Forward by H. Hamlin

It was Wendell Phillips who said it took fifty years for Truth to get a hearing. In the case of deep veined Humorist Judge Almond, who could make master minds roll off their chairs in the Roarin' Fifties, it took Truth nearly one hundred years to get its hearing. Though Almond's art of expression was different than others, his genius cut as deep and wide a swath as that of J. Rose Browns, or John Phoenix. Who knows but what Jim Townsend, sitting around Almond's court room, picked up many of his anecdotes that were told later up in the Comstock and of which Mart Twain copied down and made stock. One thing is certain: Rufus (Jessup) Lockwood, Almond's contemporary and branded as crazy also, made mince meat of the "learned lawyers" when he met them in combat at San Jose and San Francisco. And the great genius Lockwood is equally as unknown, and perhaps more forgotten than Almond. There is an old Chinese proverb-do not mistake genius for insanity. One can learn to appreciate its value in Arbuckle's Almond. As one reads through Mr. Arbuckle's masterful treatise of this man's life he is reminded of Ingersoll's definition of humor. "It is the torch of reason." Also, he is reminded of Wyoming's Bill Nye and Nevada's Harve Cole, Oliver: Roberts, Sam Davis and Dan De Quille. All these men were original in their own particular brand of wit. Their buffoonery was the balance wheel and salt of the Old West. What would frontiersmen have done without them?

Both Hittell and Bancroft "missed" discovering Judge Almond in his true light. The former berated him as "rough, coarse and with abrupt demeanor indicative of low associations unfit even for a barroom." Bancroft seemed to have been more lenient with his caustic analysis. After paying the Mule State lawyer and Judge a compliment by saying that justice could not have been better dispensed had Mansfield, Marshall, Stephens, or Storey been seated in Almond's place, he makes his statement somewhat void by proclaiming he was "rude, uncouth, and illiterate so far as law learning went." That Hubert Bancroft assumes a paradoxical attitude toward Almond, by adding, "He did what was right without knowing it," It appears to a layman historian that Almond had 'em all guessing. He was both naive and cunning; artless in that he had little use for diplomacy; chicane because he always left a "nigger in the wood pile" as to whether he had any brains. Death Valley Scotty is a man of similar type. He will wander all over Death Valley looking the rear end of a burro in the face, then stumble into his castle and ask artist Nein to sing a strain from Faust, or Lucia. One is positive that he is a dam phool for tramping over the alkali wastes but when they see him come in with gold in the poke and hear him ask for the classics they think the same as Bancroft-"He did what was right without knowing it." And Scotty has made monkies out of many lawyers and some of Uncle Sam's smartest G. Men. Readers of the "Pony Express" are going to wonder why all these past 90 years Almond has not been discovered. The laconic answer is this: There have been no Clyde Arbuckles! This man is one among millions who can stop and discern on old trails that were seldom trod. He can put two and two together "like nobody's business." He is a staunch believer in the Bible, and especially that part which relates: "by their deeds ye shall know them." Clyde found Almond's latent deeds and exemplified them in his own home town of San Jose. From this he got his "toehold" on one of the greatest humorists of the Roarin' Fifties, and there were many of them. Your correspondent knows of no words better to explain how it all happened than to quote, herewith, an excerpt from Arbuckle's letter to the editor; from the man who swings his frontier pen in Almond's biography like it was still made of a quill from the grey goose: "Several years ago I read Bancroft's 'California Inter Pocula,' and I got a helluva kick out what it had to say about Almond. Consequently I got the idea that "HIS HONOR' was just another of those funny old codgers who came out here during the gold rush days, pulled a few political strings, and got a judgeship for which he was totally unqualified. But some months later, while going through the original minutes of San Jose Lodge, No. 10, F. & A. M., I discovered one of its original organizers and First Master was William B. Almond. Immediately connecting the name with the target of Bancroft's lampoon's, I wondered if he could be the same man, -and if he was how could such a man be a Mason, let alone Master, of a lodge of Masons? Well, one thing led to another. A college student who had been doing Eastern research on the California emigration 1841 to 1898) gave me the name, of a Missouri county history in which he had seen a William B. Almond mentioned. He said it was a William B. Almond who had visited California doing the gold rush. That's just the bird whose background I was looking for. There were no other details that he gave me. It was a pretty small tip, or clue-to work on, but together with the lodge records it gave me a toehold. You know the rest."

Yes, we know the rest, Clyde. It is another one of your sterling contributions to Western Americana -like all the rest of the commendable work you have done outside of the swivel chair. Your Alma Mater, the University of California, may some day give you an honorary degree. If they do it won't be a "gift," for you will have earned it. Students of California cannot afford to miss this most interesting biography of a man whom Will Rogers would have doubtless picked out for a side kicker had they lived in the same generation. After both reading and studying the life of the Cuspidor Judge-Virginia's product of Hampden-Sidney, they can decide for themselves if Almond didn't put his share of Roar into "The Roarin' Fifties," and if they are scholarly it will be little effort for them to understand the genius of some men who have said: "I aint got no edgeukashon."

JUDGE William B. Almond, of the San Francisco Court of First Instance was a personification of the old saying "You never can tell how far a frog can jump by the way he sits." His manners flabbergasted every lawyer who came before him; his disdain for precedent and jurisdiction left many another speechless. One after another they solemnly prounced him the "vulgarest thing" they had ever seen, especially Frank Turk, whose hat he once used as a spittoon Learned Historians who guffawed at his clownish antics begot, they said, of an ignorance of law. There seems to have been no breech of jurisprudence of which he was guiltless. He was accused of everything from injudicious drinking to paring of his corns and whisking the parings therefrom beneath the nose of his astonished clerk while court was in session. In short, he was labeled everything that a judge should not be-ignorant, vulgar, uncouth. But, as a matter of fact, he was nothing of the sort. His sole offense was that he was a better actor than his critics were lawyers. Born October 25, 1808, in Prince Edward County, Virginia, Almond was the first born of William and Suzanah Almond's family of` two sons and three daughters. Little is known of his early life, save that he was raised in comfortable circumstances and came of good Virginia stock that had settled in Prince Edward and Campbell Counties years before, As nearly as we can ascertain, his father was a man of considerable education and ambition, while his mother was one of those pious, simple-hearted souls whose interests seldom ranged beyond the duties of family and church. Both were rock-ribbed Presbyterians who left nothing undone to bring their children up in the same faith Besides having "a bushel of prayers" at home, they and the youngsters occupied the family pew Sabbath to listen to one of those old-fashioned sermons on the hot weather to come for all who faltered in the discharge of religious obligations.

However, young William's time was not taken up completely by scriptural contemplation. As soon as he was old enough he was sent to a neighborhood school, where he is reputed to have demonstrated something bordering on precocity. It is said that by the time he was fifteen he had a school of his own in which he gave complete satisfaction to parents who entrusted their offspring to his care. It is also said that during these same years he aspired to the ministry. But there seems to be no record to substantiate either story. If he taught at all, his teaching career was too short to be more than a small stepping stone in his stream of education. And though he unquestionably viewed all things spiritual in the light of Calvin and Knox, it is extremely doubtful if their theology was ever desirable to him as a life's work. He was just not of that type.

At any rate, whatever his objective, he completed his preparatory work in his eighteenth year and in the fall of 1827 entered Hampden-Sydney College, a Presbyterian institution of higher learning not far from his home.

Founded in 1776 by such men as James Madison and Patrick Henry, Hampden-Sydney stressed the liberal arts and was what a modern college man would call a "tough school." Every student had to take Latin, Greek, philosophy, mathematics, and the sciences - William Almond not excepted. Nor was he allowed to forget for a moment that his school's traditions were as high as its requirements were stiff. For example, the Class of 1791 alone produced a President of the United States, a Secretary of War, two United States senators, two members of the House of Representatives, a major general and a surgeon general in the United States Army, a minister to France, a minister to Colombia, a chief justice of the supreme court of Kentucky, a governor of Indiana, a judge of the State Court of Indiana, and several members of both houses of the Virginia Legislature. With a record like that before them, Almond's professors seldom gave his mind an opportunity to wander far from his studies.

Unfortunately, however, it is impossible to obtain any comprehensive account of his college career. Many of Hampden-Sydney's records prior to 1840, including the Roster of 1827-1829, have long since disappeared. Many more were lost in the fire that swept the college library May 17, 1941. But by piecing together such meager data as are available, we get the idea that he was preparing himself for law or politics-or both.

Shortly after his entrance in 1827 he joined the Union Literary Society, one of the school's two societies devoted to training students in the art of debate and public speaking. It had a large library in which he passed hours on end poring over the classics, which served him well in after years. His knowledge of them afforded him a precedent for every occasion and enabled him to feel as much at home on the rostrum as in his own dining room. Aristotle helped him with logic; Demosthenes gave him delivery. In debate, his friends said he invariably went to the central point of the argument, detested his opponent's weakness, and seized every advantage. Therefore, any warrior who entered the forensic lists with him had to be wide awake.

Another thing that sharpened his wits was the type of competition he received. There were several brilliant youths in his own class who could ably defend themselves on any platform in the country. Among them were John B. Floyd who became a governor of Virginia and Secretary of War; James H. Cox who rose to a high judgeship, sat in both houses of the Virginia Legislature, and was a member of the Conventions of 1851 and 1861; George Dame who served as a professor at Hampden-Sydney and became a prominent Episcopal clergyman Landon C. Garland who rose to the presidency of one college and two universities; and Benjamin Mosby Smith who distinguished himself as an author, preacher, professor, and staunch advocate of public schools. The competition between Garland and Smith was so close that they shared the valedictory honors.

These lads were the cream of Virginia's youth. It was with them that Almond worked, studied, and lived. His world and theirs was the same. They made plans together, enjoyed their sports together, and graduated together in the Class of 1829.

What Almond planned to do on leaving college, we have no idea; but it is certain his plans were upset, for shortly after graduation two unforseen events changed the whole course of his life. First, his mother died; then his father suffered some business reverses that cost most of the family's property. As a result, young William was glad to accept a none too highly paid clerk's job in Fairfax in order to support himself.

In this latter turn of events he took a terrible "come down" for a Virginia gentleman who had always had about everything he wished. However, he quickly adjusted himself to his new circumstances, made new friends, and got along well. He also discovered a lot of "essentials to his well being" were not half so important as he had once thought they were. But he at no time saw anything in Fairfax that could induce him to live there permanently. Instead, as his outlook broadened, he took interest in the development of the newly opened country west of the Mississippi. One account- the most specific - has him "allured by the wild stories which were being circulated of the great Platte Valley in Missouri," whither there had already been considerable emigration from the South, and which was being played up as a second Garden of Eden. He read everything he could find on it and inquired about it through friends and travelers who had been there. Then, when convinced it was a place where he could better his fortunes, he quit his job and persuaded his father, brother, and sisters to accompany him thither.

Historically speaking, the period of Almond's westward emigration is the most obscure of his life, with only a few conflicting dates to mark its events. It appears that he and his family left Virginia sometime in 1831 or 1832, intending to cut straight across the southern ends of Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois to Missouri, So far as we know, the roads were good and their journey was easy. Yet, before they reached the halfway point, the father, who had been ailing for some time, gave out. He was unable to stand the simple inconveniences of travel, let alone the rigors of beginning life anew as a pioneer on the Missouri frontier. Consequently, the emigration ended for him and all of the family but William in Highland County, Ohio, where they decided to settle.

It is probably just as well that things turned out as they did, for Highland County was a pleasant spot in a "remarkably healthy situation;" which up to then had been settled mainly by Virginians and North Carolinans. The Almonds liked the place and felt at home there because they were, so to speak, among their own people. So, with this comforting thought in mind, William remained with them only long enough to make sure they were properly settled and provided for. Then, with such worldly goods as he could conveniently carry with them, he moved on to Missouri by himself.

