Jack Powers


Jack Powers,, whose real name was John A. Power, was an Irish born migrant taken to New York as a child, a soldier in the Mexican American War, serving in the garrison of California. During the California Gold Rush, he was a well known professional gambler and a famed horseman, in San Francisco, Santa Barbara and Los Angeles. He had two brushes with the law. Once being tried as a member of The Hounds, in San Francisco in 1849, and once in a dispute over land ownership of a ranch in Santa Barbara County in 1853. In 1856, at Santa Barbara, Powers had protected a fugitive from the vigilantes of San Francisco and helped him to escape. After his role was revealed the following year he had difficulties with the vigilantes at Los Angeles, who accused him of being the leader of a criminal gang there. Long known for his skills as a horseman, on May 2, 1858, his skills were demonstrated in a record breaking 150-mile time over distance race. Soon after this race, he was accused by San Luis Obispo vigilantes of complicity in the 1857 murder of two men, and of being the head of the bandit gang, that plagued the southern central coastal region of California, along the El Camino Real with robberies and murders in San Luis Obispo County and Santa Barbara County between 1853 and 1858. This gang was later named the Jack Powers Gang in 1883, by Jesse D. Mason in his History of Santa Barbara County California. Escaping the vigilantes, by fleeing to Sonora, Powers attempted to return to California in 1860, but was murdered and robbed by his vaqueros at Calabasas just inside Arizona Territory.
Jack Powers was described at the time of the May 1858 long distance race, in the Daily Alta California as being "a spare built man, with full sunburnt face, heavy hair and whiskers, and a keen eye."

Early life

Born in Ireland in 1827, as John A. Power, he came to the United States with his parents in 1836, and settled with them in New York City. When the Mexican–American War commenced in 1846, John at 19 years of age when he and his older brother Edward joined Company G of the 1st Regiment of New York Volunteers with many of his friends from New York, and went west to be a soldier. His brother was made a corporal. His brother in law, Charles Heffernan, enlisted in Company F, accompanied by his wife, John's sister. The New York Volunteers was a unit organized by Colonel Jonathan D. Stevenson to occupy and settle California, and men in the unit were promised land in the region should the war be successful.

His Early years in California

In San Francisco John Power and his brother transferred to Company F under Captain Francis J. Lippitt, one of three companies of the 1st New York Volunteers which were then sent to Santa Barbara, California. The two other companies were soon sent to occupy towns in the southern part of Baja California Territory, where they saw some action before the end of the war. Power and his company remained there as a garrison, in relative idleness until the disbanding of the Regiment in September 1848, some months after the beginning of the California Gold Rush. Jack Powers remained in the town as a gambler until late in the year when he left for the mines with his brother in law in a party of other men of his regiment. One of those men, James Lynch, later wrote an account of that journey to the goldfields and of their return to San Francisco for the winter of 1848 in his 1882 book, With Stevenson to California, 1846–1848.
When John Power went to San Francisco for the winter, he became a gambler there and also became associated with the San Francisco Society of Regulators. Powers was accused of being one of The Hounds by the popular vigilante movement organized to rid the city of them after a particularly violent episode against a Chilean settlement in the city during the summer of 1849. On Monday, July 23, 1849, the vigilantes arrested and made prisoners of 20 of the "Hounds", including John Powers, who were then arraigned on charges of conspiracy, riot, robbery, and assault with intent to kill, and all plead "Not guilty." While several others were convicted of various charges, John Powers, was found not guilty on all the charges.
Despite being acquitted of all the charges in a trial, Powers subsequently left San Francisco for the gold fields. There he was said to have had some success. That August he then went to Stockton, the gateway to the southern mines, where with $10,000 to $15,000, in a spectacular run of luck, he broke the bank of several large gambling establishments. He acquired a fortune variously said to be $50,000 or $175,000, sufficient to make him a wealthy man. He intended a return by steamboat to San Francisco, then take steamships to New York, to take care of his widowed mother who had remained there when he and his brother had left for California. However, persuaded to attempt to make his fortune larger by gambling, he lost most of it, and never left for New York. Instead he became a noted gambler and horseman at San Francisco and at the resort of Mission Dolores between late 1849 and 1851. By this time he had become known as Jack Power, and was well known to influential people in the city and in state politics.
William Redmond Ryan, describes meeting Jack Power returning from the Mission Dolores in 1849:
Ryan went on to say that in addition to his other accomplishments, he was also an excellent performer on the banjo; "and one evening, with three or four others, gave a concert in the dining-saloon of the Parker House, which was suitably arranged for the occasion; and, although the tickets for admission were three dollars each, the attraction of our Nimrod's celebrity ensured a numerous attendance.

