Glenn Ancestry

Background

On April 29, 1858, in Stockton, California, Isaac C. Glenn, (my 2nd great-grandfather), was tried for murder and convicted of manslaughter in connection with an "affray" that grew out of his efforts to evict from his property two notorious claim jumpers, Francis & Robert Brubaker.

From the record we know that Glenn shot both on January 25, 1858, and that Robert died instantly while Francis died from his wounds some 14 days later. Whether Glenn killed them in self-defense as he maintained or whether he "feloniously, willfully, unlawfully, and of his malice aforethought did kill and murder" Francis, as he was charged, is a matter of debate. What makes the case interesting however is that Glenn was convicted largely on the basis of Francis' dying declaration, who, "impressed with his approaching dissolution", was presumed to be beyond all temptation to lie. In this regard, this case has become an oft-cited precedent, "People vs. Glenn", for admitting as evidence the statements of a dying person as relayed posthumously by another, (the Justice of the Peace in this case), which under different circumstances might otherwise be inadmissible as hearsay.

Although Glenn lost his appeal to the California Supreme Court, the circumstances behind his "affray" with the Brubaker brothers were such that some eleven hundred citizens, (including some from the jury that convicted him), signed petitions asking that he be pardoned, a pardon which he ultimately received from Governor Weller after serving nine months in San Quentin.

Purpose of this website

1. To afford the descendants of those who signed petitions or wrote letters on Glenn's behalf an opportunity to identify and place their ancestors at this point of time in California, circa 1859, in any of the following counties: San Joaquin, Fresno or Tulare.

2. To share the details of this trial to the extent that they provide insight into this period of California's history, and by connection, into the lives of these people.

3. To connect with anyone who may be able to help me learn more about the origins of Isaac C. Glenn, and his other known or suspected relations.

4. To provide a common area where the descendants of Isaac C. Glenn and Harriet H. Munson can share pictures, documents, or any other artifact of interest pertaining to these ancestors.

Please see other sources for family relationship data, such as Ancestry.com or Rootsweb.com, as this site isn't intended to reproduce that data, just house artifacts that support or otherwise augment that information.

A complete, browsable list of all files and images currently uploaded can also be accessed here, including many items for our ancestors' suspected relations.

Most notable artifacts

I have compiled the following list for those of you interested in jumping directly to what I consider to be the most noteworthy artifacts, (besides the case itself, the significance of which I have already described above):

1. The charging indictment of Isaac C. Glenn for murder crafted by the District Attorney, T.T. Bouldin, is noteworthy for its sheer length, a single sentence consisting of 338 words and no fewer than nine instances of "aforesaid", (or it might have been even longer). By comparison, current day legalese seems terse.

2. The campaign to obtain a pardon for Isaac C. Glenn was reportedly due to the persistence of his wife, Harriet Munson, (per multiple accounts of its issuance), notwithstanding the fact she was only 17 years old and had just given birth to her first child. We can't know whether she devised and executed the strategy entirely on her own, but these results should stand as a case study in how to seek a pardon. Besides gathering signatures from 1100 individuals, including twelve officers of the law or other government officials, the effort included inducing letters to be written on Glenn's behalf from two District Attorneys, ( T.T. Bouldin, the aforesaid author of the indictment, & C. Campbell); six of the jurors that convicted him of manslaughter; six officers or employees of the prison holding him, (San Quentin); one judge, A.C. Baine; and several other prominent citizens including the man after whose field a city in the southern San Joaquin Valley would one day gets its name, Thomas Baker, (i.e., Bakersfield).

3. Other genealogists interested in placing their ancestor in the San Joaquin Valley c. 1858-1859 may find the index of signatures useful, since it's alphabetically arranged and includes a cross-reference to the actual pages of signatures.

4. Those afflicted with the genealogy bug may find of some interest my "proof" to deduce my relationship to the "Glenn" in the "People v. Glenn" case as well as my working hypotheses to explore Isaac C. Glenn's origins.

5. Those not so afflicted but still unconcerned about catching this bug should review the "research" page to see how much time and effort can be spent on this obsession without any success.

Acknowledgements

I wish to thank Ms. Genevieve Troka of the California State Archives for finding and providing the People v. Glenn court case and Petition for Pardon related records, and the Tulare Library in Visalia for providing various articles of interest.

In Memory of Laddie Mathews

I am dedicating my effort to share the facts of the People v. Glenn case to my father, with whom I share a common interest in genealogy. Although we never had the opportunity to collaborate in this interest during his lifetime, I am confident that he would be very pleased to see how I have been able to make this information available in ways that he would have never imagined.

Contact Information

Please contact me if you have anything you would like to contribute to this site or if you have any concerns over what I have posted here.

Matt Mathews