User:Asiaticus/sandbox/Pio Linares

Pio Linares (1832 - 1858) was a Californio outlaw and the leader of a gang of bandits in San Luis Obispo County, California during the 1850's. Walter Murray, a leader of the Vigilance Committee of San Luis Obispo, described him as:

"Pio Linares, the arch-conspirator of this place (a Californian whose father before him was a robber and murderer, and whose whole family is tainted with crime)..."

However the truth is that Victor Linares, Pio's father, was not a robber and murderer, quite the contrary, he had been a soldier at San Diego in his youth, was later a landowner, civil official and judge, and he and his family including Pio Linares were a respected family during his fathers lifetime. However his fathers twin brother, Pio's uncle Francisco "Santiago" Linares, was convicted and executed with two other men for the murder of a German trader at Santa Barbara in 1841.

Pio's family were some of Alta California's earliest soldiers and settlers. Ygnacio Antonio Linares, Pio's great grandfather having came to Alta California as a soldier with his family with Anza's expedition in 1775. Ygnacio was a vecino of San Jose following his career as a soldier. Pio's grandfather, Salvador Linares, later a soldier at Monterey, was born as Anza's expedition had crossed the desert from Sonora. Pio's father Victor Linares, also a soldier at San Diego in his youth, was later a landowner, civil official and judge, and he and his family including Pio Linares were a respected family during his fathers lifetime. After Pio began criminal pursuits, he and his gang were careful to conceal their activities or silence witnesses to them. Pio Linares remained an accepted citizen of San Luis Obispo among the Californio population until three witnesses to their robbery and murder of two men, and the kidnap of one victims wife on the Rancho San Juan Capistrano del Camote were allowed to live, which lead to the revelation of their identities and misdeeds.

Pio Linares' Family

Pio Linares was a descendant of Ygnacio Antonio Linares, a soldier from Sonora with a wife and four children that came with the second Anza Expedition, serving as a soldier in the Presidio of San Francisco and dying in San Jose in 1805.

Pio Linares grandfather Salvador Linares, was born on December 25, 1775 as the second Anza Expedition was crossing the deserts from Sonora to the Mission San Gabriel. Salvador followed his father as a soldier in the Monterey Presidio, marrying a widow with a daughter, Maria Bernarda Alvarez. They had three sons that reached adulthood. However Salvador died at the Monterey Presidio in August 1807, at age 31 soon after the birth of Pio's father Victor Pantaleon Linares and his twin brother Francisco Linare on July 24, 1807.

Salvador's widow with a daughter from her first marriage and three young sons from the second, remarried for a third time on December 17, 1809 at Mission San Gabriel, to Jose Pedro Villalobos, a corporal of the garrison of San Diego Presidio. It was he or perhaps his father an old soldier and resident of San Diego, Juan Jose Miguel Villalobos, who raised the sons of Salvador Linares until his death March 7, 1825. That year the eldest Linares son, Jose Ynes de la Luz joined the garrison of San Diego Presidio followed the next year by one of the younger twin sons, Pio's father, Victor Linares. The other twin son of Salvador, Francisco "Santiago" Linares, did not join the military but followed another path that led to his execution at Santa Barbara for murder in 1841.

At the Presidio Victor was married, to a widow with two sons, Maria Micaela Villa, on January 8, 1826. That April, while serving as a sentry, Victor Lenaris killed Juan German, a vecino of San Diego. Linares was court-martialed but was unanimously acquitted because he had merely performed his duty as a sentry.

Pio Linares Early Life

Victor Linares later left the military and became a vecino of Los Angeles by 1831, when his second son, Pio Linares was born May 4. The following day he was christened in La Iglesia de Nuestra Señora la Reina de los Ángeles. The census taken in Los Angeles in 1836 showed Pio age 5 living with his parents, brother Pedro age 9 and and his two stepbrothers Sebastian and Francisco Villa ages 16 and 13.

