 Hello and welcome everyone to our event Words Matter about James King of William and San Francisco's vigilantes of 1856 with Dr. Nancy Tenaguchi. My name is Taryn Edwards and I am one of the librarians here at the Mechanics Institute of San Francisco. For those of you who are unfamiliar with mechanics, we are an independent membership organization that houses a wonderful library, the oldest in fact designed to serve the public in California. We're also a cultural event center and a world renowned chess club that is the oldest in the nation. Mechanics Institute was two years old when the events that we'll talk about today unfolded. Right now, due to the pandemic, all of our activities are still virtual, but I encourage you to consider becoming a member with us. It's only $120 a year and with that you help support our contribution to the literary and cultural world of the San Francisco Bay Area, and you enable us to continue to host events like this one that explore San Francisco's history and culture. So our speaker today is Dr. Nancy Tenaguchi. She was born in Washington and raised in Virginia, but has lived all over including Tucson, Mexico City, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, Utah and Central California. She is a history professor emerita from California State University Stanislaus. By chance, she discovered a copy of the minutes of the San Francisco's 1856 vigilance committee. These were lost for over 150 years, and this discovery inspired her third book called Dirty Deeds Land Violence and the 1856 San Francisco Vigilance Committee. So the dirty deeds of this group of folks is what she will be talking about today. She and her husband have two kids and two grandchildren and live now in Corvallis, Oregon. Let's see. So the way it's going to work is Nancy is going to share her knowledge with us, and afterwards we will take questions. So please post these in the chat space and I will pose them to Nancy. I hope in a in an engaging and conversational style, and she'll answer them. So thank you so much Nancy, and thank you all for turning out today. And we look forward to hearing all about James King of William and the vigilantes. Thank you Teran for that lovely introduction. And I'm very pleased to be here and I appreciate the sponsorship of the Mechanics Institute. And as you can read, I'm going to be talking about words matter, James King of William and San Francisco's 1856 vigilance committee. James King of William used words as weapons and was proud of it in his editorial of April 18 1856 he thundered 1400 souls left our warbs on steamer day. The women and children I native born California children to our eastward bound. Why our public men are representatives are office holders are of the most notorious scoundrels in the community. They're supervisors running this county into debt it railroad speed. Look at your mayor imbecile for any good. Look at your public offices filled not by honest merchants or mechanics, but by gamblers and thieves and shoulder strikers. Yes steamer day. And the state of San Francisco then rocked to the rhythm of steamer day, which came every two weeks as the US mail steamship prepared to sale creditors collected debts, residents wrote last minute, letters home travelers pack their bags, and banks created gold sending millions of dollars from the California mines every month to their parent back banks back home. The steamer sailed down to Central America, where passengers in cargo crossed the isthmus and boarded a sister ship in the Gulf of Mexico. Next stops Havana, New Orleans, then New York. The whole trip took three to four weeks and if for example, any dossiers mail or agents were headed to Washington DC for discussion and deliberation. Their transit took several days longer. This timing would become very important to the vigilantes. This returning by the same route took the same amount of time on this, the fastest connection between San Francisco and the states, as Californians called it. James King of William was right about the Exodus on that April day, but wrong about the cause. The San Francisco government had a seamy record, but on April 19, the California State Legislature passed the consolidation act which it had been considering for some time, stipulating that on the following July 1, only the county government would rule the coterminous city and county of San Francisco, limiting the size of the city and county as well. The real cause of the Exodus was widespread bank failure which had hit San Francisco like a hurricane on Friday, February 23 1855 black Friday. That day news had arrived on the mail steamer of bank failures in the east. Rumors fled through the town fueled in part by notices, hung on bulletin boards, like the one shown here. And I want to point out, here's the bulletin board. And it's right next to the Empire Engine Company, which was organized by David Broderick you'll hear more about him later. He's the leading Northern Democrat in San Francisco and this is his entree into politics, they also fought fires. So there were specific places where people looked for notices of what was coming up. Four warned of this crash. Some of the California banks had already forwarded bullion to their parent institutions. California's banks did not retain enough bullion to cover their own needs. In a panic, depositors rushed to withdraw their funds. Seven San Francisco banks closed. Six never reopened, including the Bank of James King of William. California itself remain gutted plagued by bankruptcies and pockmarked with over 100 vacant commercial buildings. As another banker whose banks survived noted California is thrown back three years, but the mines are still here. We have a city with its wharves warehouses and stores and dwellings, although individuals must be ruined. A word about Kings odd name. He