Harry Love knew it wasn’t practical for his California Rangers to bring in all of the late Joaquín Murrieta—so they just brought in his head.
He stepped off the riverboat’s gangplank onto the levee, the crowd surging around him. All were headed toward Front (or First) Street in the river town of Sacramento, gateway to California’s burgeoning gold rush country. Heavyset and in new clothes, Captain Harry Love of the recently disbanded California Rangers was walking with several other passengers from the boat, maneuvering between the long lines of stevedores unloading goods from steamboats docked along the levee. The date was September 9, 1853. Registering at the Niantic Hotel, Love learned that two of his rangers, Jim Norton and Bill Henderson, had already arrived in town from San Francisco, bringing with them the trio’s prized possession— the head of bandido Joaquín Murrieta.
Love’s intention was to tour the gold rush country and prove that the dreaded killer was unquestionably dead—and perhaps to make a few dollars—by exhibiting the grisly trophy. Indeed, Norton and Henderson had already arranged for the head to be exhibited at the Whig Headquarters Saloon, on Second Street, first stop on the tour. Henderson is generally credited as the ranger who brought down Murrieta, but Love led the rangers on their three-month hunt, and he is the man then and now most associated with stopping the depredations of California’s most notorious outlaw.
Some newspapers still claimed the head was bogus, but not so Sacramento’s Democratic State Journal, which reported on September 12: “Harry has completed his job….They [the rangers] have rid the state of a merciless robber and murderer without committing any depredations themselves and are entitled to the gratitude of the whole community.” Three days later the Democrat-affiliated Placer Times & Transcript used the trophy to make a political statement: “JOAQUÍN’S HEAD —Joaquín’s head is being exhibited at Sacramento. It is to be seen there at the Whig Headquarters, the place where decapitated heads have been plenty since March last.” The three rangers and the bandido’s head soon moved on, 40 miles north to Marysville, and the generally successful tour stretched five more weeks.
Although it sometimes seems that way, Love did not suddenly appear in California to get his desperado and then disappear once he’d finished the job and “head tour” and obtained state compensation for his rangers. Henry Love was born in Vermont in 1810 and went to sea at an early age, first visiting California in 1839. He later served on riverboats and barges, gaining further experience as a keelboat man on the Mississippi. Tiring of the water, he worked on several large ranches, learning to ride and rope with the skill of a vaquero. He was working as a stevedore on the Mobile, Ala., wharves when deteriorating relations with Mexico prompted a Texas confrontation between U.S. dragoons and a larger Mexican unit. There was a call for volunteers, and the Mexican War was on.
In early May 1846 Love signed on with a Mobile volunteer company that promptly headed for Texas. After camping for a time on the Texas coast with Brig. Gen. Zachary Taylor’s forces, Love and the Alabama boys crossed the Mexican border and did some scouting. Taylor’s main force stayed on the American side and proceeded west, engaging in several successful battles with the Mexican army. On July 14 Taylor’s forces took the Mexican town of Camargo. Love and the other 15,000 troops camped there suffered terribly from summer rains, lack of supplies and especially dysentery and other diseases. Some 1,500 men died, and only 324 of the 754 Alabamans were fit for duty. In late July the Alabama troops were among the soldiers ordered back to Fort Brown on the Texas side of the Rio Grande. Love was discharged and mustered out at New Orleans on August 3.
After the war Captain William Chapman, U.S. Army quartermaster at Matamoros, hired Love as an express rider. As the link between various army posts, Love crossed great stretches of Mexican desert, dodging Indian raiders. In September 1848 Love and another traveler fought with Indians but were fortunate to escape with their scalps intact. Quartermaster Chapman’s wife, Helen, often mentioned the express rider in letters home. “Harry Love,” she wrote in a June 8, 1849, update, “came dashing up to the office last week, his horse covered with foam, bearing dispatches from Colonel Washington….We had heard he had been murdered, and the joy of his safe return was unbounded.”
