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Peter Lebeck

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Peter Lebeck
The tree under which Peter Lebeck was buried, and where his epitaph was carved
DiedOctober 17, 1837
Tehachapi Mountains
NationalityPossibly French or French-Canadian
OccupationPossibly a trapper

Peter Lebeck (died 17 October 1837, also Lebec or Lebecque) was an early settler of Kern County, California, of whom little is known about. He is known only by his grave marker, now at Fort Tejon. He was killed by a bear, probably a California grizzly, in 1837.[1][2][3][4][5] The tree he was buried under is known as the Peter Lebeck Oak.[6][7]

Biography

The Peter Lebeck Oak, as it stood in the early 20th century.

Lebec may have been a Catholic French-Canadian trapper of the Hudson Bay Company -- judging by the Catholic-style Christogram seen on his grave -- granted by the Governor of California to hunt in the Tulare Valley.[8] The only primary source for his life is the epitaph, reading[9]

IHS
+
PETER
LEBECK
KILLED
BY
A x BEAR
OCTR 17
1837

The bear in question is likely a grizzly bear, as early Euro-American settlers in California referred to brown bears as "x bears" due to the pattern of dark fur on sometimes seen on their back.[10][11]

A taxidermied California grizzly at the Natural History Museum in Santa Barbara.

William F. Edgar was told by Native Americans living at Fort Tejon that Lebeck, a trapper passing through the canyon went off by himself in pursuit of a large grizzly and shot it underneath the oak tree. Approaching it, the bear fatally mauled him.[12][13] The visit was probably in 1893.[14] A hand-painted sign once attached to the Lebeck Oak, as taken in a gelatin print by Charles C. Pierce, reads

PETER LEBEC

SHOT A BEAR UNDER THIS TREE AND SUPPOSING IT DEAD WENT UP TO IT. IT CAUGHT AND KILLED HIM. HIS COMPANIONS BURIED HIM UNDER THIS TREE UPON WHICH THEY CUT HIS EPITAPH PETER LEBEC WAS KILLED HERE OCT 17 1837. THE BARK WITH THE EPITAPH WAS CUT OUT AND CAN BE SEEN AT LIBRARY IN BAKERSFIELD.[15]

A number of apocryphal works have sprung up around the personage, including that Lebec was an Acadian Frenchman sent by the Republic of Texas, or that he was a Lieutenant of Engineers named Pierre Lebecque in the French Army who was present with Napoleon on Elba.[16] In 1915, a five franc coin, dated 1837, was found in the ruins of an adobe hospital by Sam Allen, an employee of Tejon Ranch, fueling legends that he was connected to the French government.[17][18]

The Foxtail Rangers next to the Peter Lebeck Oak at Fort Tejon, 1890

The grave of Lebeck and the inscription is mentioned, along with the carcass of a bear, in the diaries of three members of the Mormon Battalion, a group of volunteers who passed through the area in 1847. The journal of Robert S. Bliss, for July 31st 1847, reads

...After staking out my horses I ascended the mountains to some spruce trees near the top. There I took a view of the mountain scenery; it was grand in the extreme. I saw many signs of bear, antelope, and deer, as this is a general watering place for those animals. I found the head of a bear which I brought to camp. Our Indian pilot said it was the bear that killed a man in this place. While I was writing, one of our boys said there was a grave within a few rods of our camp. I quit writing and visited the grave. I read on a tree at the head of the same: 'Peter Lebeck killed by a bear Oct. 17, 1837', with a cross over the writing and the letters J. S. (Jesus Salvador). [19][9]

After the Mexican-American War, William Phipps Blake made note of the monument, and an "unusual number of grizzly bears," in 1853.[18]

The bark of the oak tree eventually grew over the carving. An informal group from Bakersfield, called the Foxtail Rangers, removed the bark in the late 19th century and rediscovered the inscription in reverse on its underside.[20] They exhumed a skeleton "nearly six feet long, and broad in proportion" with "a remarkable state of preservation."[21]

Legacy

A new headstone was dedicated on April 15, 1936. E Clampus Vitus dedicated a plaque on the site on October 14th, 1972. Further, the Kern County division of E Clampus Vitus is named Peter Lebeck Chapter #1866.[22] The original grave marker is now intermittently displayed in the museum at Fort Tejon State Historic Park.[1][2]

Mary Hunter Austin's novel Isidro, published serially in The Atlantic, features a Peter Lebecque, who lives in a hut in Cañada de las Uvas. He is killed by a bear in 1835 and buried under an oak in Tejon Pass.[23][9] The town of Lebec, California is named for him.[3][24][6][5][4]

See also

Notes

  1. ^ a b "Peter Lebeck", Historical Marker Database
  2. ^ a b "Bark from the Lebec Oak". SCVHistory.com. Retrieved 2013-10-18.
  3. ^ a b Durham, David L. (1998). California's Geographic Names: A Gazetteer of Historic and Modern Names of the State. Clovis, Calif.: Word Dancer Press. p. 1060. ISBN 1-884995-14-4.
  4. ^ a b Rensch, Hero Eugene; Rensch, Ethel Grace; Hoover, Mildred Brooke; Abeloe, William N. (1978). Historic spots in California. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press. ISBN 0-8047-0079-6. OCLC 11325761.
  5. ^ a b Stewart, George R. (1970). American place-names : a concise and selective dictionary for the continental United States of America. New York, NY. ISBN 0-19-500121-4. OCLC 95369.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  6. ^ a b Gudde, Erwin Gustav; Bright, William (1998). California place names : the origin and etymology of current geographical names. Berkeley: University of California Press. ISBN 0-520-21316-5. OCLC 37854320.
  7. ^ Hoover, Mildred Brooke; Kyle, Douglas E. (2002). Historic spots in California. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press. ISBN 0-8047-4482-3. OCLC 50735628.
  8. ^ Wood 1954, pp. 24–26.
  9. ^ a b c Wood 1954.
  10. ^ Wood 1954, p. 26.
  11. ^ Storer 1955, p. 35.
  12. ^ Volume 3, Historical Notes of Old Land Marks in California
  13. ^ Storer 1955, p. 210.
  14. ^ Wood 1954, pp. 59–60.
  15. ^ Pierce, Charles C. Grave and monument of Peter Lebec at Fort Tejon. 1 black and white gelatin print; 25 x 20 cm. Huntington Library, San Marino, California.
  16. ^ Anderson, W. H. (8 May 1921). "The Valley of the Clouds: the Story of the Life and Love-Tales of Lt. Pierre Lebecque (Commonly known in California as Lt. Peter Lebec)". The Bakersfield Morning Echo. Bakersfield, CA.
  17. ^ Cullimore 1949.
  18. ^ a b Wood 1954, pp. 60–63.
  19. ^ THE JOURNAL OF ROBERT S. BLISS, WITH THE MORMON BATTALION (Concluded). Utah Historical Quarterly 1 October 1931; 4 (4): 110–128. doi: https://doi.org/10.2307/45057599
  20. ^ Brewer 2001.
  21. ^ Wood 1954, pp. 52–58.
  22. ^ "Peter Lebeck Chapter #1866". Retrieved 28 Dec 2022.
  23. ^ Austin, Mary Hunter (1905). Isidro. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company.
  24. ^ Thrapp 1990.

References

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