Reaching the end of his journey at Lexington not later than the fall of 1832, he found himself dead broke and alone in a world that hardly resembled anything he had dreamed of. The only thing of value in his pockets was a letter of introduction that some acquaintance had given him to present to James and Robert Aull, prominent Lexington merchants and traders. His reaction to the town was one of disappointment, sharpened perhaps, by a pang or two of homesickness. Nevertheless, he lost no time worrying over what appeared an uninviting situation. He took his letter to Robert Aull, who immediately hired him as a clerk.

The day that he went to work for the Aulls marked the beginning of a new education for William B. Almond. Cicero's excoriation of Catiline gave way to a more direct study of human nature under semi primitive, if not primitive, conditions. His employers were pioneer chain store operators who sold their merchandise not to polished, well dressed gentlemen such as resided along the Potomac and Hudson, but to rough, bearded, self-reliant men who frequently fought for their lives while carving a new nation out of the savage wilderness. "Established in 1825," theirs was the largest mercantile concern in western Missouri, with branches at Liberty, Independence, and Richmond. To their counters came all the legendary figures of the frontier and fur trade. The store at Lexington was one of the most important places on the old trappers' trail from the settlements to the mountains, later known as the Oregon Trail. Ashley's men had traded there, and those of Smith, Jackson and Sublette after them. Its proprietors were personally acquainted with Thomas Fitzpatrick, Jim Clyman, Jim Bridger, Henry Fraeb, Robert Campbell, the Sublettes, Andrew Henry and a host of others without whose names no creditable history of the American fur trade could be written. William L. Sublette and Robert Campbell, especially, came there for horses and mules. Moreover, situated on the river front, it was conveniently located for traders who traveled the Missouri. They put their craft into Lexington Landing, knowing they could buy from the Aull's anything they desired from a needle to a keelboat.

It was in this establishment that Almond took his freshman course in ways of the frontier, though he may have worked a while at the Liberty branch, which was also an outfitting station for traders and trappers.

One of the first things he learned was that merchandising on the rim of civilization was risky business at the best. Frontier customers were never too prompt in paying their bills; sometimes they did not pay them at all. When it came to this, trappers were the worst of the lot. Also, substantial losses resulting from transportational difficulties in getting goods out from Eastern manufacturing centers were not uncommon. A fire, storm, or boiler explosion might send a cargo worth thousands of dollars to the bottom of the river any time, while low water and sand bars could delay it till half its value was gone.

However, such things were taken for granted, the same as prices and stock lists, More important to Almond was the knowledge he gained of subjects having less to do with merchandising. He listened to yarns on Pawnee Rock and far-off Taos spun by James Aull's own bull-whackers and mule-skinners from the Santa Fe Trail. Mountain men, returning to the settlements, recounted for his benefit the doings on the Green and the Yellowstone, while local folks discussed life on the immediate frontier and what was needed to make it more secure. Impatient settlers pointed toward the Platte country and told him the day was coming when every "Injun varmint 'd have to driven clean off'n the plains” For the first time he heard of Major Bennett Riley who, with Ashley and Leavenworth, fought the Arikaras back in 1823, and who more recently had been protecting Santa Fe traders with his troops. He little dreamed this same soldier, as a general and governor, would one day approve his appointment to a judgeship in what was then El Paraje de Yerba Buena on the Bay of San Francisco.

REGARDLESS of whether Almond was behind the store counter or off on some errand in the country, this process of gathering information went right on. But eventually, he began to show more than an ordinary Interest in the fur trade. Though St. Louis was headquarters for all the big fur companies, Lexington, as we have seen, was perhaps the most important gathering place between there and the mountains for men in the field. It was not unknown for an expedition, outfitted at the former, to make its actual start from the latter. Consequently, Almond, working for the Aulls, was bound to meet some of the biggest men in the trade, including William L. Sublette for whom he formed so strong an attachment that it has been thought they were related.

Sublette, a lanky Kentuckian of Virginia Huguenot stock and brother-in-law of Grove Cook of the Bidwell-Bartleson Company of 1841*, was a veteran mountain man in every sense of the term. He was only nine years older than Almond, but since his coming to Missouri in 1818, had crammed into his life a startling mixture of exploration, fur hunting, Indian fighting, and business acumen. His most recent venture was with Jedediah Smith and David E. Jackson in the Santa Fe trade. It had lasted about a year, ending not long after Smith was killed by Comanches on the Cimmaron early in the summer of 1831. Smith had not been dead long, however, before Sublette again cocked his ears to the call of the mountains and began to mull over the ides of re-entering the fur trade. Finally, in December 1832, he and Robert Campbell, another veteran mountain man, organized their famout company of Sublette and Campbell, the only outfit that ever gave Astor's great American Fur Company real competition. By April of the following year, Almond had left the Aulls to join it.

As a member of Sublette and Campbell's 1833-1834 expedition, Almond lived the life that the, yarn spinners had so glowingly portrayed for his benefit. Yet, as with his emigration from Virginia, it is difficult to trace his movements because he apparently left no written account of them. The only comprehensive record of the expedition is the journal of Charles Larpenteur, a French trapper who, serving immediately under Campbell, was not overly interested in the individual, comings and goings of either Sublette or Almond. He mentions Sublette only occasionally and Almond but twice. Still, by adding these observations to other fragmentary data, we can at least surmise where Almond went, what he did, and what associations contributed to this highly important stage of his education.

The expedition, consisting of seventy men, assembled at Lexington and was divided into two companies-one of forty traveling overland by horse and mule, and the other of thirty ascending the Missouri by keelboat. The overland company, with Campbell as "boss in charge," seems to have been the more important. Besides Larpenteur, Antoine Jeunesse, and Louis Vasquez, it included three distinguished guests- Sir William Drummond Stewart of Murthy Castle, Scotland, Mr. Edmund Christy of St, Louis, and Dr. Benjamin Harrison, a son of President William Henry Harrison. Both companies, however, started for the mountains May 12, but after proceeding to a point about five miles up the river from Lexington, they stopped and waited three days for William Sublette, "who was coming in on a steamboat that was to tow the keelboat to Liberty."

Larpenteur neglected to mention which company Almond traveled with, but it makes little difference, for the pay and working conditions appear to have been the same in both. Each man hired out at $296 for an eighteen-month enlistment, or a little less than $16.50 a month, beginning in the spring of 1833 and ending in the fall of 1834. The entire company's diet consisted of bacon and hard tack with an occasional piece of mutton and whatever game they might find in the Indian country, Bread, sugar, and coffee were out of the question. Furthermore there was no change in their menu till they reached the buffalo range, where they all gorged themselves on the fat meat of young buffalo cow till they suffered intensely from mal de vache, or cow sickness, a violent dysentery supposedly caused by eating too much fat.

But cal de vache, which had been known to kill its victims, was not their only painful experience. Suffering from exposure was accepted as a matter of course. Medical care was practically nonexistent, blood poisoning from infected wounds common, and all too frequently hydrophobia, spread by mad wolves and coyotes, threatened the life of both man and beast. In fact, it left its marks on the expedition shortly after the Green River rendezvous that summer, when a mad wolf, which had already attacked a bull, bit a young man named George Holmes on the face. The disease manifested itself in the bull first, causing the poor animal to bawl incessantly. Holmes soon took what ordinarily would have seemed undue notice of its distress, then grew apprehensive.

"Can you hear that bull?" he asked everyone who would listen to him "Can you hear it? It's going mad! I'll go mad, too!"

He was right. By the time his outfit reached the Yellowstone he had gone raving mad. His fear of water was so great that it was necessary to blindfold him in order to get him across the smallest stream. Guards were detailed to watch him constantly. But one night, when they momentarily took their eyes off him to attend to some camp duty, he disappeared into the wilderness, stark naked, and was never seen again.

Veteran trappers considered such hardships and experiences indispensable to the process of hardening a greenhorn into a first class mountain man. But the principal ingredient of the hardening formula had little to do with human discomfort. It was the development of an Oriental indifference to the revolting punishment inflicted upon the chief beast of burden, the mule. In the Sublette and Campbell outfit, every mule had to carry a pack of two hundred pounds from Lexington to the mountains and back, through all weather and under all conditions. Save for his nightly rest, only death could relieve him of his burden before he completed the two-thousand mile journey. Consequently, his suffering was intense, for his back was worn raw long before he got home. An "unhardened" man could never have loaded two pounds, let alone two hundred, upon an animal in such condition. Save for Holmes' misfortune, Sublette and Campbell's journey into the interior that year was comparatively uneventful for both the river and overland outfits. Following the Green River rendezvous in July, the latter broke up into three units and cut across the, mountains by different routes to a point on the Missouri, about two miles below the mouth of the Yellowstone, where Sublette had been busy with his construction of Fort William, the seat of his operations in the Upper Missouri country. It was here that the two outfits joined forces and, so far' as we know, busied themselves with construction work and preparations for the coming season till late October.

Exactly what Almond did during this time, we cannot say but he appears to have been with Sublette, who was pretty much on the move, crisscrossing the mountains and making connections with scattered bands of trappers. On November 15, however, he came to a halt. Larpenteur's entry for that date records the establishment of two outposts-one fifty miles up the Missouri in charge of Antoine Jeunesse, and the other eighty miles up the Yellowstone in charge of "Mr. William Almond from Virginia."

The prospects of neither post were any too encouraging. There had been a warm fall, which would cut Sublette and Campbell's catch, to say nothing of heavy inroads made into it by Astor's American Fur Company at Fort Union, four miles up the Missouri from Fort William. In fact there were indications of trouble ahead. Kenneth McKenzie, the Astor agent at Fort Union, had vowed to drive all competitors from the country, and was unhesitatingly using what one historian called "Standard Oil tactics" to do it. He bought up the Indians wherever possible and left nothing undone to turn them especially against his rivals at Fort Williams.

Whatever the cause-weather or McKenzie-Almond found trade more than slow at his post on the Yellowstone. At times he wondered whether to consider himself a dud as a trader or resign himself to the fact that he had fallen into an easy job. Up to January 15, 1834, he had taken in only a pack-and-a-half "of robes and a few packs of wolves," with no larger volume of business immediately in view. Then his problem was solved in a hurry. A band of hostile Indians descended upon his post, robbed it of every thing of value, and drove him from the country. Lucky to escape with his life he made his way through miles of snowy fastnesses down to Fort William, where he learned some time later that Jeunesse had suffered a similar fate at his post on the Missouri.

Jeunessee, however had somehow managed to slip one over on the Indians; he reached Fort William March 20 with sixteen packs of robes and a few wolf and fox skins. It was suspected that McKenzie knew more about these robberies than he cared to tell. But they were only one burst of the Sublette and Campbell-American Fur Company fireworks that went on while Almond was in the mountains. The competition between the two companies eventually grew so hot that many trappers referred to Sublette and Campbell as "the opposition to the American Fur Company." Nevertheless, to the disgust of Almond, McKenzie, with powerful financial backing and a hundred and sixty men in the field" continued to make strong headway. Sublette, foreseeing the outcome so far as the Upper Missouri country was concerned, offered to sell out, but McKenzie refused to talk business with a man he was so sure of beating. Instead, he continued his underhand game of making the situation as hot as possible for his rivals and laid himself wide open to the Scriptural lesson that a haughty pride goeth before a fall.

