Jack Powers

Jack Powers (c. 1827 – October 26, 1860), whose real name was John A. Power, was an Irish-born American outlaw who emigrated to New York as a child and later served as a volunteer soldier in the Mexican–American War in the garrison of Santa Barbara, California. During the California Gold Rush, he was a well-known professional gambler and a famed horseman in the gold camps as well as in San Francisco, Santa Barbara and Los Angeles.

Powers had two brushes with the law. He was tried as a member of The Hounds in San Francisco in 1849, and was also involved in a dispute over the ownership of a ranch in Santa Barbara County in 1853. In 1856, at Santa Barbara, Powers protected a fugitive from the vigilantes of San Francisco and helped him escape. When his role was revealed the following year, he was harassed by vigilantes in 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, he set a record-breaking time in a 150-mile 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 a notorious 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 the 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 years in California In San Francisco, 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 in Santa Barbara as a garrison, in relative idleness until the disbanding of the regiment in September 1848, just a few months after the beginning of the California Gold Rush.

Power 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 Power returned to San Francisco for the winter, he became a gambler there and also became associated with the San Francisco Society of Regulators. He was subsequently accused of being a member of the notorious anti-immigrant criminal gang "The Hounds" by a popular vigilante movement organized to rid the city of the gang 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 Power, who were then arraigned on charges of conspiracy, riot, robbery, and assault with intent to kill; all plead not guilty. While several others were convicted of various charges, Power was found not guilty on all charges.

Despite being acquitted, Power subsequently left San Francisco for the goldfields. There he was said to have had some success. That August he 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. or $175,000, In July 1852, Jack was one of a posse that returned two accused murderers, a Californio named Doroteo Zabaleta and a Sonoran named Jesus Rivas, from Santa Barbara to Los Angeles for trial.

In 1853, a state court case regarding the Arroyo Burro rancho ended with a ruling in Den and Hill's favor. Power refused to leave his rancho after losing his court case in the state district and supreme courts, claiming it was not within the state's jurisdiction to decide the matter but rather the interest of federal courts. Power, 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 Power resulted in a bloody clash in the town between some of Power's friends and the sheriff who was organizing a posse of 200 who were about to attempt to eject him from his ranch by force. Twist was badly wounded but managed to kill his assailant, a Californio summoned to serve in the posse. One of Power's friends, John Vidal, a fellow member of Power's company in the Stevenson Regiment, was killed and two others were wounded. Power fled back to his rancho chased by some of the posse. Following his loss of the rancho, Power 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. This earned Jack Power the enmity of that movement after McGowan released a book detailing his adventures and Power's role in aiding his escape. It earned Power the title of "The Notorious" before his name in the San Francisco Bulletin and other newspaper articles from then on.

The newfound notoriety soon led to Power being accused in early 1857 by a group of Los Angeles vigilantes (who were also after the Flores Daniel Gang) of being the head of a burglary ring that had been plaguing Los Angeles, a place Power often visited to gamble and race horses. Arrested on a warrant from Los Angeles by the Sheriff of Santa Barbara, he made bail but soon fled Santa Barbara, before a Los Angeles vigilante posse came for him on that charge. That he fled seemed 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 Power.

Arrested in San Francisco, Power fought extradition to Los Angeles while the vigilantes maintained influence there. Eventually he lost the fight in the California 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 evidence.

The Great Match Against Time A little over a year later, on May 2, 1858, Jack Power rode in a famous time over distance horse race, called by its promoter The Great Match Against Time, 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 Power "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."

The vigilantes also made out Power as secretly being 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, numerous 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.

After the state governor issued this $500 reward for him on May 31, Power, fearing arrest and delivery to vigilante justice in San Luis Obispo, was aided by friends in San Francisco who hid him from the police until he could flee the state on June 3, 1858 (~$ in ). The August 27 Daily Alta California later reported:

Garcia, the one witness that placed Power at the scene of one of the gang's crimes, was hung by the vigilantes at San Luis Obispo on Tuesday, June 8, 1858. His hanging precluded his being held as a witness for a trial of Power, five days after Power had left San Francisco for Mexico.

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.