Jack Powers
Encyclopedia
Jack Powers (1827 – November 1860) was an Irish-American gambler, outlaw, highway-robber, gang leader, and murderer in southern
and central California
during the Gold Rush
era. For a time in the 1850s, robberies and murders committed by his group of bandits made the stretch of El Camino Real
between San Luis Obispo
and Santa Barbara
the most dangerous route in the state, and he and his gang had almost complete control of the small city of Santa Barbara. He was eventually driven out of town, but only after intimidating and defeating the sheriff and a posse of 200. He eventually fled the area, and after a brief career running a ranch in the Mexican state of Sonora
, he was murdered in a fight over a woman, and his body was fed to a pen of starving pigs.
Born in Ireland as John Power, he came to the United States with his parents in 1836, and settled with them in New York City. While there he learned gambling, courtly manners, and how to ride a horse; he also made the acquaintance of many street toughs in the run-down districts of the Bowery
and Hell's Kitchen
. When the Mexican-American War commenced in 1846, he joined the 1st Regiment of New York Volunteers
with many of his friends from the streets of New York, and went west to be a soldier. The New York Volunteers was a unit organized by Colonel Jonathan D. Stevenson
to occupy and settle California, and men in the unit were promised land in the region should the war be successful.
By the time his unit had reached San Francisco
, sailing around Cape Horn
, Powers had already become a sergeant, under Captain Francis J. Lippitt
in Company F of Stevenson's regiment which was tasked with occupying Santa Barbara. When they landed at West Beach the war was already over for Santa Barbara. John C. Frémont
had captured the town on December 27, 1846, and accepted the surrender of the Mexican forces in Los Angeles two weeks later. Powers and his men from the Bowery entered the town in early 1847 as an occupying force.
It did not take long for the charismatic Powers to become popular with the locals. He had good looks, good manners, and his horsemanship impressed even the local caballeros, who expected the ability from a gentleman, but not from a Yankee. But when Powers' unit was mustered out on August 7, 1848 after the Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo, he left town, going north to San Francisco. Many of the men of his Regiment went instead to the gold fields, intending to get rich. Powers intended to do so as well, but by using his peculiar talents, those that required a city.
Powers' skill as a gambler paid off richly in San Francisco, where he amassed a fortune in the gambling halls in that rowdy frontier town. Briefly he was involved with the Barbary Coast
-neighborhood gang of toughs known as "The Hounds
," which took part in robbery, murder, and rape of the non-"American," and particularly Hispanic and Catholic, residents of the city; many of the members of this gang were fellow refugees from the streets of the Bowery
, Five Points
, or Hell's Kitchen in New York. Powers fled town to avoid being lynched by vigilantes, and returned to Santa Barbara around 1849, where he found a job caring for the horses belonging to the influential De la Guerra
family.
's band was broken up in 1851, Powers brought its remnants together under his own leadership. Powers arranged for fast horses to be available at points along the route to assist him and his gang with getaways. During this period, ranchers were making a fortune on the gold fields – not on ore, but on selling cattle to the hungry mining camps at an enormous profit. After driving their cattle north from the ranches of Santa Barbara County, they would return with their baggage full of gold dust
or "octagonals" – gold ingots or "slugs" worth fifty dollars – and in the lawless climate these travelers were a tempting target.
The sheriff in Santa Barbara at the time was Valentine Hearne, who shared Powers' hatred of the Hispanic residents from whom the town had so recently been taken. He gave little resistance to Powers, as Powers and his "Band of Five" began what historian Walker A. Tompkins described as a "reign of terror" that lasted until approximately 1855. During this period, in which Powers and his gang were active as highway robbers up and down El Camino Real, the route connecting the old Mission towns, the stretch from Santa Barbara to San Luis Obispo was notorious as the most dangerous place to travel in California. Mutilated bodies appeared regularly along the road; Powers had the uncanny knack for appearing in the gambling halls of Los Angeles or elsewhere almost instantly after a new murder along the route, fooling people into thinking he was uninvolved: but what they did not know was that he always had fresh and fast horses ready at strategic points along the trail. Yet suspicion persisted because some of the eyewitnesses told tales of magnificent horsemanship by one of the masked bandits – a skill Powers had earlier been too proud to hide.