Though Sublette had taken plenty of punishment, he had no intention of being ignominiously walloped. When things looked the worst, he quietly slipped down the Missouri for a little talk with the American Fur people at St. Louis. Things happened fast. Before the summer of 1834 was far along McKenzie's chin dropped to his shirt pockets. He received from his superiors a letter dated April 8 advising: "By enclosed agreement you will see that we have concluded an arrangement in New York with Mr. Sublette. We take such of his equipment in merchandise, utensils, etc., as remains at the close of the season's trade and we retire from the mountains for the ensuing year . . . . In making this arrangement our object was to keep Sublette from purchasing a new equipment and from connecting himself with houses that were making him all sorts of offers. His reputation and that of his patrons, Ashley, whatever may be the cause, are far above their worth. Nevertheless, such is the fact and it is enough to procure them unlimited credit. It is this which induced us to buy them out . . . . We hope, therefore, that taking all things into consideration you will approve the transaction."

Thus the brains of the American Fur Company sized up the situation and were glad to call it quits with a man that McKenzie thought could be whipped by a few spells of adversity.

There seems to be no satisfactory account of what Almond thought of the deal or what he did for some time before or after it. It is possible that he was not greatly concerned. His time in the mountains was about up, Sublette and Campbell were clearing out of the Upper Missouri country, and Fort William would soon be a memory. Of course, he may have gone over to the company's new mountain headquarters -a second Fort William -on the Laramie, about three quarters of a mile above its confluence with the Platte.* But if he did much of anything worth notice, it was probably some long range planning for his future, for somewhere in his travels he had picked up a volume of Blackstone's Commentaries which seems to have convinced him that law instead of fur hunting should be his life's vocation. It is said that, to the amusement of his companions who had not seen a printed page in camp since Jedediah Smith's Bible left the mountains, he kept the book before his nose as long as there was light enough to read from it. It made no difference whether he was in his tent, on his horse or standing guard. And as a result, it was not long till someone in the outfit dubbed him "Sir William Blackstone," a title that stuck to him till he got back to civilization.

Whether Blackstone actually inspired him to study law or merely recalled his mind to something he had laid aside five years earlier, is open to question. But it is pretty well established that as soon as he returned to Lexington he invested some of his hard-earned wages in legal textbooks, reserved the rest for his support till he had completed his studies, and placed himself under the tutorship of Circuit Judge John Ferguson Ryland.

RYLAND, a man of great moral strength and determination presided as Judge of the Sixth Judicial Circuit at Lexington from 1831 to 1849, when Governor Austin A. King elevated him to the Supreme Court of Missouri. He and Almond had a lot in common. Besides being Virginians by birth, both, had classical educations, had taught school, and came of parents whose fortunes had been adversely affected by sickness and death. Their approaches to the problems of learning were considerably alike, too. Each had a mind of his own, and neither allowed an academic past to interfere with his judgment of frontier problems. But with that, their similarity ceased.

Though only twenty-six years old, Almond, at the time he began to study law, had a better understanding of humanity than many a man twice his age. There was no social gap that his wide range of experience could not bridge. He was as much at home over a buffalo chip fire as on the hearthstone of a Virginia gentleman. His half-cooked bear meat went down as easily with trappers' whiskey as a hors d'oeurve with imported wine, while the sign language of a Cheyenne offered him no more difficulty that a St. Louis auction ad. It made little difference whether he worshipped God from within the four walls of a church or under a towering mountain pine; his understanding with Heaven was clear at either place, But his outstanding attribute was a lusty sense of humor, which, in the course of its development, ranged from simple boyish pranks to the more dangerous pastime of pulling wheels off the magisterial vehicle of the law. Time and again it has been said of him, "He was as found of a neat joke as a boy."

His playfulness, however, appears to have been pretty well subdued while he was studying under Ryland. Instead of practicing "fast ones" on his friends, he learned how to thread his way through the labyrinth of the law and equity. And thanks to his early oratorial training the intricacies of prosecution and pleading were hurdles easily cleared He diligently, if not unwittingly, studied the style of every lawyer with whom he came into contact, and made a practice of directing his finger "immediately to the root of the difficulty," a habit that Bancroft commented on to some length. As a result, it was not long till he mastered not only the fundamentals of his profession, but also the art of preparing the "airtight" briefs that so easily flowed from his pen during the Kansas land title cases years later.

By 1837 he was sitting as a Lafayette County justice of the peace. But whether this was before or after he was admitted to the bar is uncertain, for the Lexington court records do not reveal the date of his admission.* There is no question, however, that he had been admitted and was a full-fledged practicing attorney by January 1, 1838. On that date Governor Lilburn W. Boggs commissioned him Circuit Attorney of the Sixth Judicial circuit (now the Fifteenth), an official whose duties corresponded somewhat to those of a California district attorney of more recent years. He was sworn into office January 11, 1838 by Justice of the Peace James H. Graham, but it was not till the opening of the regular April term of the Circuit Court, four months later, that he presented his commission to his former mentor, Judge Ryland.

* Mr. B. E. Ragland, Circuit Clerk of Lafayette County, and his deputy Mr. William G. McNeel, have diligently but unsuccessfully searched the Lafayette County records for any mention of Almond's admission to the bar. (B. E. Ragland to W. C. A., Lexington, Mo., May 26, 1942.)

In discharging his official duties Almond fell in with a number of extremely able men, the most prominent of whom were Alexander Doniphan, S. L. Leonard David R. Atchison, Sterling Price, Hamilton R. Gamble, and Willard P. Hall. Each of the latter three served as governor of the state during some of the most trying days of its history. And to their number might be added another of gubernatorial caliber: Peter H. Burnett, a Clay and Platte County lawyer who in 1849 became California's first chief executive under American civil government.

Particularly interesting, was the trio formed by Almond. Price, and Gamble. They were all Hampden-Sydney alumni and Virginians by birth. Gamble, born at Winchester in 1798, was the oldest in years and length of Missouri residence, having come West in 1818 to become a prominent St. Louis attorney and Judge of the supreme court of the state. Price, born in 1809, was the youngest. Frequently referred to him in Virginia as a "Prince Edward County boy," he graduated from college in 1827, but did not emigrate to Missouri till 1831. Of all the Almond's political friends he enjoyed the most distinguished career, serving as a member of Congress from Missouri, brigadier general in the United States Army, United States Military Governor of Chiahuahua, Governor of Missouri, and major general in the Confederate States Army. Yet, by occupation, he was simply listed as a farmer from Chariton County.

Price and Almond grew up from childhood together and remained lifelong friends. But there is no record of any love lost between them and Gamble. They were staunch Democrats and Southern men, while he was a Whig and Northern sympathizer. In fact, he was so imbued with Northern ideals that in 1858 he removed from Missouri to Philadelphia in order to bring his children up in a "good Northern atmosphere," but when war broke out in 1861 he hastened home to oppose any Missouri movement toward secession. Price, who served as governor from 1852 to 1856, was elected by vote of the people. Gamble was appointed to the office in July 1861 by a convention which met at Jefferson City for the purpose of establishing a provisional state government after Union troops had taken possession of that part of the state. He died in office three-and-a-half years later, and was succeeded by his lieutenant governor Willard P. Hall, who had been Almond's law partner during more peaceful years.

During his clerk-student days Almond had his hands full of law at Lexington, to say nothing of occasionally traveling the circuit with Ryland. Yet he seldom missed anything going on at the local Cumberland Presbyterian Church. Besides attending all prayer meetings and. socials during the week, he regularly occupied the family pew of Captain William Jack, the Lexington Landing ferry keeper, every Sabbath. But his reason was not so much a "return to the fold" as it was the captain's youngest daughter, Bethinia, who- seems to have had enough in her favor to give any man heart trouble. William McClung Paxton, the Platte County historian, who was no man for half measures, described her as "tall, handsome, well educated, refined fascinating in her manners, a zealous Cumberland Presbyterian, and a devotee of music." Neither a regular goer nor backslider could resist a combination like that, and Almond completely succumbed to it.

Born in Kentucky March 12, 1812,* Bethinia came of intensely religious parents whose piety exceeded anything Almond had ever seen in his own family. Her father had been a founder of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church in the Blue Grass State, and with the vigor of an Old Testament patriarch never lost an opportunity to impress a scriptural lesson upon his wife and eight children. As his sight failed with advancing age he obtained a Bible with exceptionally large print in order not to be deprived of his favorite reading. It was his rod and his staff, the sceptre with which he ruled his household. Toward the end of his life, when infirmities racked his frame, he took it under his arm every sunny day and tottered to his church, where, as Paxton tells us, he sat at a south window for an hour of "reading, contemplation and prayer."

*1812 is the year of birth appearing on Mrs. Almond's epitaph in the Platte City Cemetery; though Paxton, in his Annals of Platte County, Missouri, has it 1814.

Almond was a pretty good Presbyterian himself, but was also quite liberal in his views and inclined to curb any great outward manifestation of piety. Yet, he seems to have got along very well with Bethinia's family. He and she were seen in each other's company so often that the neighbors soon began to nod knowingly. And on February 28, 1837-probably after he became justice of the peace - they were united in marriage with best wishes all around.

As Justice of the peace, with one of the prettiest women in town for his wife, Almond found himself enjoying life in a manner he had never dreamed of. His official title put his name before the public and accrued to his person much respect and dignity. He was flattered no end to have folks call him "Judge" everywhere he went. But his big break in this respect came in the fall of 1837, when the state militia was organized and he was commissioned a brigadier general. That really made him somebody in the eyes of his fellow citizens, and thence-forward to his dying day, regardless of what judicial positions he held he was nine times out of ten addressed as "General."

Allowing for fluctuation in the size of his command because of unsettled frontier conditions, he must have had several hundred men under him at the least. There were two regiments along that stretch of the Missouri, the 77th and 78th, each officered by a substantial staff of good political timber. Their drills, musters, and parades were grand, if not frequently hilarious, occasions which apparently took place with the slightest excuse. No holiday was complete without some sort of showing. Also, there was nothing that offered the local politicians, incumbent or otherwise, better opportunities to make periodic reports to their constituencies. Everybody who could, let go with a cyclonic spellbinder, especially if it happened to be around election time. The officers, in their most resplendent uniforms, rode through the crowd on fleet chargers, flashing their swords for any and no reason. The enlisted men assiduously toasted the health of "Old Hickory" from early morning to late afternoon by which time they usually developed some novel ideas regarding drill tactics. The spectators huzzahed and hurrahed and hung on till "the last dog was hung." But finally as darkness began to settle, they more or less reluctantly departed for home, filled with a brand of American patriotism that no modern ghost writer or canned speech mutterer could ever hope to inspire.

There is no telling how many of these occasions Almond and his only immediate superior, Major General S. L. Leonard, "commanded." But judging from their subsequent popularity and political success, their attendance must have been about one hundred per cent. Their first taste of real action, however, did not come till late in 1838. The Mormons over in Caldwell County staged an uprising that Governor Boggs thought had all the makings of civil war; so he called out the militia to suppress it. The local contingents went on the double quick, but by the time they reached the scene of action order had been restored, and they were forced to return home without firing a shot.

On December 17, 1837 Almond became a family man in the fullest sense of the term when Bethinia presented him with a baby daughter whom they named Lavinia. With Christmas and his appointment as circuit clerk soon near at hand, his cup of happiness was soon running over. Yet, peculiarly enough, he was not quite satisfied with his surroundings. For some time he had had his eyes on a strip of new territory known as the "Platte Purchase," which was attached to Clay County, where he frequently went to practice. It had been bought from the Indians in September 1836 and thrown open to settlement in February of the following year. No new counties had been carved from it yet, but it was filling up so fast that it was evident that some sort of division would soon have to be made. And when that time came, some beautiful political plums would drop into the laps of a dozen or so ambitious lawyers who were finding a lack of elbow room in the older counties to the East.

