By Mark McLaughlin ·
Frank A. Titus was a Truckee constable and engineer on the Tahoe Truckee Railway. | Courtesy Mark McLaughlin
The 19th Century may seem so long ago, but there are still local families with roots dating back to that pioneer era. Consider 93-year-old Frank Titus Jr. who today lives in his family home along the Truckee River near Reno. Frank’s family is as Truckee local as it gets.
The Titus family history opens dramatically with murder and mayhem. Frank’s grandfather, John Charles Titus, was less than 3-years-old when his family left New York bound for California. His father was a seaman being transferred to the Pacific Coast. After their arrival at Panama City in April 1856, the Titus family was caught up in a riot by Panamanians angry at the United States, and aroused by a drunken sailor who took a watermelon from a local grocer’s market and refused to pay for it. Nearly 30 Americans were killed in this massacre known as the Watermelon Riot, including young John’s parents. (The Titus adults weren’t listed on the official death list, but the violence was so brutal that many victims’ bodies could not be identified.)
Fortunately, the Titus children had been left on the pier to play, and when the riot started the captain of a nearby ship rushed everyone aboard and cast off. The orphaned John and his older brother and sister were then adopted by passengers on board and a man named William Brigham took John. Brigham and the boy journeyed to Sierra Valley and then back to Missouri for a short time; they soon returned by oxen-drawn wagon to settle near Beckwourth in the Sierra Valley of northeast California.
Frank’s grandmother, Julia Williams, was born in the Sacramento Valley in 1858 to Swiss immigrants, who later moved to the booming Comstock Lode in Virginia City, Nevada Territory, when she was young. There they owned and operated a grocery store before starting an express delivery service between Washoe City and Virginia City that became quite profitable.
Julia started school in Virginia City in 1863 one year before the territory gained statehood. While there she became close friends with Virginia Tilton, the first white girl born in Virginia City. When the 1930’s movie “Virginia City” premiered at the Majestic Theater in Reno, a prize of two free seats was offered for the best picture submitted and Julia’s photograph of Virginia Tilton won the day.
Tragedy struck the family again in 1869 when Julia’s father, Ernest Williams, was killed on Geiger Grade. As Williams drove his express wagon around a curve, he ran into a teamster using camels as pack animals to carry wood. The strange-smelling camels spooked Williams’ team and they bolted, sending him and his wagon tumbling down the steep hillside.
Julia, who was only 11-years-old at the time, and her widowed mother, Mary, struggled financially until Mary married a Virginia City prospector named Peter Milich. After the wedding, the family moved to Milich’s ranch on the west fork of the Carson River, a few miles east of Woodfords. Unfortunately, Milich was a mean and abusive man who forced Mary to do much of the hard work on the ranch, including cow milking, cleaning the barns and rounding up the cattle.
One day, Julia met a young cowboy from the Kirman ranches named John Titus. When Julia turned 16 the couple eloped by horseback and they were married in Bridgeport in September 1874. It turned out that despite William Brigham’s generosity in raising John after the massacre in Panama, this foster parent had a temper and beat his children. At age 15, John Charles had had enough so he saddled a horse and took off for Reno, Nev.
On the way, he ran into a Mapes ranch herd of cattle being moved from their Northern grazing grounds back to the Reno area. John was immediately hired to help and worked for the Mapes ranches for a time until he was hired by the Kirman ranches. The Kirman operation was a large outfit with extensive ranges from Bishop to the Oregon border. Mr. Kirman liked the cut of John’s jib, offered the young man a permanent job and took the teenager in as family. Kirman’s son, Richard Jr., would later become governor of Nevada and came to Truckee to perform the eulogy when John Titus passed away in 1938.
After their wedding service, the newlyweds moved to the Owens Valley town of Bishop for two years. John and Julia’s first son, Charles, was born there in December 1875, but he died five weeks later. In early 1877, John Titus was promoted to foreman of the Kirman Home Ranch south of Carson City, near Genoa. Their second son, Frank Adolph, was born there in March of that year. Two more sons were born in Nevada, John Walter (1879) and William Elmer (1883).
In the early 1890s, when the boys were young, father John Charles Titus moved to Truckee looking for work. At the time, his main source of income was hauling hay and wood by wagon. Upon his arrival in Truckee, John C. found a good job as slaughterhouse foreman for local butcher Joseph Marzen Jr. Unfortunately, John C. wouldn’t be on the job for long.
During a heavy snowstorm on Feb. 5, 1893, John C. suffered a serious injury in a freak accident while delivering meat from the slaughterhouse west of Truckee to Marzen’s Front Street butcher shop. As his team of horses trotted through a railroad underpass that night, John C.’s sleigh was suddenly raised higher by plowed snow in the tunnel. He ducked, but his neck was jammed into a support timber and the force broke his back. Initially paralyzed, he slowly recovered but was rendered incapable of resuming the strenuous work of moving beef and driving teams of mules or horses.
Despite the serious injury, John C. returned to Nevada where he got a job as a guard at the Nevada State Prison, where he was a noted tracker of escaped convicts.
Stay tuned for Part II.
Tahoe historian Mark McLaughlin is a nationally published author and professional speaker. His award-winning books are available at local stores or at thestormking.com. You may reach him at mark@thestormking.com. Check out his blog at tahoenuggets.com, or read more Sierra Stories at TheTahoeWeekly.com.