In 1850 Love was in charge of the first Army exploration up the Rio Grande. After designing and building his own keelboat, Love traveled to within 150 miles of El Paso, and newspapers nationwide published his account of the territory. He had achieved a measure of frontier fame, but when he heard of the California Gold Rush, he bid farewell to the Rio Grande. He crossed Mexico to Mazatlan and then headed north by coastal steamer to San Francisco, arriving on December 11, 1850. In California, Love saw opportunity everywhere.
Love prospected for a time, did some construction work and joined an exploring company that never got off the ground. He quickly became aware that California was struggling to maintain some kind of order in the midst of murders, robberies and lynch mobs. In early 1853 a murderous gang of bandits led by one Joaquín Murrieta swept through the mining camps, robbing, attacking and killing prospectors. The outlaws were mostly Mexican vaqueros riding the best horses they could steal, and although posses engaged them in several shootouts, the bandidos always managed to outdistance their pursuers.
A year earlier authorities had fingered Murrieta’s gang in the murder of popular miner-turned-farmer Allen Ruddle, whose body had turned up on the Merced River, and Love and a partner had taken up the killers’ trail. The two-man posse captured one of the gang near Los Angeles, later killing him when he tried to escape their custody. It was as close as anyone had gotten to Murrieta’s gang. Love’s prompt action and his Texas reputation made him the choice to lead a 20-man force of California Rangers authorized by the legislature in early May 1853. “Captain Love’s company of rangers has been organized,” reported the Stockton San Joaquin Republican in early June, “and we expect much from the well-known energy and perseverance of their leader.”
Love and his men made their headquarters at a large ranch in Mariposa County. The owners, brothers William and Thomas Howard, had some of the best horses in the state and freely loaned them to the rangers to help them round up horse thieves and track Murrieta’s band. Still, it was a blistering hot summer campaign in which travel and outfitting expenses ate up a chunk of each ranger’s $150 monthly salary. Acting on a tip, Love and his men were prowling around the Coast Range south of San Juan Bautista when they came upon a group of Mexican vaqueros camped along Cantua Creek. It was early on the morning of July 25, 1853. William Byrnes, one of the rangers who had known Murrieta, suddenly spotted the bandit leader standing by his horse. “This is Joaquín, boys!” Byrnes shouted. “We have got him at last!”
Joaquín leaped on his horse and fled just ahead of several pursuing rangers. According to Bill Henderson, he and fellow ranger John White each shot Murrieta in the back, knocking him from his horse. Henderson then fired a shot into the outlaw’s heart. During the brisk gunfight back at the vaquero camp their fellow rangers killed several outlaws and captured two, while the rest made their escape. Temperatures had been well over 100 degrees, and the rangers gave no thought to bringing back any bodies for identification. Byrnes simply cut off Murrieta’s head and then severed the head and telltale mutilated hand of his lieutenant, “Three Fingered Jack” Garcia. The prisoners, Antonio López and José Ochoa, must have been horrified. While López refused to say anything, Ochoa promptly identified the dead bandit leader as Murrieta.
Love detailed Byrnes and ranger John Sylvester to take the sack of body parts and prisoner López on the long, hot ride up to Fort Miller on the San Joaquin River. Due to recent flooding, they had to swing northwest over marshland before crossing the river. Crossing the slough at a narrow point, the prisoner and the horse to which he was tied became mired in a hole and quickly drowned as Byrnes and Sylvester helplessly watched. En route to the fort the two rangers obtained a keg of whiskey in which to place the trophies, but they decided to bury Garcia’s bullet-punctured, unrecognizable head. Once Love and his men joined Byrnes and Sylvester at the fort, the ranger company headed north and made a triumphal entry into Mariposa on July 31, with the prisoner Ochoa. Area residents had known Murrieta, and Love immediately began collecting affidavits identifying the head.
