Sixty Years in Southern California, 1853-1913: Containing the Reminiscences of Harris NewmarkNewmark, Harris
History
Sixty Years in Southern California, 1853-1913: Containing the Reminiscences of Harris Newmark
Newmark, Harris
California, Southern; Los Angeles (Calif.)
Although the Committee of Safety had the assistance of special foot
police in guarding the city, the citizens made a requisition on Fort
Tejón, and fifty soldiers were sent from that post to help pursue the
band. Troops from San Diego, with good horses and plenty of
provisions, were also placed at the disposition of the Los Angeles
authorities. Companies of mounted Rangers were made up to scour the
country, American, German and French citizens vying with one another
for the honor of risking their lives; one such company being formed at
El Monte, and another at San Bernardino. There were also two
detachments of native Californians; but many Sonorans and Mexicans
from other States, either from sympathy or fear, aided the murdering
robbers and so made their pursuit doubly difficult. However, the
outlaws were pursued far into the mountains; and although the first
party sent out returned without effecting anything (reporting that the
desperadoes were not far from San Juan and that the horses of the
pursuers had given out) practically all of the band, as will be seen,
were eventually captured.
Not only were vigorous measures taken to apprehend and punish the
murderers, but provision was made to rescue the bodies of the slain,
and to give them decent and honorable burial. The next morning, after
nearly one hundred mounted and armed men had set out to track the
fugitives, another party, also on horseback, left to escort several
wagons filled with coffins, in which they hoped to bring back the
bodies of Sheriff Barton and his comrades. In this effort, the posse
succeeded; and when the remains were received in Los Angeles on Sunday
about noon, the city at once went into mourning. All business was
suspended, and the impressive burial ceremonies, conducted on Monday,
were attended by the citizens _en masse_. Oddly enough, there was not
a Protestant clergyman in town at the time; but the Masonic Order took
the matter in hand and performed their rites over those who were
Masons, and even paid their respects, with a portion of the ritual, to
the non-Masonic dead.
General Andrés Pico, with a company of native mounted Californians,
who left immediately after the funeral, was especially prominent in
running down the outlaws, thus again displaying his natural gift of
leadership; and others fitted themselves out and followed as soon as
they could. General Pico knew both land and people; and on capturing
Silvas and Ardillero, two of the worst of the _bandidos_, after a hard
resistance, he straightway hung them to trees, at the very spot where
they had tried to assassinate him and his companions.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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