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Daily Union....Extra. Particulars and Incidents of the Trial and Execution of Stewart, Thompson and Ackerman, For the Murder of John Carroll.

Sacramento, 29 April 1853. Illustrated broadside, 18.125” x 11.25” (sheet size), printed in four columns below masthead and illustration; autograph letter, signed, of a gold miner on the verso. CONDITION: Good+, a few chips to edges, 1.5” tear at lower-left corner, small losses and separations along old folds.

An rare broadside extra of the Sacramento Daily Union—the oldest daily newspaper west of the Mississippi—detailing a gang murder, with the confessions and last words of the perpetrators and an account of the execution; this example unique in bearing an autograph letter, signed, by a Yuba County gold miner on the verso.

The half-length portraits of Barney Ackerman, Jack Thompson, and George Stewart, accessories to the murder of their fellow gang-member John “Boot-jack” Carroll on February 20th, 1853, appear at the top of this broadside, just beneath the Daily Union masthead. Their expressions variously convey amusement, anger, and skepticism. All three men, along with the victim and his murderer, William Dunham, were members of the same “notorious band of murderers and thieves” (“Summary”), but Thompson and Ackerman had soured on Carroll, whom they feared might “go to the police department and tell on them.” Dunham was deemed “courageous” enough to kill Carroll—which he did, with a “five-inch five shooting Colt’s revolver” from under Thompson’s pillow. Following his arrest, Dunham turned upon his instigators with the same nonchalance with which he had murdered his friend, gaining himself immunity from the law and launching his collaborators “into eternity.” Text below the portraits of Stewart, Thompson, and Ackerman provides “Particulars and Incidents of the Trial,” from the blandly lurid details of “Dunham’s Confession” to brief biographies of the three accessories and a description of “The Execution,” including the final remarks of the doomed men, the descent of the sheriff's hatchet onto “the rope that held the traps,” and the final “winces” of the dying Stewart and Ackerman.

In Dunham’s testimony, he and his accomplices had been together at Thompson’s house on the evening of the murder:

Jack Thompson told me to tell Boot-jack to keep away from his house; I told him it was not my house and to tell him so himself; they spoke up, Ackerman and Thompson, and said they wanted him killed. Thompson asked who had courage enough to do it; they said they were afraid he would go to the police department and tell on them’ Stewart said Bill had courage enough to kill Bootjack, meaning me; Thompson said he would furnish the pistol; Stewart, Ackerman, and Thompson said they would stay there and swear that I had been in the house from dark till half-past ten…I started out with Thompson’s hat on and left mine, and went out; went into the alley, and found Bootjack; he didn’t know me with the hat on till I spoke to him, when he recognized me; we went up the alley to 8th street, and from there on to the levee; we walked up the levee about a mile, turned around and came back as far as 10th street; there I shot him; I shot him three times; I then went to Jack Thompson’s…Thomspon Stewart and Barney asked me when I went in ‘if I had done it;’ I told them yes…Thompson said ‘Good, by G—d! I’ll treat;’ he set out four glasses, and we drank. I was arrested on the following day.

Stewart, Ackerman, and Thompson were tried separately (on March 7th, 8th, and 15th, respectively), on the 16th, the Sacramento Daily Union boasted that “through the agency of our zealous police department,” their gang “has been entirely broken up” (“Summary”).

The letter on the verso is addressed to “William Lichliter and family” of St. Joseph, Missouri, by William H. Topple. It reads in part:

I am live and kicking…I am mining at presant and expect to mine as long as I stay here which will be probably till next Spring. I am making from four to five dollars pr day the miners are not doing verry well this season a great many of them cant get employment this is likely to be a dry winter this season. Provisions are moderately cheap this season. The Sacramento prices are for flour six and one half dollars pr hundred potatoes 2 1/2 cents pr lb onions 6 cents pr lb pork 18 cents pr lb bacon 20 cts pr lb…cows 75 to 100 dollars apiece oxen 200 dollars pr yoke…Now I want you in return for this to write to me and let me now how you are all getting along and what the sines of the times is I should be very happy to hear from you and family and be mutch happier to see you all but this must suffice till that time arrives which I hope will not be long.

I send you a book by this mail red that and you can fancy to yourself the life of a miner in california that comes as near a real life in Callifornia truth can paint it I presume it will amuse your [?] hours.

Referring to the broadside, he adds, “You probably think paper is getting scarce over this way but it is not the case this is only a fancy of mine I thought it would amuse the children to red when they have nothing better to do.” A postscript asks Lichliter to direct his reply to “Martinez Contra Costa County California,” and evidently included a token of some sort (perhaps gold?) affixed to the paper: “This is a presant to little John tell him to put it in his pocket for a nest egg and probably by the time he gets as old as this is worth [in] cents he may have as much as he can shoulder of the same mettal its value is twenty five cents.”

No examples listed in OCLC. Not in Eberstadt or Streeter. Rare Book Hub records just one copy at auction.

An evocatively-illustrated crime broadside from Sacramento, California in the wake of the Gold Rush, with an autograph letter, signed by a miner, on the verso.

REFERENCES: “Summary of Events,” Sacramento Daily Union, March 16, 1853, p. 1; Coulter, Edith Margaret. “California Copyrights, 1851–1856: With Notes on Certain Ghost Books,” California Historical Society Quarterly Vol. 22, No. 1 (1943), p. 34.

Item #9793

Price: $4,750.00

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