Matters came to a head in 1853. Powers was confident enough to cease his banditry and come into the open, and he seized the Mission Santa Inés
along with the adjacent Rancho San Marcos
. This fertile and profitable operation was leased to prominent local rancher Nicolas A. Den, coincidentally a fellow Irishman who had come to California during Mexican times. Powers attempted to steal the cattle from the ranch but Den caught them during the attempted roundup, and with an armed force he humiliated Powers, making him run for his life, and recovering all the cattle in the process. Powers, not one to turn the other cheek, came back for Den – but not right away.
at the Foothill Road bridge), and claimed it as his own, along with his company of bandits, many of whom were supported by the recently-arrived American residents of Santa Barbara. His gang of squatters fortified the place, ignoring calls to leave. Den won a judgment against them in district court. Powers even appealed to the California Supreme Court, but lost. The new sheriff, William W. Twist, was required by law to serve notice on them to leave, so he gathered a posse of 200 men at the Aguirre Adobe, at Carrillo and Anacapa Streets, to go to Arroyo Burro, about three miles away, and evict them.
Powers was not one to wait: seizing the initiative, he sent a small band of his outlaws to disrupt the organization and assassinate the sheriff. Reaching the Aguirre Adobe, one of them fired one shot at the district attorney, who had just stepped out of the building, putting a hole in his hat; another stabbed Sheriff Twist in the back, seriously injuring him; but a barrage of gunfire from the assembled force brought both outlaws down and the others ran, with the posse in pursuit.
The posse arrived out-of-breath at Arroyo Burro Canyon, to be met with a hail of bullets, and stopped short. After a brief negotiation, Powers informed the leader of the posse (Twist, injured, had stayed behind) that his gang would kill any man that passed a huge sycamore tree (the "Outlaw Tree", still standing at 134 North Ontare, not far from State Street). Seeing that the bandits were dug in, well-armed, and determined, the posse backed away in defeat.
Powers continued his highway robbing in the vicinity, but not for long. He abandoned his camp in Arroyo Burro when he heard that a band of better-organized and uniformed vigilantes, similar to the one that had defanged the "Hounds" in the Barbary Coast, was riding down from San Luis Obispo to eliminate him (according to another source, he heard that a company of U.S. Marines was on its way). By the time the vigilantes reached Santa Barbara, he was gone, leaving behind nothing but the persistent legend of buried treasure which accompanies most hurried bandit exits. However Powers and his gang continued to plague the central coast under Pio Linares while Powers moved to Los Angeles
.
Twist later recovered from his knifing, but along with the mayor he resigned in 1855 due to the continued lawlessness in the area, lack of competent backup, and an anti-Anglo backlash. While a judge occasionally issued arrest warrants, there was no one to carry them out until later in the decade. At one point, California Governor John Bigler
dispatched a U.S. Navy warship to Santa Barbara to restore order.
Details of the last years of his life are sparse. He left Los Angeles in 1859, probably to escape a lynch mob, going to the Mexican state of Sonora
where he ran a ranching operation in the mountains northeast of Hermosillo
. In November 1860, he fought with one of his own men over a woman. She and her lover murdered him and hurled his body into a mesquite-fenced enclosure filled with starving hogs.
The uneaten portion of his corpse was buried in the Arizona Territory south of Tubac
, near the town of Nogales, Sonora
.
Southern California
Southern California is a megaregion, or megapolitan area, in the southern area of the U.S. state of California. Large urban areas include Greater Los Angeles and Greater San Diego. The urban area stretches along the coast from Ventura through the Southland and Inland Empire to San Diego...
and central California
Central California
Central California, sometimes referenced as Mid-State, is an area of California south of the San Francisco Bay Area and north of Southern California...
during the Gold Rush
California Gold Rush
The California Gold Rush began on January 24, 1848, when gold was found by James W. Marshall at Sutter's Mill in Coloma, California. The first to hear confirmed information of the gold rush were the people in Oregon, the Sandwich Islands , and Latin America, who were the first to start flocking to...
era. For a time in the 1850s, robberies and murders committed by his group of bandits made the stretch of El Camino Real
El Camino Real (California)
El Camino Real and sometimes associated with Calle Real usually refers to the 600-mile California Mission Trail, connecting the former Alta California's 21 missions , 4 presidios, and several pueblos, stretching from Mission San Diego de Alcalá in San Diego...
between San Luis Obispo
San Luis Obispo, California
San Luis Obispo is a city in California, located roughly midway between San Francisco and Los Angeles on the Central Coast. Founded in 1772 by Spanish Fr. Junipero Serra, San Luis Obispo is one of California’s oldest communities...
