, CALIFORNIA
HOME PAGE with Search Engine
HANGINGS FROM THE PAGES OF MARIPOSA COUNTY HISTORY

  Mariposa Chronicle  April 21, 1854

THOMAS MANCILLA,    convicted of murder in  Bear Valley, and sentenced to be hung on the
21st inst. has had his sentence commuted by  the Governor, to imprisonment for five years in
the State Prison,  and left last Tuesday, under convoy,  for the above "institution."
This is certainly a country in which the largest liberty is allowed to the greatest number.
Come on all ye who have suffered from the laws in other countries, and settle in the bosom
of this peaceful community.  transcribed by Tom Hilk

The Alta California, San Francisco March 01, 1854

Murder in Mariposa- Two Mexicans Hung by the Crowd
From Mr. Gould, one of the editors of the Mariposa Chronicle, who arrived in this city last night, we learn the patrollers of a desperate murder committed on Friday evening, near the ranch of Mr. Corbett, who keeps a public house on the road between this city and town of Mariposa.
On Saturday morning a man named Mc Closkey visited the house of Mr. Corbett, and told him that an old gentleman named Nathan Pratt had been murdered near his tent, and requested Mr. Corbett to go with him to the scene of the murder.  Mr. Pratt was an old man, between fifty and sixty years of age, and much esteemed in the neighborhood, and when the story of his murder was told, he consented to go, and on arriving at the place found the old man dead, weltering in his blood, his head crushed and horribly injured.
Information was immediately sent to Squire Gaines, at Quartzburg, and parties started out to obtain information who had done the deed. Suspicion fell on the Mexican people, and a man started off to the house of a man named Dolores, who when he saw them approaching, advanced, and telling them that he knew what they wanted to, requested them to hide while he brought the offender.  On being questioned  as to how he obtained the information, Dolores stated that  on Friday evening, one of his servants ahd gone off, and did not return until late in the night.  Dolores accused him in being engaged in something wrong, when the man faltered, and on being pressed, admitted that he witnessed the killing of Pratt.  Dolores told him then that there was no use in his denying it any more, but that he might just as well make a full confession.  The fellow did so, stating that himself and three other Mexicans had murdered Pratt for his money.
On a relation of these facts, the party took the Mexican, and carrying him to the cabin in which the murdered man was lying, tried him, found him guilty, and hung him up to the limb of a tree just in front of the door.  On his confession, sufficient information was obtained to identify another man, a Chilean, and a party of six men dispatched to Bear Valley in search of him.  He was at work at the time they arrived, and when the demand for his surrender was made, the MExicans refused to let him go, saying that he should not be taken except by a regular officer.  A courier was dispatched to Quartzburg immediately, when a company of forty started over forthwith.  On their arrival the Mexicans ace way, and the prisoner was taken over to the place of the murder, tried and hung alongside of his accomplice.
Both of them were found quietly , and booth met their fate like hardened criminals. Their bodies are now swinging to the limb where they were executed, and will probably continue to cast the wonder gaze of the public until time and decomposition shall allow them to fall to pieces.
The body of the old man Pratt was buried near the spot of his murder.= Stock. Journ
transcribed by cferoben

Weekly Stockton Democrat
Stockton, San Joaquin Co., CA

Sunday, 2 Jan 1859
EXECUTION -- Emeterio UGUES, convicted of murder at the last term of the 
District Court, was hung on Friday, the 22d inst., in Mariposa. The 
execution took place at 15 minutes past 1 p.m., and was only attended by 
about 25 persons, including the officers, physicians, reporters and friends 
of the prisoner. The 'Star' says the prisoner appeared very indifferent to 
his fate, and died without a struggle -- his neck being broken by the drop. 
After hanging 35 minutes his body was taken down and delivered to his friends.
Stockton Daily Argus
Stockton, San Joaquin Co., CA
Friday, 16 Mar 1860

EXECUTION in MARIPOSA -- The execution of Dennis MAHONEY for the murder of 
John KILLBURN on the 5th of Sept. last, took place in Mariposa on Friday. 
The Mariposa 'Gazette' gives the following particulars of the execution:

The gallows was erected at the eastern end of the jail, in a space enclosed 
to the height of about 20 feet. At 12 minutes past 12 o'clock, MAHONEY was 
led from his cell to the scaffold, accompanied by Sheriff CRIPPEN, 
Under-Sheriff HOWELL and Father AUGUER. The Death Warrant was then read by 
the Sheriff. He was then asked if he had anything to say, to which he 
replied by giving a full account of his difficulty with KILLBURN, closing 
his remarks as follows:

"If I was placed in a similar position again I would do the same thing 
over. I was defending my own life, and I do not think that I should suffer 
death for it. I little thought, when 12 years of age, that I would die 
ignominiously upon the scaffold. But it must be so, and I am willing to 
die, although I die innocent of the crime of murder. I forgive my enemies, 
if there are any, and I hope and trust that God will forgive me. I have 
nothing more to say, further, than that I am innocent, as God knows, of the 
crime for which I am about to give up my life."