had added his father's name to his own to stand out from the other James Kings in his native Georgetown Washington DC. Coming to California in 1848 he had tried his hand at mining, then opened the bank. Now he was among those seeking a new way to support his wife and six children. By borrowing $250 he decided to open his own newspaper, the daily evening bulletin to vent his own uncompromising moral judgments on institutions and individuals. In those days libel and slander could generate a duel, but King had already refused such a contest, although he assured his readers that he went armed and would defend himself if attacked. And he would need to, as he continually criticized not only politicians, but among others, competing newspaper editors real estate brokers, including the partner or the man who had loaned him the $250 all Roman Catholics. Here's an example. He blamed the cathedral rector father Gallagher for brutality at the hospital with a connivance of sisters of mercy with Jesuit fathers. He said personal attack on a beloved priest horrified local Catholics. One respectable Catholic lady believed that King's know nothing backing allowed him to write up religiously against men of education and standing in the city, venting his personal spite in a black guard manner and calling it zeal for the public good. The Irish merchant recorded in his daily diary that he had met with other Catholic elites who agreed that the only way to deal with King was to write a card or personal ad, signed by some of the best men in the congregation denying the charges. 26 of the city's most prominent Catholics published a letter asserting that Father Joseph Gallagher has not now and never had any control of the hospital. And blame King's animosity to him personally, or to the nomination of which he and we are members for the malicious editorial King printed this card. The same article harromped the cowardly attempt of this committee of 26 to draw us into a controversy with a church is too apparent. Father Gallagher's friends show us that it is their fault. They will see that we do not shrink from our duty. King also went after the customs house employees but not the head of the customs house, who had given his brother a cushy job. And he attacked James P Casey. Casey was a scrappy political operative who had also started his own paper the weekly Sunday times. He used it to attack King over his selective customs house critique, and King retaliated. No matter how bad a man Casey had been, the fact that Casey has been an inmate of sing sing prison in New York is no offense against the laws of this state, nor is the fact of him having stuffed himself through the ballot box as elected to the board of supervisors. Casey, furious about the revelation of his New York prison term rush to the bulletin office and the two argued violently. May 14, as King left his office, Casey stepped out on Montgomery Street shouted defend yourself and shot King. The wounded editor was carried to a nearby building and Casey was imprisoned in the county jail. King initially improved until doctors inserted a sponge in his side to staunch the bleeding and left it there festering until he died of sepsis six days later. 165 years ago today, on May 14 1856, when King was shot. San Francisco reached a tipping point. It brought on the second vigilance committee, America's largest organization of this kind. Long responded thus to its troubles and King had been actively stirring the pot with his all important words. In 1851 he joined the first vigilance committee of some 700 men ran for the committee's chief of police, receiving only two votes, and was later elected to the executive committee. They claimed that the elite vigilante leaders had given themselves the general committee composed of the rank and file lasted some five months and officially disbanded. However, occasional crimes induced a gathering of followers and the 1851 executives kept meeting for two more years until 1853. They preserved most of their papers including carefully kept minutes, correspondence, financial records, and members names and numbers, which have been adopted initially to preserve their secrecy. They wanted to show the world that they were not a treacherous mom, but acted with proper decorum and deliberation. During the horrific drought of the winter of 1853-54, minors who could not wash out their pile descended on San Francisco, lured by the rumor that the Federal Land Commission then in session would grant San Francisco's land to settlers. And on its many empty lots, frightened elite claimants confronted them with pistols, knives, and clubs. In June the elite formalized what they called the People's Organization, mirroring the 1851 committee to act as special police to aid the authorities. When the city hired 48 new policemen to control the squatter threat. They disbanded. But this 1854 violence highlighted another deeper problem. No one owned land in San Francisco. Of course, lots of people had claims on this land that used to belong to the Oholone. There were all kinds of ranchos that had claims to the area. And there were some major claimants then all in litigation. The blue line here covers the Santiago claim, one of the biggest owned by a consortium at that point in Philadelphia. The brown line is the lemon tour claim, which seemed to have the best chance of being approved. The Presidio, of course, claimed its own property. The Pueblo of San Francisco, which allegedly existed, had two different sizes, three leagues, and four leagues. And all of this land here is water lots. Water lots. They were part of this crazy quilt of surveys. As one vigilante leader later explained, we purchased all the titles we could get, we bought the city's title and the state's title and then somebody fought us and we finally compromised for $2,500, which