After obtaining an alcohol-filled glass jar in which to properly display their trophies, the rangers gathered more depositions in Stockton and San Francisco. The first exhibition of Murrieta’s head and Three Fingered Jack’s hand came in Stockton on August 12 and was a resounding success. In San Francisco in mid-August people paid $1 for a glimpse of the outlaws’ remains. “The forehead is high and well developed,” noted The San Francisco Herald on August 19, “the cheekbones elevated and prominent, and the mouth indicative at once of sensuality, cruelty and firmness. The hair—of a beautiful light brown with a golden tint—is long and flowing; the nose high and straight, and the eyebrows, which meet in the middle, dark and heavy….The face tapers off to the chin —upon which, and on the upper lip, there is a thin beard like that of a young man who had never shaved. Under his right eye there is a small scar—the mark, no doubt of some desperate conflict.”
But some San Franciscans still doubted the head on display was that of Murrieta. One letter published in the Herald and ostensibly written by Murrieta himself particularly irritated ranger John Nuttall:
SEÑOR EDITOR HERALD—As my capture, or supposed capture, seems to be the topic of the day, I will, through your kindness, inform the readers of your valuable paper that I still retain my head, although it is proclaimed through the presses of your fine city that I was recently captured and became very suddenly decapitated.
The editor did qualify it, stating, “We have no idea that the letter is genuine but give it for what it is worth.”
Outraged at the aspersions being cast on Love’s company, Nuttall wrote a rebuttal on August 24. He enumerated the many affidavits confirming the identity of the head before continuing criticism of the letter: “That the head in question and now opened to inspection in this city is the veritable head of Joaquín Muriata [sic] I consider so palpably proven that further comment would be entirely out of place.” Nuttall closed his editorial tirade with the deposition of Catholic Father Dominic Blaive, who identified the head as that of the “notorious robber Joaquín,” whom he had known in Stockton two years earlier. Documentary evidence confirms that Murrieta, charged with stealing a pair of boots, had made a Stockton justice court appearance on November 28, 1850.
Love brought along affidavits, but probably not the head, when he visited Governor John Bigler at Benicia, the state capital in 1853. Love regaled the governor with tales of the ranger pursuit and the fight on Cantua Creek. After reading over the affidavits, Bigler must have smiled grimly. He was running for re-election at the time and was delighted with the work of the rangers. The governor signed off on the state reward of $1,000, which netted each ranger less than $50, but turned down the captain’s request that his men’s enlistment be extended for three months. After their meeting, Love caught the boat for Sacramento. He remained disgusted at implications from the anti-Bigler press that the rangers had killed the wrong man. Love knew better, but he probably also knew that the mischief-makers would be at work even if Joaquín’s own mother had identified his head.
Rangers Henderson and Norton got the ball—or head—rolling in Sacramento just before Love arrived. The Sacramento Daily Union previewed the popular exhibition on September 9:
EXHIBITION OF JOAQUÍN’S HEAD—Messrs. Henderson and Norton, who were connected with Captain Love’s company on the occasion of the killing of Joaquín Muriatta [sic], are now in this city with the head of the noted robber and murderer, which they design placing on exhibition this morning at the house of Mr. Vincent Taylor, on 2nd Street, known as the Whig Headquarters. The evidence secured to identify this as being really the head of Joaquín is of a most satisfactory nature; so that those wishing to gaze upon the bloody trophy may rest assured that there is no humbug in the matter.
Advertisements in the local press stirred up a stream of visitors that drifted in and out of the saloon. Those filing past the jar at the end of the bar noted that the convex shape of the glass container somewhat distorted the legendary bandit’s head. Occasionally one of the rangers would remove the lid and lift out the head by a buckskin thong attached to the scalp. Some would shudder and step back, while others crowded closer. Love’s arrival triggered a favorable report in the September 9 Placer Times & Transcript:
CAPTAIN HARRY LOVE—This gallant fellow, who won so much credit by his daring feats during the war with Mexico, is now in town and is sojourning at the Niantic Hotel. The company of rangers…have been disbanded, their term of enlistment having expired. During this time Captain Love and his men have succeeded in breaking up and ridding a portion of our state of several gangs of as daring and adroit scoundrels as ever went unhung….The chief of these whose cold-blooded murders, dexterous robberies and almost miraculous escapes have excited at times the horror and astonishment of our citizens, Joaquín himself, was disposed of among the rest, and his head is now in this city as a trophy of the promptness and skill of his captors….The rangers deserve much more credit than they have received for giving so good an account of him.
