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Published: Sunday, Jun. 07, 2009

Dan Krieger: Citizens revolted when clerk tried to collect debts

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Local government was “belly up” in 1854, when David F. Newsom arrived in town.

Newsom’s studies in bookkeeping made him a desirable candidate for the vacant county clerk’s position.

His first appointment had been voided by Joaquin Carrillo, the district judge.

Carrillo was affronted when the abstemious Newsom declined to drink with him.

He eventually accepted Newsom’s teetotaling habits. The judge reckoned that he would rather have a sober clerk than no clerk at all.

Newsom recalled those hectic days in a memoir written for the San Luis Obispo Semi-Weekly Breeze on May 9, 1899.

He enumerated the different offices filled by the county clerk in those days:

1. Clerk of the District Court

2. Clerk of the Civil Court of Sessions

3. Clerk of the Criminal Court of Sessions

4. Clerk of the Probate Court

5. Full-time county auditor

6. Full-time county recorder

7. County superintendent of schools

8. County sealer

9. Clerk of the Board of Supervisors

10. Clerk of the Board of Equalization.

Newsom reckoned that the duties of these offices “would require about forty (record-keeping) books. There (were) ... seven books in the office.”

“These books had to be procured. County (script or warrants) were worth only twenty-five cents on the dollar and not sought after at that (time). It placed me in a quandary.”

The county’s bad credit rating forced Newsom to turn to his friend William J. Graves, the county prosecutor.

Graves maintained a private legal practice. He ordered the legal forms and record books on his own account.

The books were purchased from Hubert Howe Bancroft’s legal stationery firm.

Bancroft made his fortune selling scarce and highly priced document, deed, will, title and recording forms.

He later went on to collect books, papers and stories connected with California and western American history.

His collection was the basis for the great Bancroft Library at UC Berkeley.

Graves is written up in Bancroft’s multivolume “History of California.”

Once “the insignificant looking 8 x 10 books” were obtained, Newsom was ready for business.

He began by trying to reconcile the books of Capt. William G. Dana, the former county treasurer.

He found that Dana owed the county a substantial sum.

Newsom wrote to the captain at his Nipomo rancho. He attached a record of the receipts and payments made by Dana’s deputy treasurer:

“To my surprise and regret a few days after I received a short note from (Dana) to the effect that he had not taken a cent of the county money and he would not settle anything.”

Eighteen other prominent citizens owed the county money and took the same position.

“Nineteen actions were commenced which angered many persons. A personal attack was made on the district attorney. He was knocked down on the street and would have been badly beaten but for the timely aid of an Italian waiter at the corner of Monterey and Chorro streets.

“Mr. (James) White, the district attorney, was a small and weakly man, (who was) also quite timid. He had his office in the clerk’s office and I took it upon myself to escort him to and from (what is now the Sauer-Adams Adobe where he kept a room). I notified all parties that I would protect him. This caused their wrath to be directed at me as well as the district attorney.

“A committee was organized, and notice served on the district attorney and myself to leave the county forthwith.”

To be continued.

Dan Krieger is a professor emeritus of history at Cal Poly and president of the California Mission Studies Association.