was as good a title as any place in the city, which was very much. These water lots in fact, were up to 25 feet of water under low tide, and all of them were in litigation. Now if you look at how the city had increased. This is the water lots. And the vigilance committees, so called for which I'll mention briefly was here. Oops. On one of the water lots, because in from 1850 to 1856, all this land had been filled in and by the way, this was the most valuable land on the west coast of North America, because of all the shipping. When the city died, the city's elite reconstituted the vigilance committee, the executives united with their friends and admitted the rank and file if each were endorsed by two known committee members. On the first day they enrolled over 1000 vigilantes, a number that would rise to almost 6000 later, judging by their numbers, the largest I could find was number 5905. They were so executives, organized men into division into divisions of 100 each, each of which elected a captain vice captain, and a third man to join them as delegates in later meetings, designed to confirm executive decisions. That was it confirm them. All were known only by their numbers determined to preserve their secrecy. After all, words could make them vulnerable. It was later fortified by their fort, a large remodeled warehouse. It was later fortified by sand filled gunny bags therefore generally known as Fort Gunny bags. It was on Sacramento Street between front and Davis. The executives sent each division to its own armory. That is one of San Francisco's many deserted buildings, and then resolved. First, to grant full power to the executive committee. Second, to withdraw all their advertising from their previously favored newspaper, the Herald. Since most of the executives were merchant optioneers they bought up whole shiploads of tea nails calico furniture cigars accordions, and a host of other products for a state that produced little other than gold. Running their ads was a lucrative business. Then is now money talked. They particularly targeted the Herald, edited by Catholic lawyer and journalist john Nugent, because he had immediately editorialized against a new vigilance committee. His paper instantly lost 212 subscribers, and most of the merchants advertisements. The executive suggested that Nugent should be called in to defend himself. A dozen voices spoke up and said that if the editorial was bad enough, the Herald had always been on the wrong side. Furthermore, rowdy seized all the copies of the Herald they can find, pound them up on front street and burn them. With one exception the rest of San Francisco's 12 newspapers all quickly fell into line. Willingly published the documents generated by Casey's New York trial and incarceration, the chronicle, which had initially cautioned against hasty action and urged due process of law. Rather than mob rule recanted when its subscribers and advertisers turned to the daily out to California, where the Herald's former advertisers also appeared. Before the Alta became the premier journal in the city, words moved around. Other editors took note and left to support the new vigilance committee. Only the sun after wavering a day or two, also condemned the vigilantes to its own detriment. Some days it published whole or half blank columns under regular advertising heads, making light of its own loss of business. Finally, the executives agreed to demand the removal of Casey and gambler Charles Cora from the county jail. Give them a fair trial before our members and meet out such punishments as justice may require that they did. Cora had previously tried been tried for shooting us Marshall William Richardson. He claimed self defense, but the unequal social status of two men favored Richardson. Not only was Cora a gambler but he lived openly without benefit of marriage with the lovely madam bell Cora previously, Arabela Ryan. She hired one of San Francisco's top lawyers to defend her partner. The result had been a hung jury, and now Cora sat in jail, awaiting a second trial. When King died, he became a martyr. Thousands of citizens turned out for his May 22nd funeral. Meanwhile, the vigilantes had been busy building a drop on the top of their fort. As the church bell rang, marking the end of King's funeral. Here he is. In his casket, his doctors are here ahead of him. The masons with their badges. He was a Mason. They're all of these different groups. At the end, there were seven African Americans with their large batches badges, all parading through San Francisco streets. As the church bell rang, marking the end of King's funeral service, a line of vigilantes yell cut and the drop fell, flinging Casey and Cora into eternity. Initially, the quorum was preserved until this large winding parade approached the top of the hill, overlooking the vigilante sport chaos ensued. According to one participant, thousands initially quitted the funeral pageant like an ocean wave propelled by the dread fury of the elements came these mighty masses of human beings rushing struggling and clamoring to the scaffold. At least one vigilante then resigned, stating his objectives had been met. The executives were far from finished. On June 6, they published their proclamation outlining their alleged reforming goals. And here are the executives in committee. You notice the rifles behind them with bayonets fixed. They carried sidearms as well. And they are performing their duties in an organized manner. Their proclamation highlighted organized despotism tyranny and misrule and unscrupulous leaders. So they promised to purge the city by calmly and dispassionately weighing the evidences before them and decreeing the death of some and banishment of others. They asserted that the great majority of inhabitants of the county endorse our acts so important since all