YUBA  COUNTY

Crimes & Criminals

(pre 1924)

JOHN McDANIEL

(Race-track Murder)

            About four o’clock on the morning of November 30, 1878, John McDaniel, lessee of the Marysville race-track, now known as Knight’s Recreation Park, and upon which the links of the Marysville Golf Club are located, was aroused by his wife, who heard noises as if someone was jimmying a door on the premises.  McDaniel started to investigate, and within a foot or two of his bedroom door encountered a Chinese, who proved to be Ah Ben.  It is thought that McDaniel, who was a brave man, seized the visitor, having been robbed a few nights before.  Mrs. McDaniel heard a tussle, and presently heard her husband cry out, “Oh, my God, help! help!”  When she reached him, McDaniel and the Chinaman were still struggling.  Although fatally wounded, McDaniel was doing his best to secure his murderer.  Mrs. McDaniel pulled the Chinese away, and as she did so her husband staggered into the open, fell, and soon expired from a wound he had received in the breast from an inch-and-a-quarter chisel carried by Ah Ben.  In the hand of the deceased was found a poniard blade, which, it is supposed, he wrenched from his murderer’s hand and used in self-defense.  The Chinese showed a stab in the left arm, and bruises on his face, proving that the struggle with his victim had been a desperate one.

            Ah Ben turned upon Mrs. McDaniel, and she was forced to back away from his grasp.  About this time, Ah Joe, Chinese cook in the employ of the McDaniel family, rushed out of the dining-room to her assistance.  The murderer, at sight of Ah Joe, started to run; but the cook, at the risk of winning the condemnation of his race, followed and caught Ah Ben.  He knocked the murderer down, hog-tied him, and then brought him back to the house, where he was kept until delivered to the custody of Police Officers John Colford and Mike Hogan.  Constable Ezra Brow, who lived in the neighborhood, had been sent for, and he helped in the landing of Ah Ben in the city prison.

            That evening an autopsy was held by Coroner George Fronk, assisted by Drs. C. C. Harrington, C. E. Stone, and S. J. S. Rogers, all now deceased.  The death-wound was found in the region of the stomach, the chisel having penetrated between the ribs and pierced the liver in its course.  Besides his widow, McDaniel left six children, five of whom are still living.  They are Mrs. Henry Blue, wife of Councilman Blue, Mrs. Harry S. Day, and Harry McDaniel, all of Marysville, and Mrs. Charles Day, of Berkeley, and George McDaniel, of Stockton.  Another daughter, Mrs. George Crossley, died about two years ago.

            Soon after dark on the evening of the same day, a mob organized on the corner of D and Third Streets.  During the day the populace had become aroused because of the cruel murder of McDaniel, who was a popular and esteemed citizen.  Some said the community would be disgraced if Ah Ben were allowed to live through the day.  At dusk the bell-ringer, a darkey who was employed in those days to spread sudden news and announce auction sales, got busy, and through his efforts a crowd of 300 or 400 assembled.  A box had been placed at the intersection of Third and D, from which S. L. Howard, an attorney, made a speech calculated to incite the mob and induce it to proceed to the county jail, break down the iron doors, seize Ah Ben, and hang him.  While the mob was at the height of its fury, Hon. John H. Jewett, Marysville banker, stepped to the box and made an effort to convince the turbulent crowd that they were acting unwisely and imprudently, and should disperse as good citizens.  But the crowd manifested true mob spirit by stifling free speech.  Jewett was interrupted by such a noise as to render his remarks inaudible.  A. C. Bingham, former councilman, and later mayor, endeavored also to address the crowd, with but little better success.  Bingham resented the cat-calls of the crowd, and for a time it looked as if he would mix things with the offenders.  Knowing Bingham to be fearless, the mob gave closer attention toward the close of his address, which was along the same line as Jewett’s.

            Howard was again called to the box.  He made a speech at this time that rendered him liable to arrest.  Finally, the meeting resolved to go to the jail and secure the murderer.  A long rope had been obtained, and this was placed in the hands of Howard.  Then there was a call, and a question as to who should be the leader.  To the shouts of “Who shall lead?” came the reply of all the mob, “Howard! Howard!”  But Howard appeared a better talker than leader of a forlorn hope, and held back.  A few men seized him, however, placed him in an express wagon, and ordered the driver to proceed to the county jail at Sixth and D Streets. 

