HOW THE SAN FRANCISCO VIGILANTES ORIGINATED

THE SAZERAC LYING CLUB OF 1873

By Adam S. Eterovich

Silver was discovered in the Nevada Territory in 1859. Martin Groseta from Dubrovnik opened the Virginia Saloon at Virginia City in the same year. Nikola Barovich opened the famous SAZERAC SALOON at Austin, Nevada, another Boom Town, at the discovery of rich silver deposits in that district. He also had Barovich’s Saloon and Shooting Gallery in town. Mark Twain the humorist drank at his saloon. During the winter months miners would collect at his saloon and tell outlandish stories. This is the story of a Slavonyon (Croatian) who had a long name , stuttered and was hung. It is told in Western Slang.

The Vigilantes were organized as a secret society to combat lawlessness, bandits and robbers. Those caught were hung. The law and police were not yet organized in numbers.

In the year 1873, Fred H. Hart was employed as the editor of a small daily paper, "The Reese River Reveille," published in the town of Austin, Nevada. In the words of the editor:

"Austin is a small daily paper, having its communication with the outer world carried on by means of mud wagons, called by courtesy, stages; and it can be readily conceived, a quiet place in which anything of a startling nature in the line of news seldom transpires. Situated on the main street of the town is a drinking saloon, bearing the sign of 'The Sazerac Saloon' after the famous brand of brandy by that name. This saloon was the resort of a number of choice spirits other than those kept behind the bar-old 49ers and California pioneers for the most part, who sat around the stove, smoked their pipes, fired tobacco juice at a mark on the stovepipe, and swapped LIES and other reminiscences."

"I had long had my eye on the place as one liable at anytime to pan out the text for a local, and would drop in there nearly every evening and listen to the conversation in the hope of picking up from it the hoped-for item, but stories were generally so outrageously devoid of all semblance of truth of appearance of probability that, as a competent journalist, whose mission and duty it was to present the public with cold, bare-faced facts, I was unable to reconcile my conscience to the writing up and publication of the yarns."

Fred H. Hart did reconcile his conscience and published The Sazerac Lying Club in 1878 with this introduction:

"This purports to be a book on lies and lying, but it does not treat of the lies of politicians, stockbrokers, newspaper men, authors and others, who lie for money; neither does it touch on the untruths of scandal, mischief, or malice, but only on those lies which amuse, imtruct and elevate, without harm. It is a record of lies told in a club known as the Sazerac Lying Club, whose objects, as its name implies, are lying. The book contains a number of sketches of odd characters in Nevada and local narratives of life in Austin, written by the Author, and published from time to time in the columns of the Austin Reveille, of which the paper has for several years been Editor, and which have been only the stoppin' over for it. But you all know how that was yourself, and that when we got where the gold was, it took some poerful hard work to git sight of a color; that is in most cases, bein' as I've knowed men to take out as much as six hondred bedrock, to say notwn' of what's bin taken out with rockers and toms, and sluice-boxes.

Wal, as I was a-saying; thar always used to be a great rush to the Post-Office when the steamer come in the states; and so's thar wouldn't be no confusion every man as was expecting letters was compelled to take his place in a long line, and stay thar tin his turn come to git to the winder whar they handed out the letters. I never lived much in Frisco myself, but I've heern tell from the boys that used to git a chance to spend their dust, that sometimes a man would be bleegcd to stay two hull days thar in line afore his turn would come at the winder. I s'pose they used to carry grup in their pockets to last 'im the shift. Likewise I've heern tell that a man made a home-stake those days by standin' in the line tiH he got up pritty close to the winder and then selbn out his chance for all the way from an ounce up to five hundred dollars to fellers as had more money than time and was in a big hurry for their letters and then resoomin' his place ag'itt at the tail end of the line, and sellin' out their chance for a shave on a Stmday mornin' in a barber shop, only the figgers isn't so big.

One mornin' the steamer come in about ten o'clock and whar thar was the usual rush to the Post-Office and long afore the winders opened thar was strings of men reachin' way off for as much as a dozen blocks, ev'ry man waitin' his turn to ask for letters. The fust man waitin' his turn to ask for letters, the fust man to git to the "M to Z" winder was a Slavonyon, (Croatian) which was mighty thick in California in the airly days, hein' come in with the first rush. This here slavonyon kep' a fruit stand down on the warf close to the office, and consekently got thar one of the fust. He had a name as long as a shovel-handle, and stuttered so bad he cotddn't even sneeze without stammerin'. When the winder was shot nap, and the clerk stood thar ready to hand out letters, this here Slavonyon started to say his name, and commenced a-stutterin' and a-stammerin' but he couldn't make it. He hed his rights, like any other man as wasn't a Negro or a Injin, or a Chinaman, and so the crowd didn't kill him then and thar but kep' on, patient like, waitin' for him to purnounce his name. Twelve o'clock come and he hadn't managed to purnounce only the furst letter, which was a V, and the cleark was a-holdin' of the V letters in his right hand, a spittin' on his left thumb, ready to sort and a pogt-office clerk is like time and the tide don't wait for his lunch for no man and down come the winder.

The crowd as pritty riley by tlds time, and a merchant that had a lot of goods on the steamer, and didn't know how much profit to charge on 'etnti he'd got his letters about 'em offered that Slavonyon a thousand dollars in good, clean, bankable dust for his chance' but the Slavonyon wotadn't lissen to no offer of money, and when the winder opened ag'in, he resoomed tryin' to purnounce his name. But "twarn't no go; and when six o'clock come and the office shet up for the night, he only got as fur as the fust syllable o' that forty-rod name of his'n.

This was wore'n the crowd could stand, and that night they held a citizens' meetin' on the plaza and adopted resolutions that the city's safety was in danger, and 'pinted a committy to take that slavonyon out and hang him. 'Cordinly, the committy went down to the Post-office, whar that Slavonyon was standin' with his face agin' the 'M to Z winder, waitin' for the office to open next mornin', and snatched him baldheaded up to the city hall, and runnin' a beam out from the roof of the buildin; they hung im dead as a nit.

This was the starter of the Vig'lance committy, and hevin' their blood up from the hangin' of this stutterin' Slavoniyon, they waded in and hung and drug out all the other dangerous characters out of the state.'