Church Lady vs. The Disgrace of California
David Jacks, the infamous scoundrel from Monterey, met his match during a most memorable Presbyterian service
All hell broke loose in a Monterey house of worship one Sunday morning in 1890 after an exasperated church lady publicly scolded the region’s most notorious scoundrel.
The woman, a long-forgotten heroine identified only as “Mrs. C.D. Clark,” deserves to be honored with a plaque somewhere in Monterey to commemorate the absurdist theater she staged when she ambushed David Jacks with a heap of humiliation during a church service in front of an entire congregation of worshipers.
It must have been brilliant.
I wish I could have witnessed it.
The tale of Mrs. C.D. Clark’s fury stands as a perfect illustration of the community-wide contempt for David Jacks, a scoundrel so despised around town that it’s a minor miracle he was never murdered, but somehow managed to die quietly of natural causes in 1909 at the age of 86.
Jacks was the jackass millionaire who owned nearly everything from Monterey to Chualar back in the 1890s. At one point he had amassed more than 100,000 acres of land, much of it snatched up in shady or cut-throat business dealings that victimized a substantial population of embittered Monterey County citizens. When he died his estate was valued at more than $5 million, which translates in 2024 dollars to $172.5 million.
There wasn’t much that Jacks accumulated or took credit for in an honorable way, whether he was building a church or seizing foreclosed property. He was known far and wide as a reprehensible villain of legend and lore. He even swindled the city of Monterey, absconding with thousands of city acres and refusing to work with city officials in a slimy maneuver that became known as “The Rape of Monterey.”
The only half-decent thing I’ve heard said about Jacks is that he’s credited for the eponymous dairy product, Monterey Jack Cheese. But even that bit of legend is suspect. I’m not convinced he deserves to have a dairy product named after him. Jack Shit might better befit his character.
Local citizens loathed Jacks, and not with the healthy populist contempt that citizens commonly held for most of the fat-cat capitalists of the day. They despised Jacks for very specific and personal reasons.
He had screwed, sued and humiliated practically every body he ever did business with.
“At one time he was hated by nearly every man, woman and child in Monterey County,” according to his obituary in the Sacramento Bee, a 400-word fulmination that failed to find a single nice thing to say, other than the fact that he had died.
Robert Louis Stevenson, the great British author and adventure novelist, didn’t spend a lot of time in Monterey County, but he was here long enough to conclude that David Jacks embodied a special breed of thieves and land sharks. People like Jacks were the “disgrace of California,” Stevenson wrote in a 1892 book called “Across the Plains.”
From the swamps of Salinas to the hills of Monterey, Jacks was “hated with a great hatred,” Stevenson wrote. He also noted, with some amazement, that Jacks had not yet been hanged by vigilantes, and he concluded that “in my private opinion this would have been done years ago” if Monterey was truly an “American town.”
Jacks was never murdered, perhaps, but it wasn’t for lack of intent. Over the years he was shot at, punched, slapped and verbally accosted on the streets by the enraged souls he swindled. He eventually employed a body guard to fend off assailants.
Even the sweet ladies at the Monterey Presbyterian Church reviled Jacks with a red hot passion in 1890. And for good reason.
Jacks was a member of the church who had spent thousands of dollars in its founding. He lorded his contributions over the congregation as though he was the Good Lord himself. Mrs. C.D. Clark was president of the church’s Building Association, which in 1890 only needed a pulpit and some pews before the magnificent building could be declared officially completed. Hoping to prevail on the philanthropy of a noted railroad tycoon, Mrs. C.D. Clark sent a letter to Collis P. Huntington seeking a contribution for the pews. Huntington was one of the Big Four railroad tycoons, and he was known to give his money away to worthy causes. But Mrs. C.D. Clark was stunned to discover that Huntington had already made a donation to their cause.
She learned this when Huntington responded to her request with a letter that was both a stunning revelation and a masterwork of droll humor:
New York, June 24th, 1890
DEAR MADAM: — Your letter of June 17th is received and I have read it with care. In reply I will have to say that the calls upon me for money to help churches are simply legion, and while I recognize their importance and great value as bulwarks against crime and sin and their assistance as a factor in civilization and enlightenment, yet my means are limited, of course, to what I can do, and these things I confess to not appeal to me as strongly as some other objects do, which seem to call imperatively upon every man to give his share. I sent MR. JACKS $500 towards a church in Monterey, and this is all I feel called upon to give to that locality, although I wish for the ladies all success and an easy extrication out of their difficulties.
Yours very truly,
C.P. Huntington
Mrs. C.D. Clark again wrote Huntington, asking specifically what Jacks had told him his donation would be used for. Huntington responded that Jacks said the money would “aid in the purchase of seats for the Presbyterian church.”
In this way, the church ladies learned that Jacks was essentially stealing from the metaphorical collection plate.
The church committee showed Huntington’s letters to Jacks; they implored him to turn over the money. He flatly refused and told them that he would have nothing more to say about it. Period.
I can imagine Jacks showing up for Sunday service on July 20, 1890. I picture him all pious and smug with the knowledge that he owned the church, just like he owned all the land and all the people he had sued and screwed along the way.
Jacks might have been Enemy Number One to a lot of people, but he made certain the rest of the world knew he was an upstanding child of God. In fact, Jacks’ blatant hypocrisy was another thing the Sacramento Bee felt obligated to mention after he died. David Jacks, according to the Bee, was the sort of creep “that looks upon the Almighty as the special protector and friend of the grinding landlord and landgrabber — one who evidently firmly believed Christ died on the cross for the special benefit of the David Jacks of this world.”
Anyway, Jacks walked into church that particular Sunday like the Crown Prince of the Presbytery, apparently unaware that Mrs. C.D. Clark was about to ambush him with a full arsenal of pithy righteous indignation.
