In the mid-1800s, bandits ran rampant on the Central Coast, as did vigilante lawmen. One of the latter became a local legend -- after he got lynched.

In its 101 years in operation, no one ever escaped from the Old Monterey Jail, but that’s not to say no one was ever lynched while incarcerated there.

During the early 1850s, at the height of the Gold Rush, blood spilled often in the Monterey Bay area: Between 1850 and 1853, there were more than 40 unsolved murders in the region. The law and the courts offered little recourse, as both sheriffs and judges were notoriously corrupt. Cattle and horse rustlers – who were sometimes also highway robbers and murderers – camped in the hills separating the coast from the Salinas Valley and picked off their prey with impunity.

That lawless atmosphere gave rise to a vigilance committee in Monterey in 1851, the same time a similar committee was formed in San Francisco. Instead of a sheriff, judge and jury, justice – if you can call it that – was often administered by mobs and ropes.

It was into that ferment that Matt Tarpy, an immigrant from Ireland in his mid-20s, arrived in San Francisco in 1851. After making a modest sum at the gold mines in the Sierra foothills, Tarpy began buying up land in the Pajaro Valley, where he established a cattle ranch, married and started a family. Given the lawlessness of the time and the property he sought to protect, Tarpy soon began taking matters into his own hands, and gained a reputation locally for his doggedness in tracking down suspected bandits in the hills.

But he and others became increasingly disillusioned as suspects were released without charges, or were given light sentences. In 1870, Tarpy and other Pajaro Valley residents – 83 all told, reportedly – formed a vigilante gang, the Pajaro Property Protective Society, to “restore peace and tranquility to this section of the state.”

During its first meeting, one member had three horses stolen from his ranch, and Tarpy – the group’s leader – set out with others on a manhunt that ended with a suspect being shot dead near San Miguel Canyon.

The body count would continue to grow: In 1870, at least nine suspects were reportedly lynched from the jail in Watsonville – it would happen at night, when there was no one on guard – and least 14 were lynched locally. It’s not known exactly how many people Tarpy and his cohorts lynched in those years, but he seemed to have a type. According to historian John Boessenecker, “Tarpy had made a specialty of lynching Hispanic thieves.”

From the outset, the Watsonville business community was outraged by the lynchings, not only because residents would sometimes wake up to see dead men hanging from trees, but because some of the lynchings made a splash statewide in the press.

But Tarpy never faced any consequences until 1873 when, while engaged in a property dispute near San Juan Road, he shot and killed a white woman. He turned himself in that day in Watsonville, and different narratives emerged: one held that he shot in self defense, and that the woman he killed, Sarah Nicholson – with whom Tarpy was engaged in a property dispute – stepped in front of a man she was with and caught bullets intended for him.

Another account purports Tarpy shouted at Nicholson, “I’ll kill you, you goddamned bitch,” before opening fire.

Tarpy was booked in Salinas on March 15, 1873, and transferred to the jail in Monterey the same day to await trial. Word of the shooting spread fast, and some of the enemies Tarpy had made over the years – and he had many – soon started casing the jail.

On March 17, an armed mob surrounded the jail, bound the sheriff, and sprung Tarpy and put him in a buggy to transport him toward Salinas. (According to one report, about 300 men were in the convoy.) In a place that afterward became known as Tarpy Flats, roughly the location of the restaurant Tarpy’s Roadhouse on Highway 68 today, the convoy stopped, and the men hanged Tarpy from a pine tree.

Reportedly, Tarpy was cool and collected at the end, and was given a chance to say some final words. After both claiming his innocence and asking for forgiveness, he said – as the noose was being tightened around his neck – “God bless me!”

And then he swung.