At length, on December 31, 1838, the legislature approved an act organizing Platte and Buchanan Counties, both of which were in "the Purchase." About the same time General Almond and his family edged a few steps closer to the setting sun.

March 25, 1839 found Judge Austin A. King, later governor, opening the first term of the Platte Circuit Court in the log tavern near the "Falls of the Platte." A grand jury of twenty members was impaneled and an even dozen attorneys enrolled. Among the latter were Almond and his old companions, Atchison, Doniphan, and Burnett. Burnett became the new county's first prosecuting attorney, discharging the duties of his office, as Paxton records, "with marked success." It was three years, however, before any of them had a chance to display his eloquence in the spacious rooms of a "new and unplastered court house." When Atchison sat as circuit judge at Platte City in 1841 he held court in an arbor constructed for the purpose at the home of G. P. Dorriss, whom the first grand jury had indicted for keeping a gambling house.

The Almonds' first years on "the Purchase" were rather nomadic. In 1839 they were living in a rude cabin on the Buchanan line, where Paxton first met them. "Though both were raised in affluence," wrote the historian, "they accommodated themselves to circumstances and lived as pioneers." A little later they were in Martinsville, a small settlement founded on the banks of the Platte by a miller named Zadoc Martin. But in the spring of 1840, when this town moved bodily over to Platte City, the Almonds moved with it. There they stayed three years, during which time Almond established his name in the Platte City legal directory, where it remained for years to come, no matter where he wandered. Then he bundled up his family and moved over to Sparta in Buchanan County for three years.

Despite his wanderings, which were always more or less complicated by his professional and domestic problems, Almond always managed to participate in civic, social, and political activities of all kinds. For example, in April, 1843, just before he moved to Sparta, his name led the list of the ten organizers of the Platte City Presbyterian Church. In the following year, while presiding as Master Of Sparta Lodge, No. 46 A. F. A. M., his name appeared for the first time in the annals of Missouri Freemasonry.* Two years later he was Master-apparently the charter master-of Platte City Lodge, No. 56. But little can be found of his career in this lodge, for when the Civil war came on the brethren scattered, and in July, 1864, the lodge hall, with all of its books and records, was burned to the ground. How Almond found time for such activities in 1844, however, is a mystery. Practicing in partnership with Willard P. Hall, and later with Judge Henry M. Vories, he enjoyed a practice at Sparta that kept him busy enough for a dozen men. Yet, the year had hardly begun before he found himself up to his ears in state politics, championing the cause of paper money, the most discussed topic in Missouri at that time. And to make matters more interesting, his opinions on this subject brought him into a headon collision with no less formidable politician than United States Senator Thomas Hart Benton.

*There is nothing in the Missouri Grand Lodge records to show where Almond was made a Mason, but that fact that he was master of a lodge proves that he had been a member of the fraternity for some time.

Following the dissolution of the first United States Bank in 1836, Missouri chartered a bank of her own known as the State Bank of Missouri, and authorized it to issue bank notes redeemable in specie. But three years later, when the banks of other states suspended specie payment for political as Well as economic reasons, she found herself in hot water. Her state bank refused to honor the notes of outside banks, though the men who held such notes wished very much to keep them negotiable. An issue was joined in a hurry. Much to the joy of the state's inconsequential Whig forces, the powerful Democratic Party, which for years had maintained overwhelming supremacy at the polls, was split into two clashing factions bent on each other's destruction. One, favoring continuance of paper money, especially that of outside banks, was known as the "Soft Money Party," or "Softs." The other, which refused to consider anything but gold and silver as media of exchange, styled itself the "Hard Money Crowd," or "Hards." More formally, however, they were the Liberal Democrats and the Regular Democrats.

The schism came in April, during the state convention at Jefferson City. The "Hards," whose messiah was Senator Benton, got control of the convention and tabled all resolutions on volatile state issues - particularly that on currency - and forbade the secretary to publish the votes by which they had been tabled. Then, after allowing only questions of "national character to reach the floor, they proceeded to nominate John C. Edwards of Cole County, a sure hard money man, for governor. This left the "Softs" blue in the face and hog wild, but still a faction to reckon with. Thoroughly aroused by the way things had been engineered, they broke away from the Regular Democrats and set up a ticket of their own, nominating Judge C. H. Allen for governor and William B. Almond for lieutenant governor.

In the meanwhile the naturally "hard money" Whigs prudently refrained from setting up either a state or congressional ticket. From their point of view it was smarter to strengthen their own political structure by gaining votes in the legislature and thereby do much to defeat Benton's chances for reelection to the United States Senate. After all was said and done, he was still their political enemy No. 1. But insofar as they did vote for state or congressional candidates, they voted for softs.

It was a hot fight from beginning to end, with the explosive Texas annexation question thrown in for good measure. Strained allegiances and torn consciences were common. Almond even found himself at odds with his old employers, Sublette and Campbell, who had some time previously become directors of the state bank. Many regular Democrats, who saw eye to eye with Benton on currency, flatly disagreed with him on the Texas question. The senator had let his determination to eradicate "dog paper," as he called paper money, to befuddle his conception of national interest. He vigorously opposed any form of Texas annexation on the grounds that it would further irritate Mexico and stop the flow of specie from that country to this. He insisted that no currency in denominations of less than twenty dollars should be issued because the poor people, who would have most of it, would suffer more from its depreciation than the rich who could better stand the loss. Indeed, some of his reasons for opposing "paper" were so novel that not a few Missourians thought he saw "paper" behind every bill or act that came up for popular consideration. Consequently, it was not long till the 1844 campaign largely became a matter of Benton or anti-Benton.

The "Softs," with a machine not so well organized as that of the "Hards," and hampered by a lack of funds, were not slow to exploit any political prejudices in their favor. It is hardly possible that Allen or Almond overlooked Benton's strutting around with a pocket full of specie-usually twenty dollar gold pieces which "Hards" boastfully called "Benton's mint drops." No doubt the senator's nickname "Old Bullion came in for a little criticism, too. Strings were pulled at Jefferson City. All the "farmer and settler versus banker and merchant" arguments were used and reused, and not infrequently some sharp-witted "Soft" sent a loudmouthed adversary scurrying for cover.

But the handicap was too great. The half-hearted combination of "Softs" and "Whigs" was not enough to carry the election, though it did gain so many seats in the legislature that Benton barely skinned through with a majority of eight votes when he came up for reelection to the United States Senate in January, 1845. As one of Almond's daughters summed it up over thirty years later, "This ticket (the "Soft") was a chip off the old block of Democracy, and as such, was cordially hated by the Whigs. And as a disunion shoot from their (sic) own party, was equally hated by the Democrats. Consequently, it was killed and buried at that election . . . . "

Nevertheless, the 1844 campaign was not without one significant effect. Thomas Benton had not been unhorsed, but he had been definitely placed upon the downgrade of his political career, with the knowledge that William B. Almond had been instrumental in putting him there. One account has it that the election's outcome so disgusted Almond that he vociferously foreswore politics, and he did settle down for a time, but it seems that the exigencies of a fast growing family had more to do with it than the election. He remained in Sparta till 1846, practicing with Vories. Then he got the "itch" to move again, and accordingly betook himself and his family back to Platte City.

Platte City had always been a sort of haven to Almond when things were unsatisfactory to him elsewhere on "the Purchase" When he returned to it in '46 he established his longest period of residence in any one place since his emigration from Virginia.

Bethinia probably heaved a sigh of relief on getting back to Platte City. It was no fun to hop all over the frontier with a brood of children, some of whom had reached school age. In compliance with the injunction to go forth and multiply, Almond now had four mouths besides his own and Bethinia's to feed. A daughter whom we have already noted was born in 1837. Two years later came the first son, who was christened William Sublette in honor of his father's old friend and employer. A third daughter, Virginia, was born in 1841, and a fourth Kate, in 1845. And the end was not yet.

But those were eventful years that made it hard for a man of Almond's type to stay put. It was during them that the overland emigration to California began. More than once his attention had been drawn to a long line of canvas-topped wagons winding its way westward. He watched them till they were out of sight, then followed them with his imagination the rest of the way. He recollected distinctly how a school teacher named John Bidwell of the neighboring town of Weston organized a company of emigrants that left for California in 1841. It was the first of its kind. He saw other companies set out after it. In 1844 his own family physician and bosom friend, Dr. John Townsend, started overland with the Murphy-Townsend-Stevens Party, the first outfit to take wagons through the Sierra Nevada. Many of his Lexington acquaintances, including Joseph Gordon and his whole family of stalwart sons and daughters,* were on the road West at about the same time he moved back to Platte City. So also was his old friend, Governor Boggs.

*Gordon Valley near Sonoma was named after this family. It included Joseph Edward Gordon, his wife Matilda, and their seven children, Andrew Jackson, Benjamin Harrison, James, Presley,

There is no doubt that Almond would have liked to ride at the head of one of these companies. It would have been a tonic to see the Rockies again, to say nothing of California. Yet, he felt he could do better for himself and his family by staying in Platte City.

Besides becoming father to a fourth daughter whom he named after Dr. Townsend's wife, the former Louise Schallenberger, 1846, '47, and '48 held little of interest for him. Of course, the Mexican War in which his old friends Doniphan and Price covered themselves with glory broke out in '48, but the name of General Almond seems to have found no prominent place on the muster rolls. His name did come before the public a time or two, however, and he indulged in a little political fence mending despite his reputed disgust with politics. In 1845 his name led a long list of 8th Senatorial District voters who protested Allen McLane's rejection as register of the State

Land Office as dirty politics. In December, 1846, the Platte County Grand Jury reported an unexplained shortage in the township school fund and appointed Almond, William M. Paxton, and James Davis a committee of three to investigate the matter. The committee, quickly discovering the source of the trouble, brought the investigation to a conclusion that earned the hearty thanks of local taxpayers. It discovered that a considerable number of purchasers of county lands had received patents to land for which they had never paid. And so things went till late in '48 or early in '49. Then good citizens of Platte suddenly sat up, all ears and electrified by news of the gold discovery in California.

Sacramento City,
Upper California
July 31, 1849

Dr. John Townsend:
Dear Sir:
It will probably astonish you to learn that I am here in California deeply affected with the Gold fever and looking around for some Immediate Gold occupation. This town has sprung up as if by magic and if there was anything here to my profession to do, I could be content. I am also inquiring diligently about the operations in the mines, & thinking in a few days probably of visiting them and seeing for myself "the Elephant." I came through the overland rout with a train of seven waggons & 37 men and have the honor of having commanded a train which left the Missouri River on the 3d of May & reached this point yesterday, with the waggons loaded with from 25 to 35 hundred pounds and all came through safely.

There must be between 3 and 5 thousand waggons behind us which will suffer immensely in my judgment at least. I have left my family comfortably situated in Platte City, Mo. and our last daughter is named for Mrs. Townsend-I left them all well-Will you be so kind as to go to the Post Master in your city and have whatever letters there may be in the post office forwarded to me here immediately-and write me your opinion as to what I can do in your city-and I want your advice-I am in a new world in every sense of the word and am at a loss what to do-But I have come determined to succeed - If I am pleased and so write back, my family will come by water & our lots are here for life. I can rely on you, & therefore ask your advice immediately-I prefer to reside in your City-But I must close-

Yours Fraternally,
W. B. ALMOND.

Please also have the letters & Papers of James S. Thomas for warded also to this place as he requests it-
W. B. A.

Almost three weeks elapsed before Townsend answered this letter. It is hard to say whether slow mail service or his absence from San Francisco caused the delay. The chances are that he was up to his ears in real estate dealings at Hunter's Point, trying to put over his "South San Francisco" project when the letter arrived. Of course, there could have been an entirely different reason for delay: his aversion to social correspondence because of the time it consumed. In one of his own letters he admitted he "hated it." But Almond appears to have been one of the three fortunate exceptions to his hate, for they wrote to each other like a couple of schoolgirls. And we realize the intimacy of their friendship only when we observe how Almond named his last born daughter after Mrs. Townsend the former Elizabeth Louise Schallenberger.