and Santa Barbara
Santa Barbara, California
Santa Barbara is the county seat of Santa Barbara County, California, United States. Situated on an east-west trending section of coastline, the longest such section on the West Coast of the United States, the city lies between the steeply-rising Santa Ynez Mountains and the Pacific Ocean...
the most dangerous route in the state, and he and his gang had almost complete control of the small city of Santa Barbara. He was eventually driven out of town, but only after intimidating and defeating the sheriff and a posse of 200. He eventually fled the area, and after a brief career running a ranch in the Mexican state of Sonora
Sonora
Sonora officially Estado Libre y Soberano de Sonora is one of the 31 states which, with the Federal District, comprise the 32 Federal Entities of Mexico. It is divided into 72 municipalities; the capital city is Hermosillo....
, he was murdered in a fight over a woman, and his body was fed to a pen of starving pigs.
Early career
Bowery, Manhattan
Bowery , commonly called "the Bowery," is a street and a small neighborhood in the southern portion of the New York City borough of Manhattan...
and Hell's Kitchen
Hell's Kitchen, Manhattan
Hell's Kitchen, also known as Clinton and Midtown West, is a neighborhood of Manhattan in New York City between 34th Street and 59th Street, from 8th Avenue to the Hudson River....
. When the Mexican-American War commenced in 1846, he joined the 1st Regiment of New York Volunteers
1st Regiment of New York Volunteers
1st Regiment of New York Volunteers, for service in California and during the war with Mexico, was raised in 1846 during the Mexican American War by Jonathan D. Stevenson. Accepted by the United States Army on August 1846 the 1st Regiment of New York Volunteers was transported around Cape Horn to...
with many of his friends from the streets of New York, and went west to be a soldier. The New York Volunteers was a unit organized by Colonel Jonathan D. Stevenson
Jonathan D. Stevenson
Jonathan Drake Stevenson was born in New York; won a seat in the New York State Assembly ; was the commanding officer of the First Regiment of New York Volunteers during the Mexican-American War in California; entered California mining and real estate businesses; and died in San Francisco on...
to occupy and settle California, and men in the unit were promised land in the region should the war be successful.
By the time his unit had reached San Francisco
San Francisco, California
San Francisco , officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the financial, cultural, and transportation center of the San Francisco Bay Area, a region of 7.15 million people which includes San Jose and Oakland...
, sailing around Cape Horn
Cape Horn
Cape Horn is the southernmost headland of the Tierra del Fuego archipelago of southern Chile, and is located on the small Hornos Island...
, Powers had already become a sergeant, under Captain Francis J. Lippitt
Francis J. Lippitt
Francis J. Lippitt, a lawyer and veteran of the Mexican American War and Colonel and Brigadier General in the American Civil War.-Early Life:He was born in Providence, Rhode Island in 1812...
in Company F of Stevenson's regiment which was tasked with occupying Santa Barbara. When they landed at West Beach the war was already over for Santa Barbara. John C. Frémont
John C. Frémont
John Charles Frémont , was an American military officer, explorer, and the first candidate of the anti-slavery Republican Party for the office of President of the United States. During the 1840s, that era's penny press accorded Frémont the sobriquet The Pathfinder...
had captured the town on December 27, 1846, and accepted the surrender of the Mexican forces in Los Angeles two weeks later. Powers and his men from the Bowery entered the town in early 1847 as an occupying force.
It did not take long for the charismatic Powers to become popular with the locals. He had good looks, good manners, and his horsemanship impressed even the local caballeros, who expected the ability from a gentleman, but not from a Yankee. But when Powers' unit was mustered out on August 7, 1848 after the Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo, he left town, going north to San Francisco. Many of the men of his Regiment went instead to the gold fields, intending to get rich. Powers intended to do so as well, but by using his peculiar talents, those that required a city.
Powers' skill as a gambler paid off richly in San Francisco, where he amassed a fortune in the gambling halls in that rowdy frontier town. Briefly he was involved with the Barbary Coast
Barbary Coast, San Francisco, California
Barbary Coast was a red-light district in old San Francisco, California. Geographically it constituted nine blocks bounded by Montgomery Street, Washington Street, Stockton Street, and Broadway...
-neighborhood gang of toughs known as "The Hounds
The Hounds
The Hounds, west coast counterparts of New York's Bowery Boys, were a nativist or anti-foreigner gang of San Francisco which specifically targeted recently arrived immigrants, particularly Spanish Americans, during the California Gold Rush of 1849....
