Joaquin Murietta and Three Fingered Jack

As with all stories of the Old West, newspapers embellished everything to acquire readers.  So many tales were told of Joaquin Murietta and his gangs that no one can really believe much of what was published.  First off, there wasn't just one gang, there were five.  Many of the men involved were related to Joaquin, several being brothers.  Some even had the same name, although there is speculation about the spelling of his last name.

In the little town of Hornitos, most people were of German, French and Italian descent, not necessarily happy with the Mexicans who came to steal their horses.  Joaquin's brother was killed over such an event and his young wife ravaged, some say dying in his arms.  Joaquin was out for revenge.  This is the first view of the little town with only two streets to it's name.

As a young'n, I spent a lot of time at Roy's Cafe.  Our 600 acres of pasture was not enough to keep 300 head of cows and calves fed.  We leased land up in this neighborhood when the grass grew tall and trucked cattle back and forth.  

Most often, we had leftover pancakes filled with peanut butter for lunch.  Dad hated it, so quite often we would stop in at Roy's for lunch.  If I remember right, a grilled cheese sandwich was always on my list of edible items.  Sadly it is now closed.

Like many other towns up in the foothills, buildings are made of brick with steel doors that opened to the street.  If there was a fire, at least some of the buildings contents would be saved, not to mention keeping bandits out.  Joaquin and his men were not shy about walking in and taking anything they wanted.

This is Joaquin, or so the papers say.  It's hard not to feel sympathy for the man who was horsewhipped after watching his brother and beautiful wife killed.

Finally fed up with the gang's activities mostly consisting of stealing and killing, California Governor Bigler created the State Rangers, putting Captain Harry Love (former Texas Ranger) in charge.  In 1853, frustrated because they had not found their quarry, they encountered a group of Mexican men near Coalinga California.  In a shootout, three Mexicans were killed.  

The rangers claimed one was Joaquin and the other Manuel Garcia, known as Three-Fingered Jack.  As proof of their death, so as to claim the $1,000 reward money, they cut off Jack's hand and allegedly Murietta's head and preserved them in a jar of alcohol.  

Later, a Los Angeles man wrote to the newspaper saying they murdered the wrong guys and bribed people to swear that's who was in the jar so they would get the cash reward.  No one believed him, and the next year the rangers were awarded an additional $5,000 for stopping Murietta.  

In the meantime, they really had no proof that the men they killed were actually Joaquin Murietta and Three Fingered Jack, shown here.  

A side note ..... just after all that happened, Domenico Ghirardelli came to Hornitos and built a general supply store to sell not only his chocolates, but supplies to miners.  It was NOT a success.  He returned to San Francisco not long after and the store was turned into a saloon.

On with the story .... this is the town Jail.  It is truly not known if Joaquin or Jack ever spent any time here, but the head and hand supposedly did.  As a kid, this was more of a tourist town, and showing off the old jail was their number one attraction.  I spent quite some time inside, even viewing what was purported to be the head and hand in a huge apothecary jar high up on the one shelf.  THIS is that jar with a real head .... and you thought I was kidding!!  

At some point the jar was taken back to a San Francisco museum after traveling around so people could pay $1 to look at it.  Twenty five years later, Joaquin's sister was heard to say she SAW the jar and that was NOT her brother Joaquin.  Sadly they never resolved the mystery because it was destroyed in the 1906 earthquake.  That pretty much destroyed my childhood memory of 1958, thinking that was the ACTUAL head I saw.

There's one more story about the Jail.  There were lots of Chinese laborers working the mines around here, one of whom was named China John.  He was harassed terribly by some boys, making him mad enough to pull out his little revolver and shoot in the ground, but alas, the bullet ricocheted off a rock and barely grazed one of the boys.

People went crazy and they locked him in the jail.  That night a bunch of men somehow got him to come to this tiny window (probably with drugs) and were able to get a noose around his neck.  They pulled on it until China John's brains were smashed all over the inside of the window.  He was found the next morning.

The blood stains on the wall were visible until they were covered with a coating of lime.  So there you have it ... death in the Hornitos Jail, which only has two windows by the way, one on each side, and they are about 8 inches square.  There was only one escape since the jail was built on solid bedrock.  Some cowboys came and chipped out one huge block in order to remove their buddy, never to be seen again.

For such a tiny town, this one has lots of history, rumors and stories worth telling.  I'll be back on that road soon!!