At any rate, when the doctor finally sat down to write, he got off something that looked like a combination welcome for a long lost brother and a chamber of commerce advertisement. It would be well to let the letter speak for itself.

San Francisco
August 19, 1849

Dear Sir:
Your favor dated Sacramento City has just been received. I must say I was a little surprised to hear of your arrival, and pleased to hear of the health of yourself and family. But I shall not hereafter be surprised at the arrival of any one. They are all coming, the whole world. Steel only attracts the north, but gold attracts every point of the compass. Well, welcome Old Friend! I shall be glad to see you in San Francisco. And if you do not realize your expectations of a fortune it will be, in all human probability, your own fault. There never was a country in which fortunes were so easily acquired as in this. You can make money at any thing that you will steadily and industriously attend to except loafing. It is the most unfortunate place in the world for a lazy man. Board and rent is too high to follow that business. But any kind of useful employment pays richly. I do not believe I would like to dig gold; but it pays well, and is a cash down business. Your profession is also very good. But it is my humble opinion that buying and selling town lots is the surest and most profitable business in California. There are people enough coming to fill every town that is laid out in California, and lots judiciously chosen will continue to rise in value for many years to come. You might practice law either here or in Sacramento City. I think this place preferable. But come and see us and we will talk these matters over together. My wife who has generally enjoyed good health in California has been indisposed for the last two months, and is now affected with bronchitis. I shall take her to where the air is dryer and warmer. We have a little son nine months old which will match your little daughter some eighteen years hence. My wife is very much pleased with (your) remembrance of her in naming your daughter; but she would be much better pleased to see Mrs. Almond and the child. She desires to be remembered to you.

And believe me
Your Friend,
John Townsend.
Gen. W. B. Almond.

Judging from later events, this reply must have been in transit at least a couple of weeks, but it is certain that as soon as Almond received it he lost little time in starting for San Francisco. In the meantime he had seen "the elephant" and employed his days and nights to the best advantage studying the conditions under which a gold-maddened people lived. The absence of legal machinery and courts of justice interested him intensely. The Argonauts had been getting by surprisingly well without such thing as statutes and ordinances as he knew them, but it was a question of how much longer they could continue getting by without them. To his way of thinking, it would be a short time indeed, and his chances of making a fortune at his own profession were exceedingly good.

At San Francisco Almond enjoyed not only his first meeting with Townsend in five years, but also a reunion with his old bar associate Peter Burnett. Both were to play important parts in his California career. Townsend had come directly overland to California in '44, but Burnett had lived in Oregon from '43 to '48, when news of the gold discovery attracted him to Sutter's Fort. Townsend was San Francisco's No. 1 booster, and to a certain degree participated in local politics. Just then he was a member of the city's more or less turbulent Common Council. Burnett had resigned an Oregon Supreme Court judgeship in August 1848, only to be elected to a similar tribunal in California about a year later. In fact, he had taken over the duties of this office just a short time before Almond's arrival in San Francisco.

The trio had hardly shaken hands and discussed their overland journeys and the folks back home before their conversation drifted around to San Francisco politics and political possibilities. Townsend, who had been in California the longest, voiced his opinions from a real estate promoter's point of view, for, as we have seen, he was completely "sold" on the town lots idea. He always had a number of building projects in mind, most of which were dubbed chimerical by short-sighted critics. On the other hand, Burnett, already dreaming of a governorship, had more of the practical politician in his makeup. Not once since his arrival in California had he taken his finger off the public pulse. In modern slang, he knew all the angles. So, between him and Townsend, there can be little question that Almond was "put right" all the way around.

There was still another man in the bay area who was interested in Almond's career-his old friend Lilburn Boggs of Sonoma. Boggs had been in California three years, but there is no record of what advice he gave to the man whom he once commissioned Circuit Attorney of the Sixth Judicial Circuit of Missouri. It is doubtful whether he could have added much to Townsend's and Burnett's help anyway.

Almond listened attentively to the counsel of his friends; then set out to see a few things for himself, knowing he had to pick up a lucrative source of income pretty quickly if he wished to live in befitting style. His reaction to the situation in which he found himself was a classic example of his ability to adapt himself to his environment. A few days later he appeared upon the streets of San Francisco in the guise of a peanut vendor, hawking his wares at a dollar a cupful. His presence in the plaza marked the beginning of California's most humorous and successful masquerade-a masquerade in which the masker passed under his own instead of a fictitious name. Besides Burnett and Townsend it is doubtful if ten people in the whole city knew his identity, and they kept

An epidemic of gold fever swept Missouri over night. The tales of Sierra streams tumbling over beds of gold were incredible; no man in his right mind would give them a second thought. Yet, whole communities succumbed to their magic spell. Farmers almost gave their lands away, saving only such equipment and live stock as were necessary to cross the plains and begin life anew in the land of gold. Storekeepers sacrificed their merchandise at half price or less-anything to unburden themselves and be off to the mines. Physicians gave up well established practices and ministers of the gospel wrestled with their consciences over forsaking their pulpits and congregations. Everybody who could made ready to start for California.

In Platte County many of the same people who had thrown cold water upon Bidwell's venture of 1841 now strove to be first in leaving their home state as Argonauts of 1849. Long before the first sign of spring they had organized emigrant companies and secured all available information on overland traveling conditions. One of the first, if not the first, of these companies was that organized by William B. Almond at Platte City. In his Annals entry for February 3, 1849, Paxton wrote: "William B. Almond, an old mountaineer, as well as an educated and accomplished jurist, forms a company of forty emigrants and draws up a constitution for their government."

For the sake of historical identification we may rightly call this company the Almond Party, for it was Almond who organized, commanded, and guided it all the way to California. Also, thanks to his mountain trail experience, it stood unique among its contemporaries because of the extremely fast time it made between its Missouri "jumping off place" and Sutter's Fort. It was on the trail just eighty-eight days! And this was only one of the four trips its leader made over the same route with equal or better speed. Consisting of seven heavily loaded wagons and thirty-seven men, the Almond Party struck the trail May 3. There is no record of any women in it; the married members, including

Almond himself, had left their families safe at home. Some of the men had no intention of remaining in California anyway. But save that three members appear to have withdrawn from the party some time before its start, we know little of its personnel or their adventures along the way. The only available original account of their trip is to be found in a single letter that Almond wrote shortly after arriving in California to his old friend Dr. John Townsend. The company's log book, which also served as a record of Almond's court of first instance, has long since disappeared -undoubtedly in the fire that swept San Francisco after the earthquake of 1906. As late as 1897 Paxton obtained much valuable information from this volume and mentioned it as a San Francisco public record that had "lately come to light" It is too bad that he neglected to make a copy of it for posterity, for today the only original records of Almond's San Francisco judicial career are a few acknowledgments or notarizations of deeds and land transfers in the archives of the San Francisco County Recorder.

However, we can be sure that Almond enjoyed himself as he rode at the head of his outfit. The first half of the route lay along the old trappers' trail, replete with landmarks familiar to his eyes. West of the Green, or perhaps the Bear, he relied on his fur hunting experience and such little ability as was necessary to follow a trail already well rutted by emigrant wagon wheels. Nothing escaped his eyes. His estimate of the number of emigrants on the plains and the troubles that would beset them was surprisingly accurate. Breaking camp early and turning in late, he took advantage of every practicable short cut and soon outdistanced companies that had started well ahead of his. As a result, a midsummer instead of fall sun beat down upon him and his men as they pulled into Sutter's Fort July 29 and dissolved their company with a "vote of thanks to Capt. Almond for his discretion, enterprise, and energy."

The next day Almond officially arrived in Sacramento City to take in the sights. On the same day he wrote a hasty letter informing Dr. Townsend, then living in San Francisco, of his presence in California: their mouths shut. He possessed that "somewhat intellectual aspect, fair address, free and easy manner, and that shrewd, practical instinct" which Bancroft tells us "passed current for its worth." His income enabled him to dress stylishly and live at a good hotel. He was equally at home with the common laborer, mechanic, lawyer, or politician. And for some reason unknown to his newly-made friends a number of the best doors in town were always open to him.

It did not take this peanut vending Blackstone long to satisfy himself that San Francisco was a city of unlimited opportunities, though, socially speaking, it was the most chaotic spot on the globe. Almost devoid of refined feminine influence, its streets were full of men - vigorous men, young, rough, hardworking, hurrying, and mad for gold. Every ship that came into the harbor brought more of them, and was in turn deserted and left to rot at its moorings by its own crew, who also joined the rush for diggin's. The plaza was lined with saloons and gambling houses operated by smooth fellows of predatory, if not criminal, instincts. The professional politician who made his living at shady practices had already established himself; the Barbary Coast, issuing from the womb of a world's iniquity, was well on its lusty way. Extra hotel space was unheard of, and rents were sky-high all over town. Consequently, the cream and scum of society rubbed elbows in the street by day and shared the same sleeping quarters by night, while a tiny cigar store, barely big enough to hold one man, fetched a higher monthly rental than many a large, present day building does for a whole year. But the thing that really caught Almond's eye was the antiquated system of jurisprudence administered by what Bancroft called "the ancient and yet unawakened magistrate of Spanish associations," which, with all its faults, commanded an excellent price. Earlier that summer the original Mexican "alcalde system" had been demonstrated hopelessly inadequate to meet the needs of contentious Yankees vociferously demanding their rights before the law. As a result, Governor Bennett Riley created a number of courts of first instance with civil and criminal jurisdiction, hoping to forestall further trouble till the people of California could establish a permanent judicial system of their own. And whenever the first alcalde of a community receiving one of these courts proved himself sufficiently qualified, he was automatically appointed judge. In San Francisco First Alcalde John W. Geary thus became the first judge of first instance.

Geary's court did as well as could be expected under the circumstances, but with an ever increasing volume of business its calendar was soon full to the overflowing. The vehicle of the law was still too cumbersome to move swiftly, and much too pompous for its load. Most of the people who were compelled to resort to law when their interests collided were busy people with little time to lose. They were in town today and gone to the mines tomorrow. Their depositions were almost impossible to obtain, and once they had left town there was no bringing them back. Therefore, the greatest need just then was a super-streamlined form of English common law and a judge who could administer it in the most effective manner.

All these things Almond thoroughly understood. "His traffic," Bancroft tells us, "had taken him many times a day to the little courthouse opposite the plaza, and he was on the most easy terms with the alcalde, clerk and constable, besides the lawyers and hangers on about the place." He had watched Geary's docket mount higher and higher till the situation became intolerable. Then, continues Bancroft, "An idea struck him. He would start a court and be a judge himself. He believed he could make a better thing of it than of peanuts."

It is extremely doubtful if the matter could accurately be put just that way, but it could be put just as concisely. Almond unquestionably perceived an opportunity for a man of his talents that fall when Governor Riley sought to relieve matters by creating a second court of first instance with civil jurisdiction only. So, he pulled the proper strings, and thanks to Peter Burnett's influence with Riley, the judge of this new court was none other than William B. Almond, Esq., late of Platte County, Missouri, and erstwhile peanut vendor. There seems to be some confusion regarding the date that Almond's court opened for business. Bancroft says December 12. Paxton, who used the judge's own minute book, makes it October 17, while a record in the San Francisco County Recorder's office shows Almond acknowledging a deed for Townsend and Corneille De Boom as early as October 8. At any rate, the court was located in a one-roomed shanty that only a year before had served as California's first public schoolhouse. It stood at the south end of the plaza, and was so small that when the judge, counsel, and litigants had taken their respective stations there was scarcely room for the jury or spectators. And, likely as not, the comfort of the spectators came before that of the jury. More than once during that abominably wet winter of 1849-50 the "twelve good men and true" had to step into the open yard behind the courthouse to carry on their deliberations.

