Judiciary

I have no records of the early day activities. The only old book which I have is the docket which covered a period in the late 1800's. I do not know what became of the other old dockets but presume that, like everything else in Camptonville, they were destroyed in either of the two fires which consumed the town.

I do not remember the names of any of the judges in the pioneer days and can recall only a few incidents concerning them. One of the old-timers in pioneer days was going out the trail to Oak Valley on horseback one morning and on the way was met by one of the local citizens, and as they met, the citizen asked the judge where he was going. The judge replied, "I'm going to Oak Valley; Bill S____ kicked his wife in the ass, and I'm going over to look into it."

There were three judges in my family, one in each generation. My grandfather was the first; in fact he served at two different times. Following him the first time, my father served for many years; then he gave it up, and the office was held by a few others. Then as an economic move, the Board of Supervisors conceived the idea of consolidating all of the townships, seven, and making only one, which they did - Marysville Township - for the whole county, with the judge in Marysville having the entire county. This was tried for a few years, but did not work and caused much expense and hardship upon the people, so the Board again considered the matter and made another change, this time creating three townships: Marysville, Wheatland and Camptonville.

When this was done, my grandfather was appointed Justice of the Peace and held the office until 1932, when because of ill health, he felt it necessary to resign, and the Board appointed myself in his place. I continued, thus, as the third Justice of the Peace in the family. Then later on in 1949, when the court reorganization amendment was adopted by the voters of California, the office of Justice of the Peace became extinct, and the modernized office of Judge of the Justice Court was established, which office I still hold.

One of the most important duties of the office in the early days was that of Acting Coroner. On account of the long distance to the county seat and the difficulty of slow travel, when an undetermined death occurred, it was impossible for the Coroner to come all the way from Marysville, and for such occasion the law prescribed that the local Justice of the Peace could act for Coroner, and a fee was prescribed by said law for the same.

As for myself, I have only so acted twice, and on one of those occasions for the County of Sierra, the latter being in the case of a man becoming deceased in a cabin over near Pike City during a terrific snow storm. I had the Pike City mail carrier, a characteristic man by the name of Eddie E. who carried the mail on horseback. He strapped the dead man, George Porter by name, over the saddle of one of his horses and brought him to town, where I conducted an inquest for Sierra County.

My father related more coroner cases than the rest of us, and as a boy I can recall some of them. The usual procedure was to empanel a coroner's jury, the inquest and autopsy was held usually in either the old social club hall across the street from the old Mayo saloon or in the dance hall part of the old IOOF hall at the site of the present Masonic Temple.

The last Justice of the Peace of Slate Range Township when the county consolidated all townships into one was Samuel J. Fraser. When I was 23 years old, he got mad at me and quit speaking to me. I refuse to live in a little town and not be on speaking terms with the others so one day I went over to his place, found him in the chicken yard, and had it out with him. He "had heard", as was the usual expression, something that I had said or done about him, all of which was untrue, so we leveled things off and were the best of friends the rest of his life. Along with the judgeship and notary business he was a barber, and he cut my hair free of charge, and when the poor man finally passed away, I arranged for his funeral.

The murder case of _________ created considerable interest. On a chilly night, we had retired and about 11:30, the doorbell sounded. A young married couple appeared, advising me that a man had been murdered about two miles up the highway. Not wanting to send for the Sheriff or Coroner before I knew the facts and it was true, the wife and I immediately dressed and proceeded up the highway. Sure enough, about two miles away in a car parked off the pavement, were three people: a man, his wife, and her brother, the latter having been murdered with a bullet hole in his neck and back, and the survivors being in an intoxicated condition.

The door of the car was open, and the dead man was about to slide out onto the highway, so we pushed him back in the car and shut the door. I had phoned Constable Marquardt before we left town, so he soon arrived at the scene, and we came back to town to telephone the Sheriff.

The survivors gave us a yarn that some passerby had come along and in an attempted robbery had slain the brother, but the final analysis was that the two men became enraged in a quarrel, and the brother shot him. He pleaded guilty and was sentenced to prison on a manslaughter charge.