The service opened innocently enough with hymns and prayers. After the sermon, Rev. H.S. Snodgrass announced that “sister Clark” had something she wished to read to the congregation.
Mrs. C.D. Clark walked to the altar and in a clear, firm voice she read from a resolution that had been prepared a few days earlier by a church committee of “trustees and ladies.” The resolution described the hard work it took to build the church. And it went on to say that it was “with pain and sorrow that one of our brothers, to wit; David Jacks, has in years past collected certain monies for the use and benefit of our congregation, for which he has not accounted.”
Mrs. C.D. Clark also demanded that Jacks turn over “any monies he may now have belonging to the congregation” within five days. She didn’t say outright that Jacks had stolen from the church, but the implication was clear.
Jacks leapt from his seat and rushed at Mrs. C.D. Clark. Shaking with rage, he launched into a harangue about how the Monterey Presbyterian Church could not have existed without him, that he put up good money to build and maintain it, that he’d even filled in as a preacher when they could find no preacher to preach.
To her credit, Mrs. C.D. Clark stood her ground, going nose to nose with the millionaire and arguing the point in front of the entire congregation. There was a great murmuring among the crowd. Some stormed out of the church, disgusted with Jacks. Others shouted at Jacks to tone it down.
“Everything by this time had assumed a perfect pandemonium,” according to an account of the service published a couple of days later in The Monterey Cypress. The Santa Cruz Sentinel reported that the church service “came near leading to a measurement of hands in a clenched form.” Whatever that means.
The Rev. Snodgrass eventually quieted the crowd and the congregation dispersed in a dither.
It didn’t end there, of course. The church ladies then purchased an advertisement in a New York City newspaper meant to humiliate Jacks on a larger stage. It read:
Notice — If this reaches the eye of any one who has given David Jacks of Monterey any money for the erection or furnishing of the Presbyterian Church in Monterey, excepting C.P. Huntington, will they please communicate with Mrs. C.D. Clark, president of the Church Building Association, Monterey, California.
As you might surmise, the measly $500 was a drop in the bucket for a tycoon like David Jacks. There must have been something else going on. Fortunately, for the sake of clarification, H.L. Bradford had the inside scoop.
Bradford was the publisher of the Cypress, the newspaper of record in Monterey at the time. Notably, and like nearly everybody else in town, he was a sworn enemy of David Jacks. Week after week, Bradford’s columns relentlessly bubbled with vitriol and scorn directed at Jacks. Bradford took delight in constantly referring to Jacks as “Uncle David” and making it clear that Uncle David was the most despicable human being in town.
Bradford noted that no one believed Jacks was holding on to Huntington’s money to enrich himself. “Mr. Jacks is too wealthy to bother with such small trifles,” Bradford wrote. “Those who know him best attribute his actions … to a desire on his part to obtain petty revenge against those who had deprived him of certain privileges he had heretofore enjoyed in the church.
“It shows that Jacks … glories in witnessing human misery.”
The public humiliation apparently dogged Jacks in the days after Mrs. C.D. Clark’s ambush. Hoping to explain and redeem himself, he called a special meeting at the church the next Thursday. Folks from all over Monterey showed up, including ministers from other churches and a heavenly host of non-churchgoers looking for some solid Thursday night entertainment.
The Cypress reporter was there, of course, and he took copious notes. “Mr. Jacks talked one hour and five minutes, during which he attempted in a garbled and greatly disconnected speech to explain his relations with the church,” according to the account in the Aug. 2, 1890 edition.
When Jacks did make any sense, he only added fuel to the fire. According to those who were there that night, he told the assembled he didn’t hand over Huntington’s check to the Building Association because he didn’t care for doing business with women. And then he inferred that an attorney must have drafted the statement Mrs. C.D. Clark read to the congregation earlier in the week because none of the ladies at the church were smart enough to have written it themselves.
At that point, Jacks and Mrs. C.D. Clark and several others in the crowd started shouting over one another. The visiting ministers interjected, saying that Jacks ought to be given the benefit of the doubt. But Mrs. C.D. Clark declared that Jacks could easily eliminate all that doubt by handing over the check.
After the shouting died down, Jacks finally agreed to turn over the check if the treasurer of the group, J.B. Snively, would kindly send him a written request. Snively, I should note, was a man. A church man. Not a church lady.
On Aug. 16, 1890, Mrs. C.D. Clark posted a gracious letter in the Cypress to thank the people of Monterey who supported the Building Association. The church project was completed, she announced, once and for all. She also expressed gratitude to Huntington for his kind gift, but she did not mention David Jacks.
“And now as our church is built we have no further use for a Church Building Association,” she wrote. “And now I gracefully retire from the President of the Church Building Association of Monterey.”
The following year, by a 43-7 vote, members of Monterey’s First Presbyterian Church rejected David Jacks’ slate of church trustee candidates. “The result,” according to The San Francisco Chronicle, “gives satisfaction to the public generally.”
In November of 1892, local newspapers reported that Jacks was starting an “opposition Presbyterian church” in Monterey.
Illustration of David Jacks, above, from an old newspaper portrait by Joe Livernois
Sources:
The Monterey Cypress
The History of Dr. Hart’s Mansion & the Early Days of Pacific Grove
Food & Wine
The Sacramento Bee
Monterey County Historical Society
The Monterey County Herald
The Salinas Californian
The Santa Cruz Sentinel
The San Francisco Call and Post
The San Francisco Examiner
The San Francisco Chronicle
Monterey County: the dramatic story of its past. Augusta Finch, 1972
Agreement for dissolution of David Jacks Corporation and division of its properties, September 16, 1919
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Locations of the original Presbyterian church AND the "opposition" church of David Jacks??
Joe what a great story!