Fortunately, there were few jury trials under such circumstances. His Honor discouraged them from the start, saying he could handle a case five times better without their interference. When the issue was as plain as the nose on a man's face there was no sense in burying It under a lot of words submitting it to the judgment of a "passel o' muttonheads." Get it out of the way and bring on a new case! Clear the calendar! Celeritas et justitia.

Judge Almond presided over his court with an iron hand. In sports language, a couple of inflexible ground rules regulated every case he tried. Since he had to eat, he first made sure of his salary, or rather his expenses, which came out of fees that he himself fixed.

These fees, paid in ounces of gold dust instead of coin or currency, have been the subject of much humorous speculation. Inasmuch as there were no fixed salaries in those days, practically all San Francisco judges and court officials drew their pay in the same manner. Consequently, some of them made for "the more abundant life" in a big way, Almond for one. Although he did not get his name into the highest remunerative brackets, he by no means impoverished himself. Several authorities have him netting anywhere from $15,000 to $30,000 for his short period of service. It is said that for so many ounces of dust he: would levy an, injunction; for so many more, lift it. Reversals of judgment could be arranged on the same basis. Bancroft tells us that "Judge Almond's ounce" became a byword. "Ounces were the sharp-edged Al Sirat which should bridge the infelicities of law to the heaven of rest beyond.

The next, and perhaps most important, rule of Almond's court was a gag rule, which to a great degree accounted not only for the lack of jury trials, but also for the speed with which the Court cleared the calendar. Except in matters that by their very nature required the most careful deliberation no lawyer was allowed more than five minutes in which to present his case. If he took longer, he risked defeat. Indeed, this time limit became so famous that it was a common remark that Almond needed only twenty minutes to handle a case that a good lawyer could have dragged out six weeks. The instant that His Honor fairly comprehended the nature of the case before him, he rendered judgment. Furthermore, much to the chagrin of the losing side, he frequently did so after hearing only one witness.

Yet, there was none who dared say he was not just-not even Bancroft and Hittell, convinced as they were of his vulgarity, uncouthness and illiteracy. The former believed the "judge did what was right - without knowing it," while the latter observed that Almond was "a man of quick discernment and, as far as it went, clear judgment." Both conceded him a few more points, but it was Bancroft who accorded him the fairer treatment in the long run. Balancing compliment with criticism, this historian convinces us that "it must not be inferred-that justice was not administered in this court, or that it was more uncertain here than elsewhere, or that it was more uncertain under the free and easy ruling of Almond, the quondam peanut seller, than it would have been had Mansfield, or Marshall, or Stephens, or Storey been seated in his place. In balancing the short, sharp encounters of busy men undergoing new and abnormal experiences, their learning would have hampered them like superfluous equipment, while the clear, free judgment of Almond directed his finger immediately to the root of the difficulty Almond determined the causes brought before him quickly, courageously, righteously-he was an honest man, and judged equitably between men who were in no humor to be trifled with."

Hittell could easily have availed himself of this charitable description, but he apparently ignored it. To him, His Honor was simply of the "same kidney" as many other "Irresponsible officers," noted for their ignorance and inability, but who boasted they could make up for their meager law learning with a large measure of horse sense.

The severest criticism of the Court, however, was not of his ability or inability to administer justice, but of his dress and general demeanor. Both were rather informal. Instead of a judicial robe or neat business suit, he wore the same clothes he had worn on his overland trip from Missouri-a red flannel shirt, trousers of coarse material, and high boots. His manner of seating himself was in keeping with his garb. He was at his best with his chair tilted back upon its hind legs and his feet either on his table or on a little shelf, or mantel piece, behind his table, considerably higher than his head. To this he added the extra-curricular activity of chewing tobacco and paring his finger nails. Only when turning his head to give instructions to his clerk or bark staccato decisions at litigants did he alter his positions or interrupt his apparent preoccupation.

His tobacco chewing caused not a little concern to more than one visitor to his court. There was something about it that squeamish people objected to. It seems that when his quid got a little too big for his stomach to accept or his mouth to control, anything that would hold a nicotinic ejection might serve as a spitoon. Lawyer Frank Turk who, it appears, was something of a fancy dresser, discovered this when he once left his best hat on the floor too close to His Honor's chair. After the first salvo, Turk moved his headpiece to one side, out of what he thought to be the danger zone. But, alas, he miscalculated His Honor's range and accuracy. Before the trial ended he stomped from the court room in a rage, holding his hat upside down and swearing he had never seen "anything so damned dirty" in all his life.

Almond's drinking habit, however, was less unpopular, though it has aroused some comment among the more abstemious and inhibited jurists of modern times. Naturally, as most historians observed, he found listening to dry cases a dry business. So, when things got a little too parched, he rose to his full height-frequently in the middle of a trial-and announced, "The Court's dry; the Court's adjourned." Whereupon everybody in the court room betook himself to the nearest bar, thankful His Honor was such humane and reasonable man. But when the press of business or inclemency of weather prevented his stepping across the street for a drink, he took it in court. He always kept a demijohn of No. 1 cognac in a little closet adjoining the court room for just such emergencies. Only once did he find the closet bare, and on this occasion there hangs a tale.

A young lawyer named Gregory Yale, who practiced in Almond's court loved a good drink and a good joke. Therefore, knowing the hiding place of the demijohn of cognac, he decided to have both. One morning when Almond was busy signing writs, orders, and other instruments, Yale gravely laid a document upon his table for signature. The judge, merely glancing at the heading of the document, promptly signed it, handed it back to the waiting Yale, and went on with his business of signing. Some time later aridity of the tonsilar area prevailed upon him to step over to the closet for refreshment, as was his habit. Discovering the demijohn gone, he summoned the bailiff, demanding to know its whereabouts. "I took it to Gregory Yale's, sir," the bailiff answered. "You took it to Gregory Yale's?" thundered Almond, instantly hot under the collar. "Who told you to do that?" "You did, sir," replied the bailiff, drawing from his pocket a sheet of folded paper and handing it to the judge. Seizing the paper from the astonished official's hand, Almond unfolded it and read for a first time the document he had signed for Yale only a short time before.

Good cause appearing therefor, it is ordered that the bailiff of this Court do forthwith convey to the office of Gregory Yale, Esq., that certain demijohn of cognac, now lying and being in and upon certain premises known and more particularly described as the chambers of his Honorable Court. W. B. ALMOND.

There were countless other ludicrous yarns told on His Honor, but the best two were intended to portray his ignorance of law and unfamiliarity with the classics. Concerning the first, a lawyer who had just lost a case in Almond's court continued to read aloud from a large volume that he held in his hand while preparations were being made for the next case. At length, irritated by the legal monotone at his side, the judge reminded him that the case had been decided and further remarks were useless. "Oh, I'm aware of that," replied the lawyer, "but I was simply reading a passage to show you what a fool old Blackstone was"

The second yarn sprang from two lawyers who took long flights into the firmament of rhetoric while fighting out a trivial case before His Honor. Suddenly one, hitting upon a term calculated to pin his opponent's ears back, triumphantly shouted, "You're an oscillating Tarquin!" Almond, who till then had been busy paring his finger nails, turned his head closed one eye and, with a puzzled expression, focused the other upon the offending Blackstone like a rooster spotting a chicken hawk. "A what?" he demanded. "An oscillating Tarquin, your Honor," was the reply. With that, the judge who Hittell thought was unacquainted with Tarquin and had never before heard the word "oscillating," took his feet off the table, leaned forward in his chair, and pointed at the lawyer whose eloquence had aroused the whole court room. "If this Honorable Court knows herself, and she thinks she do," he roared, "that remark is an insult to this Honorable Court. You are fined two ounces and stand committed till you down with the dust." "But your Honor," began the lawyer. "Silence," thundered the judge. "This Honorable Court will tolerate no cussing, and never goes back on her decisions."

As time went on, Almond's jurisdiction expanded. Whether he took matters into his own hands and branched out to suit himself, we cannot say. According to Judge E. W. McKinstry, "All was fish that came to the Judge's (Almond's) net, He took cognizance of matters, spiritual and probate, of common law and equity. But the civil law was always regarded as supreme, if anybody could be found who knew it was-" But the one thing that the polished McKinstry overlooked was admiralty. His Honor took cognizance of it, too, soon becoming a terror to shipmasters and merchants who waxed fat at gulling and robbing passengers. He was expert in handling such swindlers that Hittell, thinking he was prejudiced against ship owners, wrote, "A ship-owner or shipmaster seems to have had about as much show before him as a trimmer before Jeffereys." But the Annals of San Francisco revealed things in a different light. According to this work, "Owners and masters of vessels never supposed that in California, where everything was in a rude and unsettled condition, they would be punished for offenses which had been winked at, if not sanctioned, by the legal authorities in the oldest and best regulated communities; hence they were more reckless, bold and insolent than ever in sending their almost worthless ships around Cape Horn But they were mistaken."

Indeed, they were mistaken. From this same source we learn that eventually merchants and captains of vessels "would sooner compromise, even at a sacrifice, a disputed point with a sailor or passenger than submit the case to the judgment of his honor." If a passenger had paid for first class passage and then been forced to eat spoiled food and sleep on rainy decks as soon as his ship put to sea, he could obtain immediate redress simply by airing his troubles in the little court on Clay Street. A well founded complaint never failed to catch the ear of the judge who presided over it.

And so the masquerade, which began in October 1839 [incorrect - 1849], continued till May 6, 1840 [incorrect - 1850], when, as Paxton tells us, Judge Almond made the last entry in his minute book. As the state's judicial system became better organized and district courts replaced courts of first instance, the need for his particular services came to an end.

But during those seven months the, "Almond tradition was established-the tradition of a clown holding the scales of justice-which the majority of California historians have accepted without question for more than ninety years. Indeed, in all this time only one first rank California writer, Dr. James A. B. Scherer, has given us a glimpse of the true Almond. He, alone, it seems, saw completely through the masquerade, but the exigencies of the work in which he exposed it did not permit him to elaborate on his discovery.*

*The Lion of the Vigilantes, Boobs-Merrill Company, New York, 1939.

Another thing that helped to fasten the "tradition" upon Almond was his early departure from San Francisco. He had hardly been relieved of his judicial duties before he removed to San Jose, the state capital and county seat of Santa Clara County. It appears that he wished to be near his friends Townsend and Burnett, who had settled there some time previously, but it is possible that the prospects of some lucrative land title litigation were a greater attraction. The "court war" for the fertile acres of the Santa Clara Valley had already begun, and the town was a lawyer's paradise. Any number of land disputes were being threshed out, about to be threshed out, and sure to be threshed out. The possibilities of two-those of Ranchos de los Capitancillos and San Vicente, on which the New Almaden quicksilver mines were located-soon caught the attention of the best legal talent in the country.

At San Jose Almond was right at home among old friends and acquaintances from Missouri. In fact, a census of the city's permanent non-native population would probably have revealed a preponderance of erstwhile Platte, Clay, Buchanan, Lafayette, and Jackson County citizens. Therefore, instead of appearing on the streets as a peanut vendor or backwoods judge as he had done in San Francisco, he reverted to the shrewd Missouri lawyer with polished Southern manners. There was no sense in doing otherwise anyway. He had already made his fortune. Because he had heeded Townsend's advice on town lots, the profits from his real estate investments alone enabled him to coast along, enjoying life while making up his mind whether to stay in California. And though San Jose did have a few judicial problems, she hardly needed him to solve them; she had a "judicial clown" of her own in the person of Judge Joshua W. Redmon of the County.

