the purpose of a rude trap. The prisoner and her few terrified
friends came down the street in a melancholy little company, and upon the
bridge up to the foot of the gallows. There Juanita shook hands with and took
leave of her friends, and ascended the ladder with a firm and agile step.
"Standing on the narrow scantling, while a dead silence prevailed with the vast crowd of spectators, she took off a man's hat which she had borrowed to wear on the scaffold, and deliberately and skillfully shied it over the heads of the crowd to its owner; the hat was of straw, and sailed on the wind as pasteboard cards do when thrown. Then she twisted up and fixed her long black hair, smoothed down her dress, placed the noose about her neck in the proper manner, and raising her hands, which she refused to have tied, said in a clear voice:
"ADIOS SENORS!"
"The signal was the firing of a pistol. Two men stood with axes to cut the rope and let fall the scantling upon which the woman stood.
"In his trepidation one of them missed his aim, and failed to cut the rope, so that only one end of the timber fell, and the poor creature lodged in her fall. There was a cry of horror from the crowd, with fierce oaths at the awkwardness of the accursed hangman, but another blow dropped the timber; and the body swung. The rope was new and commenced untwisting, the body whirling round, until many of the spectators turned away, deathly sick at heart. But in a few minutes, Juanita was dead.
"THIS TERRIBLE SCENE
was witnessed by most of the few women who had then come to the place, and two of them had their children in their arms; and it is not long since we read the marriage notice of one of those infant spectators, now a beautiful and accomplished young lady.
"THE BODY OF JUANITA
was at length taken down and carried to the poor abode, where it was hoped to
revive her. A clapboard was torn off to give air; but when it was given out
that she was not dead the brutal crowd rushed in, surrounded the house, and
swore that if not dead she should be hanged again. But Juanita was beyond the
reach of their vengeance; dark came on, and still, tiger-like, many of the
wretches staid sic around the house all night. On the following day
Cannon and his slayer were buried near together on the hillside, and their
half-obliterated and forgotten graves may still be found - if indeed the
gold-diggers have not disembowled and washed away that primitive cemetery. We
saw the graves and their faded inscriptions as late as 1862. [See When the Woman Was Hung, The Marysville Appeal, Marysville, California • Fri, Apr 7, 1876 Page 3 - MF]
"CONCLUSION."
"About five years ago when ascending Feather river to Marysville, we heard that a man was dying on the lower deck of the boat, and, on going to see, at once recognized the man with a white bandage on his head, who had been leader of the mob fifteen years before when the woman was hung in Downieville. He was dying miserably and friendless, and his remains were left at Yuba City. We forgot his name, but he was the identical leader of the lynch court, as we afterward ascertained. The young lawyer who led the prosecution afterward ran for the legislature, but was always beaten because of his participation in the shameful affair, and, about ten years ago, he was killed by Indians in Nevada Territory. Nearly all the prominent actors in the tragedy are dead; some of the spectators are in San Francisco.
"This, we believe is the only accurate and circumstantial account of that tragic affair that has never been given to the public by an eye witness. For many years it was regarded as stigma on the character of Downieville; but the chief actors and most of the spectators have long since passed from the scene.
[In the newspaper, they quote her as saying "DIOS SENORS!" but it would have been "ADIOS SENORS!" or even better ¡ADIÓS SEÑORES! I had to fix it a little bit. - MF]
HORRORS OF A LYNCH COURT.
The Trial and Execution of a Mexican Woman at Downieville, July 5th, 1851.
Written for the BEE.]
On the morning of July 5th, 1851, there were some five thousand people in and about the town of Downieville - traders, packers and gamblers thronging the village, industrious mixers at work in the river-beds and banks, and among these I was engaged on a branch of the river, a mile or so from the center of activity. The gold-seekers were scattered along so close together that a continuous line of vocal telegraph was available for several miles. About 10 o'clock in the morning the cry of "Murder!" came up the river, quickly repeated from one to another, and, as the outcry was unusually earnest and startling, all the miners dropped their tools and made for the river bank to take an observation. Everybody was running toward town, four or five hundred in sight and all under full headway. Of course, our party went, too. At the scene of action we found a vast throng surrounding a small clapboard shanty, and within a miner was lying dead. I happened to be one of the few who crowded in. The man was lying on the puncheon floor, and had breathed his last. The floor sloped a little in the rude structure of the tenement, and a broad stream of blood had flowed from his breast as much as ten feet. There was hardly any perceptible excitement until after the murdered man had expired, and then began that ominous, deathly buzz which is so expressive and threatening on the Border, where there is no law but that of superior strength and no justice but that of popular impulse.
