S.B. Historical Museum

Joseph Johnson was the controversial publisher of the Santa Barbara Press.

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Question Submitted by Richard Cooper

Santa Barbara’s first newspaper, the Gazette, began publication in May of 1855. This rather tumultuous period in local journalism ended in 1858 with the expiration of the paper. The city was without a newspaper for the next 10 years. The arrival of the Santa Barbara Post, in May 1868, began a lively, contentious, even violent period in local journalism.

The Post was a weekly published by E.B. Boust, formerly of Placerville, California. Like his predecessors on the Gazette, Boust did not think very highly of the Spanish-speakers of the city, who at that time formed more than half of the population. In Boust’s mind these people formed a serious impediment to transforming Santa Barbara into a true Yankee town. After a year of controversy and falling circulation, reminiscent of the problems that had plagued the Gazette in its last years, Boust sold the paper to Joseph Johnson, who changed the name to the Santa Barbara Press.

Johnson, whose news sheet enjoyed the financial backing of William Welles Hollister, one of the city’s most prominent entrepreneurs, proved to be no less controversial than Boust. Johnson’s particular target for journalistic jibes was the district attorney, W.T. Williams, accused of corruption and consorting with prostitutes. So enraged did Williams become by what he considered to be slanderous comments, that when he met Johnson one day on the street, in June 1871, he knocked the latter down and proceeded to horsewhip him.

Violence escalated two months later, when unknown arsonists set the editorial offices of the Press ablaze. Johnson accused his opponents of using Ku Klux Klan-type tactics, while Boust, who had reentered the journalistic arena with his Santa Barbara Times, suggested Johnson himself had arranged the fire. It was not long before Johnson and the Press were back in business, thanks in part to a fund-raising dinner arranged by John P. Stearns, builder of the wharf.

Partisan politics often inflamed journalistic rhetoric with newspapers unabashedly, even rabidly, taking sides. Yet another physical confrontation took place on Santa Barbara’s streets, when Clarence Gray, candidate for district attorney and William F. Russell, editor of the strongly Democratic Santa Barbara Index (founded in 1872), clashed. Gray, responding to Russell’s strident editorials concerning the former’s character, beat Russell with a cane rendering him semi-conscious. Both parties were arrested and Gray was fined $20 for the assault; he did not win the election.

An even more violent episode took place in 1880 and again involved Gray. He again was running for D.A. and this time ran afoul of the editorial pen of Theodore Glancey, editor of the Press, who called Gray’s candidacy a disgrace and strongly suggested that Gray was a law-breaker and outright hooligan. Enraged, Gray first confronted the owner of the Press, John Stearns, and demanded a retraction. Satisfaction was not forthcoming, and the next evening Gray ran into his tormentor, Glancey, on State Street. A confrontation quickly escalated and Gray pulled out a revolver. After a struggle, Gray shot the unarmed editor in the stomach. Glancey died the next day.

The incident was such a local sensation, Gray’s subsequent criminal trial had to be transferred to San Mateo County. He pleaded self-defense, but was found guilty and sentenced to 20 years in prison. A new trial was ordered, however, when it was discovered authorities had allowed the jurors to consume large amounts of liquor while deliberating at a hotel near the courthouse. In all, Gray would be tried three times before being acquitted once and for all in December 1882.

Newspapers continued to come and go during the balance of the 1800s. In 1888, for example, there were two daily and four weekly papers competing for the attention of readers and advertisers. Wrangling and lawsuits continued, and accusations continued to fly well into the 1900s, but the days when journalists and their foes settled their disputes with street violence were over.

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