Chief of Police and Chief Scoundrel - James Lappeus
CHIEF OF POLICE AND CHIEF SCOUNDREL: JAMES LAPPEUS’ PORTLAND DIRECTORY
It is a longstanding and now iconic trope of the Old West: the town’s worst scoundrel--if not outright criminal--wearing a lawman’s badge. Yet like most such tropes, it usually had more than a kernel of truth. As reformed rogue Edouard Chambreau put it in his autobiography, “Any desperado who had the necessary abilities could always get himself elected city marshal” (John 2012). Chambreau was naming no names, but it is difficult to believe that he did not have a specific desperado in mind. In 1859, the Frenchman’s old friend, James H. Lappeus, was elected to serve as the very first town marshal of Portland, Oregon. About a decade later, when the city organized its Police Bureau, Lappeus was hired as the first Chief of Police. Few men in Portland were less suited for the role. By the time he strolled into the offices of the new Police Bureau, Lappeus was co-owner and proprietor of the Oro Fino Theatre and Gem Saloon, the largest, swankiest bar and gambling parlor in the Pacific Northwest, one that likewise reputedly served as the region’s finest bordello, offering its customers the charms of nude dancing and prostitution. Both, it might go without saying, were altogether illegal.
James Henry Lappeus--born in Albany, New York, in 1829--had joined the First Regiment of the New York Volunteers, Company H, in July 1846, at the start of the Mexican War. Departing from New York City onboard the ship Susan Drew, his regiment had sailed west to California by way of the Horn, arriving at San Francisco on March 19, 1847, as part of the United States Army’s occupation force. When the regiment was mustered out in 1848, Lappeus decided to remain in California, seeing opportunity in the Gold Rush. Lappeus, though, had no intention of sweating it out in the mines. Instead, he took to life as a notorious “blackleg,” or swindling gambler, cheating miners from their earnings. He also fell in with a dangerous gang of San Francisco criminals called The Hounds, in whose company he met French gambler and card sharp Chambreau. The Hounds were responsible for a brutal attack against Chilean and Mexican miners in broad daylight on July 15, 1849, resulting in the rapid organization of a citizen’s Law and Order Party that rounded up the gang’s leaders and drove most of the others from town. Lappeus and Chambreau were among those who sought opportunities (legal or not) elsewhere in the gold fields.
About 1850, Chambreau visited Lappeus near Sacramento, where the latter was operating a gambling joint and general store called the Ten Mile House. Just as Chambreau arrived, a large group of drunken teamsters started a brawl in the store. The two former Hounds drove the rowdy cohort out by hurling bottles at their heads, but once outside the teamsters began firing guns into the building with Chambreau and Lappeus still inside. As Chambreau recalled: “In an instant we both had our six-shooters out, and you think it was not lively there for a little while? After we had driven them away from near the store we retreated, and barricaded ourselves inside, and made ready for an attack, but they did not want any more of it. We were both hurt but nothing serious [quoted in John 2012].”
Lappeus made his way to Portland, Oregon, soon after. In 1850, it was still a young town of fewer than a thousand people. Known derisively by names like Stumptown and Mudtown, it was overshadowed economically and politically by Oregon City, the territorial capitol located just upstream at the falls of the Willamette River. Yet Portland sat at the confluence of the Willamette and the Columbia, a locale accessible to ocean-going vessels, and it would soon eclipse its nearby rivals. In less than a decade, Portland’s population had grown threefold and--much to the liking of a man such as Lappeus--it boasted a saloon for every fifty (mostly male) citizens. Lappeus did well for himself in California and arrived in Portland on the cusp of its ascent. Little is known of his first few years in the city, but in 1859 he somehow managed to get himself elected to the newly created post of city marshal, beating out his competitor 146 votes to 71. Charles Tracey notes that “Lappeus was the major Portland police personality during the next 24 years, serving as marshal or police chief for more than 13 years during this period” (1979:134). Only three years after his election as marshal, he was listed as co-owner of the Oro Fino Theatre and Gem Saloon; it would be naive, we suspect, to think that the two events were unrelated.
Lappeus served two terms as town marshal, 1859-1861 and 1868-1869, then was named Portland’s first Chief of Police when the Bureau was organized in 1870. He served two terms as Chief, 1870-1877 and 1879-1883. For years, Lappeus and his so-called “Oro Fino Ring” aimed to control Portland politics for his fellow Democratic Party office holders and candidates. Dogged for corruption throughout his career with accepting a bribe in a murder case, one that occurred in a brothel, no less. Lappeus obtained this copy of Samuel’s 1875 Directory during his first term as Chief.
Relevant sources: Chandler, J. D. 2013 Hidden History of Portland, Oregon. The History Press, Charleston, SC.; 2013 Murder & Mayhem in Portland, Oregon. The History Press, Charleston, SC. John, Finn J. D.; 2012 Wicked Portland: The Wild and Lusty Underworld of a Frontier Seaport Town. The History Press, Charleston, SC.; Tracy, Charles Abbott, III 1979 Police Function in Portland, 1851-1874: Part II. Oregon Historical Quarterly 80(2):134- 169.
Samuel published only three editions of his Directory, for 1873, 1874, and 1875. All are extremely scarce today. OCLC reports just seven institutions with copies of the 1873 edition, two with copies of the 1874, and seven with copies of the 1875; RBH records only a single copy of any edition at auction, an ex-library example of the 1873 edition with replaced spine that made $660 in 2016. It is difficult to imagine a more provocative and fascinating provenance for any Portland directory.
This copy of Samuel’s Directory of Portland and East Portland for 1875, rare and desirable in its own right--and particularly so in its original, unrestored binding--is made all the more interesting because of its wonderful Portland provenance: it is inscribed “Chief of Police Office” at the top of its front board, and “J. H. Lappeus Book” at the top of its back.