doc241 - Schoenherr Home Page in Sunny Chula Vista

"No. 45, $100.
San Diego, March 28, 1851.
To the treasurer of the City of San Diego: Please pay to Agostin Haraszthy or
bearer, the sum of one hundred dollars out of the General Fund, with interest at 8 per
cent per month, until advertised for payment--on account of contract for building jail.
By authority of an Ordinance of the Common Council approved March 28, 1851.
G. P. Tebbetts,
Treasurer of the Common Council.
A. J. Matsell, Clerk of the Common Council."
But little of this scrip was ever paid, though some of it was exchanged for city lands. In
1853, the town trustees resigned in a body in order to defeat a suit which had been begun
to enforce payment of this and other scrip. This unusual course seems to have
been justified by the wretched job which had been foisted upon the town. The jail was
practically worthless, and the very first prisoner sent there promptly dug his way out. It
still stands as a picturesque reminder of old times. It is within the enclosure of an old
Indian, Rafael Mamudes, and is often visited by a class of people who do not ordinarily
hunger to see the inside of a jail, and would not in this case save for historic interest and
the easy exit afforded. The only prisoner ever successfully confined within the walls is a
fine pepper tree, cheerfully growing in one of the cells.
The cobblestone jail was succeeded by an iron cage, 5'7" x 8'6", with a height of
7'. It had a wood roof and floor and was lined with sheet iron. It is now in use as a city
jail, at Coronado Tent City. While not imposing in appearance, it has the merit of holding
the bad men consigned to it.
The end of Old Town as a community of any importance was the great fire of April
20, 1872. It began in Mrs. Schiller's
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kitchen, spread to the Gila, Franklin and Colorado houses and consumed all the business
places on the plaza. This disastrous event turned the scale in favor of the vigorous
young community which was growing up on Horton's addition.
The most eloquent reminders of the time that is gone are the two old cannon,
one lying on the plaza at Old Town, the other treasured by the San Diego Chamber of
Commerce. Both belonged to the Spanish fort on Ballast Point and were removed to
Old Town in 1838. The one which lies in the plaza long stood upright in the earth and
was irreverently used as a hitching post for horses and a whipping-post for naughty Indians.
The bronze gun, "El Jupiter," now in the Chamber of Commerce, was cast at Manila
in 1783. These ancient cannon did duty under three flags and typify the history of
San Diego. If their iron lips could speak the language of human tongues, they could tell
the whole story of the Plymouth of the West, with its varying fortunes under the dominion
of Spaniard, Mexican and American.
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PART II. CHAPTER XII. AMERICAN FAMILIES OF THE EARLY TIME