," which took part in robbery, murder, and rape of the non-"American," and particularly Hispanic and Catholic, residents of the city; many of the members of this gang were fellow refugees from the streets of the Bowery
Bowery, Manhattan
Bowery , commonly called "the Bowery," is a street and a small neighborhood in the southern portion of the New York City borough of Manhattan...
, Five Points
Five Points, Manhattan
Five Points was a neighborhood in central lower Manhattan in New York City. The neighborhood was generally defined as being bound by Centre Street in the west, The Bowery in the east, Canal Street in the north and Park Row in the south...
, or Hell's Kitchen in New York. Powers fled town to avoid being lynched by vigilantes, and returned to Santa Barbara around 1849, where he found a job caring for the horses belonging to the influential De la Guerra
José de la Guerra y Noriega
José Antonio de la Guerra y Noriega was a soldier and early settler of California.-Biography:José de la Guerra was born 1779 at Novales, Cantabria, Spain. As a boy he wished to be a friar...
family.
Santa Barbara - Rise to power
It was a profitable choice of employment, for he intended to be a highwayman. De la Guerra owned numerous ranches along the length of El Camino Real, all with good horses; charged with their care, and out of sight of his employer, he could do what he wanted. When Salomon PicoSalomon Pico
Salomon Maria Simeon Pico was a Californio, the cousin of Pío Pico, who led a bandit band in the early years of the California Gold Rush in the counties of the central coast of California. Considered by Mexicans as a patriot who opposed the American conquest of Alta California from Mexico and...
's band was broken up in 1851, Powers brought its remnants together under his own leadership. Powers arranged for fast horses to be available at points along the route to assist him and his gang with getaways. During this period, ranchers were making a fortune on the gold fields – not on ore, but on selling cattle to the hungry mining camps at an enormous profit. After driving their cattle north from the ranches of Santa Barbara County, they would return with their baggage full of gold dust
Gold Dust
Gold dust refers to fine particles of gold produced by machining or occurring naturally.Gold dust may also refer to:*Goldust, the ring name of Dustin Rhodes, an American wrestler...
or "octagonals" – gold ingots or "slugs" worth fifty dollars – and in the lawless climate these travelers were a tempting target.
The sheriff in Santa Barbara at the time was Valentine Hearne, who shared Powers' hatred of the Hispanic residents from whom the town had so recently been taken. He gave little resistance to Powers, as Powers and his "Band of Five" began what historian Walker A. Tompkins described as a "reign of terror" that lasted until approximately 1855. During this period, in which Powers and his gang were active as highway robbers up and down El Camino Real, the route connecting the old Mission towns, the stretch from Santa Barbara to San Luis Obispo was notorious as the most dangerous place to travel in California. Mutilated bodies appeared regularly along the road; Powers had the uncanny knack for appearing in the gambling halls of Los Angeles or elsewhere almost instantly after a new murder along the route, fooling people into thinking he was uninvolved: but what they did not know was that he always had fresh and fast horses ready at strategic points along the trail. Yet suspicion persisted because some of the eyewitnesses told tales of magnificent horsemanship by one of the masked bandits – a skill Powers had earlier been too proud to hide.
Matters came to a head in 1853. Powers was confident enough to cease his banditry and come into the open, and he seized the Mission Santa Inés
Mission Santa Inés
Mission Santa Inés was founded on September 17, 1804 by Father Estévan Tapís, who had succeeded Father Fermín Lasuén as President of the California mission chain...
along with the adjacent Rancho San Marcos
Rancho San Marcos
Rancho San Marcos was a Mexican land grant in present day Santa Barbara County, California given in 1846 by Governor Pio Pico to Nicolas A. Den and Richard S. Den. The grant in the Santa Ynez Valley extended between the San Rafael Mountains and the Santa Ynez River.-History:The former Santa...
. This fertile and profitable operation was leased to prominent local rancher Nicolas A. Den, coincidentally a fellow Irishman who had come to California during Mexican times. Powers attempted to steal the cattle from the ranch but Den caught them during the attempted roundup, and with an armed force he humiliated Powers, making him run for his life, and recovering all the cattle in the process. Powers, not one to turn the other cheek, came back for Den – but not right away.
