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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
first mayor of the settlement, the area was renamed
Downieville.
By 1850 the settlement at the forks had a population of five thousand and had produced several million
dollars in gold. Itwas a rough and rowdy camp, typical
of the mining towns of the Mother Lode and with the
usual happenings that kept life hectic and exciting. An
amusing episode dealt with the miner who got caught
stealing a pair of boots. Ahastily gathered jury quickly
pronounced the man guilty, but they couldn’t determine
a punishment. Finally it was decided that the guilty
miner must return the boots and treat the crowd at the
nearest saloon. The mob descended on the closest tavern, where plaintiff, judge and jury proceeded to get
roaring drunk. Inthe resulting tumult, the miner again
stole the boots, this time taking leave of the town for
good.
There were more serious crimes also, but they
were dealt with in typical mining camp fashion by floggings, the shaving of heads and the cutting off of ears.
Downieville had her share of saloons and gambling halls,
but no more than other towns of equal size. In short,
there was nothing to set Downieville apart from the
other rowdy and primitive gold rush towns of the era.
Nothing, that is, until the late afternoon ofJuly 5th, 1851.
She has gone down in history simply as Juanita
Juanita of Downieville. There is nothing known of her
previous to her last day on earth and, as if to further
confound historians, even her name is in dispute. Just
how the name “Juanita” became associated with the
woman is hard to say, but the early newspapers and
eye-witness accounts examined by the author refer to
her as Josefa.* I see no reason why this shouldn’t be
assumed to be her real name.
Some say that she was a saloon girl, while others
hint that she was even lower on the social scale of
Downieville. Whatever the truth, Josefa lived in a tiny
shake cabin with her paramour, a slightly built Mexican named José. Like a good many of his countrymen,
José was probably not allowed to stake a claim of his
own and so, took to gambling for a living. He dealt
cards often in Craycroft’s saloon and Josefa would
7