Jack Powers
Jack Powers (c. 1827 – October 26, 1860), whose real name was John A. Power, was an Irish-born American outlaw who emigrated to New York as a child and later served as a volunteer soldier in the Mexican–American War in the garrison of Santa Barbara, California. During the California Gold Rush, he was a well-known professional gambler and a famed horseman in the gold camps as well as in San Francisco, Santa Barbara and Los Angeles.
Powers had two brushes with the law. He was tried as a member of The Hounds in San Francisco in 1849, and was also involved in a dispute over the ownership of a ranch in Santa Barbara County in 1853. In 1856, at Santa Barbara, Powers protected a fugitive from the vigilantes of San Francisco and helped him escape. When his role was revealed the following year, he was harassed by vigilantes in Los Angeles, who accused him of being the leader of a criminal gang there. Long known for his skills as a horseman, on May 2, 1858, he set a record-breaking time in a 150-mile race. Soon after this race, he was accused by San Luis Obispo vigilantes of complicity in the 1857 murder of two men, and of being the head of a notorious bandit gang that plagued the southern central coastal region of California along the El Camino Real, with robberies and murders in San Luis Obispo County and Santa Barbara County between 1853 and 1858. This gang was later named the Jack Powers Gang in 1883, by Jesse D. Mason in his History of Santa Barbara County California.
Escaping the vigilantes by fleeing to Sonora, Powers attempted to return to California in 1860, but was murdered and robbed by his vaqueros at Calabasas just inside the Arizona Territory.
Jack Powers was described at the time of the May 1858 long-distance race in the Daily Alta California as being "a spare built man, with full sunburnt face, heavy hair and whiskers, and a keen eye."
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