"Who was he?
"Who killed him?"
"Where is the murderer?" were the inquiries, repeated a thousand times over, and presently the crowd began to surge in a particular direction, indicating that the homicide had been discovered.
LEADING ACTORS IN THE TRAGEDY.
The man killed was Joseph Cannon, an Englishman, who had come from Australia - a man of giant stature and strength, considerably above six feet in hight, and weighing perhaps 230 pounds. The person who killed him was a little Mexican woman, from Mazatlan, unusually small even for her diminutive race. Cannon was a good-natured, carousing miner, and very popular with his associates, who were chiefly English and Scotch sailors, with the usual proportion of "Sydney ducks," as Australian people were then called. On the night of the 4th, immediately preceding the murder, he had been on a spree, and "ran all night with his rough friends, who, in their hilarious intoxication, went about knocking at people's doors, and making them get up to drink - nobody minding that, then; the sailors had plenty of money and were disposed to throw it around lavishly. In the course of their raid Cannon and his carousing friends kicked at the door of a certain clapboard shanty, which, having only frail, leathern hinges, fell in, and the rude visitors ran away. The cabin was inhabited by a young Mexican and his reputed wife. The man dealt monte in a neighboring saloon, and the woman took in washing. In the state of society at that time the two were living respectably, and by their united exertions were making money. The wife was a rather pretty little woman, showing the Indian features very distinctly, and was about twenty-four years old. It was said that she had been of loose character, and had killed two other men; but of that I never had any authentic information, and so far as their neighbors said, the pair were living honestly and reputably, with no more scandal than generally fell to the lot of a young and good-looking woman in those rough old times.
THE MURDER.
On the following morning having somewhat recovered from his debauch, Cannon heard that he had broken in the family's door, and started off to pay the damages and make an apology. While standing on the outside, talking in broken Spanish to the Mexican, Cannon placed a hand on each door post, and while in that situation the woman sprang out from a place of concealment, and with a long, sharp bowie-knife stabbed him through the center of the breast-bone and clear into the heart. The blow must have been tremendous, to thus cut through his strong and gigantic anatomy, Cannon reeled back into the middle of the street, fell with a groan, and was carried into an unfinished house, where the murder-cry was given, as related in the foregoing.
THE GATHERING MOB.
Cannon having been a popular leader among the rougher sort of miners, a cloud of indignation rose rapidly and with ominous portent. There was a standing fend between the rusty-looking miners and the flashy-dressed gamblers; the homicide woman belonged to the latter class, and woman though she was, it was resolved that she must die. The crowd continued to increase and gather resolution and fury; the woman had not only murdered a popular miner, but she was also the wife of one of the hated tribe of gamblers; and die she must! Some of the more humane citizens offered to interfere and stay the horrid proceedings, but they were at once intimidated and put down, one or two of the more demonstrative having been driven out of the village in fear of their lives. A lynch-court was summoned, and twelve Jurymen eagerly responded. One or two lawyers volunteered for the prosecution, but none for the defense. There had been a Fourth of July celebration the day before, and the shed, something like a camp-meeting preachers' stand, was still there; and to that Judge Lynch and his court, together with the prisoner, repaired, and the trial began. A leading physician, Dr. Cyrus D. Aiken, who died recently in Downieville, an honored citizen, was called as a witness, and wishing to save the poor wretch, gave his opinion that she was enceinte; a howl of incredulity was raised and he was driven from the stand, had to fly the town, and durst not return for two or three days. A certain Mr. Thayer, from Nevada, undertook to make a speech in defense of the prisoner, but he was kicked off the platform, and the crowd below opening a gang-way, he was beaten off the ground, driven across the river, and fled up the hill, leaving his hat and mule behind him. A certain man with a white bandage on his head, took an active part in the prosecution, aided by a young lawyer, who thought to gain popularity with the miners. The trial lasted four hours, a rope having been thrown around a small enclosure, like a prize-ring, and every now and then the crowd would make a surge breaking down the ropes and interrupting the proceedings. Nobody had the courage to face the furious mob and speak for the woman, who sat with the stolidity and coolness of an Indian warrior in council. The Hon. John B. Weller, who was then running for Congress, was at the hotel overlooking the lynch-court and was requested to go out and speak to the people, but he declined. As the delicate condition of the prisoner had been suggested, a committee of doctors was appointed, who took her into an adjacent house, made an examination, and reported to the court that the statement of her situation was untrue. She was then found guilty, sentenced to be hanged, and given four hours to prepare for death. All along the prisoner had borne herself with the stolid fortitude belonging to her race. In the interval the doomed woman made her verbal will, gave away her little property for the use of various friends, and then was ready for the awful moment when men tremble and pray; but not so that little incarnation of human heroism, as she looked out at the preparation of the scaffold.
