The Posse, Part 1
In the pre-dawn hours of May 15, 1874, a sheriff’s posse of eight men on horseback negotiated the steep ascent onto a rugged overlook 200 feet above a foggy marine layer that had drifted in overnight. Los Angeles County Sheriff Billy Rowland had deputized the eight men, who had ridden out around 2 a.m. and traveled northwest for eight miles, passing through Rancho La Brea but skirting well above the tar pits at the ranch’s southern border. Among them was George Beers, an embedded reporter for the San Francisco Chronicle, who later published a vivid account of the events of that day.
In the pre-dawn darkness, they reached Greek George’s place but made a wide circuit around the cabin. Finding no one up and about, they headed up into Nichols Canyon to wait for the morning sun to burn through the fog. The men knew that the cabin was occupied by George, his wife Cornelia Lopez, and their young son. Cornelia was in the ninth month of pregnancy, and her sister Modesta was there to help. However, the posse wasn’t interested in George, Cornelia, or Modesta. They were part of a massive manhunt that sprawled across Central and Southern California.
The subject of the search was the most-wanted man in the West: the bandit Tiburcio Vasquez. Sheriff Rowland had received a tip that Vasquez and his men were in the area and that Vasquez was spending time with Modesta Lopez at Greek George’s cabin. The identity of the tipster was kept secret to prevent reprisals, but the sheriff was confident that his source was reliable.
Born in Monterey
Tiburcio Vasquez was born in 1835 in Monterey, then the capital of Mexico’s Alta California territory. The house where he was born stood on the plaza across from the territorial capitol building. (The Vasquez house still stands today, though a second story has been added.) Named for St. Tiburtius, Vasquez descended from a distinguished Californio family.
His great-great-grandfather had arrived with the Juan Bautista de Anza expedition in 1776, and his grandfather had been the alcalde, essentially the mayor, of both Yerba Buena (now San Francisco) and San Jose.
Vasquez was educated, could read Spanish, and knew a little English. He was 13 in 1848 when the U.S.-Mexico War ended. California was admitted into the Union two years later. In 1853, when Tiburcio was 18, he embarked on a 20-year criminal career, beginning as a highwayman robbing stagecoaches. His range extended across Central California, with occasional forays to the south. The gang’s usual modus operandi was to stop stagecoaches and take the payrolls being transported to miners in the Sierras. On the coaches’ return trips, they would abscond with trunks filled with freshly mined gold. They also held up remote country stores, small hotels, and banks in crossroads towns, emptying safes and cash boxes, and seizing wallets, watches, and jewelry from unlucky residents who happened to be present.
Over the course of his career, Vasquez is believed to have stolen the equivalent of millions of dollars in today’s currency. He also paid a price, serving three terms in the recently opened state prison at San Quentin. Physically, he was a handsome devil, about five feet seven inches tall, with jet-black hair and a thick mustache. He often wore a short cape to hide his pistols and knives and was disarmingly courteous to his victims.
In August 1873, one of their robberies went tragically wrong. The gang took over a hotel and store in Tres Pinos, a remote farming center in Central California. The robbery was going according to plan until a mule driver and his team suddenly pulled into town. Vasquez and his men didn’t know the driver was deaf. When he failed to heed their warnings, a gang member shot him dead. The other hostages panicked and tried to scatter. The gangsters opened fire, killing two other unarmed men and wounding several others, including a teenage boy. But the dramatic, headline-generating moment came when Vasquez himself shot a man who was on his honeymoon. The man fell backward into the arms of his new bride and died.
California Governor Newton Booth placed a hefty reward on Vasquez’s head—$6,000 alive and $8,000 dead (equivalent to about $165,000 and $221,000 in today’s currency). The legislature also set aside several thousand dollars to fund a massive manhunt. Alameda County Sheriff Harry Morse was selected to lead it, and he would later claim to have clocked 2,700 miles tracking Vasquez by the spring of 1874.
The gang spent the winter of 1873-74 roughing it in the mountains north of Los Angeles. Even in these dire circumstances, Tiburcio couldn’t control his impulses. While staying with Abdon Leiva, one of his most loyal gang members, Vasquez seduced Leiva’s wife, Rosario. Inevitably, in such close quarters, Leiva caught them “in flagrante delicto,” as Vasquez himself put it.
Not surprisingly, Leiva demanded that Vasquez leave immediately. The surprise came when Rosario left her husband and two young children to go on the run with Vasquez and the gang. She camped with them in the wilderness for a month or two until she learned she was pregnant. After Vasquez abandoned her in the mountains, Rosario made her way home on foot.
The Rocks
On the day after Christmas in 1873, the Vasquez gang scored $2,500 in cash, jewelry, and other goods during a raid in Fresno County. They traveled south and robbed two stagecoaches and stole horses in the Antelope Valley, where they took shelter at the foot of giant sandstone outcroppings jutting out of the desert floor. Tiburcio’s older brother lived nearby, so one night Tiburcio set off alone to visit Francisco at his ranch. Francisco and his wife, Maria Villa, knew that Tiburcio was a wanted man, so they introduced him to his young nieces and nephews as a family friend, Don Cantua.
Tiburcio was immediately drawn to his 17-year-old niece, Felicita. He showered her with attention, danced, and sang for her. When his gang grew restless and decided to move on, Tiburcio stayed behind to woo Felicita. One night, on a moonlit ride in the desert, he seduced her. The next day, he packed up his camp and rode away to catch up with his gang.