Volume 044-1 - January 1990 (8 pages)

These incidents may seem trivial to us now but they reflect how safe the city was, and its inhabitants responded by retaining their trust into Reynolds whom they continued to re-elect as marshal each May. At the May 1883 elections, \was/when Reynolds was seeking a seventh term, the office of marshal ‘‘was the prize sought for by four candidates,” the Union reported, ‘‘and this was what gave sufficient interest to call out much of the vote, which otherwise would have been very small.” The newspaper pointed out that the candidates ‘“‘were out early in the day” with “‘a roll in hand to supply the passer-by, and there was no apparent rustling of candidates to drum up their friends.’ The impression, the Union remarked, ‘“‘seemed to be that Reynolds had an easy race of it.” In December of that year a group of local women submitted a petition to the Board, seeking an increase in the fee for the sale of liquors from $12 per quarter to a proposed $25, but “‘the motion was lost, and a committee appointed to investigate” the question. In other local matters, a motion was made to cut all cottonwood trees along North Auburn Street between Richardson and Main streets as they were “declared to be a nuisance.” Reynolds, who had been appointed to discuss the matter with the property owners “who refused to allow the trees to be removed,” reported in January 1884 that the trees provided “protection against fire” according to the land owners. (The trees would eventually be felled by Reynolds who collected money for the cutting from the Board as part of his road overseer duties, and then sold them as firewood to heat the City Hall and Jail, receiving more money from the City Fathers.) As to the question of increasing the liquor license fee, the Board reported ‘in favor of indefinitely postponing the matter.” (We suspect that Trustee Herman Uphoff, owner of ‘The Harmony Saloon,’ an establishment that was open day and night, had swayed members of the Board in delaying the question. At that meeting, attention was called “‘to the fact that the majority of saloon keepers failed to pay the liquor license after being called upon twice” by Reynolds.) In May 1885 Reynolds ran unopposed for the office of marshal and was re-elected for a ninth term, in which the removal of stray animals, “‘including hogs kept in pens,” was a continuing issue. At the 13 October 1885 meeting for example, ‘‘Much talk was indulged in about predatory hogs that with still more thieving cows root and roam through the streets day and night, getting into gardens and orchards of the taxpayers and committing ravages in a short time that only money and time can repair.” Reynolds was requested “to find a competent person” to take care of the problem and to protect the property of those “who should not be annoyed and damaged by those breachy animals whose owners do not try to take care of them.” As a result, the pound ordinance was revised in February 1886 when owners of vagrant animals were fined $2.50 per head, “thus fixing that of_/ficer’s pay at a figure that will justify an energetic man to qualify for the position and give it his earnest attention.” In May 1886 Reynolds was re-elected for a tenth consecutive term, again with no one to oppose him. That tenth term as marshal was certainly very quiet for Reynolds, and City Hall records do not show any matter of importance to have transpired that year. Reynolds continued to collect taxes and license fees from taverns and shooting galleries, street peddlers and delinquent property owners, among others. That year, Reynolds purchased a lot and a house on East Main Street for his wife and family from B.F. Harris, proprietor of the Grass Valley and Nevada City Stage Line and former Grass Valley marshal in the early 1870's. Reynolds would later acquire the adjacent parcel, and in January 1888 filed a declaration of homestead on the property, where he resided until his death in 1911. As we mentioned at the beginning of this article, Reynolds tried for the then unheard-of eleventh term as marshal, but was defeated by only one vote in May of 1887. Undaunted, he made a come-back in the May 1888 municipal elections, defeating Allen, the incumbent who had unseated him the previous year. In May of 1888 Reynolds was asked by the Board “‘to wait upon the Salvation Army and request them to discontinue the use of musical instruments while parading the streets, as the said noise was dangerous to those who are compelled to travel in vehicles or on horseback.” A month later Reynolds posted notices in the town cemetery, off Kidder Avenue, warning “all persons from interfering with the property under the penalty of prosecution.” The superintendent of the cemetery had stated “it was impossible” to keep the fences up and animals out ‘as miners had a trail through the grounds and as fast as he put up a fence, someone would kick it down, thereby making a commons of the cemetery for all the cattle in the neighborhood.” These two issues, relative to the marshal’s duties, are the only ones the Board considered to be important that year. We surmise that the scarcity of important political issues in 1889 led 50-year-old William Pascoe to contest and win the office of marshal, a post he held until he was killed on 30 June 1893. Reynolds, who received 131 votes to Pascoe’s 257, tried to