Battle of Arroyo Burro
Powers seized control of an uninhabited structure in the Arroyo Burro (now San Roque Canyon, in the vicinity of Stevens ParkStevens Park
Stevens Park may refer to:*Stevens Park Estates, a neighborhood named for John P. Stevens in the Oak Cliff area of Dallas, Texas *Stevens Park Village, a neighborhood named for John P. Stevens in the Oak Cliff area of Dallas, Texas...
at the Foothill Road bridge), and claimed it as his own, along with his company of bandits, many of whom were supported by the recently-arrived American residents of Santa Barbara. His gang of squatters fortified the place, ignoring calls to leave. Den won a judgment against them in district court. Powers even appealed to the California Supreme Court, but lost. The new sheriff, William W. Twist, was required by law to serve notice on them to leave, so he gathered a posse of 200 men at the Aguirre Adobe, at Carrillo and Anacapa Streets, to go to Arroyo Burro, about three miles away, and evict them.
Powers was not one to wait: seizing the initiative, he sent a small band of his outlaws to disrupt the organization and assassinate the sheriff. Reaching the Aguirre Adobe, one of them fired one shot at the district attorney, who had just stepped out of the building, putting a hole in his hat; another stabbed Sheriff Twist in the back, seriously injuring him; but a barrage of gunfire from the assembled force brought both outlaws down and the others ran, with the posse in pursuit.
The posse arrived out-of-breath at Arroyo Burro Canyon, to be met with a hail of bullets, and stopped short. After a brief negotiation, Powers informed the leader of the posse (Twist, injured, had stayed behind) that his gang would kill any man that passed a huge sycamore tree (the "Outlaw Tree", still standing at 134 North Ontare, not far from State Street). Seeing that the bandits were dug in, well-armed, and determined, the posse backed away in defeat.
Powers continued his highway robbing in the vicinity, but not for long. He abandoned his camp in Arroyo Burro when he heard that a band of better-organized and uniformed vigilantes, similar to the one that had defanged the "Hounds" in the Barbary Coast, was riding down from San Luis Obispo to eliminate him (according to another source, he heard that a company of U.S. Marines was on its way). By the time the vigilantes reached Santa Barbara, he was gone, leaving behind nothing but the persistent legend of buried treasure which accompanies most hurried bandit exits. However Powers and his gang continued to plague the central coast under Pio Linares while Powers moved to Los Angeles
Los Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...
.
Twist later recovered from his knifing, but along with the mayor he resigned in 1855 due to the continued lawlessness in the area, lack of competent backup, and an anti-Anglo backlash. While a judge occasionally issued arrest warrants, there was no one to carry them out until later in the decade. At one point, California Governor John Bigler
John Bigler
John Bigler was an American lawyer, politician and diplomat. A Democrat, he served as the third Governor of California from 1852 to 1856 and was the first California governor to complete an entire term in office successfully, as well as the first to win re-election...
dispatched a U.S. Navy warship to Santa Barbara to restore order.
Later career and death
The departure of Powers was just one step on the tenuous return of law and order in Santa Barbara and the surrounding region, which had been lawless since the takeover from Mexico. After leaving Santa Barbara, Powers went first to Los Angeles, where he became overlord of a gambling operation, but in 1858 his role in the activities of his still-active gang in San Luis Obispo County came to light. Finally there were enough warrants for his arrest that he left the country, going to Mexico.Details of the last years of his life are sparse. He left Los Angeles in 1859, probably to escape a lynch mob, going to the Mexican state of Sonora
Sonora
Sonora officially Estado Libre y Soberano de Sonora is one of the 31 states which, with the Federal District, comprise the 32 Federal Entities of Mexico. It is divided into 72 municipalities; the capital city is Hermosillo....
where he ran a ranching operation in the mountains northeast of Hermosillo
Hermosillo
Hermosillo is a city and municipality located centrally in the northwestern Mexican state of Sonora. It is the capital and main economic center for the state and region. It contains almost all of the state's manufacturing and has thirty percent of its population...
. In November 1860, he fought with one of his own men over a woman. She and her lover murdered him and hurled his body into a mesquite-fenced enclosure filled with starving hogs.
The uneaten portion of his corpse was buried in the Arizona Territory south of Tubac
Tubac, Arizona
Tubac is a census-designated place in Santa Cruz County, Arizona, United States. The population was 949 at the 2000 census. The place name Tubac is an English borrowing from a Hispanicized form of the O'odham name, which translates into English as "rotten". The original O'odham name is written...
, near the town of Nogales, Sonora
Nogales, Sonora
Heroica Nogales , more commonly known as Nogales, is a city and its surrounding municipality on the northern border of the Mexican State of Sonora. The municipality covers an area of 1,675 km², and borders to the north the city of Nogales, Arizona, United States, across the U.S.-Mexico border...
.