Return to Santa Barbara and the Arroyo Burro Affair

Powers returned to Santa Barbara in 1851. From Santa Barbara, he often traveled to San Francisco, Los Angeles and other places to gamble and race horses. During this time he was nearly killed at a ball given by a respected Californio family. He had insulted the young ladies of the family and he was severely knifed by their young male relatives outside the house. Upon recovering from his wounds he swore to give up his wild life and settle down to a quieter more industrious life.
In 1852 he established a rancho to raise pigs along the Arroyo Burro on lands formerly belonging to the Mission Santa Barbara that he claimed were public lands he was entitled to settle by the conditions for his service in Stevenson's Regiment. This same land had been leased by Richard S. Den and Daniel A. Hill from the Mission some years earlier. Den also claimed to have an 1846 grant to these lands from the last Mexican governor. Powers challenged that claim in the state courts over the next year.
in 1856; view from the northeast. The Powers rancho, lay behind the Mission to the right. Powers had left the rancho three years before this picture was made.
Meanwhile on June 10, 1851 Jack Powers led a 25 man posse against a party of "about 100" armed Native Americans from the San Joaquin Valley that had come to San Buenaventura to trade, some of whom were stealing horses or taking them at gun point. Two men with them were given up to the posse and stolen horses recovered. These men had murdered a peddler and escaped jail in Santa Barbara and both also led a horse theft gang. They were subsequently tried and hung. In July 1852, Jack was one of posse that returned two accused murderers, a Californio named Doroteo Zabaleta and a Sonoran Jesus Rivas from Santa Barbara to Los Angeles for trial.
In 1853, a state court case ended with a ruling in Den and Hill's favor. Powers refused to leave his rancho after losing his court case in the state district and supreme courts, claiming it was not in the states jurisdiction to decide the matter but that of the federal courts. Powers with a group of friends vowed to resist being evicted. Also a member of Stevenson's Regiment, Sheriff W. W. Twist's attempt to evict Powers resulted in a bloody clash in the town between some of Powers' friends and the Sheriff who was organizing a of 200 who were about to attempt to eject him from his ranch by force. The Sheriff was badly wounded but managed to kill his assailant, a Californio summoned to serve in the posse. One of Powers friends, John Vidal, a member of Powers' old Company, of the Stevenson Regiment, was killed and two others were wounded and fled back to his rancho chased by some of the posse. Powers and his friends including James Lynch, then visiting Santa Barbara, saw them off after they took a few shots at long distance and saw they were well armed and ready for them.
After a standoff for a period of time, Powers was eventually persuaded to leave his ranch, after he was granted a lease to harvest his crops and move his stock and possessions off the land. Following his loss of the rancho, Powers continued living in Santa Barbara County, leasing a part of the Rancho Laguna in the Guadalupe Valley, in the north of the county, abandoning pig farming and living by gambling and racing horses as before.

Powers Second Conflict with the Vigilante Movement

In 1856, Powers protected and hid the politician Ned McGowan from a posse of the San Francisco Committee of Vigilance who came hunting for him in Santa Barbara. This earned Jack Powers the enmity of that movement after McGowen released his book detailing his adventures and Power's role in aiding his escape. It would earn Powers the title of "the notorious" before his name in the San Francisco Bulletin and other newspapers articles from then on.
It would soon lead to him being accused by the Los Angeles vigilantes,, of being head of a burglary ring that had been plaguing Los Angeles,, in early 1857. Arrested on a warrant from Los Angeles by the Sheriff of Santa Barbara, he made bail but soon fled from Santa Barbara, before a Los Angeles vigilante posse came for him on that charge. That he fled, is understandable when the news came that the posse had summarily lynched two other men, accused of being members of the Flores-Daniel Gang, while traveling through the area of the Mission San Buenaventura on their way to arrest Powers. Arrested in San Francisco, Powers fought extradition to Los Angeles while the vigilantes held power there. Eventually he lost the fight in the supreme court and was extradited to Los Angeles, but with the vigilantes no longer holding sway, the court in Los Angeles dismissed his case for lack of any evidence.