regain his former seat in 1892 when he gathered 177 votes to Pascoe’s 387. That year, the Union observed that “all saloons were closed on voting day and the town was in a strictly Temperance condition.” Campaigning again in 1893 after Pascoe’s death, Reynolds received only 53 votes, finishing sixth among the Il candidates. The 1890’s and 1900’s proved to be financially unstable and hard on Reynolds. No longer receiving ‘kickback’ percentages as he had received for some 13 years, Reynolds mortgaged his house no less than six times, redeeming his property as late as November 1910, six months before his death on 1 May 1911 at age 68. His widow, Jennie, died on Christmas Day 1929 in her daughter Queenie’s home in Los Angeles. The Union of 27 December 1929 reported her death to have been “‘entirely unexpected as her relatives and friends were unaware that she was seriously ill.” Jennie was described as “one of Grass Valley’s most respected woman pioneers,” and left an estate valued at $1,125 which was left to Queenie “to dispose of to the family in her discretion.” On 5 September 1935 a portion of the family property on East Main Street was sold to Annie Knuckey, mother of well-known Frank Knuckey, former miner and mule skinner, Police Chief, Councilman, and Mayor of Grass Valley. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS We would like to thank Messieurs William Reynolds, of Scotia, California, for biographical information and a photograph of his great grandfather; David Breninger, Grass Valley’s City Administrator, who granted us access to vital city records; Ed Tyson, of the Searls Historical Library; and to Bill Goggin, for photographs of Marshal William Reynolds’ grave and badge. SOURCES CONSULTED FOR THIS STUDY Edwin Bean, Bean’s History and Directory of Nevada County (Nevada City: Daily Gazette Book and Job Office) 1867 Doris Foley, “A Breath of Old Cornwall,” in Nevada County Historical Society Bulletin, Vol. 7, No. 3, December 1953 Edmund Kinyon, ‘“‘The Slaying of Sheriff Pascoe,” in The Northern Mines (Grass Valley: The Union Publishing Co.) 1949 W.B. Lardner and M.J. Brock, History of Placer and Nevada Counties (Los Angeles: Historic Record Co.) 1924 Errol MacBoyle, Mines and Mineral Resources of Nevada County (Sacramento: California State Printing Office) 1919 Records of the City of Grass Valley, Vol. II, May 1873 July 1888; and Vol. IIT, July 1888January 1897 Laura M. Gribben Rowe, “Cornish Wrestling in Nevada County,” in Nevada County Historical Society Bulletin, Vol. 23, No. 4, July 1969 Arthur C.-Todd, The Cornish Miner in America (Glendale, CA: Arthur Clark Co.) 1967 Harry L. Wells, History of Nevada County (Oakland, CA: Thompson and West) 1880

These incidents may seem trivial to us now but they reflect how safe the city was, and its inhabitants responded by retaining their trust into Reynolds whom they continued to re-elect as marshal each May. At the May 1883 elections, \was/when Reynolds was seeking a seventh term, the office of marshal ‘‘was the prize sought for by four candidates,” the Union reported, ‘‘and this was what gave sufficient interest to call out much of the vote, which otherwise would have been very small.” The newspaper pointed out that the candidates ‘“‘were out early in the day” with “‘a roll in hand to supply the passer-by, and there was no apparent rustling of candidates to drum up their friends.’ The impression, the Union remarked, ‘“‘seemed to be that Reynolds had an easy race of it.” In December of that year a group of local women submitted a petition to the Board, seeking an increase in the fee for the sale of liquors from $12 per quarter to a proposed $25, but “‘the motion was lost, and a committee appointed to investigate” the question. In other local matters, a motion was made to cut all cottonwood trees along North Auburn Street between Richardson and Main streets as they were “declared to be a nuisance.” Reynolds, who had been appointed to discuss the matter with the property owners “who refused to allow the trees to be removed,” reported in January 1884 that the trees provided “protection against fire” according to the land owners. (The trees would eventually be felled by Reynolds who collected money for the cutting from the Board as part of his road overseer duties, and then sold them as firewood to heat the City Hall and Jail, receiving more money from the City Fathers.) As to the question of increasing the liquor license fee, the Board reported ‘in favor of indefinitely postponing the matter.” (We suspect that Trustee Herman Uphoff, owner of ‘The Harmony Saloon,’ an establishment that was open day and night, had swayed members of the Board in delaying the question. At that meeting, attention was called “‘to the fact that the majority of saloon keepers failed to pay the liquor license after being called upon twice” by Reynolds.) In May 1885 Reynolds ran unopposed for the office of marshal and was re-elected for a ninth term, in which the removal of stray animals, “‘including hogs kept in pens,” was a continuing issue. At the 13 October 1885 meeting for example, ‘‘Much talk was indulged in about predatory hogs that with still more thieving cows root and roam through the streets day and night, getting into gardens and orchards of the taxpayers and committing ravages in a short time that only money and time can repair.” Reynolds was