We spent almost the entire night out there in the cold, as it took time for the officers to get here from Marysville. They finally arrived, but the photographer had forgotten the flash bulbs, so we had to continue to wait until he went back to Grass Valley, awakened a druggist and got some bulbs. Finally the Coroner claimed the dead man, the Sheriff and the other two, and had the car brought to town.

In the pioneer days, the local judges officiated at many weddings, but as soon as the three-day law relative to the license came into effect, their business subsided in that respect. Also, in those days, a judge could not go out of his township to officiate, nor could a license from another county be used. When Joseph Nuttall went to get married, they obtained the license in Nevada City and expected to get married here. It could not be done, so another license had to be obtained in Marysville. After it was all over, Joe took the Nevada City license back to the County Clerk in Nevada City for a refund, but the Clerk refused to give it to him.

The first wedding I performed took place in the old IOOF Hall. It was a big public affair and the first wedding to take place locally for 20 years. The bride was a high-school girl member of the graduating class; the groom was a young man sniping on the river. The community joined in making it a big affair. The date was set as the same day of the local high school graduation; an orchestra from the Marysville High School came up to provide the necessary music. The local people furnished the gown, the cake and other incidentals, and everything went off in regular order; about 500 people attended. First the graduation exercises, then the ceremony, and then the crowd danced the rest of the night. The old dance hall floor had some slivers in it, and the bride's gown caught a couple of times, but no one knew it (except the bride).

My next wedding ceremony took place at Strawberry Valley in the schoolhouse, where a similar wedding took place (excepting there was no graduation in conjunction with it). When I drove up in front of the schoolhouse, a couple of long whiskered natives remarked, "There's the preacher now". I could not stay after the ceremony, but was told later that this affair lasted until seven o'clock the next morning, and that some of the participants brought wine by the bucketful, so there would be no reason to end the festivities too soon!

We cannot refer to the judiciary without mentioning the constabulary or the Constable's office. And in this, I regret that I did not record more of the activities of that guardian of the law because there have been many interesting incidents. The most colorful Constable that I knew was I. D. Bray (his full name being Iradell Donaldson Bray).

He was a very fastidious man, and neat as could be. He had a white Van Dyke beard; wore light blue or green check gingham jumpers (for a shirt), starched trousers, and cowboy boots with the pants leg in one boot and out of the other. He limped and walked with a cane. In summer, he wore a straw hat. He lived in a neat cabin to the left of the highway as you come into town at the lower entrance. When he was ill before his death, he asked one his male nurses to look in the bottom of the wood box, wherein he found $1500 in $20 dollar gold pieces, his safe place for keeping it.

I. D. Bray commanded the law here for many years and was stern and fair in his administering it. Around 1911, the game warden had arrested a man for blasting fish in Oregon Creek, and Constable Bray incarcerated him in the local jail, which, of course, had no bathroom or cooking facilities. Thus, the Constable had to take the prisoner to the hotel for his meals. On this particular day, he took him there for lunch (dinner at noon in that day and age), and while starting to eat in the dining room, he told the custodian of the law that he had to go to the toilet.

So, Iradell, a trusting soul, even with desperadoes, permitted the man to head towards the bathroom unattended. I, at this moment, an inquisitive kid of 11 years who always saw about everything that ever went on, saw this man rush out of the parlor door, jump over the porch railing, and go like a deer towards old Chinatown. Had I given the alarm, he would have been captured at once, but I was too scared to say anything, fearing that the man might take vengeance out later, so kept quiet about it.

After a moderate time, when he did not come back, Bray became suspicious, and upon looking in the lavatory, finding the culprit absent, gave the general alarm, and everyone in the dining room, as well as those in the store and saloon, took up the chase for the fugitive. The fellow ran down to the bedrock, and soon the posse was catching up with him; he rounded a curve and ditched himself quickly in a ditch.

One of the teamsters for the store saw him, but made believe otherwise (apparently did not want to tackle him) and kept running, but the next man in pursuit, one of the clerks in the store, nailed the prisoner, and the rest of the posse caught up, and he was taken back into captivity and firmly locked back in the jail without being permitted to finish his dinner.

Constable Bray disappeared and shortly returned with an old bread pan full of ashes, unlocked the door, and putting it inside the jail, informed the culprit that from now on that was his toilet facility. The man was tried in the local court, found guilty, and sentenced to the Yuba County Jail.