law emanates from the people, which the vigilantes embodied embodied pledging our lives fortunes and our sacred honor to the cause. In essence, believing this statement began peppering the committee with letters of complaint of bribes incest bad roads and abortionist election fraud, and so on, all of which were ignored by the executives. They began drawing up their own blacklist. They heavily targeted adherence of David Broderick, the leader of San Francisco's Northern Democrats. And men involved in land deals as he was. They arrested, they called it or actually kidnapped men who didn't know they were wanted, nor for what held secret trials in which the prosecutor defender judge and jury were all vigilantes found all their victims to be guilty and arranged for punishment. Six convicted after Casey and Cora, who obviously were executed were deported on May 27, but a long list of others cycled through the rooms through June, July and August. At the same time, the Jolani opposition was organized under the law and order party, but they could initially round up only 54 men, including a one armed judge, all publicly known as tensions heightened attempts at diplomacy fell through. Both sides continued recruiting men and arming their followers vigilante divisions paraded through the streets often to the accompaniment of their own bands, while the unemployed were thus kept busy. Business in San Francisco was at a standstill. Vigilante plans to disband. First on June 18, then on July 4, and in August, were continually frustrated by unexpected conflicts and confrontations. There were many. For example, when the law and order party bought weapons to ship down to the city on the schooner Julia informants alerted the vigilantes. And by the way, they should say captured state arms and militia man vigilantes intercepted the Julia on June 21, ordered the ship at night, brandishing guns and pulses. Because this attack took place on the bay, the vigilantes involved were accused of the federal crime of piracy. The first time the committee had actively confronted federal law increasing executive anxiety. I point out that many of the fact, virtually all of the illustrations I have are contemporary and as you've already learned the newspapers were largely pro vigilante. And so what you see here is men in top hats are the vigilantes boarding the schooner Julia. And the top hat was as was a significant symbol of elite, the vigilantes are the elite and they're on the ship are guys that don't have top hats. The first committee members on shore, attacked all the law and order armories, which surrendered completely outnumbered. Soon, all arms in the city were in the hands of the vigilantes except those on ships in the harbor. Tensions rose throughout the city during the summer while the sequestered executives quietly pursued their own political goals. And of course they followed the bulkhead bill under consideration by the city government, the latest manifestation of broader x recurring attempt to control the city's waterfront. As I said, the most valuable land on the west coast of North America, whomever built this bulkhead structure would control the land around it. President auctioneer Thomas J. L. Smiley privately reported to his fellow executives that the bill was unlikely to pass, but he would continue to monitor its fate. They all realized that if the bill could be stalled until July 1, it would die with the common council itself, because on that day, only county officials would remain. Thanks to the consolidation act. The executives prepared for outright rule of San Francisco. After July 1. If the county officials could be ousted, the vigilance committee would become the only power in the city. President Coleman moved in the minutes that an executive subcommittee be formed to inquire into and report upon those county officers who should be invited to resign. The next day he sought to clarify who and what power would fill those vacancies until the next election. His main concern was to determine if the detested Democratic committee broader ex adherence could lawfully act as a board of supervisors until the election in November. Regardless of legal procedures that broader x men were gone. They could not rule. Additionally, the executive sent two men to find evidence against selected targets. Executive Charles Gillespie, a searcher of records or private investigator went to investigate the records of the governor and other county officials, but found nothing useful. The former policeman, John Durkey now a vigilante with a secret number, went to abstract the records of the court, specifically disregarding Chinese and Mexicans. Durkey searched the records back to 1853 for the names of notorious characters with a broader contained one active Democrat discharged after a single time for fighting in 1855 made their blacklist. He had been arrested eight times beginning in January of 1853 for assault, battery disorderly conduct and receiving skull stolen property had not been politically active and was ignored. Adding several broader operatives to the blacklist the executives themselves took responsibility for maintaining for obtaining damning testimonies and turn to their delegates for approval to convict and deport everyone they had blacklisted. As executive James Stowes, later sneered that sort was not entitled to a trial. As after the city government quietly disappeared on July 1, thanks to the consolidation act, the executives tried hard to get absolute control of San Francisco. At their July 12 mass mass meeting, as planned, they invited the county officers to reason. Only the superintendent of schools agreed to quit, but only if all the others resigned to. They did not. The executives also briefly detained their main nemesis in San Francisco David Broderick, but he left San Francisco to canvas