From what I've learned of the Old West, I just have a hard time believing that. Yes, a very hard time accepting that, especially since juries back in the day were made up of citizens who were usually very well known in the communities. And yes, many of the same men who sat on juries back in the day were also members of the local Citizens Committee. That was especially true in towns in the West that had not yet established a town constable or marshal's office.
Let's remember, Citizens Committees, also known as Vigilante Committees, were the folks who were the law for many years before towns ever got around to establishing local law enforcement offices with constables or town marshals. Most counties established sheriff's offices, and most sheriffs were also the county's tax collector.
With some counties in the West being larger than some states in the East, a county sheriff was someone who responded just about everywhere when he got there. Because of that, Citizens Committees acted on behalf of the law and, in some ways, supplemented county sheriffs by handling things locally until the county sheriff got there.
In some mining camps, Citizens Committees may have held a prisoner for the county sheriff. A lot of places in the Old West, especially those places that may have been a little more than mining camps, but one would really call a "town," didn't even have jails. Some used cold sellers, woodshed, barns, while other places may have simply shackled their prisoners to trees.
Because of the fact that Citizens Committees were common throughout the West, and the fact that law enforcement in the form of a county sheriff was often fairly scarce and stretched thin, situations were such that people took matters into their own hands. So, no, it wasn't unheard of for Vigilantes to take it upon themselves to shoot or hang horse thieves.
So while hanging was not seen as a common legal punishment for what is seen simply as a "property crime" by some, when caught and convicted by the law, horse thieves would face imprisonment or other penalties. But rarely did a horse thief get the death penalty.
So, all in all, it appears that if a criminal spends time behind bars for stealing horses, that means he or she was fortunate enough to be arrested by the county sheriff. If his or her luck ran out and they were instead arrested by citizens who tracked them down, then it appears all bets are off and they could end up on the end of a rope before ever making it back to be tried by a jury. And of course, there's that other thing, what happens if the citizens get the horse thief back to face a jury -- but other citizens don't trust the law to do what they think needs to be done.
Below is a story of Christopher Bennett. He was 30 years old when he stole a horse in Jackson, California, in March of 1854. Later that year, the town of Jackson would become the county seat of newly formed Amador County. At the time of the horse theft, Jackson was the county seat of Calaveras County.
Bennett wasn't fortunate enough to be arrested by the sheriff. He was arrested by a citizens' posse who intended to hand him over to the county sheriff. His luck ran out when the citizens' posse returned him to Jackson, where he stole the horse. He soon found out how the people there were tired of prisoners living long enough to escape from a county jail.
As reported in the Sacramento Daily Union on March 25, 1854:
Lynching at Jackson — Horse-Thief Hung.— We have received the following particulars relative to the hanging of a horse-thief at Jackson, Calaveras County, by the people. On Thursday last, from a correspondent at that point. We are also indebted to the agent of Wells, Fargo & Co. at Mokelumne Hill, for a less extended account:
"Last week, a very valuable horse was stolen from Evans & Askey, merchants in Jackson, Calaveras County. Messrs Askey & Campbell got on the track of the thief, and after following him three or four days, finally overtook and arrested him, and recovered the horse at his ranch on the Yuba, near Nevada.
The name by which the person went who stole the horse was Christopher Bennett, but he has several other names. He had been loafing about the village several days before the horse was stolen, without any ostensible business, and was immediately suspected.
The party arrived here early on Thursday morning, and the culprit was immediately taken charge of by Judge Lynch, and before 7 o'clock a.m., was hung on the Old Oak Tree on Main Street, making the seventh victim of lynch law, who has expiated his crimes on that same tree!
Bennett was a Dutchman, about 30 years of age. "There was no excitement, everyone being satisfied of the guilt of the prisoner, and the justice of his punishment, though a number were opposed to the hasty manner in which he was sent into another world. The recent escape of Fox, one of the Volcano murderers, from the County Jail, had exasperated the people so much that they were afraid to trust him with the legal authorities."
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So, while I've read here and there how Bennett had a "bill of sale" on him when he was caught, I have no idea where that information came from since I've checked quite a few newspapers looking for that information. Of course, all in all, it doesn't matter because he was still hanged as a horse thief. And in the Old West, that was how it was done.
Hangings like this were seen as a way of keeping the peace and maintaining order in the Old West. Justice was, in most cases, even in such cases as this, swift. For me, I've always sort of marveled at how fast someone was dealt with between the time they committed a crime, were apprehended, tried in court or by a mob, convicted, and had their sentence carried out. From what I can see, even if the criminal had his day in court, we're talking about the process only taking months at best. No, not years before justice is served in some way.
That's obviously not the case today. Today, a criminal may die of old age before the people he hurt see justice. Unlike today, where people see very little consequence to their heinous acts and thievery, people knew that justice would be swift back in the Old West.
And yes, I really believe that was probably the main reason why crime was actually as low as it was in the Old West. It's true. While entertainment like Dime Novels and the Police Gazette sensationalized criminals, and later Hollywood helped grow the myth of the Old West being a very violent place, in comparison to today, especially if we look at the crime in our inner cities, overall, crime was actually very low in the Old West.
As for the town of Jackson, like many towns that grew out of the California Gold Rush, it saw its share of lawlessness. But it also saw its share of efforts to stop such lawlessness. If someone wants proof of that fact of life in the Old West, all they have to do is look at how busy that town's "Hanging Tree" was between 1850 and 1862.
The tree was cut down after it burned down as a result of the 1862 fire that hit Jackson pretty hard. According to that plaque, that tree saw the people of Jackson hang ten men there between 1850 and the time it came down in 1862. As for those ten men, who knows if they were hanged on the merits of their cases -- or as examples to others.
Either way, if someone were dumb enough to try to get away with doing the same things that got ten others hanged, then it should have come as no surprise to him if he were caught and hanged by citizens who had little faith in the county sheriff to do what was needed.
Tom Correa
