The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, November 20, 1898, Page 23

SUNDAY, QUOO0OOOC000D0000 This is the first time that the story of the escape of Ned McGowen from the Vigilantes in 1856 has been told. Ramon Valencia, one of the men who helped him to escape, has at Jast concluded to speak, al- though hundreds of efforts to get him to do so in the past have failed. The escape of v Ned McGowan was one of the most t lling events of the days of the Vigilantes, & reward of $10,000 being placed on the fugitive’s head, as it was thought that he was implicated in the murder of James Xing of William. Ra- mon Valencia is an old man now living quietly in San Ra- fael, but his memory of the thrilling event is very clear, and he describes each move- ment of the party in a most o o (<] o © (4] (<] © ] <] o © < o o o © (4] © (] (<] [} o () c o < (] 000009 CO00O0000000O00IWOODOO0OOORO0D graphic manner. (>3 000000000000 onvicted o “olem t be found Francisco, e escape was rded by vigilantes. A the excitement had 1d stood acquit- e was in ad- d to the whose ancis a month, began to be his turn next and that wuch safer in some other 1d, Jim Dennison, a r vho had mar ia i suerrero family, and among the Spaniard were too kindl sowan. He ready for any o his friend, s married to ] As Va- to be very friendly to him said: He's got to u will help, but don’t ask any ques Mr. Valencia 4 story, “I went to mother and told her to give e ey she had in the house. 0. Dennison brought ses and we went to the Nightin- e Hotel in the Mission Dolores and ~d_ till dark. “Gowan, who was an Irish-Amer- and very fair, had disguised him- a negro and was hiding in a 1se on Dupont street. Dennison met 1 at the Mission creek just before me to the old Mission, and Mc- washed off the negro disguise urned himself into a Spanish v Then the three of us rode away ab ot 9 o'clock on the evening of June 856. W vent by the coast road to Half- without incident. When we anishtown we knew that difficulty. knew Dennison and me, wan hiding with the s and rode up to the about noon and there sitting around on the T we did not know vere vigilantes. w then that it was Mc- “I did not kr Gowan who w h”‘\x“fl“s who wa ith us, but I knew e Wwas some one who wasn't an; anxious to m el vigilantes. Well, nen to have some- ! went in, and 1 been to a fan- efore, and that our < and danced more “I treated all around plained that we were geles to buy hors “ “Yes, and we ou put in Dennison; enough with that wore a little nore to drink. < went out then Jim asked all thing to drink then he said I ds and we ex- to Los An- rovernment. And then we all had some- it was time for McGowan to be sigh b sight I saw hi coming dnwnA the road with the hr,r}:‘e’;‘ He was making for the back door. bt I swore at him and shouted: * “““Hi! Come here, and be quick about “While I stood there never seen before big man T had ] ifted tc and whispered quletly: What arc s going to do with McGowan? I his friend, but the rest he “He went back in and Jim c posed vaqu L ain’'t.’ the hotel quietly e out swearing at the sup{ ro because he had been g slow coming up with the horse We didn’t waste any time getting awac from that place. All the mey “wed watching for McGowan, and th would Mhave made q work of us they detected his disguise. but we rode awa)}l right under their noses. “As s00n A8 We were out o the hotel T turned to Denmisas o of said: ‘Jim, I want to know who this fellow {8, He 18 a pleasant spoken man and I'll stick to him, but T want to know who he 8.’ «‘He's Judge McGowan,’ said Jim. I was mad. If I had known the kind of job we were on 1 should have lected a different route. 1 could hav taken McGowan by a trail where the birds would not have seen h it was too late to change the and we galloped along. McGowan roc along the beach & he wind blew his hair, and he 1 s if_he was SOITY for something. ed him if he did have anything to do with the killing of James King of William, and he re- plied: * ‘Before God. Ramon, I had no more to do with it than you did.’ I believed him. at night we came to Mrs. Gun- salus’ rancho, and we told her Mc- Gowan was a priest. We said he had just come to California and was visit- ing all the missions before he decided at which one he would locate. She was all right and very glad to have a pries stay all night at her house, for she was very plous. i “McGowan was afraid he might be called on to say prayers. He didn’t know as much about prayers as he did about some other things. “So he said he felt s He wasn't used to riding, and what he said was pretty true, but he was hungrier than any sick man. “Mrs. Gunsalus cooked a fine supper for us and McGowan didn’t eat as much s he wanted because he was afraid she might want him to prav But she put us up a fine luncheon and we left her house very early in the morning. Jeither Jim nor I knew any one who fived in that district. We were near Santa Cruz and we didn’t like to go through the town. When it was dark we came to a ranch. I went ahead to see who was there, for all teamsters and travelers had to camp or stop at the ranches. “When I rode up to the door the man said he wag Juan Jose Castro. I told him I was Ramon Vale : “‘Ah, Ramon Valencia! You have been in Los Angeles?’ ‘“‘Yes, many times.’ “‘You are the Ramon Valencia who saved the life of my son, Guadaloupe Castro, when he was in Los Angeles?’ “‘Yes,’ I answered. ‘I belleve I did save Guadaloupe.’ “He called Guadaloupe: son, is this not the man who saved your life in Los Angeles? The v-ung man came in and he said, ‘Papa, it is.’ “Then Castro called all his family to come and kiss me. They put their arms around me and kissed me, all, and sald everything they had was mine. There were some young ladies in the family, single, too, and they all kissed me. Then I told Castro that there was a priest with me, and my brother-in-law and cousin, Jim Dennison. “'Your friends, are they not my friends? All that is mine is . theirs. Bring them here.’ “He sent Guadaloupe with me and we brought Jim and the judge up to the house. “Well, Mrs. Castro and every one else made us feel at home and they made a banquet for us. Before we sat down to eat a band of musicians came. They were on the way to another ranch, Alisal, where they were to play for a dance the next night. “we’ll have a great fandango to- night to celebrate our friends’ visit," sald Castro. So they: sent riders out and invited the neighbors, and they all came. “Next morning Castro sent his son with us as far as San Luis Obispo. He knew evervbodv and everybody knew him, so we just rode along quiet and got through Santa Cruz and San Luis Obispo all safe without anybody notic- ing us. We met plenty of vigilantes, and we frequently talked with them about the watch being kept up to catch McGowan. “We did not stop the towns at night, but staved at ranches. After passing San Luls Obispo Guadaloupe Castro left us and we came to the ranch Alisal, owned by a man I knew, Fran- ‘Come, my in TRy cisco Arcia. He was a man full of shrewdness and tricks and I did not like him very well, but there was no place better to stop. “We had supper all right and were smoking. Arcia kept watching Mc- Gowan, who got nervous and finally said he was tired and gue >d he would g0 to bed. After he was gone Arcia turned to me and Jim and said: ‘That man doesn’t look like a priest.’ “We told him we knew him well, and that he was all right. But Arcia was not satisfied and declared emphatically two or three times: ‘He don’t look like no priest.’ “We were glad to ride away in the morning. It was pretty hot that day, but we did not like to stop because it was a dangerous neighborhood. At night we came to Joaquin Estrada’s rancho. There were a lot of people there. Jim rode up to see what he could discover. He heard some men talking. They had just come up from San Lui Obispo and they were watching for Mc- Gowan, for the vigilantes were afraid he had got away from San Francisco in spite of them. “We decided that a haystack would be a good enough place for us that night, so we found one and sat down, after we had taken the saddles off the horses and given them some fodder. We had some things to eat that we had brought from Castro’s, so we had our supper and made comfortable beds in the hay and went to sleep. “McGowan was almost worn out. He had never ridden much and we had been hammering along at the rate of fifty miles a day. “Near morning some teamsters who had been in the house came out to sleep in our haystack. We pretended not to hear them, but we were all three awake and listening. “‘Would you know him if you saw him? one asked; and another said: ‘Know McGov.an? I bet I would, just as easy as I'd know you. Ten thou- sand dollars is the reward for him. It's a good lot. He ought to hang, any- how, and I'd be glad to have held of the rope. That I would.’ : “We listened and kept quiet till the men were asleep. Then I whispered to Jim, ‘Let's travel,’ and McGowan thought so, too. “Aghthc same time we did not like to seem to run away, because every one was suspicious and every one was look- ing for McGowan. We waited till it was almost daylight and then got up and put on the saddles as quietly as we could, but one of the teamsters woke up and said: ‘What's your hurry, neigh- bors?" “I answered, ‘Oh, we're going to Castro’s. He's got 18,000 acres of land and he wants to sell it for four-bits an acre. We want to get the cool of the morning to ride in.’ “‘Going north? “‘Yes; we've just come up from Los Angeles.’ “I told him we were going north so as to put him off the scent if he should suspect anything. I threw my serape over McGowan and told him to pretend to be a vaquero instead of a priest. The teamster spoke to him, but Mec- Gowan pretended he could not under- stand English and went on getting our horses ready while I talked to the man. “We had to ride north for a ways. Then we made a circle and turned south again. ‘“We came to the Guadaloupe ranch and Jim sald, ‘Let's stop here for awhile,’ but I said, ‘We'd better keep ’.§ HORSE y . San e, i o i QM J@Ko‘a 1SS HD (=4 crrre T ey AN NOVEMBER 20, 1898. YGIVE UE‘, 3 MEGOWEN YELLED RAMONVALENCIA IN 1856 “WHo HELPED mmm“' i(prteu 2 THE MO traveling,” and so we did. The Judge was almost exhausted by this time. You see he was a city man and not used to riding or roughing it. It was hot, too, and he was not used to the heat. Then he feit nervous under the strain of every one wanting to hang him, for we kept hearing threats every- where. When we came to the old Mis- sion St. Ignace he insisted on stopping. “*‘We better keep moving,” I argued. *“ ‘Let’s see if we can’t get something to eat,” he pleaded. ‘“*‘We better travel,” I insisted, and we did. We were riding over St. Ig- nace Mountain and he was exhausted and awfully discouraged. He had two ‘Colts’ and a dagger and he kept taking out his guns and saying he was tired of it all anyhow. “Jim and I rode ahead a little and T said to Jim, ‘We must get those guns away from him or he’ll kill himself’ So we must,” Jim said, and we laid our plan. We were riding through a very wild locality and we had no guns so I went back to the Judge and said, ‘There is a bear over there; let me have your gun.” He let me have it. Then Jim said, ‘Let me have the other gun and your knife and I'll go and see what sport Ramon routs out.” “Well, he gave Jim the gun and knife and we rode ahead and into the chap- arral and fired them off. Then we came back and said we had made a mistake about the bear, but we would keep the guns so if we did come across any game we could have a shot. “‘That night we got to Ortega's ranch, about five miles from Santa Barbara. McGowan was so stiff he could hardly walk. He was all worn out. Jim and T both knew Ortega well and knew he was all right. We told him who Me- Gowan was. He was awfully surprised but he said that our friends were his friends and that we had better stay and rest till McGowan was all right, for Santa Barbara was the worst plncé on the road for us. He had been in town the day before and a crowd of vigi- lantes had come down on the boat from San Francisco and they were Iool%ng for McGowan. “We didn’t tell the Judge w! 3 tega had said, but we decglded ?fitlgl:e Ortega’s advice, and the Judge was ver¥hg‘lad of a chance to rest. “This was on July 3, and Orte, us there was to be a big celegga:fi:g and dance in town next day, the Fourth. We knew plenty of people there, and so we said we would go In for the dance and have some fun. “We left McGowan with Ortega, and we felt perfectly secure about him be- cause we knew every one would be in Santa Barbara. “We had been going around seeing some friends, when I sudden’ noticed people running from one .place to an- other. Jim and I were on horseback and in front of a store talking when some one came up beside me and whis- ' ‘You're in a bad fix. Skip! Ride ur life.” We didn’t know what was up, but Jim and I didn't stop to ask. We slid out and went to the hotel kept by Jack Power. “He told us that McGowan was in town and had been asking for us. ““*‘Where is he?’ I asked Power. “ ‘He'’s in that room.’ “I went in and there was McGowan. A pile of carpet had been taken off the floor and the Judge was sitting on it. “I asked him why he came into town. I was pretty mad. He lay down and I rolled him up in the carpet and said to him: “ “They’ll hang us in two minutes if they catch you. Don't move.” “I called to Power to make me a claret frappe and one for Jim, and then we got out quick on the porch and were drinking when a big crowd came up. “Where's McGowan?"’ they shouted. “‘I don’t know. I haven't seen him,’ I answered. ““You brought him down here. He's your priest. Come, tell the truth.’ “‘No, is he?" “‘Give him up; if we can’t get him we'll hang you instead.’ “I told them I didn’t know anything about McGowan. “Jim slipped aside and caught hold of a Spanish boy, Chile Carnato, and told him to run around the house to the front and teil the crowd that he had seen an American running toward the lake. Chile ran around to the front of the house and screamed, ‘I know where he is.” “‘Where? demanded the crowd. ‘I saw an old Americano running toward Tule Lake.’ “‘That’'s McGowan, that’s McGowan," and the whole mob ran toward the lake. “They set fire to the tules in the lake and burned the whole lake to find him. ““The Mayor, Antonio Marcia Koreiga, came and took Jim and me to jail. He said we would be better off there if the mob did not find McGowan. “After we had gone to jail Power stood in front of his house and asked every one who they were looking for. “‘Ned McGowan,’ they answered, ‘and we’ve got the rope to hang him.’ “‘Well,- I've got him in my house; come in and get him,’ said Power. He kept them from searching the house that way. He was a good friend of ours and McGowan, too. McGowan heard Power tell them that he was in the house as many times as he could stand it, for he wasn't sure of Power. “While one crowd was burning the lake and the rest were escorting Jim and me to jail, he climbed out of the UNDER THE WINDOW ‘WHILE THE CRQ FOR HIM window and got away. “Very soon the mob came back from burning the lake and of course they didn't find McGowan. It was dark by this time and they all went to the dance. “We heard the music and it did not make us like our quarters any better. The jail was only one big room in an adobe building; it was the basement and the courtroom was overhead. Therg was only one prisoner, a very nice fellow he seemed to be, too, and very brave. ‘I don’t know who he was or what became of him. “About 9 o'clock we heard a voice outside the jail door say: ‘Can’t you get the keys?’ i 3 *‘No; old —— has gone and i taken them.’ B npenes ' ‘Then we'll have to use the crow- bar. Tom, you and Mike brin~ as many as you can find. McGowan has got away through them and now he'll have to hang through them.’ Jim and I knew, of course, what that meant. The other prisoner said: ;I;te;;‘;?en e:[sil)l*)get in and they’ll hang . Maybe they'll tal We must fght for fre e me too- “Jim and I still had McGowan's re- volvers, so we were prepared to kill two or three of the mob before they could get us. “While they were talking an old In- dian with a candle in his hand came peeking through the bars of the win- dow on the opposite side from the door where the mob was. o “I wrote a note to a friend who was at the dance: ‘Please call at the Jail at once with ten good men. Hurry, or Jim and I will be hung in five min- utes.” “I passed the note and $2 to the In- dian and told him to run as fast as he could and give the note to my friend, Antonio Bernato, who was at the dance. “The Indian -disappeared. We could hear th mob talking and calling for some or/e to hurry with the crowbar. ‘‘Pretty soon we hewrd a bireer row. The fighting and shouting kept up for a good while before Antonio pounded on the door and said he was there with enough men to keep the mob from tak- ing us. “‘Our friends stayed all night and kept guard. I was not sorry when I saw the daylight beginning to come in through the bars of our window. “The vieilantes took us out about 10 o'clock and we were tried. We exnlain- Sy, \\\\ RAMON VALENCIA 1898 N JAIL 000 <o 0“00000““° %o ed that we were going to Los Angeles to buy horses for the Government and the man they asserted was McGowan had told us he was a priest -and asked to ride with us because he did not know the way. We both told a straight story and they let us go, but Santa Barbara was too hot a town for us to stay in any longer than we had to, so we started south as fast as we could. We were unable to discover the new whereabouts of Mec- Gowan and so were our friends. “A few years after I met him in San Francisco and he told me he had been for ten months hiding at the ranch of Dr. Denn near Santa Barbara. The trip cost me abgut $1500, but McGowan could never pay any of the }T:dney back. He lost everything he “In 1893 Mr. Coleman, who had b the head of the vigilantes, came to eue‘: apd said: ‘Ncd McGowan is sick and wants to see you.” We visited him to- gether. 1 was sorry to see him so broken down in spirit as well as in health. He used to be such a fine, brave man. If I had had a place to offer him I would have brought him to my home to die. e Mr. Coleman gave him $20 and said: ‘There was never any personal feeling against you on my part, Mr. McGowan." McGowen seemed glad to hear it. He said he had been over most of the world, but he wanted to come here to S%An Francisco to die. Afterward, through the efforts of the old picneers who had known him, Mc- Gowan was taken to St. Mary’s Hospi- tal, where he died in 1893 at 80 years of age.” HELEN GRAY. —_——— As an evidence of how rapid! forests of Pennsylvania are l?elxlg g.l: away it is cited that In 1888 Westmoreland County had 153,717 acres of timber land, aggnw;thé: the pns; ten ye:or:wthore has crease of over 80, this timber area. ik o ° o c / e \ G ."( o S e 3 o « ° « o S ° P o o < o a [ L] & o ‘o 2 ‘a 1 ) 3 o ; v L o o o o VALENCIA o