supporters in other counties. He later won election to the US Senate in state legislature, the way senators were elected in those days, partly on the strength of his opposition to the committee. Secretly pursuing land titles on July 13 the vigilantes arrested Alfred Green, who had loudly proclaimed his possession of the Pueblo papers which would, if authenticated, settle title claims on behalf of the city. In other words, if a Mexican Pueblo had indeed existed at the site of San Francisco grants made by the city would predate any other claims and justify other subsequent city grants, but Green committed no crime. Eventually, after imprisoning green for almost a month from July 13 to August 11. The executives paid him $12,500, half of what they had promised him to obtain the Pueblo papers. And then they let him go. They began trying to confirm the papers authenticity based largely on where they had gotten their own claims expenses mounted. Finally, on August 18, the vigilantes stage their final parade. But 10 days after this bad news arrived. The New York Times, coming on the mail steamship reported the complaints of a deportee stuck in New Orleans after deportation by the committee. This article of July 31 arrived in San Francisco only on August 28. In the East, other publications dammed San Francisco's vigilantes. In September, the Presbyterian arrived, a paper published by the church in Philadelphia, a paper which enjoyed national circulation. The distinguished pastor of San Francisco's Calvary Church had that Dr. William Scott had just published his strongly worded condemnation of the vigilantes believing that Michael had settled down calmly to reflect and reason. He was wrong, and was hung in effigy that Sunday in front of his own church. Many local citizens were disgusted by this anonymous action. News also arrived the federal government was considering sending in the army authorized by an army appropriations bill that had just passed Congress. By the way, that never happened. Despite August's grand finale, it remained clear throughout the fall that the committee's troubles were not over. After the committee's final parade, President William tell Coleman had resigned and returned to his New York office, where he ran straight into one of the many unintended consequences of San Francisco's vigilance committee. One of the recent deportees James Roby or rumored Maloney suit him in the courts of New York for his actions back in San Francisco, kidnapping, depriving him of his home property money stew him livelihood, and his good name. Several other executives arriving back East met the same fate from a host of deportees from San Francisco. Again, expenses mounted. Eastern newspapers carried tales of the litigation, which dribbled into San Francisco a month later. To raise money to counteract all the lawsuits and fund continuing operations, the vigilance committee started printing and selling certificates to their members. Obviously, words not only matter. Sometimes they make an impressive display and make money. Now this is you can probably see depending on the size of your screen is the certificate of Gordon Blake number 5337 of the first division infantry. It's signed by Thomas jail smiley as President Isaac blocks and junior as Secretary William Myers treasurer and Charles don't as grand marshal, because Coleman had already left so he couldn't sign it. And it was designed by Charles now a famous California artist who was also a vigilante. The executives also tried to corral more contributions which had previously supported them. They went around town with little brown leather covered books, and people would pledge so much money, and then the vigilantes would come around and collect. A lot of San Franciscans tired of the conflict began turning their interest to other issues. It's a presidential election year. This is part of the political propaganda, if you will, of john C Fremont. And you can see the free states in red, the slave states in gray, and the states up for grabs in green. The whole country was starting to split apart. Giving the necessity of paying their debts, fighting lawsuits and enforcing strict penalties against returning deportees, among other matters. The executives had to keep meeting. They dismissed the general committee and set fewer executive meeting days, but for years, they could not quit. They created the people's party, a label everyone recognizes Pro Vigilante, its candidates for city office, almost always one. The executives went on meetings sporadically. The last entry in their minutes is dated November 3 1859 by then only 10 executives attended half the original quorum to wind up business. After that, words about the vigilantes had to be left to historians, most of whom have been hamstrung by a lack of records. Unlike the 1851 committee, the second committee of 1856 has never published any of their papers. This gap in vigilante history was filled by two 19th century writers Hubert how Van Croft and Theodore Henry hotel. In 1871 75 Van Croft received the papers of the 1851 committee and saved them for his library. They were later published in 1875 Van Croft began interviewing the 1856 executives and learned that their papers were unavailable. He could get nothing from what he called these hard headed cold blooded Yankees, one of them when spoken to drew his finger across his throat significantly saying that that would be to pay if I told all. Van Croft quickly learned that the executives did not want to talk about it to think about it. It was a horrid nightmare in their memory and they would rather their children should never know anything about it. In 1856 executive Alfred Tubbs explained in his 1887 interview. When the question of giving the committee papers to Mr. Van Croft first came up. A lawsuit was pending in New York, brought by