The following year in 1837 Victor Linares was granted the two leagues of Rancho Tinaquaic in what is now in Santa Barbara County, California. There Pio's two sisters Maria and Augustias and a brother Raymundo were born, between 1838 and 1841. In 1839, Victor Linares was appointed majordomo of the lands of the Mission San Luis Obispo de Tolosa and in 1840 was an alférez in the Monterey company of auxillaries selected for special duty for Governor Juan B. Alvarado during the Graham Affair.

In March 1841, Francisco "Santiago" Linares, Pio's uncle and his fathers twin brother, was arrested in Los Angeles, along with two other men for robbing and murdering the German trader Nicholas Fink:

"It was through the exertions of foreign residents at Los Angeles that these men were brought to justice. They confessed their guilt in open court. The judge of the first instance condemned them to death, and Governor Alvarado approved the sentence, and ordered the comandante at Santa Barbara to carry the same into execution within three days after receipt of the order."

"Meanwhile the vagabond class had broken into and robbed a tavern, and committed other violent acts. Thirty-three citizens petitioned government for a prompt execution of the trio to serve as an example. On April 7th they were executed, a strong guard of citizens remaining under arms for three days to repress any outbreak in favor of the prisoners."

Pio was ten years old at the time of the death of his uncle Francisco. It may have been the actions of the foreign residents at Los Angeles to obtain the execution of his uncle that may have been part of the reason for his later antagonism, to foreigners at San Luis Obispo and one of the reasons Americans and Europeans would often be the targets of the robberies and murders of his gang.

On September 18th, 1842, his father, Victor Linares, was granted Ranchito de Santa Fe, a 1,000 vara square lot (165.76 acres) within the Pueblo lands of San Luis Obispo. He was also granted the Rancho Cañada de los Osos on December 1, 1842, both grants were made by Governor Juan B. Alvarado. The rancho lay nearby, west of his town grant in San Luis Obispo in the Los Osos Valley. That same year, Victor also divested himself of his Rancho Tinaquaic grant. Perhaps an exchange was made so Linares could have a rancho near his home in San Luis Obispo. In 1844, Victor Linares sold his rancho Cañada de los Osos to John Wilson and James Scott and moved into a home on his Pueblo lot when Pio was age 13. Pio would later use the dense riparian woodland on that rancho along Los Osos Creek as his final refuge from the Vigilance Committee posse that was hunting him in 1858.

In January 1846, the year that the Mexican American War broke out and Pio had become 15 years old, Victor Linares was appointed Juez of the Second Instance for San Luis Obispo. Americans of the California Battalion under Captain John C. Fremont captured the town in November 1846.

Pio was living with his father and the rest of his family in San Luis Obispo the 1850 census.

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Probate Court Records, San Luis Obispo County, California

Packet #2: Estate of Trifon Garcia [Will in Spanish] 12 April 1851

Ramona Ortega, widow of Mercurial Garcia, late of said Co., deceased, married him in 1844. He died intestate 7 December 1850. He left three children all whom are living [not named]. Part of cattle now in care of Jose Maria Sanchez in San Juan; other cattle in care of Don Joaquin Estrada, Witnessed by Maria Antonia Ortega.

Book E, Folio 202 Wm Graves, Prob Judge, certifies that the Will of Trifon Garcia was written, subscribed and sworn to by Mariano Bonilla in open Court, 18 Day September 1851

Proof of Will recorded [In Spanish] 19 September 1851.

Advertised in SF Morning Post, 26 September 1851

September 1851 Andrew J Yates, Administrator [Office in San Jose] Mariano Bonilla & Pio Linares - Appraisers Inventory: "One lot in the Mission of SLO - $300.00" Signed: A J Yates "Rancho of Atascadero" 4 horses [stolen] Maria Antonia Garcia de Ortega, widow of Trifon Garcia and now wife of Pio Linares of said County. The Attorney signed her name as Antonia Marie de Ortega.

17 December 1852 Don J Mariano Bonilla, a surety, wants to be released. He is one of surities of Andrew j yates, admin of Estate of Trifon Garcia. James D Hutton, Clerk of Court. W J Graves, Attorney. O. M. Brown, Probate Judge of Co of SLO

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On May 17, 1851, Pio Linares was married in San Luis Obispo to Maria Antonia Ortega, the widow of Trifon Garcia, grantee of Rancho Atascadero.

