California Historical Society Collection, 1860-1960

Title Insurance and Trust and C.C. Pierce Photography Collection 1860-1960

Poster advertising the pickled head of bandit Joaquin Murietta and the hand of "Three Fingered Jack", Pleasanton, ca.1855

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Poster advertising the pickled head of bandit Joaquin Murietta and the hand of "Three Fingered Jack", Pleasanton, ca.1855

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Photograph of a poster advertising the pickled head of bandit Joaquin Murietta and the hand of "Three Fingered Jack", Pleasanton, ca.1855. The poster reads: "Will be exhibited for one day only! At the Stockton House! [...]day Aug. 19 from 9 A.M. until 6 P.M. The head of the renowned Bandit! Joaquin! And the hand of Three Fingered Jack! The notorious robber and murderer. 'Joaquin' and 'Three-Fingered Jack' were captured by [...] under the command of Capt. [...]".; The painting at the left, reputed to be painted from life by a Franciscan friar resident at Carmel, is said to show the face of the notorious bandit Joaquin Murrieta. It is not known, for certain, if there was ever a Joaquin Murrieta who single-handedly terrorized the Forty-Niners. One Captain Harry Love, a slovenly former Texas Ranger, showed up in San Francisco with the head of a Latin man, pickled in brandy, who he claimed was the newly demised outlaw. The head remained on display at a San Francisco "museum" until the Great Earthquake and Fire; when it was looted and passed through the hands of several collectors." -- Joel Gazis-Sax, 1999.; "[Captain Harry] Love knew there would be skeptics. So, after preserving the head in alcohol at Fort Miller, he brought it to Mariposa County where he found a glass jar big enough to hold it for public display. In the next two weeks he held public viewings of the gruesome artifact -- charging each person $1 -- in Mariposa County, Stockton and San Francisco. The purpose was presumably to attract people who had known Murietta and would sign an affidavit saying it was his head. Seventeen people signed, including a priest, all of them claiming to have known Murietta or seen him before, and that he was the same Murietta who was the terror of Calaveras County. But of those who signed, none wrote that they'd actually seen the owner of the head in the jar rob or kill anyone. One person who signed, supposedly the prisoner captured and hanged in Martinez, who had been a member of the gang, might have been able to positively identify the head had he not been hanged. All the others just said they knew it was Murietta without offering any evidence that the individual they called Murietta was actually seen committing a criminal act." -- Tom Pendergast, 2002.

Asset Metadata

Title Poster advertising the pickled head of bandit Joaquin Murietta and the hand of "Three Fingered Jack", Pleasanton, ca.1855

Subject Murrieta, Joaquin (subject), Murrietta, Joaquin (file heading), Posters (lcsh)

Tags OAI-PMH Harvest

Place California (states), Pleasanton (city or populated place), USA (countries)

Temporal Subject 1855

Type images

Format 2 photographs : photoprints, b&w ; 26 x 21 cm. (aacr2), photographic prints (aat), photographs (aat)

Source California Historical Society (contributing entity), California Historical Society Collection, 1860-1960 (collection), Title Insurance and Trust, and C.C. Pierce Photography Collection, 1860-1960 (subcollection)

Date Created 1855

Publisher University of Southern California. Libraries (digital)

Repository Email specol@lib.usc.edu

Repository Name USC Libraries Special Collections

Repository Location Doheny Memorial Library, Los Angeles, CA 90089-0189

Rights Public Domain. Please credit both “University of Southern California. Libraries” and “California Historical Society” as the source. Digitally reproduced by the USC Digital Library.

Copyright Public Domain. Please credit both “University of Southern California. Libraries” and “California Historical Society” as the source. Digitally reproduced by the USC Digital Library.

Access Conditions Send requests to address or e-mail given

Permanent Link (DOI) https://doi.org/10.25549/chs-m13757

Identifier 12390 (accession number), CHS-12390 (call number), CHS-12390 (filename), chs-m265 (legacy collection record id), chs-c65-13250 (legacy record id), chs-m13757 (legacy record id), USC-1-1-1-13912 (legacy record id), 1-156- (microfiche number), USC (project)

IIIF ID [Document.IIIFV3ID]

DM Record ID 13250

Unique identifier UC136844

Legacy Identifier CHS-12390.tiff

Type Image

Internet Media Type image/tiff

Resolution 13.0 in × 16.7 in at 300dpi
33.0 cm × 42.4 cm at 300dpi

Inherited Values

Title Title Insurance and Trust and C.C. Pierce Photography Collection 1860-1960

Description The nearly 15,000 unique photographs of this collection contain the work of C.C. Pierce which cover the Los Angeles region city, street and architectural views, California Missions, Southwestern Native Americans, and turn-of-century Nevada, Arizona, and California. Pierce, active from 1886 to 1940, was one of the leading photographers of his day and amassed a collection of 15,000 images, including his own and those bought and copied from his contemporaries, George Wharton James and Charles Puck. The James collection contains over 2,000 images of portraits, customs, ceremonies, arts, and games of various groups of Southwestern Native Americans.

Date Created 1860/1960

Linked assets

Title Insurance and Trust and C.C. Pierce Photography Collection 1860-1960

Conceptually similar

Painting of the famous bandit, Joaquin Murrieta, by a young priest at the Mission San Carlos del Carmelo, shortly before Murrieta was killed in 1853

View of the Stockton Channel, San Joaquin County, [s.d.]

Portrait of Joaquin Miller and his daughter seated outdoors, [s.d.]

Exterior view of San Joaquin County Court House, Stockton, ca.1900

Portrait of Joaquin Miller sitting on the porch of his home in Oakland, ca.1890-1910

Exterior view of J.P. Bernal's L-shaped adobe on the F.E. "Lucky" Baldwin Ranch in Pleasanton, 1937

Oil well in the San Joaquin Valley, showing automobiles and with low hills visible in the distance, ca.1930

Portrait of the poet Joaquin Miller (1837-1913), ca.1890-1910

Head of a rattlesnake with its jaws extended, ca.1920

Portrait of Joaquin Miller standing in front of his home, "The Abbey", in Oakland, ca.1898

Portrait of a Paiute Indian papoose with fingers in its mouth, ca.1900

Remains of the old J.P. Bernal adobe on the F.E. "Lucky" Baldwin ranch in Pleasanton, ca.1937

Exterior view of the Pioneer Saloon on Main Street in Columbia, three miles west of Sonora, ca.1947

Exterior view of Stockton High School, ca.1900

Exterior view of the Sutherland Hotel in Pleasanton, 1937

Steam locomotive passing in front of the Southern Pacific Railroad Depot in Stockton, ca.1900

Exterior view of the Alviso adobe in Pleasanton, 1937

View of Mokelumne River in Lodi, San Joaquin County, ca.1900

Portrait of Judge Juaquin Carrillo, ca.1845-1865

The painting "Head of Christ" by Zimmerman, [s.d.]

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