Murder at the Mission: The Haunting at San Miguel

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When Mission San Miguel was founded on July 25, 1797 just north of Paso Robles, the founding fathers could never have imagined the terror that would occur at this sacred site just 49 years later. The scene of a horrific murder, many people believe this mission is haunted. We may not know about ghosts, but here’s what we do know about that cold December night. The original temporary church built in 1797 burned in 1806, and a stone foundation church was completed in 1821. After Mexico fought against and won their independence from Spain, the Mission system began to collapse and by 1834 the Mission had become secularized. On July 4, 1846, Petronillo Rios and his business partner William Reed purchased the floundering mission for a few hundred dollars, operating it as a lodging and trading post and Reed and his family lived there. Reed, usually wearing a blue peacoat, required that guests pay in gold, and he bragged that he’d amassed a small fortune, hiding it somewhere at the mission. Remember that California was not part of the U.S. at this time and any currencies from Mexico, the U.S., and even money from Spain were probably considered worthless. Gold was what mattered.

On the afternoon of December 4th, 1848, six men arrived at Mission San Miguel. Pete Raymond, Joseph Lynch, Peter Remer, Peter Quin, and Sam Bernard, accompanied by someone only known as “John,” an Indian from Soledad. They stayed that night but left the next morning heading south to San Marcos Creek just a few miles down the road but then they returned to the mission and spent the rest of the day and part of the evening there on December 5^th. It was during these early evening hours that this gang of cold-hearted men murdered everyone at the Mission including William Reed and his wife, Maria who was expecting a baby, and their 4-year old son. Also killed was Josefa Olivera, Maria’s mid-wife, and 3 other children; 11 people in total. The men had been warming themselves near a fire when Bernard offered to go outside to get firewood. He returned with an axe hidden in his armload of wood and struck Reed several times while John the Indian stabbed him with a knife. Sam Bernard and the others stalked and killed the women and children, then took the bodies to the carpenter's shop. When their blood-drenched bodies were were found they were still wearing daytime clothes.

Based on the interrogations of Joseph Lynch, Peter Quin and of Peter Remer, this is what happened that cold December night. After the ruthless murders they drank wine stealing any valuables they could find, which wasn’t much, ransacking the place in search of Reed’s gold – but they never found any. They left the mission that evening and spent the rest of the night south of present-day Templeton, and spent the next night south of Mission San Luis Obispo, but by this time a posse had been formed and was tracking them. What they didn’t know was that on the very night of the killings, a man named James Beckwourth was carrying mail from Nipomo to Monterey when he stopped at the mission and discovered the bodies. Shocked, he rode on to Monterey and informed the military governor of the murders. The gang left San Luis Obispo and traveled down to the Los Alamos area and obtained, we presume, fresh horses at a ranch. They rode through Santa Barbara stopping at Rancho Ortega, at present day Summerland, where the posse caught up with them, but this was not to be a bloodless arrest. Sam Bernard was mortally wounded. Pete Raymond jumped into the surf attempting to escape, and was drowned. Peter Quin was wounded and captured having killed a member of the posse; Joseph Lynch and Peter Remer were also captured, and later confessed to their parts in the murders. John the Indian had peeled off from the group around San Luis Obispo and was never found. 

The chapel interior

Reed’s partner Petronilo Rios, helped bury Reed and the other victims in the cemetery of Mission San Miguel, “just outside the rear door of the sacristy; a little to the southwest and near the old first church wall,” according to one account. All 11 people were buried in one mass grave and it must have been a disturbing sight seeing the bodies of the children.

Lieutenant Edward O. C. Ord (Fort Ord in Monterey was named after him) from Monterey and nine soldiers were dispatched to Santa Barbara to act as a firing squad.

According to accounts Joseph Lynch, Peter Remer and Peter Quin were executed by firing squad in Santa Barbara on December 28, 1848, near the corner of De la Guerra and Chapala Streets. Reports said they were buried in the cemetery of Mission Santa Barbara, but that seems highly unlikely that they would have been buried there considering the murderous acts they had committed at Mission San Miguel. At any rate, following the murders Mission San Miguel converted rooms into a hotel, saloon, and retail shops. Over the years many people have claimed they have seen the ghosts of William Reed, wearing his peacoat and a lady in a white dress around the mission grounds. 

