“Listen, my children, and you will get a shocko

At the marvelous ride of Long John Flaco.”

    In an unmarked grave in a used car lot in Stockton lies the body of a man who made the most remarkable horseback ride in history.  His american name was John Brown.  He was given a Spanish “Juan Flaco” from all his friends because he was so tall and lean, and quite frankly did not look like a John Brown.

Juan Flaco,  means Slim John.  There was another man who was named John Brown, who tried to free the slaves, but the John Brown in this story was not related to him.  This is the story of the man who tried to save an American army in Los Angeles from being captured by the California Spanish army.

John Brown made his famous ride in 1846, just a little over one hundred years ago.  John rode eighteen horses almost to death between Los Angeles and San Francisco.  He nearly killed himself doing this as well.

An officer, by the name of Archibald Gillespie, was placed in command of fifty men at the police headquarters in Los Angeles.  Gillespie was an American marine officer.  He was chosen to command this group because he spoke excellent Spanish.  Gillespie, however, did not seem to understand the natives and their ways.  He made the men angry at harsh and unnecessary rules.  For instance, at eight o’clock in the evening, the men had to turn their lights out and go to bed.  They did not like being treated like that. 

So one day about five hundred native Californians surrounded the fort on Hill Street where the Americans were camped.  Gillespie knew that he was in for trouble and knew that he would soon run out of water and food if he could not get some help.  Juan Flaco had joined the Americans during the war, and everyone knew that he was a wonderful horseman.  Gillespie offered Juan five hundred dollars if he would go for help.  Juan Flaco accepted.

At eight o’clock in the evening of September 23th, 1846, as Juan Flaco swung open the gate, mounted his white horse, Silver, and was on his way.

The Californians, who surrounded the fort, saw Juan Flaco and Silver speed away.  Several tried to catch them on their best horses.  They chased the rider and his horse about two miles along what is now known as Sunset Boulevard, and then shot Flaco’s horse just as he jumped a thirteen-foot ditch.  This ditch proved too wide for the other horses, and their riders gave up the chase.  Juan was safe, but soon his horse began to falter, and two miles beyond the ditch Silver fell dead.

The fate of the American garrison at Los Angeles had been riding on the hoofs of Silver, and now he was dead.  Juan Flaco had gone only four miles. 

DOMINGO DOMINGUEZ and SENORA DOMINGUEZ

He took the saddle off his horse and hung it on a tree.  He then walked and ran about twenty-seven miles in the dark to a ranch owned by a friend, a man named Dominguez.  He did not dare tell this man and his wife where he was going or why he was going.  He told them that he had gotten off his horse to fix the saddle, and a grizzle bear had frightened it, and the horse had bolted and run away. 

Juan Flaco was in a hurry as he had to deliver the message in order to save the men in the fort, and he had a long way to go.  Mrs. Dominguez insisted that he eat breakfast before starting out again.  After eating the scrambled eggs and steak, he finally got away on a fresh horse.  He reached Santa Barbara late that night.  He had ridden and walked eighty miles in seventeen hours.  This was fast time considering that he had followed a road, which led over rough mountains, and he had gone twenty-seven miles on foot.

 That night Juan Flanco slept in an army barracks.  Captain Talbott, who was in command at Santa Barbara, promised Juan he would find some fresh horses the next morning.  However, it took him all day to find the proper animals.  Finally, Juan got away. 

He rode one horse and drove the spare ones in front of him.  He kept on for hours, and finally reached the ranch of another friend, a former sea captain by the name of Thomas Robbins.  This friend gave him some fresh horses and he started out again.  He got away just in time because some hard-riding California Lancers were hot on his trial. 

When these men got to Robbins’ place, they were told that Juan had just stolen the fastest horses on the ranch, but Robbins said he would be glad to let them have the best steeds he had left.  These horses turned out to be poor broken-down beasts. 

By the time the Lancers had reached the foot of Mountain San Marcos, northwest of Santa Barbara, they decided to give up the chase.  Juan Flanco had reached the top of the mountain by that time and looked down in time to see his pursuers stop and turn back.  This made him very happy, but he still had to keep on going fast.  It was two days, three nights since he had left Los Angeles.  He knew he must hurry if Gillespie and his men were to be saved.

Juan Flanco,  knew a man by the name of Lewis Burton, who had a ranch near San Luis Obispo, so he headed for that ranch.  Juan described Lewis Burton as “a true American.”  Brown arrived there late in the afternoon, and Burton gave him four fine horses. 