            When the crowd arrived in front of the courthouse, they halted; and on looking for Howard, they found he was missing.  At his critical moment Mayor N. D. Rideout, early-day banker, took a position on the courthouse steps and briefly addressed the crowd, advising law and order.  He told the mob that the jail was strongly guarded, the sheriff firm, and that forcible entry would surely mean the needless loss of valuable lives, which he would regret to see.  Mayor Rideout was followed by Sheriff Hank L. McCoy, who appeared on the steps with his chief deputy, Ike N. Aldrich, who later became justice of the peace of Marysville Township.  McCoy assured the mob that if Ah Ben were taken from the jail, it would not be without bloodshed.  At this the mob returned down the street, and generally dispersed.  They decided that the sheriff meant every word he uttered.  Up to a late hour that night, however, there was a disgruntled crowd of twenty or thirty assembled near the end of the D Street bridge, loath to give up; but they, too, dispersed about midnight.  Ah Ben was tried before Judge Phil W. Keyser and a jury; he was convicted, and sentenced to be hanged in the courthouse yard, as was then the custom.  On Friday, March 14, 1879, the murder of McDaniel was expiated on the gallows before a throng that crowded the courtyard.  Many a lad played truant from school, in hope of getting a glimpse of the execution, which many did from the treetops and housetops in the neighborhood of the courthouse.  The hanging was well planned and successfully executed.  In an interview with a newspaper man before his execution, Ah Ben, an ignorant individual, declared he would kill McDaniel again under like circumstances.  Drs. R. H. McDaniel, David Powell, C. C. Harrington, A. B. Caldwell, and B. Phillips comprised the coterie of physicians who pronounced Ah Ben dead.

History of Yuba and Sutter Counties, Historic Record Company, Los Angeles

FRED SCHINDLER

            One of the most cruel murders in the criminal annals of Marysville was that committed at an early morning hour on October 23, 1882, at the Jacob Schimp dairy in the eastern portion of the city.  Between Matthias Blumer and Fred Schindler, milkers in the employ of Jacob Schimp, a hatred had grown up, occasioned by jealousy over a woman.  Blumer picked a quarrel with Schindler and, when the latter defended himself, beat him to death with a hammer.  He hid the body first in a manger, and then buried it under the floor of the barn.  That night he loaded the body into a wagon and threw it into Simmerly Slough, east of the City Cemetery.  A Chinese fisherman pulled the body to the surface, and the arrest of Blumer followed.  He claimed he acted in self-defense when Schindler, a younger man, attacked him with a pitchfork.  Blumer was convicted and sent to San Quentin, but escaped and was free a long time before he was discovered in an Eastern State and returned to the penitentiary.

History of Yuba and Sutter Counties, Historic Record Company, Los Angeles

GEORGE BALL

            At 12:30 o’clock on the morning of July 16, 1890, the Marysville fire department responded to an alarm sounded on account of a fire at the rear of the Belding Soda Works, corner of Second and Elm Streets.  The fire seemed to have started under the floor of a room adjoining a stable where the delivery horse was kept.  The blaze had spread to hay on the floor of the barn; but as it had not gained much headway, the firemen had little trouble in quelling it.  They left the place without suspecting anything unusual.

            Officers and friends of George Ball, popular manager of the soda factory, wondered at his non-appearance at the fire; and when Lisa, the daughter of John Stevenson, residing next door to the soda works, told her parents and the police that she heard cries emanating from the building shortly before the fire was discovered, close investigation was made of the premises by Deputy Sheriff John Colford, Police Officer “Fawn” Clark, and Mr. Stevenson.  In a short time the mutilated body of Ball was found under the partially burned straw on the barn floor.  Save for a finger ring well known to his friends, the remains were unrecognizable.  By the side of the body was a cast-iron pipe two feet in length, with which Ball had been battered unmercifully about the head.  The body had been buried in the straw and the fire started in the hope of concealing the murder.  Ball’s gold watch and chain were missing, and it was found that the murderers had opened a safe in the office, without reward.  No money was ever placed in the safe.

            Suspicion first pointed to Chinese residing in the vicinity, but this theory was not pursued for long.  On April 30,1891, the mystery began to clear, with the arrest at Sacramento, by Chief of Police Drew, of William J. Ousley, a mulatto, and Henry Smith, a negro. Smith proved an alibi and was released.  Ousley, a victim of lung trouble, died in the Yuba County jail on August 9 of the same year.  Before he passed away he made a confession to Deputy Sheriff Tom E. Bevan, admitting his complicity, and implicating a colored man named George Maddux and one George Collins, who a short time before was killed in Stockton.  Maddux was apprehended in a southern county and was returned to Marysville, tried, convicted and sent to prison for life.  Ousley told the officers that Collins planned the job, and that he acted as lookout to tell the other two of the entry of Ball into the building.  They knew that his last act before retiring was to water his horse.  They took a position in the barn and felled Ball when he entered.  A dish-washer called “Shorty Knight,” who worked with Ousley in a Marysville restaurant just prior to the murder, was the person who gave to Chief of Police Drew, of Sacramento, the first clue to the murderers.

History of Yuba and Sutter Counties, Historic Record Company, Los Angeles

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