This is a Message Board Post that is gatewayed to this mailing list. Classification: Query Message Board URL: http://boards.ancestry.com/mbexec/msg/rw/JW.2ADE/7392.1 Message Board Post: The Age, May-June, 1903. FIGHT WITH AN OUTLAW. A DESPERATE SITUATION. TWO MEN KILLED. ANOTHER BADLY WOUNDED A telegram, dated Bakersfield (Cal.), 19th April, published in a San Francisco contemporary, gives an account of a desperate fight against an outlaw, which involved the certain loss of two lives and dangerous injury to a third man. The desperado, Jim McKinney, who terrorised this valley for months last year, and who had been chased clear across Arizona and back into his old haunts in this city, was cornered in a Chinese joss house here today, and after a desperate fight was killed, with his gun in his hand. McKinney had often boasted that he would rival Outlaw Tracy, and that he would never surrender to the officers of the law. He certainly showed the same desperate courage as Tracy, and he was equally handy with rifle or shot gun. Before he fell in his tracks, he mortally wounded Deputy Sheriff W. E. Tibbet and badly injured City Marshal Packard. The fight occurred within a block of the business centre of Bakersfield, and created the greatest excitement. The fight took place in a two-storey brick house, a combination joss house and opium joint, on the east side of L Street, south of 21st Street. The officers received a clue that McKinney was in the house, and a few minutes past 9 o'clock Sheriff Kelly, Sheriff Collins of Tulare, Sheriff Lovin of Mojave County, A.T., City Marshal Jeff Packard, Deputy Marshal Ernest Etter and Deputy Sheriffs Will Tibbet, Bert Tibbet and Gus Tower surrounded the premises. There was no sign of life about the house, and Packard and Will Tibbet decided to enter. They went by the front door, and for a minute all was silent within. Then suddenly the shooting began. The outlaw had been trailed to his lair. There was a rapid discharge of firearms, and a number of officers rushed towards the rear entrance to lend assistance. Etter and Bert Tibbet were the first to break down the narrow doorway that separated the back yard from the alley. As they burst into the yard McKinney was standing just within the doorway. Will Tibbet lay on the ground bleeding from his wounds, and Packard was at the corner, where a passage turns into the toilet, returning the fire. Etter fired with a pistol as McKinney showed his head in the doorway, but missed. Bert Tibbet, just behind, fired a charge of buckshot into the outlaw's head, and, leaping upon the steps, he fired a second barrel into the quivering form. McKinney fell like an ox, and was a dead man before he received the second charge. His blood poured out on the floor in the narrow hallway, his gun lay by his side. The desperado died as he had lived. Immediately after this battle the most intense excitement prevailed in the city. This was increased when Marshall Packard was brought in a buggy along 19th Street on his way to his home, bleeding profusely, and still further, a few minutes later, when a bus arrived at Baer's drug store with the bleeding form of Will Tibbet. The wounded man was taken into Baer's drug store and physicians summoned, but it took but a glance to show that the officer was wounded unto death. A rifle ball had entered his right side, penetrating the abdominal cavity. The wounded man was perfectly conscious. He told those present how he was wounded, though it was evident he was suffering the most intense agony. An half hour later he was taken upstairs to the Southern Hotel, and there, surrounded by his family, he died shortly before 1 o'clock. He talked rationally to his wife and mother until the end. City Marshal Packard was driven to his home on 17th Street, and Drs. Shaffer, Carson, Crease, Mitchell and Bentley were quickly summoned in attendance. Packard was suffering keenly, but his mind ran constantly on the injury Tibbet had received. "I'm not worrying about myself," said the marshal, "but, my God, they got Bill! I know they got Bill!" Mrs. Packard was at church, and the marshal directed that someone hurry to her and assure her that he was not badly wounded. Then he fainted from the intensity of the pain. An examination showed that his right arm was badly shattered by a charge of buckshot, and he had an ugly wound on the left side of the neck, where a rifle ball ploughed its course. This wound, is not considered dangerous. The wounded man is suffering intensely from the wound in the neck, but strong hopes are entertained of his recovery. The house where the battle took place is a two-storey brick building, known as the Chinese and American Association, and the front part is occupied as a joss house and opium den, and the rear and cellar as a lodging place. (Age, May 20, 1903) -------------------- EL MONTE CEMETERY (aka Savannah Pioneer Cemetery and Savannah Memorial Park) Established circa 1851 Rosemead, Los Angeles County, California Apr 19, 1904 [Biography of Jonathan Tibbet] FORTY-NINER TIBBET DEAD Built the First House in the El Monte Country. Started West Overland in 'Forty-six and Survived Perils of Hostile Indians, Stampeding Buffalo Herds and Other Evils of the Desert. Sold Eggs at One Dollar Each. One of the early pioneers of the State passed away yesterday in the death of Jonathan Tibbet in Santa Monica. Notable as a warrior and skilled in the art of merchandizing, he came to California with the first rush of gold seekers, and laid the foundation of a fortune by ministering to the needs of the men in the mining camps. [ Jonathan Tibbett’s Grasshopper Quartz Mill ] Mr. Tibbet descended from Colonial stock. He was born in Michigan in 1824. He was a tiller of the soil of his father's farm until, in early manhood, he married Miss Phoebe Point. The young couple turned their faces westward, and in 1846 started overland for the far West. Surviving many attacks of hostile Indians, stampedes of buffaloes and the other perils of the desert, they made their way into El Dorado county and located at Indian Diggings. He opened a store and hotel and also engaged in mining. Prices of edibles ran high in those days. Eggs sold for $1 each. A small pie sold for $1, and other things in proportion. In the fall of 1850 they had accumulated a snug sum with which they returned to Ohio and purchased a big farm. In 1853 the California fever overtook them again, and they came to the southern part of the State and settled near what is now El Monte. That vicinity was then known as the "Plains." The first house in that neighborhood was built with lumber hewed from trees felled in the mountains. The lumber was brought down to the edge of the valley on pack animals and hauled from there by wagons. The house, now a picturesque ruin, still stands on the main road from Los Angeles, about three miles west of El Monte. At that location Mr. Tibbet started extensive teaming operations, and dispatched trains into Arizona and Nevada. Mrs. Tibbet died in 1892, and was buried in Savannah Cemetery, where the body of the husband will also be laid. There are three surviving children, Mrs. William Snoddy of El Monte, J. F. Tibbet of Riverside and Mrs. P. N. Arnold of Palms. Mr. Tibbet was an uncle of Will Tibbet, the officer killed in the fight with outlaws at Bakersfield not long ago, and Bert Tibbet, the deputy marshal of that city, who rushed into the thick of the fight and killed the notorious desperado. The body of Tibbet lies in the same room where he was wedded only ten weeks ago. On the first day of February last he appeared at Undertaker Guidinger's parlors in Santa Monica. Accompanying him was Soffie Ramsted, aged 45. Tibbet's was 79. Their mission was to be united in marriage and as they had the necessary papers, Mr. Guidinger, who is also City Recorder, tied the knot in the presence of the grim witnesses that now pillow the head of the groom.