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Page: of 436
READINGS SPRINGS
his name as I am incompetent to wield his pen...
On and on he wrote, chuckling to himself from time to time, thoroughly enjoying this opportunity to explore the world of flowery prose at
Niles’s expense. For several days, whenever he had a free moment, he
added a few more paragraphs, but his literary masterpiece was destined
to conclude with information that would shock author and reader alike.
HT
THE EVENTS LEADING up to the disaster were complex and only in
retrospect was it possible to see how inevitable it was that Nevada City
should be victimized in such a fashion. In February the Sacramento
Times printed a letter from the mining camp of Bridgeport on the South
Yuba River. It told of the arrest and trial by miners’ jury of an accused
mule thief named Edward Stanton. After three hours, the dozen jurors
ruled that he was guilty of stealing local mules and taking them to
Sacramento for sale.
Stanton was sentenced to receive one hundred lashes on his bare back,
and an accomplice was given eighteen. Said the Alta California, after
reading the account in the Times: “The hundred was right. It was justice,
and no lawyers to prevent it.”
Two weeks later, the miners weren’t so sure. Jack Knowlton was accused of committing the same type of crime, but in this instance the alleged thief was caught taking mules from the Bridgeport area to the mining camps high on the ridge between the south and middle forks of the
Yuba. A posse overtook him and the animals in Grizzly Canyon and
brought him back to be tried at Bridgeport.
After four days of deliberation, the miners’ court called him guilty as
charged and sentenced him to be hanged by the neck. The day of execution was set for four days after the trial. News of the hanging attracted
thousands of miners to the scene, and the prisoner was placed under
heavy guard to prevent the possibility of rescue.
Meanwhile, down in San Francisco, Charles Jansen was attacked by
thieves in his store on February 19, the same day that Billy Williams came
back to Nevada City without Niles Searls. After Jansen was knocked
unconscious, the pair of robbers took nearly $1600 from his desk. Two
men were picked up by police. One was William Windred and the other
said his name was Thomas Burdue. Windred and Burdue were taken to
Jansen’s home, where he was recovering from the assault, and he tentatively identified them as his assailants.
On the way back to the city jail, an effort was made by a crowd of
356