Tuolumne County Biographies

JOHN B. STETSON

Submitted by: Nancy Pratt Melton

This file is part of the California Genealogy & History Archives
http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~cagha/index.htm


Mr. Stetson, whose portrait is presented herein, was born in Kingston, 
Massachusetts, on the 27th of March, 1831.  He came to California in 1852, 
arriving in San Francisco in September.  Somewhat later in that year, he arrived 
at Shaw's Flat, in Tuolumne county, and afterwards entering into business at 
Columbia as a dealer in hard�ware; his firm being known as Osgood & Stetson.  
Re�maining in Columbia until 1860, the firm then removed to San Francisco and 
opened a store where the Occidental Hotel now stands, continuing in the hardware 
business.  In 1877, his partner having retired, Mr. Stetson conducted the 
business alone for one year, at the end of that time forming a partnership with 
others under the designation of Holbrook, Merrill & Stetson.  The business house 
of this great firm is now No. 225 Market street.
Mr. Stetson is a man of family, having four children� Sarah F., Nellie M., 
Albert L. and Harry N. Mrs. Stet�son, formerly Miss Maria Slack, is a native of 
Pennsylvania.
The gentleman, like many of the former settlers of Tuol�umne County, carries in 
his memory a very large store of reminiscences of the early days.  Among these 
recollections, some relating to the time of his stay at Shaw�s Flat are 
pe�culiarly interesting.  It is related that during the time in which he there 
resided he held the office of constable, as�sisting in the capture of Ned 
McCaulley, who murdered Bond, an account of which has been given.  The 
circum�stances of the capture not having been mentioned, place may be given 
here.  The slayer had, previous to the kill�ing, been engaged in an assault, for 
which he had been brought before Judge Drake at the Flat, and allowed to go on 
his promise to return later, when sentence would be pronounced.  This somewhat 
loose way of transacting af�fairs had a painful result, for it gave the 
desperado an op�portunity of seeking the quarrel which led to such a lamentable 
result.  When the murder took place.  Mr. Stetson set out to apprehend 
McCaulley, but was unable to ascertain his whereabouts, because none of the 
neighbors cared to win the enmity of his gang.  At last a half-breed secretly 
gave the desired information, and, securing help, Mr. Stetson proceeded in the 
gloom of the evening, and apprehended the murderer, who was awaiting the arrival 
of his friends, who were expected to bring him money wherewith to make his 
escape from the vicinity.
Mr. Stetson was at Columbia when the murderer of John Leary met his deserved 
doom at the hands of the mob, being hanged to the flume.  The gentleman relates 
an anecdote bearing upon this affair.  J. L Hamlin, once Assemblyman, was a man 
of imposing presence, being over six feet in hight.  This gentleman, out of his 
own sense of fitness and respect for the laws which he had helped to frame, 
stood up at the hanging, and stretching out his hands, cried out that he thanked 
God that his soul was free from the blood of the executed man!  At this a little 
fellow stepped forth from the mob, and in a calm voice said to Hamlin that if he 
uttered another word they would hang him too.  The ridiculous part of the story 
relates to the terrified departure of the moral law�maker, as he rose to a full 
appreciation of these words and retired from the scene with a velocity that made 
his coat�tails assume a horizontal position.

�A History of Tuolumne County, CA� B.F. Alley, 1882.  Appendix Pg. 14-15.