Riding them by turns he managed to reach the outskirts of San Miguel about 11 o’clock that night.  His travelling was made all the harder because he had to make many detours to avoid meeting Spanish Californians.  They were then in open revolt against the Americans. 

The only people he could trust were the few Americans along the way.

Early the next morning Juan was soon in the saddle and kept riding steadily until he reached Monterey.  This was supposed to have been the end of his ride.  Commodore Stockton had his headquarters there, and Gillespie had told Juan to report to the commanding officer at that place.  However, the Commodore had gone to San Francisco on business, and it was necessary to contact him. 

Juan had ridden 350 miles over gullies, across mountains, along rough riverbeds, and through wild scrub, avoiding the smoothest parts of the royal Highway for fear of detection.  He had covered that distance in fifty-two hours and was very tired.  He was no young man either, as he was forty-seven years old.

There was no one with authority at Monterey to draft any messenger to go to San Francisco.  No one would volunteer, as the trip was too dangerous, with all the native Californians on the warpath now.  It was also thought that Stockton would want to know exactly what was going on at Los Angeles before he would decide to move his navy and troops there, and only Juan Flanco could tell him.  So, Juan Flanco was offered two hundred dollars if he would go on.  He did!

This time Juan was given a racehorse owned by an American named Job Dye.  Gillespie had written his message to Stockton on several cigarette papers and signed them with his signet ring which he knew Stockton would recognize, and in that way would know that Juan Flanco’s message was true. These cigarette papers were used all along the way as a means of identification and helped him secure fresh horses.  In this matter Juan made no mistakes along the entire way. 

Job Dye’s famous racer aided by other horses secured near Gilroy enabled Juan to reach San Jose in three hours and forty-five minutes.  This means that he had averaged Twenty-three miles an hour for eighty-seven miles’ when Citation set the world’s record for one mile at Golden Gate Fields track in 1950 (1:33 2/5), he was sprinting at the rate of forty-three miles an hour, but for only one mile.  So, we may assume that Juan Flanco was riding some mighty fast horses.

The most important American in California then was Thomas O. Larkin, a personal agent of President James K. Polk.  He lived in Monterey, but he had gone to San Jose on business.  He interviewed Juan Flanco there and was alert enough to realize the seriousness of the situation at Los Angeles.  He got some fine horses for Juan, although it took him four hours to round them up.  Then Juan Flanco was on his way once more. 

He was very tired, but very determined to finish his ride.  He said later that he passed Santa Clara ‘fluking,’ which is a salt-water term he had learned while a sailor in the British Navy and means “sailing fast with a fresh breeze.”

He reached the beach in San Francisco at exactly eight o’clock in the evening, as he heard the booming of the eight o’clock cannon on Stockton’s flagship, The Congress.  He could not get in touch with Stockton that night as he had no boat, so he slept on the beach in his bed rolls. 

The next morning, he met the market boat from the flagship and was quickly rowed out to his historic interview with Stockton.  His famous ride was over!

What did Juan Flanco get out of his famous ride?  Really nothing but an aching back.  Commodore Stockton was too busy with plans to save Gillespie to notice how far and fast Juan Flanco had come.  Historians ignored this unusual event for many years, and then made it so ridiculously fast and long that no one would believe the yarn.  No one wrote ballads or poems about him like those about Paul Revere or Philip Sheridan. 

Compared with John Brown’s ride, the fourteen-mile jaunt of Paul Revere was as exciting as playing Ring-Around-the-Rosy.  Gillespie said he had never promised to pay Juan Flanco five hundred dollars, and the men who had offered him an additional two hundred dollars at Monterey failed to pay him.  Gillespie came to a bad end.  In 1854, he was court-martialed and found guilty of stealing regimental mess funds.  He was given a dishonorable discharge from the Marine Corps. was this another false imprisonment, and how many others in that time period had the same problem.  Many soldiers then probably owed and stole money all the time, and Gillespie took the blame for all.

Just what did Juan Flanco accomplish by his heroic ride?  Really nothing.  Fast as he had ridden, his labor proved to be in vain.  When Stockton’s re-enforcements arrived, Gillespie had already surrendered.  However, this does not detract from Juan Flanco’s heroism and effort.  He had ridden 511 miles in exactly five days elapsed time, and this included several hours spent in sleeping, resting, and impatiently waiting for fresh horses, and one whole day’s delay at Santa Barbara.  He is still remembered for bad and good, and for the rides he took,