22 MONTEREY COUNTY WEEKLY JUNE 5-11, 2025 www.montereycountynow.com It’s New Year’s Day, 1850, when David Jacks enters the port of Monterey, riding a steamer heading south for Panama. The sky is dark and rain is falling in sheets, and Jacks will be getting off here. The 27-year-old Scotsman has spent his 20s in America. He sailed for New York in 1841, and for San Francisco in November 1848, two months after news of gold reached the East Coast. He found work at the Presidio of San Francisco after he arrived in April 1849, assisting with customs revenues, and became a naturalized citizen in December. And as other men set off for the gold fields, Jacks set his sights on Monterey. The former capital of Alta California is now American, by law if not by culture, and last year saw the completion of Colton Hall, the state’s first public building, where the California Constitutional Convention was held last fall and San Jose named the capital. But Monterey remains much as it was, a scattering of adobes and wooden homes and buildings, lining streets that sometimes meet at odd angles. The San Carlos Cathedral, not yet 60 years old, stands as a monument to a colony that built missions, but never wealth. And since the discovery of gold, the city, home to about 1,000 residents, has become an afterthought. But as Jacks is ferried to shore in the driving rain, Monterey is right in front of him, and though he might be bullish on his fortunes in this faded colonial capital, he cannot know that in 20 years, he will own nearly all the land he can see, and a whole lot more he can’t, or that in 30 years, he will be the richest man in the county. And he cannot know he will become widely despised by residents of this city and elsewhere, that they will take to the streets to cheer for his downfall, that threats will be made to his life, that a world-famous writer will ink his name into infamy. Jacks does not know these things, but as he steps onto the jetty and his feet find solid ground, he might already know that he has come home. And as he disembarks, others are boarding the ship. Among them is John C. Frémont, the former commander of the California Battalion in the Mexican-American War, and who before that led an armed expedition, under orders from the War Department, from St. Louis to California. There, still biding his time before war, Frémont led his men north into Oregon, massacring Indigenous people along the way. Now a newly elected U.S. Senator of California—one of its first two— Frémont and his wife Jessie are headed to Washington, D.C., and he picks his way across flooding streets as he carries her down to the jetty. As one conqueror leaves, another has arrived—on the same day, on the same boat. Jacks began in Monterey as a clerk in a shop owned by Joseph Boston, near the Custom House, in a building now called Casa de Oro. In 1851, he was working for James McKinlay, a Scotsman who owned a shop in the Pacific House, and who had come to California in 1824, just three years after Mexico took control of the state from Spain. (Jacks would later come to own both buildings.) Aside from running a shop, McKinlay also made real estate investments and lent others money, and when he was off in San Francisco tending to business, Jacks managed McKinlay’s affairs in his absence. Jacks learned the finer points of real estate in a place where land titles—whether they were granted by Spain or then Mexico—were a matter of enduring dispute. He was also working for himself on the side, lending money on land and bidding on property at foreclosure sales. Jacks had roughly $4,000 to his name when he arrived in Monterey, and was not a man who idled. Starting when he was 12, he worked for three years in a wool factory in his native Crieff, working 11 hours a day, six days a week. By October 1851, Monterey’s jail records show Jacks hiring prison labor to work land for him to finish out their sentences, a deal that saved both him and the city money. How much Jacks paid on Oct. 30 to hire Jose Francisco— jailed for the crime of “vagrancy”—is not noted in the city’s register. Jacks had been living in Monterey since the city’s first council meeting at Colton Hall on Jan. 2, 1850, and the city’s governance was starting to take shape. Laws were established that allowed the city to levy taxes to fix roads and pay officials, that required residents to keep a lantern on at night, that prohibited the firing of weapons in town or slaughtering of animals within a mile of Colton Hall. Making legal determinations about land ownership was a priority for the young city, and residents were entitled to one city lot each, unless they had already been granted land by Spain or Mexico. The vexing question lay in what to do with the remaining land in the former “pueblo” of Monterey, which stretched from the hills above Monterey all the way to the Salinas For decades, David Jacks ruled the Monterey Peninsula like a monarch. His legacy can be seen all around us. By David Schmalz King of Jacks
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