Missouri Governor, on run from gunman, becomes Sonoma's alcalde

Former Missouri Governor Lilburn W. Boggs headed across the uncharted western plains for California in 1846 for several reasons. He nursed a secret hope to become Governor of California, if it should become a state. He had heard it was wonderful country.
And he wanted to save his life.
A frontier merchant and lawyer living near Independence, Mo., Lilburn Boggs was the father of 13 children, two by his first wife and 11 by his second, Panthea Boone, granddaughter of early American explorer Daniel Boone. Shortly after Missouri became a state, Boggs got involved in politics and was elected to the state legislature, and then was chosen Lt. Governor on the Democratic ticket. Four years later in 1836 he was elected Missouri’s governor.
While Boggs was governor, the influence of the Latter Day Saints (Mormons) was growing in the northwest corner of Missouri – much to the unease of many other Missourians. It was not just objections to the Mormon beliefs, particularly polygamy, that were at the heart of the trouble, but the church members’ increasing political and economic power. The Mormons would reach a consensus among themselves and then vote as a bloc to elect the local city council, and they also formed a strong economic unit. Gov. Boggs was pressured to take some anti-Mormon action.
On Oct. 27, 1838, Boggs issued what has been called “The Extermination Order,” in which he ordered that all Mormons leave Missouri. At the same time, he called up a militia force of 5,000 men under command of a general to enforce the order. Mormon leaders who had been captured by vigilantes were turned over to local authorities for trial for supposed crimes. Almost all of the Latter Day Saints moved to a new community in Illinois without a fight. Their bitterness toward Boggs was intense. After a time, the founder of the Latter Day Saints, Joseph Smith, prophesied that ex-Governor Boggs would die by violence within 12 months.
A few weeks after Smith’s prediction, someone fired a blast of 16 shotgun pellets through the window of Boggs’ home, four of which hit him in the back of the head and neck. Nearly dying, he was saved by the heroic efforts of his brother, who was a physician. It took him a year to fully recover, but he was elected to the Missouri State Senate during his recuperation.
A Mormon named Orin Porter Rockwell who had recently come back to Independence, was arrested and charged with the attempted murder. Rockwell was tried but acquitted since there was no specific evidence to tie him to the crime. Nevertheless the Boggs family was convinced that Rockwell was guilty and that there was a good chance someone else would try again to avenge the Extermination Order. (Incidentally, in 1991, the governor of Missouri declared the order void with apologies for the unconstitutional act.)
Heads west
Since the early 1840s Boggs had been interested in the far west, encouraged by one of his sons who was in Colorado trading with the Indians. The Governor had written an article for a Missouri newspaper in 1842 laying out a plan for a transcontinental railroad following a southern path from Missouri through Santa Fe to San Diego, not too different from the eventual route of the Santa Fe Railroad.
When a small party of his friends made its way across the plains and over the Sierra Nevadas to Yerba Buena, they returned in 1844 with glowing reports about the climate, potential farm and ranch lands and the beauty of California. They also predicted that California would in time be absorbed into the United States.
Boggs’ mind was made up. He would move with his wife and his next-oldest son, William, to northern California.
They joined one of the earliest wagon trains leaving Independence on May 10, 1846, in one of 100 wagons pulled by oxen. Somewhere along the Nebraska River there was a dispute as to the best route and the train split into two groups, one of which became the Donner Party, tragically delayed and caught in the deadly snows of winter. The other group elected young William Boggs as its leader and made rapid headway, reaching Sutter’s Fort before the onset of winter.
Their preferred destination had always been Sonoma where the weather was reported to be superior to Yerba Buena, only to arrive in the Sonoma Valley on Nov. 8, 1846, in a driving rainstorm. General Vallejo visited their covered wagon and offered to put them up at the Casa Grande in Petaluma.
Boggs’ son William formed a group of volunteers from the wagon train, which he then led to the American military headquarters in Monterey to fight in the Mexican-American War. In the spring of 1847 Lilburn Boggs and his wife moved to Sonoma where he set up a small store in partnership with William Scott.
Boggs was quick to spot a political opportunity, which at the time and place was the office of alcalde, the mayor/judge holdover from Mexican times. He offered himself to General Kearny, American Military Governor, who was glad to replace the locally elected John Nash with an American with governmental experience. Fortunately for both father and son Boggs, stationed in Monterey was an old family friend from Missouri: Col. Richard Mason. When Mason followed Kearny as Military of Governor of California, he was prompt to enforce the appointment of ex-Gov. Boggs by sending Lt. William Tecumseh Sherman to oust Alcalde Nash, as described in my previous column.
The jurisdiction of the Sonoma Alcalde included more than the local pueblo; it extended over all of California north of San Francisco Bay. Any hopes of higher political office for Lilburn Boggs were dashed by the rise in the influence of John C. Frémont. He was married to Jessie Benton, whose father Senator Thomas Hart Benton had been a political opponent of Boggs back in Missouri. Boggs resigned as alcalde to become the local postmaster when statehood was achieved. Then he moved to Napa Valley to begin farming and ranching. He died on his farm in 1861 and was buried in Napa, as was his wife who outlived him by 20 years.