So far as we can determine, Almond's first activities in San Jose were as a leading organizer of the city's first Masonic lodge. The Grand Lodge of Free and Accepted Masons of California, which had come into existence that spring had been granting dispensations to open subordinate lodges throughout the state. But up to then, the capital, of all places, had none. So Almond, Townsend, and Henry Clinton Melone took it upon themselves to remedy matters. On July 11, with twelve of their brethren, they petitioned the Grand Lodge for dispensation to open a lodge of Master Masons in San Jose. On August 4, a little less than a month later, their petition was granted, and on the following evening San Jose Lodge, No. 10, F. & A. M., met for the first time with William B. Almond presiding as its first master. Melone was the first senior warden, and Townsend the first junior warden. The first secretary was Caius Tacitus Ryland from Lexington, Missouri, a son of Judge F. Ryland under whom Almond had studied law.

This lodge, known in San Jose as No. 10, had an organizing committee and charter member roll that included some of the most famous names in California history. Among them, besides Almond and Townsend, were James Frazier Reed and William H. Eddy, heroic survivors of the Donner tragedy; Dr. Benjamin Cory, first physician to settle in Santa Clara County and member of the first legislature; Freeman S. McKinney, Missouri lawyer and veteran of Doniphan's Expedition, who was killed in 1857 as a member of Henry Crabbe's ill-fated filibuster into Sonora; Jacob D. Hoppe, member of the Constitutional Convention at Monterey and founder of the first public school in San Jose; William Van Voorhies, California's first secretary of state; and Louis Prevost, the French nurseryman who practically worked himself to death trying to introduce silk culture into California.

Other pioneers of equal or greater fame became members of No. 10 soon after its organization. As we go through the records we find the name of Josiah Belden of the Bidwell-Bartleson Company, a life member. Then comes Major Samuel J. Hensley of the Chiles- Walker Party, also a life member, and Moses Schallenberger of the Murphy - Townsend - Stevens Party. Thomas Fallen, who first raised the American flag in San Jose, was another life member. He came to California with Fremont, Carson, and Godey in '44. William Riley Bassham, first state senator from the San Jose District and member of the Grigsby-Ide Party, appeared on the roll in '52. William "Big Bill" McCutchen of the Donner Party did likewise in '54. A little farther along the researcher's eye meets the name of Charles McKiernan, or "Mountain Charlie," the most colorful character of the Santa Cruz Mountain country. Oldtimers still love to tell how, armed with only a hunting knife, he killed a grizzly bear in a fight that has become a Santa Cruz and Santa Clara County classic. He not only won the fight, but also lived to a good age after the bear had scattered sizeable chunks of his anatomy, including a piece of his skull, all over the landscape. And for a while No. 10 looked upon John Bidwell, the "Prince of Pioneers," as one of her own. He took his first degree in San Jose, but completed his work elsewhere.

One of the most interesting features of No. 10's early membership roll was a trio of Frenchmen that achieved statewide fame: Louis Prevost, Captain Henry Laurencel, and Pierre Sansevain. Prevost, a nurseryman and silk culturist, as we have seen, planted twenty-five thousand mulberry trees from seed during his San Jose career, and in the last year of his life, 1868-9, raised a hundred thousand silk worms. He was also an organizer of the Pioneer Horticultural Society from which the Santa Clara County Agricultural Society grew. Laurencel, a son-in-law of Townsend's real estate partner Corneille de Boom, was a mining man. [DRW - I have been told by a descendant of Mr. Laurencel that his relationship to Mr. de Boom was brother-in-law, not son-in-law] Allowing for a certain amount of legal hair splitting, it can be said that he was one of the few claimants who came out on top in the great struggle for Rancho de los Capitancillos and its millions in quicksilver. He stuck out year after year of the bitterest mining property litigation California has ever seen and remained financially connected with the rancho till March 22, 1861, when all the claimants therefor called off the fight as bad business, consolidated their adverse titles, and brought into existence the powerful Quicksilver Mining Company, which for years controlled every speck of New Almaden's ore. Sansevain, or Don Pedro, as the native Californians addressed him, was a nephew of Louis Vignes and son-in-law of Antonio Cunol. A vineyardist by vocation, he contributed much to California wine production and in later years managed his uncle' extensive vineyards near Los Angeles. But he will best be remembered for erecting in 1844 the first flour mill in the Santa Clara Valley, and in 1849 the two-storied adobe hotel building that became California's first statehouse under American civil government.

And so we could go on with No. 10's roll, picking out member after member who played an important part in the settlement and development of California. But that would be forgetting Almond, its first master, who diverted much of his attention to other things almost immediately after he had helped to draw up its petition for dispensation to organize. He began to invest in San Jose real estate as early as July 16, when he bought several lots from Grove Cook for "five hundred dollars in professional services." Then he established a law practice. On Monday, August 26, 1850, before Judge John H. Watson, he was admitted, to practice in the Third Judicial District Court, "holden in the City of San Jose, County of Santa Clara." The court records for that day inform us that "On motion of George D. Tingley, Esq., it is ordered (by this Court) that William B. Almond, Isaac N. Jones, (and) Freeman S. McKinney be admitted to practice as attorneys and that they sign the roll."

In hanging out his shingle in San Jose Almond merely became another drop in a rolling sea of legal talent. It was a common remark that there were already more lawyers in the town than fleas on a dog's back. Scarcely a traveler passed through the place without commenting on their omnipresence.

The Third Judicial District comprised all of what is now Santa Clara, Alameda, Contra Costa, Santa Cruz, Monterey, and San Benito Counties, and its court roll bore the names of the most distinguished barristers in California at that time. Furthermore, save for a few who lived in San Francisco and came to the capital only when cases demanded, they were all residents of San Jose who will be remembered as long as there is anyone left to write Santa Clara County history. Among those at the top of the list we find the genius Jonathan Jessup, alias Rufus Lockwood; the brilliant James M. Jones, who in his twenty-fifth year was the youngest member of the Constitutional Convention; the Virginian Edmund Randolph, who, at the Opening of the Civil War, delivered the most vitriolic pro-Southern speech ever heard in California; William T. Wallace, dubbed "Billy, my boy" by Judge J. W. Redmon; William Matthews, one of the smoothest land case attorneys in the country; C. T. Ryland, Almond's old friend and lodge brother who married Governor Burnett's daughter and distinguished himself in banking as well as law; Judge R. F. Peckham, whose wit was unassailable, but whose shirt front suffered from his tobacco chewing and table manners; and J. Alexander "Alex" Yoell, who was given to throwing ink bottles at judges and clerks of court and was said to have had a temper like an old she bear with a boil on her nose.

There were also other bright minds, as the late Gene Sawyer called them, who were perhaps just as capable. . But they conducted their cases in a manner that brought them considerably less publicity.

When practicing with such associates in either the district or county court Almond must have had many an opportunity for practical joking; and there is little doubt that be did pull an occasional fast one. But, so far as we can find out, the buffoonery that characterized his San Francisco court procedure was entirely absent. In fact, his first recorded words in a Santa Clara County court were of the utmost respect and gravity. He had evidently returned from a visit to San Francisco on the morning that he was admitted to practice in Judge Watson's court, and was the conveyor of important news. When the judge called on him for a few remarks he responded officially announcing the death of the President of the United States. In his next and last entry for that day the clerk of the court wrote: "William B. Almond, Esqr. Announced the death of Zachary Taylor (sic) President of the United States and moved the Court to adjourn. Thereupon the Judge ordered the Court adjourned until tomorrow 10 clk."

When court reopened the next morning Almond began his San Jose legal career with a foreclosure of mortgage suit against Joseph S. Ruckel of San Francisco. It was one of two suits that he and Peter Quivey of San Jose filed against the same defendant for the same reason, and in which they gained some eleven thousand dollars in San Francisco and Santa Clara County real estate.

Save for his accustomed family life, Almond's conduct during his sojourn in San Jose was virtually the same as if he had been at home in Platte City. He traveled in the usual professional, fraternal, and- perhaps - religious circle, for the local Presbyterian Church was by then a well established and fast growing institution. Toward the middle of September, however, he began to sell off a piece of property here and there as if raising cash for some new venture on the twenty-first Townsend took a number of San Jose lots off his hands for four thousand dollars. These sales continued off and on throughout October till, by the first of November, a noticeable list of them had appeared in the county records. It was then plain that William B. Almond was getting ready to leave California. He was evidently not "sold" on the state, and had not written back for his family, as the letter he wrote to Townsend from Sutter's Fort a little over a year earlier had indicated he might do.

At this point we are again confronted by the question of how big a fortune Almond made in California, There has been considerable controversy on the subject, with the previously mentioned authorities setting the amount anywhere from fifteen to thirty thousand dollars. It seems safe to believe, however, that, if he received not less than fifteen thousand dollars for his judicial services and added to it a fair profit from his real estate dealings, he was at least twenty-five thousand dollars to the good on the day that he started for home. And this is not counting the value of a number of his lots still unsold.

On November 2 Almond signed the minutes of No. 10 for the last time as its master. An entry in the dues book for that date reads: "By recollection of the members of the Lodge, Br. Almond demitted, making the lodge a present of the Balance due him for emblems." A few days later he was homeward bound, crossing the Sierra Nevada just ahead of the first snows, or, perhaps, as they were falling.

Though he little realized it at the time, Almond had bidden a last farewell to his dearest friends in all California, the Townsends. He was hardly a month on the trail when they succumbed to an epidemic of cholera that threatened for a while to depopulate San Jose. The doctor died December 8, and his wife two days later, leaving their two-year-old son John Henry Moses an orphan to be cared for by his uncle, Moses Shallenberger. On the ninth the officers and brethren of No. 10 sorrowfully laid their first and beloved junior warden to rest in the little burial ground that Antonio Chabolla had just donated to the city for its cholera victims. Secretary Ryland's minutes for that day afford us the only known account of the funeral service:

"Dec. 9th. San Jose Lodge No. 10 met at 8 1/2 o'clock A M and formed a procession after the usual funeral services in the Lodge and proceeded to the residence of our late Bro. J W John Townsend. The remains were from his residence conveyed to the grave yard near San Jose and with the usual solemnities the remains of our late Bro. were deposited Masonically. Lodge then returned and was closed in the 3rd degree."

Save that Almond arrived home not later than the following February we know absolutely nothing of his trip. Moreover it must be admitted that the time of his arrival has been computed on a fragile basis. But allowing for the normal course of certain human activities, it is correct, for on November 25, 1851, his fifth daughter, Clara, was born. A less happy event also occurred for him, seemingly about the same time. He had left death behind him in California only to meet it in Missouri when his little daughter who had been named after Mrs. Townsend died of some childhood ailment. Fate had decreed that she and young John Townsend should never fulfill the dream of a blood tie between their parents.

ALMOND'S sojourn in California had worked wonders in eradicating from his system the last vestiges of political disgust from the election of 1844. Before the summer of 1851 was far along he put himself before the public and on August 1 was elected Judge of the Twelfth Judicial Circuit, filling the unexpired term of his old comrade in arms Judge S. L. Leonard, who had removed to St. Joseph. But knowing his San Francisco judicial experiences as we do, we cannot help feeling that his judgeship must have seemed pretty tame. He was now a gentleman of affluence, living in a quite atmosphere, with a slave or two to serve him and his family. Platte County, almost thirteen years old, was about as well regulated and law abiding as any other county in the western part of the state. There were few local problems that its citizens could not take in stride. As a matter of fact, they had already reached the stage where they frequently took more interest in outside subjects than in the most pressing problems at home.

