aka James Robinson
excerpts from “Tales of Old Town” (San Diego)
by Henry Schwartz
(Ed Note: The beginning of the Yankee Jim story can be found in the Thompson and West, History of Placer County, 1882, page 66. The story continues in San Diego. . .)
Ben Currier befriended Yankee Jim and in turn Yankee Jim told him where he was finding his gold in Brushy Canyon near Foresthill. Currier told his friend and word spread until there were many miners searching the area for gold.
“Whether the loss of a possible fortune soured Yankee Jim on the human race is unknown. What is known is that he turned to a rather revengeful occupation - stealing other people’s horses. It was certainly lucrative and far less strenuous than digging. . . Entrepreneur, Yankee Jim thrived. That is, until the level of lawlessness reached such proportions that the miners demanded retribution. After a rogues’ gallery of cutthroats descended on the gold country, miners committees formed to issue summary justice.
The penchant of these committees to hand out “hemp cravats” caused him to pause. . . he saddled his best horse and cut stick for the coast.
He stopped in Stockton. There, with two others, he took up his trade again. . .working their way to hell-whooping Los Angeles. Beyond that lay San Diego, which, while known as a law-and-order burgh, offered desperados the advantage of close proximity to the Mexican border.
On the evening of Friday, August 13, 1852, Captain James Keating happened to be standing on a pier at La Playa on Point Loma. He noticed a man in a red shirt take a rowboat from the beach and row toward Keating’s untended schooner, the Plutus. Disturbed, Keating called out: “Whose boat is that?” The man shouted back that it was his own. Knowing this to be false, the captain demanded the man return the dingy to shore or else be fired upon. The man in the row boat muttered something unintelligible to Keating and continued to row out into the channel. Raising his shotgun to his shoulder, Keating aimed at the red shirt and pulled the trigger. The buckshot fell short. . . the man changed course and rowed to shore, ditched the rowboat, and escaped. . .the next morning Keating reported the incident and Mayor Tebbett, Judge Hays, Deputy Sheriff Reiner, and Sheriff Crosthwaite set out to find the man in the red shirt. . . .Later Deputy Sheriff Reiner rode out to continue the search, stopping to tell the Mexican caretaker at Rose’s Ranch north of old town (San Diego) to be on the look out for the man in the red shirt.
That evening, a man in a red shirt did appear at the door of the caretaker, asking for food. After eating, the man lay down to rest, but became suspicious of the movements of the caretaker and began to run. The caretaker’s wife quickly handed her husband a lasso and an old artillery sword. He gave chase.
. . .he began to gain on the man, whirled his rope . . .and threw it over the escapee’s head, pinning his arms to his sides. The man struggled to get free, but a tremendous whack on the head with the rusty old sword brought him to the ground . . .the caretaker lashed him to a mule and led him into Old town by midnight.
The next morning the committee of citizens interrogated the three captives. The man in the red shirt was James Robinson, known as Yankee Jim. His two confederates were William Harris and James Grayson Loring. As the San Diego Herald put it, “before night {they} persuaded them that they had better own up.” The trio confessed to having come down from Stockton, stealing and selling horses. In Old town, they had sold their horses and bought provision, then attempted to steal the Plutus to make their way to Lower California.
The arrests and confessions created a whirl of excitement in Old Town. The town had suffered from a crime wave for the last year and a half. It started with San Francisco volunteers who came to town to help suppress the Garra Uprising, even though the Indian revolt never fully materialized, they satisfied their yearning for a fight by roaring through the town on drunken sprees.
The sheriff and the courts were unable to curb the lawlessness. . .the mood of the town can be assessed from a brief item in the Herald on July 10, 1851. “ HORSE THIEVES: Mayor Tebbetts had his horse stolen on Wed. night about 12:00 from his very door. If thieves are caught they will be hung up to the flagstaff in the Plaza without trial”.
. . . Yankee Jim couldn’t have picked a worse time or place to run afoul of the law.
. . .Harris and Loring were arraigned separately, found guilty, and sentenced to one year in the state prison each.
The trial of Yankee Jim opened on August 17, 1852, at the Plaza Court House, just three days after he received the severe head wound at Rose’s Ranch. Judge John Hays presided. Yankee Jim served as his own attorney and exercised his right to challenge four of the prospective jurymen. At about two o’clock, the jury retired to deliberate. Some thirty minutes later, the jury returned. The foreman submitted the verdict:
“Your jurors in the within case of James Robinson . . . Have the honor to return a verdict of guilty and do therefore sentence him to be hanged by the neck until dead.”
September 18, was the hanging day. Yankee Jim was put on a wagon on the grounds of what is now the Whaley House on San Diego Avenue. A scaffold had been erected from two beams and an iron cross bar. Yankee Jim talked with Sheriff Crosthwaite, still disbelieving he would hang, perhaps thinking this was a hoax to scare him half to death as punishment. . . .Asked if he had any final words to say, Yankee Jim harangued the crowd at length. Finally the sheriff gave orders to whip the mules and pull the wagon from beneath him removing the last doubt and hope of Yankee Jim. . .
Excerpts from “A Ghostly Gallery: the Whaley House”, says that the ghost of Yankee Jim haunts the Whaley House www.whaleyhouse.org The most common hauntings are heavy footfalls crossing the floor up stairs. .. Between the parlor and the music room is the archway where it is believed the gallows stood when Yankee Jim was hung. On very rare occasions, when walking under the archway a person will feel a tightening around the neck and get a strong feeling of their air supply being cut off. . .
When he appears (?) he is a large man, thin, dressed in more common clothing of the day. . .
This is information came from Judge William Howatt of El Cajon who became interested in Yankee Jim and sent us this information. Other information on the laws and judicial process which he also provided are available at the Reference Dept. of the Auburn Placer County Library.