The killers commenced their bloody work at the former Mission San Miguel Arcángel after 8 p.m. Dec. 5, 1848, when Samuel Barnberry struck their host, William Reed, on the back of the head with an ax.
By the time they were finished they had committed one of the most heinous crimes in California’s history, leaving behind a scene of such horror it is said to linger on in the form of screams coming from empty rooms, a woman in white wandering the halls at night, and a man in a blue navy peacoat stepping out of a wall.
Ten people were dead (11 if you count the unborn child who died along with its mother), including two women, four children, an African-American cook and a Native American woman employed as a servant.
Ironically, it had all been for naught: The killers expected to find a fortune in gold, but after ransacking the buildings and the mission grounds, they found nothing.
The Gold Rush of 1848 brought people from all over the world to California.
But along with the treasure hunters and the fortune seekers came less scrupulous characters: Gamblers, hustlers, desperados on the run from the law.
Add to this volatile mixture one man’s foolish boasting and the stage was set for a crime still vividly remembered today.
Reed and his partner, Petronilo Ríos, had purchased the defunct mission in 1846 from Mexican California’s last governor, Pío Pico.
The decommissioned mission, located on El Camino Real roughly halfway between San Luis Obispo and Jolon in Monterey County, was quickly turned by Reed into an inn, as well as a successful trading post and a ranchero.
Reed may have been a shrewd businessman, but his judgment left something to be desired: He had a tendency to brag about how wealthy he was — a habit that would prove to be his undoing and that of everyone else at the mission as well.
When six men came to the inn on Dec. 4, wanting to sell him some gold dust, no sooner was their business transacted than Reed began boasting about the amount of gold he had on the premises — more, he claimed, “than his boy could lift.”
The killers — Barnberry, a Native American known only as “John,” escaped murderer Pete Raymond, U.S. Army deserter Joseph Lynch, Mexican-American War veteran Peter Remer, and Navy deserter Peter Quin — spent the night at the inn, wondering where this gold could be hidden and taking note of how the place was laid out.
They left in the morning and quickly put their plan of robbery and murder together, then returned to the mission and told Reed they wanted to stay another night.
Neither Reed nor anyone else seems to have suspected anything could be amiss, for that evening Reed was seated near the fireplace when Barnberry crept up behind him, ax in hand.
He brought the ax down on Reed’s head, and the killing began.
The gang went from room to room, murdering everyone, including Reed’s pregnant wife, Maria, and their children.
They then broke open every chest, closet and drawer that might conceal the gold they had killed for.
They found nothing. The killers fled south, empty-handed.
Word of the horrific massacre at the mission soon spread as far north as Monterey and as far south as Santa Barbara, where on Dec. 10, Spanish vice-counsel Cesario Lataillade called for a posse to be formed and pursue the killers.
Thirty-seven men volunteered, and set off in pursuit of the mission murderers.
After leaving the mission, the gang had camped a few miles south of San Luis Obispo, at which time the Native American known as John went his own way.
The rest continued on to Los Alamos and eventually to Ortega Hill overlooking Summerland, where, on Dec. 13, they were surrounded by the posse from Santa Barbara.
In the ensuing shootout, Barnberry was killed and Quin was wounded. Raymond tried to escape by running headlong into the ocean, where he drowned. Lynch and Remer surrendered.
Lynch, Quin and Remer were quickly tried and sentenced to death. They were shot on Dec. 28, near the corner of De la Guerra and Chapala streets, then buried in the cemetery at Mission Santa Bárbara.
But the story does not end there.
The mission was returned to the Catholic Church in 1859, and the Parish of San Miguel was established several years later. The church is open daily at 775 Mission St., just off Highway 101 at the southern end of San Miguel.
In the decades that have passed, visitors have reported seeing a man in a blue navy peacoat of the kind worn by Reed near the rooms where the murders took place. Others say they have seen him stepping out of a wall.
People have also seen a Native American boy with a wound on his neck, and the sound of people going from one room to the next — perhaps it is the murderers, searching through eternity for the gold they never found.
But the most famous is that of “The White Lady,” a woman in a white dress, thought to be Maria Reed, wandering the mission grounds and hallways at night, looking for her husband and children.