By September 15 the three rangers were displaying their trophy at Marysville, on the Yuba River. “While we were present,” noted the local California Express on the 17th, “a Mexican was brought in who had known Joaquín since he was a boy 10 years of age. Previous to examining the head, he stated that there was a certain mark on the cheek and a mark under his chin. These marks were found in the designated places and corresponded with the description given exactly. The sheriff and his deputy, Justices Danby and Filkins, all say that they recognize a striking resemblance in the features to one of the Mexicans arrested in 1851 for shooting Sheriff [Robert “Buck”] Buchanan. He also recognizes the head.” Many years later, in 1879, a writer for Nevada City’s Morning Transcript recalled that a sister of Joaquín had visited the exhibit in Marysville and told a friend the head was not her brother’s. Told of this, Love had responded, “I know this to be the head of Joaquín Murrieta, and she says it is not because she is too proud to own it.”
From Marysville the rangers went east to Nevada City, then south to Auburn, where on September 25, 1853, they exhibited the head at the National Hotel. Placerville was the next stop, then the mining town of Jackson, 40 miles farther south. At nearby Mokelumne Hill, one Alfred Doten viewed the display, and several years later he described the experience to a friend: “I was in Calaveras County at the time of [Murrieta’s] bloody exploits, and when he was at last killed, and his head was exhibited, I was well acquainted with many Mexicans who knew Joaquín well, and they all testified to the identity of the head….A Mexican woman who had known Joaquín intimately from childhood up was much affected on seeing his head and shed tears over it.” During a brief exhibition at San Andreas, a group of Mexicans took offense at the display. That evening three vaqueros stopped the local stage as it left town and told the driver they had vowed to capture the head before it reached Columbia. No rangers were aboard, so the vaqueros allowed the coach to proceed. The next Sunday, October 21, a group fired on the same stage, but the driver whipped up his team and evaded the ambush. “The head of Joaquín, which had been exhibited at Mokelumne Hill, was expected down in the stage both nights,” reported the San Joaquin Republican. “It is supposed the attack was made by his gang in hopes to obtain possession of it.”
The Columbia Gazette published a telling column about the rangers’ exhibit when it arrived in town: “Among the number of those who recognized the head as that of Joaquín Murietta [sic] was a Mexican who had known him in the State of Sonora, Mexico, from boyhood and had been his mining partner in this vicinity. A number of Chinese who had seen him in his Calaveras forays against their countrymen recognized the head instantly and gave certificates to that effect. Many may have had their doubts of the capture of this notorious robber chieftain before Captain Love’s visit to Columbia, but the concurrent testimony…was so conclusive that there are now no doubts in the minds of the people up here.” With a new batch of affidavits, Love and his entourage were back in Stockton by October 21 and called a meeting of the other rangers. The San Joaquin Republican reported on October 25:
Captain Love arrived in town on Friday last, accompanied by two members of his company who have been exhibiting the head of Joaquín throughout the state….There is not the remotest doubt in our mind that the rangers have got the veritable scoundrel’s head. The rangers held a meeting at this place last Saturday and decided to leave the head in the possession of our undersheriff, Captain P.E. Connor, late first lieutenant of the company, to be disposed of as he may think proper for the best interests of the company.…The company has derived no benefit from the exhibition of the head, further than establishing for their own future gratification its identity.
And so, the tour was over. There is little doubt most Californians were convinced that Love and his men had ended the bloody career of Joaquín Murrieta. The state legislature reinforced this view in May 1854 when it voted a $5,000 bonus for Love that the captain distributed among his rangers. A legislative report stated that Love and his men had received $15,450 for their services, or $735.72 each—a goodly sum in those days. Love’s life now became only somewhat less trying. He operated a sawmill near Santa Cruz and on May 31, 1854, married neighbor widow Mary Bennett, who like him was large and unattractive but also turned out to be domineering and greedy. By the end of 1856 Love was leasing his mill, concentrating on farming and trying to get along with his difficult wife. But by the mid-1860s the Harry and Mary Love marriage was in shambles, and it was soon the end of the line for the shabby old farmer who had once been such a heroic figure. Harry Love died on June 29, 1868, of complications from an arm amputation necessitated by wounds he had suffered during a shooting fray with his wife’s handyman, Fred Eiversen. Murrieta’s head would “outlive” the ranger captain.
