In early November, young James E.
Carner—born Elmer Carner, according to the newspaper—was living with his mother on her ranch in Coalinga
when he and his best friend, James O’Donnell, decided it was time to set off on
an adventure of their own.
According to the newspaper “The Expositor,” dated November 17, 1893, the boys had
stolen a horse earlier in Kings County. They then returned toward the ranch at Los Gatos Creek, where they stole another
horse, along with a set of harnesses and a wagon from the Kreyenhagen ranch and headed toward Fresno.
By dawn, the boys reached Fresno and noticed J.W. Kennedy hitching
his team of horses in front of Kutner’s store. Once Kennedy was in the store,
the boys took the opportunity to steal Mr. Kennedy’s team and rig and set forth
north, leaving a trail of dust
behind them, each boy with his own horse-drawn wagon.
They didn’t go far, only about five
miles or so, where they set up camp for the night. Later, they moved up the San Joaquin Valley and stopped at a house where they
stole “provisions.” They loaded everything they could into one of the wagons, hitched the four horses they had stolen to it, and left the other wagon
behind.
As their adventure continued, two of the horses broke away from
the rig and ran off. The boys had to make do with the two they had left, eventually stopping for the evening at an
abandoned cabin 12 miles above Fine Gold. In fact, by the time the boys were
preparing their supper, Constable Sturtevant and one of his officers were hot
on their trail.
They would never reach their
destination of Yosemite after this evening.
Choosing a guide who knew the area
well, the constable and his officer continued
their pursuit of the two outlaws and caught up with them that evening. At first, the boys considered holding up in the
cabin with the guns they had stolen. Both were armed, one with a Winchester rifle and the other with a .44 revolver, and they contemplated not going without a
fight.
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| Carner |
Ultimately, though, they surrendered peacefully and were taken to Kings County for the first horse theft; but because they faced multiple charges in other counties, they were eventually brought back to
Fresno County to be held there for trial. Just before Thanksgiving, the two had
their day in court and pleaded guilty to grand larceny. On
November 28, 1893, in Department 3 of the Superior Court, Judge Webb sentenced
both Carner and O’Donnell to five years at San Quentin Prison. On December 5, 1893, both Carner and O’Donnell
were brought to San Quentin, where
they were processed, had their mug shots taken, and entered the general population of
prisoners alongside hard-core adult criminals. These boys, although they had committed serious crimes,
were not as hardened as the other inmates at the prison, and I can only imagine how overwhelming it must have felt to enter the prison at only 16 years old, surrounded by
grown men.
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| O'Donnell |
At the same time these boys were
serving hard time at the pen, plans for
opening The Preston School of Industry, a newly established reform school, were
well on their way to coming to fruition. The Humanitarian Society had chosen
seven boys to be the first wards of the new school, which was meant to be an alternative
to being sent to San Quentin or Folsom Prison.
Carner and O’Donnell were put on the
list of boys being sent to Ione, to start a new path towards a better life. They
entered Preston in June of 1894, when the school first opened, and both only
remained a few years.
Ward # 1, James Elmer Carner
After his release from Preston—the exact discharge date has not been confirmed—Carner appears to have made the deliberate
decision to leave behind his past. Records indicate that he enlisted in the 6th
Regiment, California Volunteer Infantry, during the Spanish-American War of
1898, and here something telling emerges from the records: his military index
card lists him as John Elmer Carner, not James, with a cross-reference note to “James
Elmer Carner.” He had quietly swapped his first name, keeping his middle name, Elmer, and virtually stepped into a new identity. But did he really?
What is interesting to note is that the 1880 census lists him as John E. Carner, which leads me to believe "James" was just an alias he had given the authorities when he was arrested after all.
On December 15, 1898, John Elmer
Carner received an honorable discharge from the United States Army, a positive distinction
that followed him for the rest of his life.
As the years went by, records indicate
that he returned to the occupation his family had begun with: farming. Early newspaper accounts of his shenanigans mentioned his mother running a ranch in Coalinga, California, while
later records show both Carner as a farmer in Tulare County and his brother
Theodore as a farmer in Clovis. James—or John, as he
later referred to himself—married, raised a family, and appeared in the census records of
1910, 1920, and 1930, the last listing his residence as Oakland, California.
On November 15, 1936, John Elmer Carner
died in San Francisco County at approximately 60 years of age. He was laid to
rest at the San Francisco National Cemetery.
The boy who stole a team of horses at sixteen
and had his mug shot taken at San Quentin prison died a veteran, buried with
the honors that are bestowed on those who served this country.
Ward # 5, James O’Donnell
James’ time at Preston started in June of 1894 and
came to an end in May of 1897, according to newspaper accounts in the San Diego
Union dated May 17, 1897. What happened to O’Donnell after that is
frustratingly difficult to trace. The name James O’Donnell was very common during that period. The historical records contain dozens of men by that name in the
same general age range. By 1910, I located two men with that name, both of approximately the right age, appearing in San Francisco records.
One was a married clerk with a family, while the other was a sexton working at a Catholic cemetery and living alone as a boarder.
Either listing could be him. The
sexton working at a cemetery is an interesting possibility, as that would have
been a position one might gravitate toward if living with a complicated past and seeking a job that was quiet and
solitary. Unfortunately, without more documentation, it is not possible for me to say with certainty which, if either, was
the same James O’Donnell we’re talking about. His story, for now, remains open, and if I locate any further records in the future, I will
surely add them to this blog post.
In the end, the impulsive and reckless acts committed back in 1893 seem
to have been done without the boys realizing the consequences that would befall them once they were caught. I believe that fanciful ideas about being on the run as outlaws in the Old West could have inspired these boys to
make some very poor choices, which ultimately led them down a
terrible path that included spending several months in a hard-core prison
surrounded by dangerous criminals. Still, I can only hope that the time they spent at Preston may
have steered them both in the right direction. I didn’t find any further prison
records for either boy after their time at Preston, so it appears to me that the
school did its job.