some man against Mr. Coleman as an outcome of those times and he did not care to have these things come out. He did in favor of delivering them to Mr. Van Croft, but the majority did not because words could be tremendously damaging. More lawsuits not only in New York but in three California jurisdictions, ensure that the 1856 records stayed hidden. Mr. Van Croft was briefly allowed to borrow the minutes and rushed through the writing of volume two of popular tribunals volume one was about the earlier committee, making no citations. In a sample passage, he gushed, during all that wild tumultuous time the executive sat in their chamber and directed every movement, invisible, omnipotent and omniscient, their powers and intelligence bordered on that of the deity. In Alfred's publication he sent this manuscript to President William Tell Coleman for his approval, then dedicated the volume to William T Coleman, chief of the greatest popular tribunal the world has ever witnessed. It is the only one of Van Croft's works with a dedication of any kind. He may have been thinking about the possibility of selling 6000 of these books to the former vigilantes. At any rate, in the East reviewers panned popular tribunals to the New York Times complained, the firm grasp of his subject characteristic of the able historian is in his work conspicuous by its absence. Theodore Hotel took longer but did better. And as Van Croft had to the vigilantes protected their papers with their lives. He got authorization to carry a gun. He's a lawyer. This is the first time he did that. He published the first two volumes of his massive for volume history of California in 1885. The last two in 1897 note 30 years after the second vigilance committee. In 1893 included some 200 pages out of 980 on the 1856 committee, while volume four contained about 100 pages more of political events, some related to the vigilance committee, a fact carefully disguised by their placement. And as Van Croft Hotel concluded almost 3500 pages of California history with praise for the genuine Californian character of men who faced danger with intrepidity, who experienced great ships in fortune with equanimity, and possess worth and strength and patience, and recognize their own rights and insist on and maintain them. The indicator of this extraordinary character was the vigilance committees, and particularly that most remarkable and significant one that may be, and generally is called the great one of 1856. Still, to demonstrate his professional use of the historical method, it tells cited his sources, including the minutes to do so precisely, it tell copy them. It tells copy of the minutes has reposed in the sutra library since 1918 and has been available to researchers since 1956, but no one had consulted it. Until I found it by chance in 2006. Other historians working without this inside view, had to rely on other documents contemporary newspapers band crops interviews with participants all of them provigilante. The respondents lots of other materials such as the 86 page autobiography that Alfred green advocate of the Pueblo papers had given to bankrupt, but he was anti vigilante and bankrupt completely ignored greens work. Given the discovery of the minutes I had to write this book. It's in hardbound, audible Kindle, and tells a great deal more about the 1856 committee, then I could describe here. We now know much more about America's largest vigilance committee, larger than any other of its kind. Its formation was sparked in part by the words and the death of James King of William. I suspect he would be pleased with that. Thank you for your attention. And now I think Karen is going to arrange for questions. Okay, yeah, thank you for that. I was just trying to put a link to your book in the chat space. And I do want to recommend that those of you interested in San Francisco history read this book I've read it twice. Just because I needed to, there's so much information that I needed to absorb. It's available at the mechanics Institute. And of course it's on Amazon but I encourage you to buy locally. We like here at mechanics Institute to buy materials from Alexander book company because they're right across market from us, but your local bookstore like Green Apple or city lights. They can order it for you if they don't have it on their shelves, they should be able to get it to you within a couple of days. Now, if you have any questions for Nancy, please post them in the chat space. I see that there's been a lot of chatter about the tall and murals that show James King of Williams death. I can email this to all of you, a transcript of the chat so that you can follow the links through when you have more time. Meanwhile, does anyone have any questions, please post them in the chat space and we can ask Nancy Carol mentions that we can order the book directly from Nancy's publisher, and that it will be cheaper than buying through Amazon true. That's the University of Oklahoma press. Okay, I'll put that also in the chat space. Susanna has a question she wanted you to clarify how the minutes ended up in the library. After theater hotel died, his heirs deposited them in the library in 1918, but they restricted them for an unspecified length of time. And in 1956, the librarian of the sutro went to the remaining family and said, you know, it's been a long time folks it's been 100 years. Can we release it tells works, all of his papers for study in fact, he didn't know the minutes were there I'm sure because he was a very very active historian I'm sure he would have published himself. But anyway, he tells papers were freed for research as of 1956. And it's an interesting question why are they at the sutro and not at the bankrupt because traditionally, California materials all went to the bank of course to tell in bankrupt the individuals