Patton

Wilson’s father died when the boy was only eight years old. At the age of fifteen, Wilson opened a small trading operation on the Yazoo River north of Vicksburg, Mississippi. He quickly moved from trading to fur trapping, selling enough beaver pelts in Santa Fe to fund his own party of trappers. Wilson became one of the thousand or so Rocky Mountain trappers known to American history as the “mountain men.” It was a colorful group:

In his time the mountain man was an Army Ranger, Hell’s Angel, Viking and pirate wrapped into one cultural mutant. He left the comforts of the nineteenth century for Stone Age survival in a mostly unmapped, alien landscape of B-movie hazards.... [H]e lived off the land exactly as the Indian had survived in the same environment for thousands of years. He ate what he killed—and he wore what he killed as well—if it didn’t kill him first.¹

Mountain men suffered the predations of Indian tribes, particularly Blackfeet and Comanche, who would steal their horses and their furs. Grizzly bears were another lethal adversary. Most mountain men had at least one encounter with the violent animals and seemed drawn to the thrill of the mortal combat.

During the winter of 1835–1836, Wilson undertook an expedition to the Gila River area. Twenty-three years old and having organized his own small company, he set out with five other trappers. The men went six days without food, and Wilson was forced to shoot his mule to avoid starvation. Worse, they ran out of water, wandering five days before they found a gorge.

On another expedition, Wilson and his party were set upon by an Apache war party seeking revenge for the assassination of their leader, Chief Juan Jose, by an American named James Johnson. Wilson was actually a friend of Jose, though he was unaware of the Indian’s murder. Three members of the expedition, including Wilson, were taken prisoner. The Apaches stripped them naked and commenced a war dance, preparing to burn the prisoners alive. Wilson somehow escaped and, over several days, made his way by foot almost two hundred miles to Santa Fe.

By 1841, anti-American sentiment was percolating in New Mexico, a Mexican territory. The region was rife with rumors that Texans, who had gained independence from Mexico five years earlier, planned to foment a liberation movement in New Mexico. Wilson and other foreigners were suspected of complicity in the plot, so he hastily sold his store and made plans to travel to the west coast, intending eventually to make his way to China.

Wilson loaded his possessions onto a pack mule and set out from Santa Fe in a party that eventually numbered 134 people. The diverse group included Jacob Frankfort, soon to be the first Jewish resident of Los Angeles. The travelers drove a flock of sheep, which provided them with food as they made their way west along the Old Spanish Trail to Los Angeles. Their route took them through the southwest corner of Colorado, then north into central and southwest Utah, across the deserts of Nevada to the springs at Las Vegas. Next they crossed the Mojave Desert to the Cajon Pass through the San Bernardino Mountains, finally entering southern California, then still a Mexican territory. They arrived at the San Gabriel mission on November 5, 1841, the first overland settlers’ party to travel to the area (most others had arrived by ship or defected from fur-trapping parties).

Wilson had no intention of remaining in another Mexican territory. He traveled three times to San Francisco, each time seeking passage to the Far East, and each time unsuccessful. He eventually abandoned his plans for adventure in China and settled in Alta, California, becoming a ranchero on a large cattle ranch. A year and a half after leaving New Mexico, Wilson purchased for a thousand dollars a ranch of his own—called Rancho Jurupa—in the area that is now Riverside, California. There he found contentment:

After many unsuccessful efforts to leave California, and receiving so much kindness from the native Californians [Mexicans], I arrived at the conclusion that there was no place in the world where I could enjoy more true happiness and true friendship than among them. There were no courts, no juries, no lawyers, nor any need for them. The people were honest and hospitable, and their word was as good as their bond.... ²

Comfortably settled into the community, Wilson earned enough respect to be asked to serve as alcalde, the senior official of the town. The position was comparable to that of mayor, but it combined executive, legislative, and judicial powers. An American citizen, Wilson was technically ineligible under Mexican law to hold such a position, but he accepted at the urging of his friends and to serve his own interests.

