Lynch Mobs & Lucas Hood

The Gold Rush of 1849 brought thousands into the foothills of Northern California. Everyone wanted to find a gold claim of their own and most were willing to work hard to make their dream come true. Not everyone who came west with the Rush were honest and industrious however. The influx of people included an evil admixture of adventurers and criminals. As miners went along the trails with pack animals, a long period of roadside banditry began. Brutal, cold-blooded robbers, some working in gangs, often shot down their victims on little or no provocation. The shotgun and the six-shooter ruled supreme in a day when might was master over right; when life was cheap and often brief. Bullets usually settled feuds and for years justice was administered by lynch law with rough and ready men acting as judge, jury, and executioner. Rarely were they criticized. For years theft brought stiffer punishment than murder because, as one writer explained, “human beings could defend themselves while property was helpless.” No mercy was shown to horse thieves and there were many of them. Typical of the spirit of the times was this item in The Alta California in February 3, 1851: “LYNCHING – A Mr. Bowen at Curtis Creek killed Alex Boggs by shooting him through the head at second fire. Several persons present thereupon seized Bowen, put a lariat around his neck, dragged him to a butchers’ shop to the place where they hang their slaughtered animals upon.” There were times when an innocent man was accused of a crime and hanged for something he didn’t do. That’s exactly what happened to Lucas Hood, a gold miner in the area around French Camp, California. A laundress in the camp was having an affair with a trapper but couldn’t bring herself to tell her husband the truth. He knew she had been with someone and after a heated argument she told her husband she had been assaulted by Lucas Hood. The outraged husband called several of his friends and neighbors together and told them what had happened. The laundress stood by and watched as the furious mob grabbed Lucas away from his claim, beat him, and hung him from the nearest tree. Several months later the laundress was caught with her lover and in a heat of anger confessed she lied about Lucas. In an effort to try and conceal what they had done, a coroner’s jury was promptly called together. They decided the best thing to do was to change Lucas’s cause of death from a “hanging” to “death from emphysema of the lungs.” I can’t help but wonder what happened to the laundress. Did she continue on as though nothing had ever happened? Did the people who helped destroy an innocent man go to church on Sundays? Act as missionaries to other camps, work their jobs like nothing ever happened? Did they sleep well at night? If the subject was ever brought up did they insist that they deserve peace? Did they justify the horror of what they did with excuses about how difficult their own life has been? When people won’t listen to their conscience, it’s usually because they don’t want advice from a total stranger.