were rivals. And I suspect, I just speculate here that the hotel family wanted to deposit the record someplace other than with Hubert how bankrupt or his library. And that just makes the whole research process so much more interesting. Thank you to look all over the place for for records but that's fine. Let's see. There's a question that came in and it appears to come from you Nancy but that can't be what kept people from claiming more land and water further out to see if that area was so valuable. Nothing, nothing they just kept filing claims. I suppose, eventually the water gets too deep to be viable, because one of the things that happened is one of the earliest claimants built his house on stilts in the water he'd been shipwrecked in the South Pacific somewhere in that kind of construction, and he was able to use his lighters his barges to go out to incoming ships and get their goods before anybody else and then people went oh this is a really good idea. But not everybody wanted to conduct business that way, but but there was nothing much to stop them. Nothing much to stop anybody, because everything was in litigation. And for us to understand how shallow the bay was. I mean I've read, or people have told me that the bay was quite shallow up to like a quarter mile out. And so you could just walk, walk around in the bay and not have it reach your shoulders until you're, you were quite far out so it's, you know, it's to us now that seems crazy but, but it was quite a bit more shallow than we're used to today. Well and that's because the reason why it seems crazy today is San Francisco was a bunch of sandhills, and everybody was going around town grading and dumping all the sand into the bay. And so they filled up all that shallow part obviously. So Susanna has another question she says, How did you come across these. Let me rephrase this. Why weren't the minutes. Why had no one ever seen them before. And also, where is the sutra library. Okay, both good questions, let me answer the second one first the sutra library is now at San Francisco State University. But why had nobody seen them. I don't think. Well first of all people didn't know they were there. Secondly, normally you don't have California materials at the sutra it's from every other state except California. And so people doing this kind of research wouldn't look there and the only reason I found them is I was looking for a different manuscript that hotel had written about William Walker's invasion of Nicaragua. And so when I went to the sutra I asked could I please see hotels papers they brought me a pile in the very first pile were the minutes. I had been teaching California history at that point for some 20 years and I knew what I was looking at. I just said, Oh my gosh, who's seen them who's used them, and I proceeded to check everything that was published that I could get my hands on and only hit tell sites them. That is every historian's dream. Yeah. Just like Darcy has a question. Did the vigilantes activities here in San Francisco, encourage similar groups and other parts of the country or the state. Yes, they did. I can't speak definitively about other parts of the country but I know for example. So I'm going to talk about the vigilantes committee in Washington who later becomes one of the big four that builds the railroad across the United States rights to the vigilantes committee from Sacramento saying hey we're thinking of starting a committee up here send us your constitution and bylaws and we can use it. And there were others formed in in California but mostly not because the mining camps had their own ways of handling things. And there was one in Contra Costa County I forget exactly where, but they were copies of the San Francisco vigilantes committee at least to some degree. Chloe has a question. Is there a story as to why Casey and Cora are buried at Mission Dolores. There probably is. They were both Catholics for starters. Casey was Irish Cora was Italian. And that would be where you would would bury people who when they've been given the last rights that was very important. They were given the last right so they were eligible for burial at the mission. And in order for Cora to be given the last rights he had to marry his paramour. And while he's in jail at the, the so called Fort Gunny bags, the priest is brought in in front of a couple of executives he and bell, get married, and then he has given absolution and then he has given last rights, and, and Casey was also given less rights, so that they could be buried in sacred ground. And their graves are still there. They are. They are and in fact bell bell chorus buried next to Charles chorus she died in 1864 she didn't long survive him. And Casey's monument there has a broken ladder because he also was the head of one of these fire engine companies that were both political and firefighting, and the broken ladder signifies that his death was, shall we say, not natural. So yeah they're there, or what's left of them. Not to laugh but but their graves, their graves are beautiful and if you haven't been to Mission Dolores's cemetery you should go there just because it's full of historical people of historical import. Yes, that's very true. Carol has a comment she mentions that most illustrations of these events were drawn by and for news periodicals that existed hundreds of miles away. And that often they were drawn from imagination and description and not necessarily from firsthand observation. Some of that's true. Several of them I showed you like the mass meeting were produced right there in San Francisco. Designed to promote the popularity of the vigilance committee. And another important thing to know is that all 12 newspapers did not do this but some four or five. The last two weeks created what was called a steamer edition, where they took