Early lawman overshadowed by his quarry

Who in the world is Harry Love? His obscurity contrasts with the notoriety of the man he brought to justice, bandit and murderer Joaquin Murrieta.

In 1853, Love organized California’s first law enforcement agency, the California Rangers. They ambushed Murrieta and his gang in Fresno County, along what is now California 33. They cut off his head and took it with them to prove he was dead and collect a reward.

Murrieta’s legend survived the indignity. His fans contended he was a Robin Hood, taking from the rich and giving to the poor. Some even believed he had escaped.

But Love -- initially hailed as a hero -- was dogged by doubts about his quarry’s identity for the rest of his life.

The Ranger had faded into history until author William B. Secrest wrote “The Man From the Rio Grande” in 2005. The biography traces Love’s childhood through his days as a “gallant fellow” during the Mexican American War and finally to his demise as a destitute, drunken 58-year-old who ran amok at his estranged wife’s house, dying after a shootout with her bodyguard.

Secrest, who has written several books on early California lawmen and outlaws, discussed his findings in an interview, providing colorful details of Love’s adventures.

Love was born in Vermont in 1810. He was a young lad when his mother died and his father remarried. Hostile toward his stepmother, young Harry left home for a seafaring life. Supposedly, he captained his own ship at age 15.

In 1839, Love’s ship came to California on a trading expedition. Later, he spent a few years as a ranch hand in Texas, then as a stevedore on the Alabama waterfront.

He joined a regiment of Alabama volunteers in the Mexican American War. The strapping Love -- more than 6 feet tall with long, black, curly hair -- worked as a daring courier along the Rio Grande and the Texas border. After the war, he won renown as an Indian fighter.

But he never forgot California. When news of the Gold Rush reached him in 1850, he broke a trail from El Paso to Mazatlan, Mexico, on the Pacific Coast, where he boarded a steamer to San Francisco. He headed for Mariposa County to prospect for gold. Like most ‘49ers, he didn’t find any.

In June 1852, spurred by a reward, Love and a partner spent weeks tracking two accused killers south to Ventura. After a brief shootout, they captured Pedro Gonzales, a reputed member of the Murrieta gang. The other man fled.

Gonzales was killed in an escape attempt on the way to Los Angeles, where Love was to claim the reward. With Gonzales’ body in tow, Love and his partner appeared before a justice of the peace to swear to its identity. Whether they collected the reward is unclear.

Murrieta and his gang continued to terrorize the citizenry, which pleaded for help. On May 11, 1853, California Gov. John Bigler signed a law authorizing the creation of the California Rangers, a company of 20 men commanded by Love.

Their purpose: to capture or kill a “party or gang of robbers commanded by the five Joaquins” -- who turned out to be four -- specified in the legislation as Joaquin Muriati (as Murrieta’s name was sometimes spelled), Joaquin Bottellier or Botellas, Joaquin Carrillo and Joaquin Valenzuela. These men had been identified in the press or by rumor as responsible for more than two dozen Gold Country murders.

Love’s reputation probably figured in the governor’s choice. “Many Mariposa residents were Mexican War veterans who had heard of Love, the famous express rider,” Secrest said.

For nearly 10 weeks, Love and his Rangers pursued their quarry. At dawn on July 25, 1853, Love and six Rangers ambushed Murrieta and his gang of about a dozen men at a hide-out near Cantua Creek called Three Rocks. After a brief shootout, Murrieta and three of his men lay dead. Two others were captured; the rest got away.

Ranger Bill Byrnes used his bowie knife to cut off Murrieta’s head. “It might have been an afterthought to hack off Three-Fingered Jack’s head also -- and then his telltale hand,” Secrest said.

Love sent two Rangers to Ft. Miller to get the body parts preserved. But Jack’s head, damaged by gunfire and the 115-degree heat, deteriorated and had to be buried there. Murrieta’s head and Jack’s hand were preserved in spirits.

Love and the other Rangers met up at Ft. Miller, near today’s Millerton. From there, Love carried Murrieta’s head and Jack’s deformed hand through the Gold Country, collecting affidavits to prove he had killed the notorious bandits, Secrest said. Eighteen people signed, but others denied the head was Murrieta’s.

Some residents and newspaper reporters, noting that no loot was found at the outlaws’ camp, contended that Love had targeted the wrong group. (Then again, no one knows if the Rangers found gold but kept it for themselves.)

Secrest has “no doubt about” Murrieta’s identity. “Love exhibited the right head. He would have been laughed out of the area if he had a phony head. Everyone there knew the real Joaquin, and [people] signed affidavits. Add all that up and all the newspaper accounts, and Love had the right guy.”

But most details about Murrieta are disputed, from the color of his hair to the spelling of his name, according to historian Remi Nadeau, author of “The Real Joaquin Murieta,” a book published in 1974.

Nadeau contended that all the signatures on Love’s affidavit were in the same handwriting.

“Just because Love said it was Joaquin’s head doesn’t necessarily mean it was so,” Nadeau said in a recent interview. “He never took the head to Calaveras County; that’s where Joaquin did most of his dirty work. He was no hero. He spent most of his time killing Chinese.”

But the state was convinced and paid a $1,000 reward to Love and his men, who split it. Love also received a $5,000 bonus, which he shared with his Rangers.

“They were a rough bunch,” Secrest said. “He would have been crazy not to split the reward.”

Having accomplished their goal, the Rangers were disbanded in August 1853. Love bought a 320-acre forest and lumber mill near Santa Cruz. The next year, he married a widow, Mary Bennett, who owned adjoining property.

“Mary Bennett Love was self-centered, greedy, avaricious and often estranged from her own children,” Secrest said. “She couldn’t get along with the devil himself.”

Love’s wife soon left him and moved to nearby Santa Clara. Over the years, they reconciled and split several times until, in 1866, she sued for divorce on grounds of desertion. She lost.

By 1867, however, fires, floods and squatters had left Love homeless, broke and in debt. He crawled back to his wife, working on her ranch, where she built a new house but refused to let him live with her.

“Step by step, she did everything she could to strip away his masculinity,” Secrest said.

Love began drinking and plotting to get rid of his wife’s bodyguard, the man she had hired “to spit in Love’s eye,” Secrest said.

On June 29, 1868, Love sat and waited patiently, eating soda crackers near the gate of his wife’s house. As the bodyguard jumped from a buggy, he saw Love and drew his pistol. Love fired his shotgun, slightly wounding the guard in the face.

As Love’s wife cowered behind the buggy, the bodyguard advanced on Love, firing wildly. Love drew his pistol and shot the bodyguard in the arm. The bodyguard returned fire, hitting Love in the arm.

Love ran to the house, with the bodyguard in pursuit. On the porch, the bodyguard hit Love over the head with a gun barrel.

Doctors amputated Love’s right arm at the shoulder, but he died anyway. Although the inquest found that Love died of a “pistol wound,” Secrest said it was probably “a combination of shock, too much chloroform and loss of blood.”

The bodyguard pleaded self-defense; charges were dropped.

Love was buried in the Santa Clara cemetery, now called Mission City Memorial Park, in an unmarked grave. In 2003, two chapters of a California history group called E Clampus Vitus finally gave him a headstone.

cecilia.rasmussen@latimes.com