Contra Costa County CA Archives History - Books .....Killing Of Peter Peters 1882
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Joy Fisher sdgenweb@gmail.com November 23, 2005, 12:25 am

Book Title: History Of Contra Costa County, California

   KILLING OF PETER PETERS.—A Welchman named Peter Peters was shot and mortally
wounded by a fellow-countryman named Job Heycock on Thursday, March 14, 1872.
From the testimony given before the Coroner's jury it appears that Heycock was
aroused from his sleep on Thursday morning between the hours of four and five
o'clock by a great noise in the room adjoining his bedroom. He got up, went into
the next room, taking with him a loaded, double-barreled shot-gun. It was quite
dark there; but he thought he noticed somebody going upstairs; he called out to
him to stop, but receiving no answer, he fired. The deceased fell down to the
bottom of the stairs. Heycock approached him, found him to be Peter Peters, a
very particular friend of his. It also appeared from the testimony that William
Rees, a person living with Heycock, was about lighting a fire in the kitchen
when the deceased approached the window from the outside, broke a pane of glass,
raised the window and came in. Rees did not know who the person was, his light
having gone out, and was frightened so that he ran upstairs, causing thereby a
great noise which woke everybody in the house. The Jury of Inquest returned a
verdict of justifiable homicide. In regard to the principal in this affair, the
following "strange story" appeared above the caption "W.," in the Alameda
Advocate of May 11, 1872: "In 1837, on the 26th of November, the cosmopolitan
community of Crumlin, a small village in Monmouthshire, in the western part of
England, were aroused and somewhat bewildered by the commission of a foul crime,
the perpetrators of which did not only escape, but so skilfully covered their
tracks that discovery seemed impossible. A recent disclosure made under very
singular circumstances, as will be seen from this brief narrative, has brought
to light this once thought impenetrable mystery. The circumstances may not be
unfamiliar to many of the old residents of Monmouthshire. The victim was a young
man by the name of Mason, who was found dead on the old Crumlin bridge with his
body mangled in a fearful manner. A few weeks after this foul crime had been
committed, three men disappeared from the village very mysteriously to parts
unknown. There has been strong suspicion that these were the guilty parties. One
of the three was named Peter Peters, better known in this country as "Welsh
Pete." For fifteen years he had been rambling through the different mining
districts of California; the last few years he had been laboring in the Mount
Diablo coal mines. His voyage through life had been anything but pleasant. Given
very much to dissipation, under the effects of which he was laboring on the
morning of the 12th of February last, when he, at about five o'clock, leaped
from his bed imagining that he was surrounded by a host of enemies, with various
kinds of weapons in their hands, with the intention of taking his life. He ran
to an adjoining house for protection and jumped through the window of the back
kitchen. Mr. Heycock, the proprietor, heard the noise and went to the kitchen
door with his gun in his hand, and, as he says, called three times; hearing no
reply he discharged the contents of his gun into Welsh Pete's body, when he fell
to the floor. In a few moments he seemed quite conscious, the proprietor
promptly dispatched a messenger for medical assistance, acknowledging that he
had made a mistake. The utmost attention was paid to the wounded man, yet he
gradually became more feeble, but his strength and voice were spared to make a
clear confession of being accessory to the murder of T. Mason, on the old
Crumlin bridge, thirty-five years before. At ten o'clock the same day his
symptoms became worse and in a few moments after he breathed his last."

Additional Comments:
Extracted from:

HISTORY OF CONTRA COSTA COUNTY,
CALIFORNIA,
INCLUDING ITS GEOGRAPHY, GEOLOGY, TOPOGRAPHY, CLIMATOGRAPHY AND DESCRIPTION;
TOGETHER WITH A RECORD OF THE MEXICAN GRANTS; THE BEAR FLAG WAR; THE MOUNT
DIABLO COAL FIELDS; THE EARLY HISTORY AND SETTLEMENT, COMPILED FROM THE MOST
AUTHENTIC SOURCES; THE NAMES OF ORIGINAL SPANISH AND MEXICAN PIONEERS; FULL
LEGISLATIVE HISTORY OF THE COUNTY; SEPARATE HISTORY OF EACH TOWNSHIP, SHOWING
THE ADVANCE IN POPULATION AND AGRICULTURE;
ALSO,
Incidents of Pioneer Life; and Biographical Sketches
OF EARLY AND PROMINENT SETTLERS AND REPRESENTATIVE MEN;
AMD OF ITS TOWNS, VILLAGES, CHURCHES, SECRET SOCIETIES, ETC.
ILLUSTRATED.
SAN FRANCISCO: W. A. SLOCUM & CO., PUBLISHERS
1882.


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