26 MONTEREY COUNTY WEEKLY JUNE 5-11, 2025 www.montereycountynow.com bill—which Jacks opposed—that passed out of the town council, through the state assembly, but died in the senate. A similar bill was brought forth in early 1879, which Jacks and others went to Sacramento to oppose. Making his case before the legislature’s Municipal Corporation Committee, he argued the soon-to-be-built Hotel Del Monte and its property would be excluded from the new city boundaries, placing the tax burden on regular citizens, like fishermen. It came as a shock when Governor Robert N. Waterman vetoed the bill, and a delegation of prominent supporters rushed to Sacramento to make their case. Governor Waterman said he’d been misled (presumably by Jacks). Not wanting his first veto to get overruled, he proposed they introduce a new bill to the same effect. It took just three minutes to get through the Senate and five to get through the Assembly. When the news hit Monterey, the residents took to the streets to celebrate. The March 23, 1889 issue of the Cypress describes the scene: “Even the rainy and unpleasant condition of the weather failed to dampen the ardor and good feeling prevalent over the signing of the disincorporation bill. Bonfires lighted up the atmosphere at various portions of the town. Public and private houses were illuminated and the streets were thronged with people of all sexes and ages, sheltered under umbrellas, all anxious to witness the grand demonstrations. The firing of anvils in front of Bagby’s Opera House attracted a throng in that direction and lighted transparencies bearing many comical and original mottos were greeted with cheers as they made their appearance amid the crowd.” Around 8pm, rain started to fall in torrents, and the crowd sought shelter in Bagby’s Opera House, where a slate of speakers addressed them. The last was S.J. Duckworth, who began, “For an entire generation Jacks has been in fact as well as in name, monarch of all he surveyed and fenced in. But the day of reckoning has come and the heretofore invincible David today squirms under a defeat as bitter as it is deserved…the power of David Jacks is broken.” After his address, “the floor was cleared and dancing was indulged until after midnight, when the evening’s festivities ended with the firing of anvils.” When Robert Louis Stevenson stayed in Monterey in the fall of 1879, he spent much of his time writing in Jules Simoneau’s restaurant at what is now Simoneau Plaza, immersing himself in the city’s chatter. And Jacks, evidently, was chattered about often. In his essay “The Old Pacific Capital,” which Stevenson wrote in 1880 after leaving Monterey, Jacks— though only named once—is featured prominently. “The land is held, for the most part, in enormous tracts, which are another legacy of Mexican days, and form the present chief danger and disgrace of California; and the holders are mostly of American or British birth… “Thus the townlands of Monterey are all in the hands of a single man. How they came there is an obscure, vexatious question, and, rightly or wrongly, the man is hated with a great hatred. His life has been repeatedly in danger. Not very long ago, I was told, the stage was stopped and examined three evenings in succession by disguised horsemen thirsting for his blood. A certain house on the Salinas road, they say, he always passes in his buggy at full speed, for the squatter sent him warning long ago.” How much of what Stevenson heard is exaggerated gossip is unknowable, but there were threats made to Jacks’ life, just none that anyone followed through with. In 1883, William Leary, who owned land along the road between Salinas and Monterey, was in a dispute with Jacks over the trespass of livestock. Leary reportedly tried to shoot Jacks in Monterey but bystanders prevented it, and Leary was convicted of assault and sentenced to 10 months in jail. While incarcerated, he was also sentenced to an additional three months in jail for a separate incident—shooting a rifle at one of Jacks’ shepherds. (Leary claimed it was a shotgun, and that he was aiming at a squirrel.) In the Jacks family papers kept in an archive at Stanford, there is an anonymous note among letters related to his Chualar property—there was dispute about where its legal borders were, and the note is a threat to pay the alleged squatters for the trouble he’s caused them. It finishes: “Now you Son of a bitch if you don’t make good that amount of damage to each and every one of those settlers which you sued as well as a reasonable amount of compensation to each of the other settlers—if you don’t do this inside of ten days you son of a bitch— we shall suspend your animation between daylight and hell.” It was signed, “By order of the Executive Committee of the Squatters’ League of Monterey County.” Perhaps Jacks held onto it for evidence. Jacks was also engaged in lengthy litigation against alleged squatters on his city land, who settled at Canada de la Segunda, approximately the location of the Tehama Golf Club and clearly south of the city lands’ ridgeline. The longest hanger-on was Kaspar Henneken, who settled on the property in 1886 and ran an apiary. He sent a letter to Jacks dated Oct. 2, 1902, that reads, in part, “I will have no more of your persecution, but peace; no more law but my Rights and Justice; no more starving my Family by Reason of your oppression. This town cannot hold The oldest known picture of Monterey, circa 1853. The scene is facing east from the Washington Hotel, at the corner of Washington and Pearl streets. “If you don’t sign this deed, I will kill you.” MONTEREY COUNTY HISTORICAL SOCIETY/PAT HATHAWAY COLLECTION
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