The Great Match Against Time

A little over a year later Jack Powers rode in a famous time over distance horse race, called by its promoter The Great Match Against Time, held on May 2, 1858, at the Pioneer Race Course south of San Francisco. Here he set a record time of 6 hours and 43 minutes over a distance of 150 miles, with 24 California mustang horses, mostly belonging to him. The Daily Alta California wrote:
The farthest any one horse was ridden at a time was 4 miles, and the least distance 1 mile. He ran at top speed the whole distance. On taking a new horse, he would spring from the saddle, run a few steps, to stretch his legs, and immediately vault into the saddle of the animal which awaited him. Attendants sometimes made the rounds with him, tendering him drink, and receiving his orders.

At the end of the race Powers "publicly offered to bet $5,000 that he would ride 50 miles in 2 hours; and that no other man in California could perform the feat he had just accomplished;.... The average time of the race is within a fraction of 23 miles an hour. Powers does not hesitate to assert that he can make much better time than the above."

Bandit Leader?

In late May 1858 shortly after that long distance race, he was again accused of crimes, this time for his alleged role in the activities of Pio Linares and his gang by a committee of San Luis Obispo vigilantes. The gang was exposed by witnesses some of the gang had allowed to live, following the robbery and murder of two Frenchmen and the kidnapping the wife of one of the victims, at Rancho San Juan Capistrano del Camote, and the killing of a witness named Gilkey nearby, in San Luis Obispo County. These accusations against Powers were based on the confession of one of the accused bandits, Jose Antonio Garcia who had been discovered at a nearby rancho by a vigilante posse hunting for the gang. Powers was accused in Garcia's confession of participating with the gang in the killing of two Basque cattlemen in late 1857 on the Nacimiento River near San Miguel.
The vigilantes also made out Powers as being in secret, the outlaw gang leader, of this group of highway-robbers and murderers of the victims and witnesses, including Linares, Garcia and others, operating in southern and central California for several years since the fall of 1853. During the Gold Rush era, from 1849 to 1858, robberies and murders had been committed by bandits on the stretch of El Camino Real through San Luis Obispo County and Santa Barbara County, making it the most dangerous route in the state.
On the basis of these accusations, on May 31, 1858, Governor John B. Weller issued rewards for the arrests of the gang members still at large:
After the state governor issued this $500 reward for him on May 31, Powers, fearing arrest and delivery to vigilante justice in San Luis Obispo, was aided by friends in San Francisco, who hid him from the police, until he could flee the state on June 3, 1858. The August 27, 1858, Daily Alta California would later report:
Garcia, the one witness that placed Powers at the scene of one of the gangs crimes, was hung by the vigilantes at San Luis Obispo, Tuesday June 8, 1858. His hanging precluded his being held as a witness for a trial of Powers, five days after Powers had left San Francisco for Mexico.

Exile in Sonora and Death in New Mexico Territory

From the Los Angeles Star, on October 9, 1858 came word from Jack Powers:
The notorious Jack Powers is in Hermosillo. He has plenty of money, and is enjoying himself as if nothing had happened. He says that in two years he intends to return to San Francisco.

In June 1859, from Sonora, in the Guaymas correspondence of The San Francisco Herald came the following:
Jack Powers, about whom so much has been said, has located himself at Hermosillo, where he has opened a fine hotel. Jack is in high feather with the Pesqueira Government and the Mexicans generally, and in consequence is able to render great assistance to Americans traveling through the country, who are free to stop at Hermosillo. And to his credit be it said, that he has in all cases where it has come under his notice aided them. I know two parties myself, who left free, that took letters to Jack. Jack says he is no friend to filibusters, as the Mexicans have treated him kindly, but will aid his countrymen whenever and wherever he can, who are peaceably traveling through the country or pursuing a legitimate calling in it. He says in a short time he will again visit California and face his enemies.

The September 30, 1860 Daily Alta California, reported:
Jack Powers left, a short time ago, for Arizona. He has, I believe, purchased a ranch a few miles from Tucson, on which he intends to keep some horses he bought to sell the government. He also has a contract for making brick for a new fort about to be put up by the United States. Powers has many friends in Sonora and friends who would perhaps do as much for him as any he ever had in California. And of his whole conduct since he has been here has been most quiet and inoffensive, but little attention is paid to what is said of him in California.

However the truth was that after two years, gambling and running a ranch in the Mexican state of Sonora, in 1860, he drove a herd northward into New Mexico Territory to sell it in Mowry City, a new mining boom town on the Mimbres River. However he found this boom was only a rumor upon reaching the Territory. Then on November 2, 1860 the Daily Alta California reported by telegraph from Los Angeles:
On November 16, 1860, the San Francisco, Daily Evening Bulletin, published a letter from its Arizona correspondent at Fort Buchanan, Arizona, dated October 31, 1860.