the most important news of the last two weeks for and printed up to disseminate in what they called the states, and that's where several of these illustrations were published. It's fascinating and so modern, how the vigilance committee actively tried to to channel their story their way and control the media. And they were very effective at doing that. You read the Herald, which is the only one that really thoughtfully opposes and the sun is to two week doesn't have the backing doesn't have the talent of john Mugent. It's interesting, very interesting contrast between that and say the evening bulletin, which was, which was the Fox news of the vigilantes, the evening bulletin was very well but all newspapers in those days tended to be biased they were politically active on one side or another. So that's not unusual. And the sensationalistic. Do you have any thoughts about how James King of Williams death. Perhaps effects. I don't want to say media today but what do you think the effect of his death was on the media. And one of the things I really looked into is to what really caused the beginning of the 1856 vigilance committee and it is the shooting of James King of William and some of the papers immediately you know assume he's dead, which he wasn't for six days. I don't think most people today even remember who he was, but the obviously vigilante is and has not gone away. And that's one of the reasons why I think this study is very, very relevant for today. And I think more people should know who he was. So he was sort of a martyr for a cause that might have happened anyway. What happened it might it's very interesting to think what else might have barked this vigilance committee because it was just perfect storm waiting to happen. And one of the interesting things is this after his death there's a song that's composed he died at his post doing the song. So there's all kinds of recognition at the time, but really, San Francisco was just waiting for some kind of trigger and James King of William and actively stirred the pot. He was much more critical than anybody else of what he saw as the wrong doing and he really didn't care if he had the facts or the facts, you know, corrected and he said well, it's okay I'm, you know, the essence of what I said is correct even if the facts wrong. That's, that's how he, honestly, tell me approached it. Now, did he have to James King of William have anything to do with this land scheme. It's not that I know of no. He, he, I mean his failure was in banking, you California's Constitution originally prevented public banks. So the only banks were private banks, the Bank of James King of William Lucas Turner and company, etc. Wells Fargo, which was of course in a transit agency but they had a bank, as we know, and after his bank failed. He offered him money to reconstitute it but he didn't want to take their money he was too proud to want to depend on somebody else. Now he did eventually. Well he did go to work for another bank and then that didn't work out and he went through a difficult time, but then finally did borrow the $250 to start the newspaper because when he was going through that difficult time he was criticizing a number of other banks and people like the way he wrote. He was criticizing themselves, anger cells, and they said you should, you should write a paper, because also in those days editors weren't just editors they frequently wrote a lot of their own paper. Right. Right it's interesting how he just became sort of a white knight figure. It's very interesting. It's very interesting and by the way, when the vigilantes were taking up money for their committee they were also taking up money for his widow and orphans as they called it his wife and children and they got somewhere around between 25 and $35,000 which in those days was a lot of money for the widow and orphans of James King of William. I'm sure that would have been in the millions of dollars today. That's correct. Wow. And Darcy has one more question. While you've touched on this, can you elaborate on if there are parallels that you see between the media back then and the media today. Absolutely, I can see it. There's been kind of bifurcation I think in the media today where certain newspapers and television stations today are very much on one political side and other stations and newspapers are on the other political side. They're obviously helped promote vigilantism and the attack on the capital on January 6 of this year. So there's a lot of words being thrown around that are really stimulating people to violence. And that is, I think the main parallel today, and I hope we will not see more of that, but I don't know that for sure. I work in the past, not in the future. Well, I want to thank you so much for sharing your knowledge. You've provided a lot of food for thought here. And, and again, I want to encourage people to read the book because it just provides you with provided me with context for the way San Francisco is today. And for those of you that hang on for the last bitter end, I have a bonus slide. Oh, very far. That's the guy who founded the library that preserved the minutes that I found that prompted me to write my third book, which is the one we're talking about today so he's kind of my hero BFF. And he looks great for being what 150 years old. Yeah, he's 70 years old. Thank you, Karen. Thank you to the Mechanics Institute and to all of you for coming. You're very welcome. This has been a delight and I hope you all have a wonderful weekend. I will be sending you an email with the pertinent links that we mentioned in the chat, and also a link to the video so if you want to dip into that on the weekend. I hope to have it up and ready tomorrow. Thank you so much and have a great weekend yourself Nancy. Thanks Karen you too. All right, bye everyone.