THE EXECUTION SCENE.
The gallows was constructed on a bridge over the Yuba river, at the lower end of the town. In the middle the bridge had two uprights and a beam overhead - almost a ready made scaffold. A piece of scantling was lashed across from one post to the other, about four feet from the flooring; the rope and noose were in place; stepladder was procured for the prisoner to ascend to the scantling, which answered the purpose of a, rude trap. The prisoner and her few terrified friends came down the street in a melancholy little company, and upon the bridge up to the foot of the gallows. There she shook hands with and took leave of her friends, and ascended the ladder with a firm and agile step. Standing on the narrow scantling, while a dead silence prevailed with the vast crowd of spectators, she took off a man's hat, which she had borrowed to wear to the gallows, and deliberately and skillfully shied it over the heads of the crowd to its owner; the hat was of straw, and sailed on the wind as pasteboard cards do when thrown. Then she twisted up and fixed her long black hair, smoothed down her dress, placed the noose round her neck in the proper manner, and raising her hand, which she refused to have tied, said "Adios, senors!" The signal was the firing of a pistol. Two men stood with axes to cut the rope and let fall the scantling upon which the woman stood. In his trepidation, one of them missed his aim, and failed to cut the rope, so that only one end of the timber fell, and the poor creature lodged in her fall. There was a cry of horror from the crowd, with fierce oaths at the awkwardness of the accursed hangman; but another blow dropped the timber, and the body swung. The rope was new and commenced untwisting, the body whirling round, until many turned away, deathly sick at heart. But in a few minutes Juanita was dead.
This terrible scene was witnessed by most of the few women who had then come to the place, and two of them had their children in their arms; and it is not long since I read the marriage notice of one of those infant spectators, now a beautiful and accomplished young woman.
AFTER THE SPECTACLE.
The body was at length taken down and carried to her poor abode, where it was hoped to revive her. A clapboard was torn off to give air; but when it was given out that she was not dead, the brutal crowd rushed in, surrounded the house, and swore that if not dead she should be hanged again! But Juanita was beyond the reach of their vengeance. Dark came on, and still, tiger-like, many of the Savage wretches stayed round the house all night. On the following day Cannon and his slayer were buried near together on the hill-side, and their half-obliterated and forgotten graves may still be found, if, indeed, the gold-diggers have not disemboweled and washed away that primitive cemetery. I saw the graves and their faded inscription as late as 1862. [See When the Woman Was Hung, The Marysville Appeal, Marysville, California • Fri, Apr 7, 1876 Page 3 - MF]
AFTERWARDS.
About fifteen years ago, when ascending the Feather river to Marysville, I heard that a man was dying on the lower deck of the boat, and on going to see, at once recognized the "man with a white bandage on his head," who had been a leader of the mob thirteen years before, when the woman was hung in Downieville. He was dying miserably and friendless, and his remains were left at Yuba City. I had forgotten his name, but he was the identical leader of the lynch-court, as was afterwards ascertained. The young lawyer who led the prosecution afterwards ran for the Legislature, but was beaten because of his participation in that shameful affair, and, about eighteen years ago, he was killed by Indians in Nevada Territory. Nearly all the prominent actors in the tragedy are dead, or gone from the place; some of the spectators are in San Francisco, and will recognize the accuracy of this sketch.
It has been said that Major Jack Stratman took part in and urged on the mob; but, having been an eye-witness of the whole affair, from first to last, I hereby certify that Jack had no hand in it, but on the contrary tried to save the woman from death. To have offered to do more than he did. would have produced his forcible expulsion from town, and the destruction of his place.
This, I believe, is the only accurate and circumstantial account of that tragic affair that has ever been given to the public by an eye-witness. For many years it was regarded as a stigma on the character of Downieville: but the chief actors and most of the spectators have long since passed from the scene.
CALVIN B. McDONALD.
Sacramento, November 27th, 1879.
HORRORS OF A LYNCH COURT. 27 Dec 1879, Sat
The Pacific Bee (Sacramento, California) Newspapers.com
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