© Kathy Duncan, 2025
Part One.
Based on the 1860 District of Columbia census, I inferred that William H. Piper, aged 12 and born in Washington, D C, was the son of James S. Piper and his wife, Elizabeth. Subsequent research revealed that Elizabeth was Elizabeth Powers and had been married to Ebenezer Bray on 26 April 1843 in the District of Columbia. By 1850, she was living with her mother, Jerusha Ann Powers, in DC. At that time, Elizabeth was still Elizabeth Bray and had not yet married James S. Piper. For that reason, she has been ruled out as the mother of William H. Piper, who would have been two years old in 1850. For many reasons, I have also ruled out Mary O'Hara, James S. Piper's first wife, as William's mother. Those reasons will be discussed in an upcoming post.
William H. Piper, who was born in the District of Columbia, enlisted as a substitute for Thomas J. Vickers of Kent County, Maryland, on 1 December 1864.
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William would have received $300 from the U.S. government for enlisting as a substitute and may have received additional funds from Thomas J. Vickers of Kent County, who was a wealthy man.
I don't know of any members of the Piper family living in Easton, Maryland, so perhaps William had relatives there from his mother's side of the family.
On 19 November 1866, William H. Piper of Baltimore, Maryland, enlisted in the army. He was described as having brown eyes, dark hair, and a dark complexion. He was still misrepresenting his age; he claimed to be 21, which would make him a year older than he had claimed to be in 1864. His height was 5' 6 1/2." It's not surprising that, as a teenager, he had grown three more inches since 1864. He served with Company K of the 14th Infantry and was dishonorably discharged at Camp Cady, California, on 6 January 1868.
At this point in my research, I paused to research Camp Cady to see if I could find out what might have happened to bring about William's discharge. Conditions at Camp Cady had deteriorated by late 1867. Soldiers were deserting in large numbers. One group of soldiers had gone out to round up deserters, but they also deserted. The bigger problem was that deserters did not move on. Instead, some of them stuck around to waylay travelers and to rob locals.
Before his arrival with the new recruits for the 14th Infantry, local newspapers were complaining about the behavior of the soldiers in the 14th. They were frequently drunken brawlers, and those were their best qualities. They were not just rogues. They stole horses from the locals, robbed people, and burgled local businesses. Everyone dreaded being approached by a soldier in uniform. One editor complained that Northern cities were cleaning up their own streets by putting their criminals in uniform and shipping them west in the 14th Infantry.
F. M. Dean wrote this letter to the Guardian of San Bernardino, which they published on 31 August 1871. In it, he described having his station robbed and burned by a small detachment of soldiers. However, nothing indicates that they were deserters.
According to the Los Angeles Daily News, six soldiers were tried and found guilty of the attack on Dean and his property. They were each sentenced to one to three years at San Quentin. The Los Angeles Daily News reported them en route to San Quentin on 11 October 1867:
W. H. Piper, a native of the District of Columbia, was received at San Quentin on 14 October 1867. He had been convicted of robbery in San Bernardino. His age was given as 18, which comes closer to matching his age on the 1860 census. His occupation was "laborer." He was described as having dark eyes, brown hair, and a dark complexion. His height was recorded as being 5' 6 1/2." He was described as having an assortment of scars on his left hand. He was discharged from San Quentin on 22 January 1869.
A vaccine mark was also noted on William's left arm. The Union Army routinely vaccinated its soldiers for smallpox during the war and during subsequent wars. I'm not sure if they routinely vaccinated soldiers in peacetime.
The five men listed before W. H. Piper on the San Quentin intake register are probably the other soldiers who were sentenced along with William for the atrocity at Dean's station. They were George T. Ingle, a 16-year-old laborer born in Maryland with a vaccine mark on his left arm; John Cripps, a 22-year-old laborer born in England; Thomas Maloney, a 20-year-old laborer born in Ireland with a vaccine mark on left arm; Edward McHugh, a 19-year-old printer born in New Brunswick with a tattoo on left arm; and John Adams, a 21-year-old laborer born in Ireland with a tattoo of an eagle with swords Union and Liberty on his right arm.
A military report for Company K from October 1867 states that five of the men listed on the San Quentin register were musicians who had been held in San Bernardino by civil authorities since 19 September 1867. Edward McHugh does not appear on this list, so it is possible that he was not a soldier and not involved in the Dean incident.
Visitors to San Quentin during this time period were scandalized by conditions there. The prisoners were poorly fed and engaged in forced labor. Some prisoners were operating their own stores and selling merchandise to their fellow prisoners at highly inflated prices. Gambling was common. Visitors predicted that the prisoners would be more hardened criminals when they were released.
The sergeant, who Dean stated oversaw the loading and removal of his supplies, was not charged by a grand jury. Note West's defense was that he "acted in obedience to orders, in saving the goods from destruction belonging to a man named Strous." Notice that there was no attempt to extinguish the flames consuming Dean's house. As Dean related the events, he was actively trying to put out the fire while the military made off with the goods. Then, just as Dean related, Sergeant West left, leaving Dean to his fate.
On 12 May 1868, William H. Piper, along with John Cripps, George T. Engle, and Thomas Maloney, announced that they would be seeking a pardon for their participation in the robbery of Dean:
While they were waiting for their pardons, their commanding officer, Lt. Manuel Eyre, Jr., was tried for the events at Dean's station. Note that George T. Engle, John Cripp, and Thomas Maloney are mentioned, but not William H. Piper. Lt. Eyre is the same lieutenant who left Dean in the desert with no food and no shelter from an oncoming storm. The judge dismissed the charges against Eyre, but some jury members said that they would have convicted him if the case had been allowed to proceed. Clearly, the author of this letter also would have liked to see him convicted.
On 3 February 1869, the governor of California pardoned William H. Piper. I have not discovered if Cripps, Engle, and Maloney were pardoned.
William Piper remained a free man for only six days. On 28 January 1869, he reenlisted while in San Francisco, California. His place of birth was given as Washington, D.C., and his age as 21. Once again, his occupation is given as "musician." He was recorded as having black eyes, brown hair, and a fair complexion. He served with the 23rd Infantry Co. E and C, and was dishonorably discharged on 12 December 1871 at Fort Vancouver, Washington.
This additional stint in the military is probably why I cannot find William H. Piper on the 1870 census.
Originally, I planned a post on William H. Piper that I estimated would only be a paragraph or two summarizing his military enlistments, but the details I found ballooned into enough material that two posts will be necessary. Stay tuned for part two.
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