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Collection: Directories and Documents > Pamphlets
Juanita - The only woman lynched in the Gold Rush days (PH 20-9)(1967) (36 pages)
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Page: of 36
cation of his character.” His testimony was much the
same as the prosecution witnesses except that he stated
Cannon had called Josefa a whore, and that when he
tried to enter the house, still calling her bad names,
she had stabbed him.
At the start of the trial the mob had numbered
somewhere around six hundred miners, but by now the
crowd had more than doubled. There was a hush and a
straining to get closer as Josefa stepped forward to tell
her story. Her relation of the tragic event was much
the same as the previous recitals with this significant
exception: “I took the knife to defend myself; I had been
told that some of the boys wanted to get into my room
and sleep with me; a young Mexican boy told me so and
it frightened me so that I used to fasten the door and
take a knife with me to bed; I told deceased that was no
place to call me bad names, come in and call me so
andas he was coming in I stabbed him.” Josefa’s story
gave some credence to the later assertion that Cannon
had made previous advances to her, but the miners
were in no mood to weigh and further delve into any
such evidence. Cannon was popular along the river and
had many friends who were interested in vengeance and
not justice. The hard feelings against Mexicans, engendered by the late war, were not likely to be put aside
by afrenzied, half-drunken mob of frontier miners. The
drama was racing to its inevitable climax now and nothing seemed likely to stop it.
There was some discussion on the platform as to
the previous character of the prisoners, and then Judge
Rose announced that the trial would be adjourned until
one-thirty P.M. inorder that the defense might procure
additional testimony.
During the recess the crowd had the opportunity
of viewing Cannon’s body which was on display ina
large tent. He was dressed in a red flannel shirt with
the front unbuttoned to show the wound in his chest. If
this wasn’t enough to further stir up the mob, the saloons were doing a land-office business in dispensing
their own brand of venom. Needless to say, when the
gong sounded to resume the festivities, the crowd had
grown to some two thousand impatient men.
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