Historical Marker · No. 722
Site of the Murder of Dr. John Marsh
Martinez, Contra Costa County · California
Erected by California State Park Commission; Martinez Horsemen's Association, 1960
The bronze says only that Marsh was murdered here, and the register calls his killers ruffians. Most accounts make them three vaqueros who stopped his buggy on September 24, 1856, over wages they said he owed, then robbed him and left him in a ditch. He had moved into his new stone house on Rancho Los Meganos near Brentwood two weeks before. The register has him riding home from Martinez; other accounts have him riding toward it. Marsh reached Los Angeles in 1836 and won leave to practise medicine on a Harvard diploma the town council could not read.
What the plaque says
Dr. John Marsh California Pioneer Murdered Here September 24, 1856 California Registered Historical Landmark No. 722 Plaque placed by the California State Park Commission in cooperation with the Martinez Horsemen's Association, February 22, 1960.
Where it stands
38.00531, -122.08757 · Directions
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