• 211, 113, S. D. Henry Haight, claimant for Atascadero, 1 square league, in San Luis Obispo county, granted May 6th, 1842, by Juan B. Alvarado to Trifon Garcia: claim filed May 3d, 1852, confirmed by the Commission March 6th, 1855, and appeal dismissed January 10th, 1857; containingr 4,348.23 acres. Patented.

• 623, 271, S. D., 277. Maria Antonio Ortega, claimant for Atascadero, in San Luis Obispo county, granted May 6th, 1842, by Juan B. Alvarado to Trifon Garcia: claim filed February 24th, 1853, rejected by the commission January 2d, 1855, and appeal dismissed for failure of prosecution February 11th, 1857.

The 1852 census shows Pio and his wife were no longer living at his fathers house.

Pio's Later Life

Pio Linares lived with his wife in a ranchito just outside of San Luis Obispo, where he kept horses and various people came to visit or live there. Later believed to be a leader of a criminal gang, his career in crime may have begun before the time of his marriage. Pio was noted as being a compadre of Jesus Luna. Luna was the owner of a cafe, fandango and gambling house across from the Mission San Luis on the main street of the pueblo. Elected as a justice of the peace in 1850, Luna used his authority to extort a fee from the immigrants, especially the Sonorans, passing through San Luis Obispo up the El Camino Real toward the goldfields.

"The Sonoraneans in passing the church, generally stopped a few moments to make the sign of the cross, and to invoke a blessing from the virgin on their patron saints. The Alcalde [Luna] improved the opportunity by exacting from them a tribute of quarto reals (fifty cents) a head for the privilege of passing through San Luis. The parties yet in the rear, having received information of this exaction, endeavored to evade it, by passing east of the town by the Munoz place; but the Alcalde sent his Algicaciles (Constables) to warn them, that they would be imprisoned should they attempt to pass by that road, and thus forced them to return and pass in front of the church and by his office, where he collected the tribute." Pio is alleged to have been one of Luna's Algicaciles.

Sometime between 1851 and 1853, Pio Linares, and his cousin Flores Linares, became a members of the Five Joaquins Gang. He rode with the band of Joaquin Murrieta's two Spanish cousins Joaquin Juan and Martin Murrieta, who operated mule trains to and from the Southern Mines: Hornitos, Mariposa, Indian Gulch, the Merced and Tuolumne Rivers, and in the Californio domintated San Luis bispo and Santa Barbara Counties. However he is said to have had a falling out with the Murrieta brothers in later years.

Linares' Gang

The Five Joaquins Gang broke up, following the campaign against them by Harry Love and his California Rangers that culminated in the fight at the Cantua on July 25, 1853. Pio Linares seems to have formed his own gang. Its reign of crime seems to a have begun in the fall of 1853. It seemed to have followed the Five Joaquins Gang method of operations: indentifying, robbing and murdering men carrying gold or other money. However their victims were not returning from the Mother Lode counties but cattle buyers coming southward to the "Cow Counties" of Southern California to buy cattle for San Francisco or the mines. Walter Murray wrote that starting from the time he arrived in San Luis Obispo from Sonora in October, 1853:

"... scarcely a month has passed without the disappearance of some traveler, or the finding of dead bodies or skeletons on the roads leading out north and south from here. Many a cattle-dealer from the upper country has come south to invest, and has never returned. As many as four dead bodies have been found on the road at one time, and scarcely a man has gone above upon business, without hearing of a new transaction of the kind. It seemed as though there was an organized band of murderers, with spies posted, who never failed of obtaining intelligence when a man passed with money, or in murdering him if found off his guard."

Pio who was, according to Walter Murray a close freind of Jesus Luna, was later believed to have been involved with Luna in the disappearance and killing of George Fearless, Luna's partner in starting a cattle rancho in 1856.