requested “to find a competent person” to take care of the problem and to protect the property of those “who should not be annoyed and damaged by those breachy animals whose owners do not try to take care of them.” As a result, the pound ordinance was revised in February 1886 when owners of vagrant animals were fined $2.50 per head, “thus fixing that of_/ficer’s pay at a figure that will justify an energetic man to qualify for the position and give it his earnest attention.” In May 1886 Reynolds was re-elected for a tenth consecutive term, again with no one to oppose him. That tenth term as marshal was certainly very quiet for Reynolds, and City Hall records do not show any matter of importance to have transpired that year. Reynolds continued to collect taxes and license fees from taverns and shooting galleries, street peddlers and delinquent property owners, among others. That year, Reynolds purchased a lot and a house on East Main Street for his wife and family from B.F. Harris, proprietor of the Grass Valley and Nevada City Stage Line and former Grass Valley marshal in the early 1870's. Reynolds would later acquire the adjacent parcel, and in January 1888 filed a declaration of homestead on the property, where he resided until his death in 1911. As we mentioned at the beginning of this article, Reynolds tried for the then unheard-of eleventh term as marshal, but was defeated by only one vote in May of 1887. Undaunted, he made a come-back in the May 1888 municipal elections, defeating Allen, the incumbent who had unseated him the previous year. In May of 1888 Reynolds was asked by the Board “‘to wait upon the Salvation Army and request them to discontinue the use of musical instruments while

parading the streets, as the said noise was dangerous to those who are compelled to travel in vehicles or on horseback.” A month later Reynolds posted notices in the town cemetery, off Kidder Avenue, warning “all persons from interfering with the property under the penalty of prosecution.” The superintendent of the cemetery had stated “it was impossible” to keep the fences up and animals out ‘as miners had a trail through the grounds and as fast as he put up a fence, someone would kick it down, thereby making a commons of the cemetery for all the cattle in the neighborhood.” These two issues, relative to the marshal’s duties, are the only ones the Board considered to be important that year. We surmise that the scarcity of important political issues in 1889 led 50-year-old William Pascoe to contest and win the office of marshal, a post he held until he was killed on 30 June 1893. Reynolds, who received 131 votes to Pascoe’s 257, tried to regain his former seat in 1892 when he gathered 177 votes to Pascoe’s 387. That year, the Union observed that “all saloons were closed on voting day and the town was in a strictly Temperance condition.” Campaigning again in 1893 after Pascoe’s death, Reynolds received only 53 votes, finishing sixth among the Il candidates. The 1890’s and 1900’s proved to be financially unstable and hard on Reynolds. No longer receiving ‘kickback’ percentages as he had received for some 13 years, Reynolds mortgaged his house no less than six times, redeeming his property as late as November 1910, six months before his death on 1 May 1911 at age 68. His widow, Jennie, died on Christmas Day 1929 in her daughter Queenie’s home in Los Angeles. The Union of 27 December 1929 reported her death to have been “‘entirely unexpected as her relatives and friends were unaware that she was seriously ill.” Jennie was described as “one of Grass Valley’s most respected woman pioneers,” and left an estate valued at $1,125 which was left to Queenie “to dispose of to the family in her discretion.” On 5 September 1935 a portion of the family property on East Main Street was sold to Annie Knuckey, mother of well-known Frank Knuckey, former miner and mule skinner, Police Chief, Councilman, and Mayor of Grass Valley. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS We would like to thank Messieurs William Reynolds, of Scotia, California, for biographical information and a photograph of his great grandfather; David Breninger, Grass Valley’s City Administrator, who granted us access to vital city records; Ed Tyson, of the Searls Historical Library; and to Bill Goggin, for photographs of Marshal William Reynolds’ grave and badge. SOURCES CONSULTED FOR THIS STUDY Edwin Bean, Bean’s History and Directory of Nevada County (Nevada City: Daily Gazette Book and Job Office) 1867 Doris Foley, “A Breath of Old Cornwall,” in Nevada County Historical Society Bulletin, Vol. 7, No. 3, December 1953 Edmund Kinyon, ‘“‘The Slaying of Sheriff Pascoe,” in The Northern Mines (Grass Valley: The Union Publishing Co.) 1949 W.B. Lardner and M.J. Brock, History of Placer and Nevada Counties (Los Angeles: Historic Record Co.) 1924 Errol MacBoyle, Mines and Mineral Resources of Nevada County (Sacramento: California State Printing Office) 1919 Records of the City of Grass Valley, Vol. II, May 1873 July 1888; and Vol. IIT, July 1888January 1897 Laura M. Gribben Rowe, “Cornish Wrestling in Nevada County,” in Nevada County Historical Society Bulletin, Vol. 23, No. 4, July 1969 Arthur C.-Todd, The Cornish Miner in America (Glendale, CA: Arthur Clark Co.) 1967 Harry L. Wells, History of Nevada County (Oakland, CA: Thompson and West) 1880