Unable to find a suitable (or perhaps willing) repository for the head, former ranger Connor sold it and Garcia’s hand at auction on September 24, 1855, for $36. The new owner reportedly took the jar with the ghastly parts on an Eastern tour and then returned it for display in Andrew J. “Natchez” Taylor’s gun shop—sometime before a patron accidentally shot Taylor in September 1858. One Frank Marryat, who left San Francisco in 1855, must have had a good look at the Murrieta head somewhere, because he said of the disturbing display: “When I left San Francisco, his head was to be seen by the curious, preserved in spirits of wine; and however revolting such a spectacle may be, it is a punishment that one would think would deter the reflective from crime. Fancy one’s features distorted by the convulsive throes of a violent death, staring whitened and ghastly from a glass bottle, turned from with horror by the gaping crowd and then deposited for all ages, growing more hideous with each year on the shelves of a surgical museum!” Over the next few years the head reportedly reposed in various San Francisco saloons, including Abe Warner’s Cobweb Palace, a popular hangout among sailors and miners.
On February 18, 1865, S.J. Jordan established in San Francisco the Pacific Museum of Anatomy and Science, apparently modeled after a similar museum he had once operated in England. Featuring colored wax and papier-mâché models, mostly replicas of human bodies and body parts, the exhibition exuded bizarre sexual overtones. Jordan’s San Francisco collections were an odd mix of exhibits, including a “Cyclops child,” skeletons of deformed cripples and animals, five Egyptian mummies, as well as the heads and skulls of international pirates and criminals.
In early June 1865 authorities hauled “Dr. Jordan” (sham medical practices and lectures were his specialty) into court for maintaining a “nuisance” and an “immoral exhibition.” Medical witnesses, however, pronounced his museum beneficial to the young, and a jury rendered a verdict of not guilty. Years later, the doctor acquired Murrieta’s head and Three-Fingered Jack’s hand. A catalog of his collection lists “Item No. 563—Head of Joaquín Murietta [sic], a celebrated bandit and murderer, well known in California in early days.” The December 16, 1892, Sausalito News commented:
There are many curious specimens and relics, one of which is the head of Joaquín Murietta [sic], the famous California bandit, of which the city newspapers frequently speak as having disappeared. It is in Dr. Jordan’s museum, carefully preserved in spirits, and many of those who saw him in life have readily recognized his well-known features.
By the early 1890s Jordan’s collections occupied a three-story building at 1051 Market St., and by 1906 the gallery (no longer called a medical museum, because of the weapons and armor) had moved to 1209 McAllister St. When the San Francisco earthquake struck on April 18, young Charles Bull entered Jordan’s building, which somehow had remained intact. Bull found the gallery floors littered with models, displays and broken glass. Murrieta’s head lay among the shards of its container. But fire was spreading fast, and Bull left the gallery. “Riddled by bullets, then beheaded,” Bull wrote of the legendary outlaw years later. “Murrieta’s trial by fire was his last ordeal. He died as he had lived, violently, and his funeral pyre was undoubtedly the greatest the world had ever known.”
Bull’s memory was picturesque but faulty. While fire burned much of the devastated city, it never actually reached the museum. The head most likely lived on. Many years later came a report that a janitor had buried the head outside the back door of the building immediately after the disaster. The rebuilding of the area later in the 20th century has no doubt sealed what remains of Joaquín Murrieta’s head under massive slabs of concrete.
Californian William B. Secrest has been writing about the West, particularly outlaws and lawmen from his home state, since the early 1960s. Among his many books is The Man from the Rio Grande: A Biography of Harry Love (2005).
Originally published in the April 2012 issue of Wild West. To subscribe, click here.