At 15 minutes past 12, his hands were pinioned, the rope adjusted and the 
cloth drawn over his face. He cried "God have mercy on my soul," 
repeatedly. At 20 minutes past 12 the pulleys were drawn and the platform 
fell; and in an instant the spirit of Dennis MAHONEY fled affrighted from 
the earth it had stained with another's blood to the illimitable realms of 
God, there to be judged in infinite mercy.

The execution was witnessed by some 20 persons. It would have been well 
could all those in this State have witnessed it, who are accustomed to 
carry pistols in their pockets, and villainous whisky in their bodies.

The drop broke the neck, and no life was perceptible for an instant, except 
a slight twinging and quivering of the muscles. After the body had hung a 
proper length of time, it was taken down and buried.

MAHONEY was tried at the November Term of the District Court, found guilty 
and sentenced to be hung Dec. 30th. He was respited twice, as in the case 
of ELYEA, and like ELYEA, executed on the same day. The 'Gazette' adds that 
it was not until the day before the execution, when the cloud of impending 
death seemed to bound life's horizon, did he seem to be fully awake to the 
horrors of his situation. He however maintained a wonderful degree of 
composure under the circumstances, declaring his intention to die like a man.
transcribed by Dee S.
IVY HANGING
San Joaquin Valley Argus
July 5, 1879

IVY EXECUTED. – The Mariposa Gazette Saturday last, contains a column and a half article descriptive of the execution of Henry Ivy, for the murder of John S. Royal. The main points of the article are that the unfortunate man was hanged by the neck, in pursuance of the judgment of the District Court, on Friday, June 27th, for the murder of John S. ROYAL, and that: "The whole affair connected with the execution was well and satisfactorily conducted," that at three minutes past 12, M., the lever was pulled by the Sheriff, the door fell, and that Doctors Turner and Kavanaugh, who were present, "decided that the neck of the victim was broken; that his heart ceased beating at 11 minutes, and his pulse at 14 minutes." The taking of human life, in the manner described so minutely by the Gazette, is truly a horrifying scene, and it is well that the number permitted to witness such scenes is limited by law.
Julien LeDON Lynched 
San Joaquin Valley Argus 
February 4, 1888 

JULIEN LeDON. His Funeral Takes Place To-Day.  The Murdered Man's Remains Find a Resting Place in the Catholic Cemetery. 

The body of young Julian Le Don, who was so unceremoniously Lynched byunknown person, in Mariposa county, on Monday night or Tuesday morning last, was brought down here yesterday for burial. The funeral started
from the undertaking rooms of J. E. P. Williams, Main street, at nine o'clock this forenoon, Rev. Father McNamara, of the Catholic Church, conducting the funeral ceremonies; the cortege proceeded to the Catholic Cemetery, where the remains were buried in accordance with the rites of the Catholic Church. The mother and brother of the deceased were the chief mourners, besides whom a large number of sorrowing friends and neighbors followed the remains to their last resting place. The sudden taking off of this man in the prime of young manhood by unauthorized executioners - secret enemies, perhaps - appears to have been a most brutal, cowardly and unmitigated murder, planned and carried out in secret by men whom it would be base flattery to call cut throats. So
far as we can learn from gentlemen present at the Coroner's inquest, the hanging was done by two men only, who rode to the place of execution, one on either side of their victim to the fatal tree, where they committed the foul deed, and after unsaddling and turning loose the murdered man's horse, mounted their own animals and rode away. 
So far as we known suspicion rests upon no particular individuals, yet it is probable that circumstances will lead to the detection of the guilty parties, and that the local officers will do all in their power to bring
the guilty ones to the bar of justice. The deceased is represented by neighbors as having been a peaceable, quiet, honest young man, who attended strictly to his own business, and had few if any enemies among his neighbors. But even if he had been one considered dangerous to the peace and quiet of society, the manner of his taking off is no less a foul murder, and the murderers should be hunted down and punished for the crime. submitted by Tom Hilk   
LYNCHERS ARRESTED 
San Joaquin Valley Argus 
July 21, 1888 
Since the lynching of young Julien Le Don in Mariposa county last January the local officers and special detectives have been quietly working the case up. This week the officers came to the conclusion that the time had come to bring matters to a close and so they arrested Jim  WESTFALL, Jake McGIRK and a man named SMITHER's  charging them with the offense. Le Don was hung, it is said, on account of some stock being missed, and as the above named men were in the stock business, suspicion pointed strongly to them, thus the arrest. It is said that more arrests will follow. 
submitted by Tom Hilk

RETURN TO COLLECTION OF  HISTORICAL ACCOUNTS FROM MARIPOSA's PAST

GO TO HOME PAGE (with site search engine)