SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE, JUNE 18, 1872:
Governor Booth immediately addressed the prisoners at length, stating that the Prison Directors would hold an investigation and if there was anything wrong it would be righted. He would not hear any of the prisoners, and unless they went immediately to work they would be placed in confinement and severely punished. Mr. Pacheco then ordered them to go to the various shops, and all yielded except eleven men, who still grumbled, and they were immediately placed in solitary confinement… .
An investigation of the commissary stores disclosed that the convicts had never eaten better and they were merely trying to flex a power they did not have. Far from eating poor food, they were being served beef and mutton from the same animals butchered to feed the officers. Just recently some 400 bags of flour had been rejected as sub-standard by Warden Pacheco and Captain Towle who inspected all food supplies. The strike was traced to the eleven prisoners now in solitary, all of whom were to lose their “coppers,” or time off for good behavior. Perhaps the crowded conditions had something to do with the restlessness. There were some 950 convicts within the walls at this time, the Chinese prisoners being confined four to a cell to make up for the lack of cells. Pacheco’s reign as warden was to be brief, however. When Booth was elected to the U.S. Senate, he had to resign the governor’s position. Pacheco then assumed the empty office until December 1875, becoming the first, and last, Hispanic to occupy the governor’s office. His legacy was a separate mansion for the warden and his family, located on the east side of the prison with beautiful terraced gardens overlooking the bay. On the morning of May 26, 1873, two trusties were checking the various shops in the manufactory for crates of finished goods to be shipped to San Francisco. At the wagon makers shop there was a long, box which appeared ready for shipping. Loading it on their wagon, the trusties made the quarter-mile trip to Minturn’s wharf where the cargo was placed on its end on the forward deck of the steamer. The trusties had headed back for the prison when cries were heard coming from the vicinity of the box. The ship’s first mate, coming up from the hold, rushed over to see what the yelling was about and was startled to hear shouts of “Turn the box on its side!” actually emanating from the box. The mate eased the top end of the oblong box to the deck. When a board was removed, a man’s head suddenly appeared. As the mate pulled the struggling figure from the crate, two feet appeared and an-