Caught Dead to Rights,
The Biography of
Ben de Crevecoeur, a Real Western Lawman
By Zoe de Crevecoeur-Erickson

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Introduction

Before I tell Ben de Crevecoeur’s story, I have to tell his parents story.  They were both immigrants from Denmark although they didn’t meet until they were in San Francisco.  They came from the same country, arrived on opposite sides of the United States within perhaps five years of each other and finally met in San Francisco.   

Ben’s parents were Anna Margarethe Marie Thomsen and Hans Frederik Briand de Crevecoeur.  Margarethe was born in Denmark, married a Danish seaman and together they sailed to the gold mines in Australia.  After the birth of one child and the failure of the mines, they sailed to San Francisco.  We believe they mined for gold in Calaveras County.  She gave birth to three more children, was widowed twice before she met and married my great-grandfather, Hans.  

Hans had emigrated here from Denmark to fight in our Civil War, fought Shoshone in Idaho in the Army, and finally settled in San Francisco, where he and Margarethe were proprietors of a boarding house and restaurant.  After Margarethe was diagnosed with asthma, the family moved to the Banning area, where they raised cattle and sheep in Twentynine Palms.  Hans and Margarethe had three children, Ben being the youngest.  Then Hans was murdered.   

Margarethe’s last husband was Christopher Jost with whom she had four sons.  I am most impressed with Margarethe’s life.  She was a true pioneer.  She married four men, gave birth to eleven children, sailed half way around the world, helped her husbands mine for gold, raised sheep, and operated a boarding house and restaurant.  She was one of four or five white women in the Banning area in 1885, and hosted Ramona author, Helen Hunt Jackson.  Her great-granddaughter remembered hearing that she was strict, and hard working.   

Of her eleven children, Ben was the most notable.  He was involved in the Willie Boy hunt, investigated and testified at the trial of serial killer, Gordon Stewart Northcott, worked under famous prohibition leader, “Pussyfoot” Johnson, was friends with Tombstone’s first mayor and the Epitaph’s founder, John Clum.  I hope you enjoy their story.