No Missouri history affords much information of Judge Almond's activities for the next two years, but in the light of subsequent events we can be sure that he did not hold his circuit judgeship over eight months, if he held it that long. He appears to have remained on the bench till well into the spring of 1852; then, almost before the homefolks knew what was happening, he resigned his office and again hit the trail for California.

The only, explanation that we can find in any Missouri source for this second trip is that he wished "to attend to some pecuniary matters," which is correct. But more explicitly, the recently-arrived news of Townsend's death prompted him to make the journey in order to present a personal claim against the 'doctor's estate. Back in September 1850 Townsend had given him a promissory note for four thousand dollars, payable one year from date of issue, with interest at five per cent a month. And. since nothing had, been paid on its interest or principal, it now amounted to more than eight thousand dollars. A Second, but less important, reason for the trip was the excellent opportunity it afforded Almond to dispose of the remainder of his San Jose lots.

So, once more we find him on the overland trail without leaving anything to indicate his starting date. We know he paid out twelve thousand dollars of his California-made fortune for a half Interest in the Platte City Water Mills and three hundred acres of land on May 8. This, however, does not necessarily mean he was in Platte City at that time; the deal could have been handled through power of attorney. But if he was actually present when the purchase was made, he must have spurred his horse into something akin to Pony Express speed between Platte City and San Jose immediately thereafter. Only forty-seven days later-June 24- he presented his claim against Townsend's estate to his old friend, Henry Clinton Melone, Clerk of the Santa Clara County Court.

At any rate, there is no question that he covered his old trail swiftly, probably lopping a good three or four weeks off the time that he and his company required to negotiate the same distance in 1849.

And once he reached his destination, he moved about so quietly that if it were not for his personal appearance before Malone and the tiller’s register of San Jose Lodge, No. 10, we should have mightily little first source proof that he was in California at all. He collected his Townsend note in thousand-dollar installments, paid a little over a month apart. These collections continued till February 10, 1853, when he assigned the remainder of the note to Major Sam Hensley for $3828.25. His signature on the tiller’s register shows that he attended lodge seven times between July 17, 1852 and February 20, 1853. Together with the installment receipts on his claim, it affords us a pretty good idea of the length of his visit.

Of course, the county recorder's books contain copies of certain deeds filed in his name, but they indicate little besides the fact that he sold all of his San Jose lots but two. He disposed of, or rather lost, those October 21, 1853, long after he had returned to Missouri. The city marshal auctioned them off at a public sale for seven dollars and forty-one cents in taxes and costs.

There is some evidence, but not conclusive, that Almond bade California a final farewell about the end of February or beginning of March 1853 and was home by May 20. On that date, according to the Annals of Platte County, Paxton and a man named Callahan bought "one undivided half of the Mills"-evidently the Platte City Water Mills-operating the firm thereafter under the name of Almond, Paxton and Callahan.

1863 slipped into 1854, and a full year went by with no further noteworthy mention of Almond's participation in Platte County affairs. Indeed, Paxton had not even mentioned his last trip to California, probably considering it a business jaunt of no more importance than one down the river to Lexington or Jefferson City. Then the situation suddenly changed. All over the country the multiplicity of incidents that led up to the Civil War began to occur in quick succession, while the Kansas and slavery questions left the average Missourian's head in a whirl. The citizens of Platte County were decidedly pro-slavery and pro-Southern in their sympathies. So, when the Platte County Defensive Association, the backbone of the local pro-slavery group, was organized at the neighboring town of Weston on July 29, it was only natural that the slave-owning Almond and his old friend Atchison should lead the list of organizers.

There were other similar organizations in whose welfare Almond was also interested. They paraded under such names as "Blue Lodges," "Sons of the South," "Social Bands," and "Friends, Societies." Few, if any of them had much money, but they all had votes that they were not a bit hesitant about using, legally or illegally, to make Kansas a slave state. In the fall of 54 a large number of their members trouped across the line to vote for J. W. Whitefleld, the pro-slavery Candidate for Territorial Delegate. But they took a much greater interest in the Territorial Legislature election the following March 13. On this occasion, as Robert Penn Warren tells us, 'There was no secrecy about their business; they hung out banners, a. band or two provided music to cheer them on, and inverted whisky bottles on sticks rattled as wagons lurched along. 'We air gwine across the line ter vote.' Some had claims in Kansas and intended to settle there; others, only a little less conscientious, regretted that they would have to lose their Missouri vote for a year; and some changed a hat or coat and walked confidently up to the polls several times to sign their names or make their marks. Over six thousand votes were cast, and about three fourths were from Missouri. It was a sweeping victory."

However, lest we be too hasty in condemning Almond and his pro-slavery associates for irregular conduct, we must not lose sight of the fact that abolitionist societies from as far away as Massachusetts were equally bent on meddling in Kansas affairs. Their members were no shrinking violets either. Nor were they squeamish about the means they used to attain their end. It was pretty much a matter of acta exita probat all the way around. Henry Ward Beecher casuistically exhorted his abolitionist audiences to "give each man a Bible in one hand and a Sharpe's rifle in the other and send him to Kansas." There is no telling how many of his hearers heeded his advice on Sharpe's rifles, but many heavy boxes, labeled "Bibles," found its way into the strife-torn territory along Missouri's western border. Odd Bibles they were, too. Every Psalm had a sight, and every Proverb a trigger.

Both sides understood the efficacy of clever propaganda and the necessity of suppressing the other fellow's story. In Missouri, the Kansas League, a subsidiary of the Platte County Defensive Association, was soon formed to carry out all decrees of the parent body with the latter end in view. Composed chiefly of "Association men" who were oath bound to secrecy and obligated to act wherever and whenever called, to meet only in the dark of night. "Through the agency of this institution," Paxton observed, "newspapers were suppressed and Northern Methodists silenced."

However, after the Kansas elections of '55 much of the excitement died down. Even the arrival of Old John Brown of Harper's Ferry fame at Ossawatomie did little to revive it. The Platte County Defensive Association and Kansas League rested on their laurels, allowing Almond more time for his practice and the business of supporting a family to which a second son, Charlie, had recently been added. And by the spring of '56 things were going along so well that many people thought Kansas would eventually solve her own problems with no more difficulty than that experienced by any, other territory under similar conditions.

But it was not to be that way. A few sporadic clashes of partisan hotheads suddenly fanned the almost dead sparks of hostility into a lively flame. Old John Brown bestirred himself from his lethargy, and, in many a settler's own words, all hell broke loose. April 19 witnessed the beginning of the Kansas-Missouri border warfare, with great excitement prevailing in Platte County. At Platte City, Almond, convinced that Kansas should be a slave state, leaped to the forefront and worked indefatigably toward that end. He contributed money, made speeches, and preached the pro-slavery doctrine at every turn.

Then a peculiar thing happened. As the troubles along the border waxed and waned, Almond discerned a fine professional opportunity for himself in Kansas. The territory was growing fast despite its unenviable position of being a political football for pro and anti-slavery hotheads. Several enterprising cities were in the making. One in particular, Leavenworth, just across the Missouri River from Platte County, had already enticed a noticeable number of substantial citizens away from Platte City. Before 1857 was out it boasted more than four thousand residents; people regarded it as the "coming place." And up the Kansas River a ways were Lawrence and Lecompton, also bidding for attention, to say nothing of the hundreds of farms beginning to fill up the country in between. To a lawyer of Almond's experience the farms meant land title cases, the cities meant town lots, and the two together meant fat profits which he could very conveniently use, for he always had a houseful of guests and lived so open-handedly that his friends frequently referred to his home as a "first class hotel, free of charge." Accordingly in April 1857 he left his family at Platte City and, apparently, without changing his attitude toward slavery, moved across the Missouri to try his luck.

That May, while practicing at Lecompton, he was retained as joint counsel with Governor Shannon, Judge Elmore, and a lawyer named Young in the matter of Lane vs. Jerkins, the most famous land title case in all Kansas history. In this quartette General James H. Lane had secured what he considered the best battery of legal talent in the territory. It was not only to secure his title to certain lands against the adverse claims of one Gaius Jenkins, but also to relieve him of the embarrassment of having murdered Jenkins. Suffice it to say, he was victorious.

About the same time Messrs. Almond, Shannon, and Young submitted a brief in what was known as the Robitaille Float. Case, by which the title to the City of Lawrence was secured. Published at the Herald of Freedom office in Lawrence, it was a well written brief containing shrewdly selected citations from the works of Lord Denman and other English authorities as well as those of the best American legal minds.

Gradually, however, Almond swung closer to home, opening an office in Leavenworth late in June -his last. The following August his last child, a daughter named Bethinia, was born.

Notwithstanding his practice in Kansas and his family's long visits with him at Leavenworth, Almond's official residence seems to have remained in Platte City. The bulk of his business interest were there, too. Almost simultaneously with the opening of his office in Leavenworth, he, Paxton, and M. N. Owen erected at Platte City a large steam-powered flour mill that was a wonder for miles around, with depots in Kansas City Atchison, and Leavenworth. Its life, however, was short. It was soon dismantled because the border warfare and short crops ruined its owners' trade. Not long thereafter, a disastrous fire swept the building, dealing Almond a financial blow from which he never fully recovered.

Platte City also remained the seat of Almond's civic pride. Anything that was good for it, was good for him. Earlier in the year he had subscribed a large sum of money toward building therein a girls' school and obtaining Professor H. B. Todd of Camden Point Female Academy to take charge of it. The academy was built, and on May Day, 1858, Professor Todd put on a grand display, with three of Almond's daughters taking part in the program while their proud father looked on. The ever proper Paxton could hardly contain his pride when pointing out to visitors how much the academy had done in raising "the standard of education and wifely accomplishment in Platte County."

July 4 of the same year was also a memorable day in Platte City annals. The local military paraded, and there was a "long procession from the courthouse to Atchison Hill, where William B. Almond was one of the seven eloquent speakers who thundered the spirit of American independence into the ears of cheering listeners. And it may be noted that despite certain evidences of border warfare the program went off without a hitch. But on October 21 a grand ball at Throckmorton's Hall, came close to becoming a "shootin' and nose-bustin'" affair. H. J. Parrott, the Kansas Free State congressional delegate and a large party from Leavenworth attended it. In the course of festivities Parrott indiscreetly voiced a few of his sentiments on slavery, which Paxton considered "an insult to our people." Fortunately for all concerned, however, calmer counsel prevailed, and the evening ended peacefully.

1859 brought increased tension along the border, which was not relieved when "Mr. Abraham Lincoln of Illinois" spoke at St. Joseph December 1, 1860 found matters even worse. Lincoln's House Divided speech was already history. His election to the presidency, which rocked the country to its foundations, was still months away; yet the clouds of war were unmistakingly on the national horizon, and anyone with half an eye could see what was coming. Sweating, red-faced orators harangued their audiences with inflammatory pro or anti-slavery speeches, while deep below the surface the real cause of all the trouble passed comparatively unnoticed. Another year and the North and South would be locked in a mighty struggle, with their opposing armies marching and countermarching on Missouri soil.

It was a soul-gripping time. No man could remain neutral.

William B. Almond irrevocably took his stand with the South, but he was never to witness the out come. On March 4, 1860, at Leavenworth, just after he had set down to breakfast with his wife and three youngest children, he slowly slumped forward in his chair. The great heart that had four times carried him speedily across the Sierra Nevada suddenly ceased its labors. His Virginia boyhood aid Hampden-Sydney days, his fur hunting adventures, his pioneering in the Platte, and his masquerade in San Francisco were all far, far away.

-THE END-


Text transcribed by Damon Waring
Bibliography:
Arbuckle, Clyde. "His Honor Judge William B. Almond"
Pony Express Courier. June - November 1942.