Some swear they have heard muffled screams coming from near the chapel, and images of the young boys who were killed that night. Are ghosts real? And do the tortured souls of innocent victims attempt to make contact with the present world? Is the gold still there, or was it ever there? Does William Reed and his wife, Maria call out from their graves? That’s for you to decide. Perhaps when you visit Mission San Miguel you might find the answers.

Watch my “2 Minute Travel” video shot at Mission San Miguel at midnight: GHOSTS OF THE COAST

 

Crazy Characters of the California Gold Rush

Gold!!

The California Gold Rush saw tens of thousands of people descending into the Sierra Foothills (AKA Gold Country, and the Mother Lode) to make their fortune on gold and silver, or to provide lodging, services (legal and otherwise), and virtually anything as long as it made money. In fact it was these business people who did significantly better financially than any prospectors. Of necessity, certain key figures emerged during this time, allowing for Mother Lode history to be entertaining and always interesting.

Charles Bolton, AKA Black Bart

One of the key personalities was Black Bart the gentleman robber. His real name was Charles E. Bolton, a respected San Francisco citizen who committed 28 robberies against Wells Fargo stagecoaches before he was finally arrested. At first he mined for gold like so many others on the American River but that never amounted to much. There were easier ways to make money. His first hold up was in 1875 and he kept up his spree until 1883 when, during his last robbery near Copperopolis, just outside of Murphys, he was wounded, then finally arrested. He never took the personal belongings of the stagecoach passengers only the Wells Fargo loot, occasionally left poetry at the scene of his crimes, and was so scared of horses he committed his robberies on foot. It was said he was personable, even polite, when committing his crimes. He was known to have stayed at the Murphys Historic Hotel and you can stay in the room he once occupied. After his arrest he was sent to San Quentin and served just four years, but by 1888, the 59 year old, in poor health, vanished and no one knows whatever happened to him.

John Sutter

The name John Sutter will always be linked with the discovery of gold, though Sutter himself did not discover it; his partner John Marshall did in January of 1848. Prospectors were known as the 49ers, because by 1849 the “rush” to the Foothills was on and word about gold had spread to all parts of the globe. The gold was found at Sutter’s Mill, a sawmill on the banks of the American River in the tiny town of Coloma, north of Placerville not Sutter Creek. Originally from Switzerland, Sutter was never a good businessman and he racked up debts throughout most of his life. Generous and kind, he was often taken advantage of by the unscrupulous people he hired. He was granted 50,000 acres of land where the American River and the Sacramento River meet and set up his sawmill operations. He crafted a town nearby he called New Helvetia, what we now know as Sacramento. He fought for California statehood, worked with Russia to secure Fort Ross on the California coast, gave aid to immigrants in the area and his name is nearly everywhere in the Foothills. But the gold discovery did not make him rich. 

The exact spot where gold was discovered in 1848

Word got out and squatters came quickly, as early as March 1848 from San Francisco, and Sutter could not get them off his land. “By this sudden discovery of the gold, all my great plans were destroyed,” he wrote in 1857. “Had I succeeded for a few years before the gold was discovered, I would have been the richest citizen on the Pacific shore; but it had to be different. Instead of being rich, I am ruined, and the cause of it is the long delay of the United States Land Commission of the United States Courts, through the great influence of the squatter lawyers.” He was broke when he died in 1880. Today you can stand on the banks of the American River on the exact spot where the mill once was, and, at least for a moment or two, imagine what transpired that day in January of 1848 – a pivotal day which changed the face of California forever.

The One and Only Mark Twain

The most singularly well known person of the gold rush however was Mark Twain (Samuel Longhorn Clemens is his real name; Mark Twain is actually a nautical term he adopted) who migrated from San Francisco to the Foothills in the early 1860s, writing about the arduous mining life. While visiting friends in Angels Camp he heard a story about a frog jumping contest and how one frog lost because someone had fed the frog buckshot to weigh it down. No doubt amused by the absurdity of the situation Twain penned “The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County” which was published by the New York Saturday Press in November, 1865, and Twain became a media sensation and eventually an American icon. Even today the frog jumping contest is alive and well and as you walk along the stuck-in-time town of Angels Camp, just like the Hollywood walk of fame, there is the Angels Camp Frog Walk, with the various winners immortalized in bronze in the sidewalk. Twain published 13 novels in total (The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn are the most well known) as well as short stories, travel writing and his autobiography, published in 2010, 100 years after his death became a bestseller!

The Frog Walk of Fame in Angels Camp

For a look at the gold & silver mines in Southern California head over to my other travel blog: CALICO GHOST TOWN