Robbery, Murders and Kidnaping at the Rancho San Juan Capistrano

In May 1858, two French Basques, Bartolomé Baratie and M. Jose Borel, had come from Oakland to raise sheep on the rancho. On May 12, shortly after they settled in the ranch house on San Juan Creek, it was the subject of an infamous attack by eight of the bandit gang of Jack Powers and Pio Linares that resulted in the robbery and murders of the two men and the kidnapping of Andrea Baratie, the English/Chilean wife of Bartolomé. The gangs plan was to pin the blame for the crimes on the two Californio servants of the Frenchmen. They were to have been murdered where their bodies could not be found, however Pio Linares did not remain to oversee the execution of his plan but returned to San Luis Obispo. The two bandits, who were to carry out this plot spared the servants' lives, without telling their comrades. The result was that one of these servants went to the Rancho Huerhuero and informed Captain David P. Mallagh, of the murder. Mallagh immediately rode with one servant to San Luis Obispo bringing word of the crimes.

Following this crime, as they returned to San Luis Obispo, the gang also murdered Jack Gilkey, an American hunter at his home six miles away from the Rancho, on the Camate, near where the gang had stayed overnight before their attack on the Rancho San Juan the next day. He had sold some meat to the gang when they camped there and was killed to prevent him from telling authorities of the gangs presence in the area at the time of the murders.

The news of this attack; that for once left several witnesses, allowed Captain Mallagh, Walter Murray and others in the town to capture Santos Peralta, a gang member recognized by the servant, while other members of the gang fled the town. Murray and others in the town and surrounding ranchos organized a Vigilance Committee in San Luis Obispo County. Additional testimony was given by Andrea Baratie, wife of the murdered Bartolomé Baratie. She was witness to the crime including that of the murder of her husband then kidnapped. She was later let go instead of being killed as ordered by Linares, by another gang member, El Mesteño. The Vigilance Committee was able to capture and get a confession from El Mesteño, and destroy this gang that had been conducting numerous robberies and murders for many years in the county.

External Links

• The Story Behind the name "El Pistolero" from elpistolerowines.com, accessed July 26, 2018. Includes a photograph from a tintype of Pio Linares taken in the mines about 1855, according to Frank Latta, Joaquin Murrieta And His Horse Gangs, p.275 where the photo is also found. Also included is a photo of Pio's former residence in San Luis Obispo.

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References

DEFAULTSORT:Linares, Pio}}
Category:People of Alta California
Category:People of Mexican California
Category:Californios]]
Category:1831 births]]
Category:1858 deaths]]
Category:People of the Californias]]
Category:American people of Spanish descent]]
Category:American people of Mexican descent]]
Category:People from Los Angeles, California]]
Category:American outlaws]]
Category:Outlaws of the American Old West]]
Category:Criminals from California]]
Category:People of the California Gold Rush]]
Category:History of San Luis Obispo County, California]]
Category:Gunslingers of the American Old West]]
Category:Jack Powers Gang]]

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GENEROUS HOSPITALITY.

The roads from rancho to rancho were but trails, the traveling being by horseback, the wheeled vehicles (caretas) seldom venturing far from the rancho where made. Hospitality was unbounded, and the wayfarer was always welcomed as at home. Particularly was the welcome kind to the American, who, says Mr. Price, the veteran of Pismo, "were looked up to as gods; there was nothing too good for them; but that was before the gold discov- ery; since then the native Californians have been treated so badly that they don't think so much of the Yankees as they used to."

Jesus Luna

• Angel, History of San Luis Obispo County

The election was held April 14, 1850.

J. Mariano Bonilla was elected County Judge; Henry J. Dally, Sheriff; Charles James Freeman, County Clerk; Joaquin Estrada, County Recorder; John Wilson, County Treasurer and Collector; Joseph Warren and Jesus Luna' were elected Justices of the Peace.

Luna's vacant office of Justices of the Peace was filled in the election of Feb. 18, 1851.

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All Justices of the Peace were required to give a bond of $1,000, before entering upon the duties of their offices. At that date Jesus Luna, Mariano G. Lascano, and Luis Raggio were Justices.

JUDGES OF THE PLAINS.

