Contra Costa County CA Archives History - Books .....Murder Of Martin Gersbach 1882
************************************************
Copyright.  All rights reserved.
http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm
http://www.usgwarchives.net/ca/cafiles.htm
************************************************

File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by:
Joy Fisher sdgenweb@gmail.com November 23, 2005, 12:27 am

Book Title: History Of Contra Costa County, California

   MURDER OF MARTIN GERSBACH.—The locality known as the Hertsel Place, on the
San Pablo creek, some three miles below what is called the Telegraph Road
Crossing, was the scene of a murder on Friday evening, August 1, 1873, almost
precisely parallel in cause and circumstances with the Eischler murder mentioned
above. If there be any difference at all, it is that in the last deed both the
implicated parties were apparently persons of competent mental capacity and
responsibility, while in the other, neither of there, perhaps, were up to the
common measure of mental competency and sense of responsibility. In both cases
the wife and the paramour plotted the death of the husband; attempted it
repeatedly by means of poison, and finally compassed it by direct assault with
murderous weapons; in the former case with an ax, and the latter with pistol
shot, hammer and ax. Martin Gersbach was a German by birth, some thirty years of
age, who by industry and frugality had accumulated a little money, some three or
four thousand dollars, it is said, and had been a lessee of the place where he
lived with his family, and where he was murdered, for something more than a
year. His wife was a woman of about the same age, of German parentage and
American birth. The paramour-murderer, Nash, alias William Osterhaus, was a man
about the same age, also of German parentage and American birth.

   By the woman's statement, Nash was engaged by her husband about Christmas,
1872, to work on the place, and he soon began to pay her some improper
attentions, which she slightly resented at first, but soon began to accept and
encourage. When the character of the subsisting intimacy became apparent to her
husband he became enraged, and threatened to procure a divorce; but as he did
not move in the matter further, they plotted to kill him, first dosing him with
croton oil, given one day when he complained of being sick, then trying to have
him take arsenic in medicine to counteract the effects of the oil, then by
putting laudanum in his coffee, which he would not drink after the first taste,
and spat on the floor; they then tried to dispose of him by saturating his
pillow with chloroform; and then Nash determined to pick a quarrel for the
opportunity it might offer of killing him, but was unable to make a quarrel that
he would resent. Finally, on Friday night, the 1st August, as she stated, after
she and her husband had retired to bed about nine o'clock, Nash, who occupied a
room above stairs, called for Gersbach to come up there. Gersbach, instead of
complying, rose from the bed on which he was lying with his clothes on, and
hurried out of the house, and as he did so Nash came down stairs with a pistol
in each hand. He ran out after Gersbach, and she heard six shots fired in quick
succession. She then heard a low groan, and, on going to the door, met Nash, who
said Martin was shot. Just then he groaned. Nash at once took a hammer from the
kitchen, went out to where Gersbach lay, and she heard several blows of the
hammer on his head. Nash then returned and said he had finished him. He told her
he would go over and tell Rowland, a neighbor, he had killed Martin in
self-defense, but just as he was about to go Martin groaned again. Nash went to
where he lay, and she heard heavy, dull blows given; Nash then returned to her
and said he had finished him with the ax. Nash then went off to carry his report
of the death of Gersbach, and when he returned, before morning, said he would
have to leave. He changed his bloody clothes, took about thirty or forty dollars
that belonged to his victim, and went away. Such was the woman's statement. The
officers found the blood-stained, cast-off clothing of the murderer, his pistol
with six empty chambers and the blood and hair-clotted hammer in the room he had
occupied, and spots of blood about the floor. Near the spot where the body of
his victim fell they found the other pistol, fully charged.

   After the murder Nash went to the house of Mr. Muir, a few hundred yards
distant from that of the murdered man, and called him up. The dogs barked and
made such threatening demonstrations that he remained some little distance off.
The barking of the dogs was so furious that Muir could not distinctly hear what
he said, further than that Gersbach had been killed; and he therefore dressed
and went over, either with Nash or following him, and found the wounded man
still alive. Muir requested Nash to help him carry the man into the house, but
he refused to do so; and while Muir was gone for other help, as we understand,
Nash changed his clothes and left the place. The murdered man lingered until
Monday, August 4th, and was sufficiently conscious during a portion of the time
to give intelligent directions for the care of his boy and his property affairs
by a friend, and to clearly designate Nash as his murderer.

   After more than a week's hunt by night and by day among the hills, following
up the scent of every reported straggler, and in almost every instance finding
they had been on scent of the wrong man, and while Sheriff Ivory and his staff
of officers were still scouring the hills and valleys for Nash, a telegram was
received, August 11th, from Governor Booth, with the information that he had
been captured at Battle Mountain, Nevada. Under-Sheriff Hunsaker immediately
dispatched a courier to find Sheriff Ivory, and telegraphed to the Battle
Mountain Justice that he would start for the prisoner immediately, inquiring at
the same time if he had a description of Nash, and was sure he had him. A reply
was received from the Justice later in the evening, that he had the description,
and the prisoner acknowledged himself the man. The courier sent for Mr. Ivory
found him above Danville, shaping his course towards Tassajara. He at once
turned homeward and with all speed made his way to Battle Mountain. Nash was
duly tried, found guilty May 1, 1874, and sentenced to imprisonment for life. In
the case of Mary Gersbach, the jury, after three days' and nights' confinement
for deliberation failed to agree. She was again tried, with a like result in
December, 1874. The case dragged its slow length along up till November 9, 1875,
when District Attorney Mills applied to the Supreme Court for peremptory writ of
mandate and review in the case of Mary Gersbach, which was denied; on Wednesday,
November 17th, she was discharged from custody on her own bond of five thousand
dollars.


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.


File at: http://files.usgwarchives.net/ca/contracosta/history/1882/historyo/murderof75ms.txt

This file has been created by a form at http://www.poppet.org/cafiles/

File size: 7.8 Kb