Stagecoach driver turned to bounty hunting
Madera County has produced its share of rough and tumble, two-fisted drinking, street fighting pioneers. They pop up all through the pages of local history to spice up the pieces of our past. Very near the top of a list of such characters is Hiram Lee Rapelje, a local stage driver who was as quick […]
In the beginning…
The United States was celebrating its one hundredth birthday. Custer had just made his last stand, and Ulysses S. Grant was in the last year of his presidency. The year was 1876 — a watershed not only in the history of America but in that of the San Joaquin Valley as well, for that was […]
Madera’s first lawman to fall in the line of duty
It has become an embedded piece of Madera’s past that Clarence Pickett was Madera’s first lawman to fall in the line of duty. The young officer was gunned down on Nov. 10, 1923 while attempting to arrest a drunk driver. A second look at the record, however, casts doubt on the claim that Pickett was […]
Pioneer woman found life difficult in Madera
Elizabeth Evans held the hand of her 4-year-old son, Charles, as she watched her husband march off to war with his friend Russel Perry Mace. John Evans had joined company A of the 11th Regiment of Louisiana Volunteers to serve as Captain Mace’s 2nd Lieutenant. The year was 1846, and the place was New Orleans. […]
Madera embraced the Farnesi family
The woman left her little Italian village in the province of Lucca and walked along the dusty road with a cart full of flowers to sell. Suddenly she stopped and thought, “I don’t want to live this kind of life anymore; I want to go to America.” The year was 1921, and the young women […]
Madera’s jail couldn’t hold ’em
In 1898, Madera did away with its old, wooden jail and replaced it with a brick and granite building. For years this stately structure, with its imposing tower, stood on 6th Street in all of its aesthetic glory. Then in 1937, a granite addition was added to the rear of the jail, and that’s how […]
Westfall: A sheriff of second chances
When Samson Westfall ran against John Jones in 1910, and jerked the sheriff’s badge away from the two-term lawman, he thought the job would be a breeze. After all, he had served once before as sheriff of Madera County, from 1895 to 1899, and things had gone along smoothly then. He had reckoned, however, without […]
Dr. Ransom helped keep Arcola School alive
“I always look back upon the days I spent in Arcola School as among the happiest and most profitable of my life, and I always feel a sense of reverence for the Arcola School of old, whenever I pass the present one” — Dr. Dow Ransom, 1938. With these words, one of Madera’s most highly […]
The Madera County Indian War of 1870
The Battle of Fallen Timbers, Little Big Horn, the Sand Creek Massacre, Wounded Knee, the Mariposa Indian War — all of these are well known encounters between Native Americans and Europeans, as the American frontier moved inexorably west. While these and countless other battles have been recorded, the Indian uprising of Madera County has for […]
Madera soldiers beat their swords into plowshares
Frederick Quant and George Mordecai were bitter enemies.They just didn’t know it.Given half a chance, either man would have killed the other, for they were soldiers who were on opposite sides in the American Civil War. In April of 1865, these two corporals squared off for one final showdown at Appomattox and thereby wove a […]