The first mention of any other township than San Luis Obispo is in the records of the Court of Sessions upon the occasion of the appointment of Judges of the Plains, and prescribing their duties. The court met for this purpose August 4, 1851, and was composed of John M. Price, County Judge, and William L. Beebee and Jesus Luna, Associate Judges. The following order was made:

Ordered, that the following persons are hereby appointed Judges of the Plains within this county for the townships respectively as follows: For the township of San Luis Obispo, Joso Olevera, 1st Judge; for the township of San Luis Obispo, Dolores Herrera, 2d Judge; for the township of Nipomo, Francisco Branch; for the township of Nipomo, Dreago Olevera; for the township of 3d Precinct, Jose Vasquez, and Petronilo Rios.

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In March Don Jesus Luna is paid fifty dollars for custody of the prisoner, Pedro Lopez; and Enrique Dally receives $13.50 for the same, a further sum of $124 for taking the prisoner to Monterey, for his salary as Alguacil, and for his gustos particulares (traveling expenses), on the way. On March 31st, Enrique Dally as salary receives $105 for the time from August i, 1849, until February 7, 1850, being at the rate of twenty dollars per month. In April Enrique Dally becomes Henry J. Dally, Sheriff by election on the organization of the county government.

ASSESSMENT OF TAXES FOR 1850.

There is no record of the valuation of property in 1850, but a list of the tax-payers and the amount of taxes for State and county purposes is given, which is copied as follows:

Jesus Luna 18.60

F. Esteban Quintana 84.19

Thomas Herrera — 20.47

Pedro Linares — 7.50

Jose M. Quintana - 7.50

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ASSESSED VALUES IN 1851.

Assessment roll of real estate and personal property in the county of San Luis Obispo for the year 1851:

Tomas Herrera, lots and improvements in San Luis, $225; personal property, $900.

Tomas Herrera (for his son), lots in San Luis, $315; personal property, $390.

Victor Linares, 177.6 acres and improvements, lot in San Luis, $1,605; personal property, $2,510.

Jesus Luna, house and lots in San Luis, $1,000; personal property, $480.

Esteban Quintana, lots and improvements in San Luis, $275; personal property, $2,836.

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LICENSE ORDINANCE.

It was enacted by the Court of Sessions in August, 1851, that the proprietors of each and every gambling table in the county of San Luis Obispo should be compelled to pay a tax of $12.00 per month, said tax to be collected in the same manner as other taxes for town purposes.

In 1852 the Court of Sessions fixed cost of licenses as follows:

Monte tables, $35.00 per month. Two tables licensed.

Billiard tables, $10.00 per month. Two tables licensed in January and three in May.

Selling liquors at retail, $7.50 per quarter. Nine bars licensed.

Pedlling and hawking goods, $7.00 per month. One license to Devascio Guzman and one to S. Wolf & Co.

Merchandising, $1.00 per month. Seven licenses granted.

From December i, 1852, until May, 1853, the receipts for licenses were $525.

Jesus Luna was authorized to keep a gambling table and retail liquors;

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355

There was then much travel through the town, it being on the great thoroughfare used by

356 HISTORY OF SAN LUIS OBISPO COUNTY.

drovers and the people of the south and from Mexico en route to the gold mines in the Sierra Nevada. The Casa Grande subsequently became the Court House, and so continued until 1870.

The following incident of travel and of judicial authority is related by C. H. Johnson, Esq.: —

COLLECTING TOLL.

Sonoranean migration to California gold placers commenced in 1849. It culminated in 1852, and shortly after that period declined rapidly, until it ceased altogether in 1853. They traveled in bands numbering from fifty to two hundred, the men and many of the women and children on foot. But some of the women with small children were mounted, some on horses, others on burros (asses). Coming from a warmer climate than that of California, they were clad in light garments. The men wore cotton shirts, white pantaloons, and had sandals on their feet and carried machetes (long knives, the blades being two feet and a half in length), without scabbards. The men were called calzones blancos (white pantaloons), a derisive term applied to them by the native Californians.