A year after acquiring Rancho Jurupa, the thirty-two-year-old “Don Benito,” as he was known, put down roots in another way—he married his neighbor’s daughter, Ramona Yorba, then only fifteen. Her father, Don Bernardo Yorba, owned 150,000 acres known as Rancho Santa Ana, in what is now Orange County.

Shortly after Wilson’s marriage, a large bear killed one of his milk cows. He dutifully went after the bear, tracking it into the woods. When he and his horse became entangled in some wild vines, the bear lunged at them, knocking horse and rider to the ground. The bear tore into Wilson’s hip, shoulder, and lung with its teeth before the rancher’s dogs scared it off. Ranch hands carried Don Benito home, but he was bleeding so profusely he temporarily lost his sight and speech. The bear continued to ravage the herd while Wilson convalesced. Once he recovered, Wilson pursued the bear again. He had a ranch hand drag a slaughtered calf to the area where the bear had been spotted, and the two men waited in a sycamore tree. At dusk, when the bear showed up, they opened fire. The bear attempted to reach the men in the tree before leaving the scene. The next day Wilson and a new hunting party tracked down the bear at a mud hole where it was nursing its wounds. The indomitable beast once again charged Wilson but was brought down in a hail of gunfire.

In the summer of 1845, Pio Pico, the Mexican governor of California, asked Wilson to lead a campaign against Indian tribes who had harassed ranches in the area. It took three violent forays to pacify the territory. In one fight, Wilson himself was hit in the shoulder by a poisoned arrow.

On June 14, 1846, California’s independence was declared in Sonoma. A few weeks later, the United States flag was raised at Monterey. In response to reports that the American military was moving on Los Angeles, Governor Pico asked Wilson to raise troops to repel the foreigners. Wilson uneasily declined, explaining that he was an American citizen and (in spite of his recent raids against the Indians) that he was not a military man. Threatened with arrest, Wilson found himself in a delicate situation. He had no desire to take up arms against the United States, but he had settled happily into the Mexican community, of which he was a respected member. He was fluent in Spanish and had married into a prominent Mexican family. He was the alcalde in his district. Wilson pledged that if he was allowed to remain quietly on his ranch, he would “be peaceable, and do no act hostile to the country.”³

When Commodore Robert Stockton of the U.S. Navy arrived in San Pedro in August, preparing to move against Los Angeles, Mexican forces evacuated the region without a fight. Wilson greeted Stockton when he landed, presented him with a riding horse, and offered to escort him to the center of Los Angeles while providing for his safety. Stockton recognized Wilson’s sway in the community and offered him a military command. Wilson gave the same excuse to Stockton that he had given to Pico—he was not a military man. Eventually he was persuaded to accept a commission in the U.S. Army as a captain after securing a guarantee that he would not be required to serve outside of southern California. He was defeated at the Battle of Chino, and Wilson and his men surrendered. Wilson was threatened with execution, but the war ended shortly after his capture, and he was released from prison.

With California part of the United States, Wilson returned to commercial pursuits. He gave up ranching, moved into town, and opened a store in downtown Los Angeles. By 1850 he was one of the four richest men in the county, owning property valued at fifty thousand dollars. After California’s admission as a state, Benjamin Davis Wilson was elected the first County Clerk of Los Angeles. In 1851 he was elected mayor of Los Angeles. He subsequently served several terms as a county supervisor and three terms as a state senator.

Ramona died in 1849 after only five years of marriage, leaving two small children. Four years later, Wilson married Margaret Hereford, a young widow. The new marriage produced two daughters, Ruth and Annie. Ruth grew up and married a man from Virginia. On November 11, 1885, in her father’s Lake Vineyard house, she gave birth to George S. Patton Jr. Don Benito, who had died eight years earlier, never saw the grandson who would become the celebrated general of World War II. But many of the traits for which that grandson became famous—bravado, courage, a love of adventure, and a fearsome temper—would be recognizable to anyone who knew Benjamin Davis Wilson.