Their route to the mines was invariably through the coast counties. The Justice of the Peace of San Luis in 1852, who was termed the Alcalde by the people, was a shrewd, unscrupulous man, named Luna. His office was in the adobe building on the corner of Monterey and Chorro Streets, adjoining the church property. The Sonoraneans in passing the church, generally stopped a few moments to make the sign of the cross, and to invoke a blessing from the virgin on their patron saints. The Alcalde improved the opportunity by exacting from them a tribute of quarto reals (fifty cents) a head for the privilege of passing through San Luis. The parties yet in the rear, having received information of this exaction, endeavored to evade it, by passing east of the town by the Munoz place; but the Alcalde sent his Algicaciles (Constables) to warn them, that they would be imprisoned should they attempt to pass by that road, and thus forced them to return and pass in front of the church and by his office, where he collected the tribute. These so-called Alcaldes assumed most extraordinary powers. One of the successors of Luna decreed a divorce between a man and wife.

The Justice of the Peace of the above story has been often mentioned in this history, being Jesus Luna, the first Justice and Associate County Judge in 1850, and also in the account of the vigilance committee as the one whose partner so mysteriously disappeared, after which Senor Luna fled to his native home in New Mexico.

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Walter Murray's Account

294 HISTORY OF SAN LUIS OBISPO COUNTY.

A CHAPTER OF CRIME UNPARALLELED.

San Luis Obispo, June 6, 1858.

There are various conflicting accounts in regard to a murder lately committed in this county, falsely reported to have taken place on the Tulares. This county has enjoyed a very unenviable reputation for years past. It is now about being cleansed. I propose to lay before your readers as short a history of the annals of crime in San Luis Obispo as can be made out of ten years of bloodshed.

FORMER MURDERS AND LYNCHING.

I shall pass over the by-gone times of Solomon Pico and Joaquin Muriata, and commence in the fall of 1853, when I first arrived here. In October of that year, some eight or ten men passed through here, after murdering a peddler near San Juan; and, after flourishing around town for a few days, boasting of their misdeeds, levied on a lot of horses and decamped for Los Angeles. A pursuing party from this place overhauled them there, with the stolen property and that belonging to the murdered men, upon them. One was killed in the taking. Three of them were brought up to this place and hanged on landing. Another was taken in town and hanged. The rest escaped.

TERRIBLE TIMES IN SAN LUIS OBISPO.

I came to this place just after this affair happened, and I know that ever since then scarcely a month has passed without the disappearance of some traveler, or the finding of dead bodies or skeletons on the roads leading out north and south from here. 'Many a cattle-dealer from the upper country has come south to invest, and has never returned. As many as four dead bodies have been found on the road at one time, and scarcely a man has gone above upon business, without hearing of a new transaction of the kind. It seemed as though there was an organized band of murderers, with spies posted, who never failed of obtaining intelligence when a man passed with money, or in murdering him if found off his guard.

THE MURDER OF GEORGE FEARLESS, IN 1856.

All this time rumors have always been afloat in the community, criminating this or that resident of San Luis, in connection with these matters. No proof could be obtained, because no lives were ever spared, and so nothing was achieved. Good men walked about, whispering and breathing vengeance, but no definite result was obtained. At length, early in 1856, a man of the name of George Fearless . came down from San Francisco, with about $2,000, and went into partnership with a New Mexican named Jesus Luna, estabhshing a ranchito near the Nascimiento, on the road to Watson's about fifty miles from San Luis. In a few months. Fearless disappeared. Luna stated that he had gone to the States. Luna sold out all the cattle and other animals even the New Foundland dog and gold watch of his partner and removed south with his family, and is now in New Mexico. About three months afterwards, the body of a man bearing every resemblance to George Fearless was found near the deserted rancho. Then men talked hard about Luna, but it was too late. This man was compadre to Pio Linares, whom we are now seeking.

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See Also

• Salomon Pico
• Five Joaquins Gang

References

DEFAULTSORT:Linares, Pio}}
Category:Californios]]
Category:1831 births]]
Category:1858 deaths]]
Category:People of the Californias]]
Category:American people of Spanish descent]]
Category:American people of Mexican descent]]
Category:American outlaws
Category:Outlaws of the American Old West]]
Category:Criminals from California]]
Category:People of the California Gold Rush]]
Category:History of San Luis Obispo County, California]]