Peter Lebeck

Peter Lebeck (died October 17, 1837, also Lebec or Lebecque) was an early settler of Kern County, California, of whom little is known, except that he was killed by a bear, probably a California grizzly, in 1837.[1][2][3] The tree he was buried under is known as the Peter Lebeck Oak.[4][5][6] He is attested only by his grave marker, now at Fort Tejon, but the mysterious circumstances of his identity and death have cemented his position in the culture of the San Joaquin Valley.

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

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

Lebeck 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.[7] The only primary source for his life is the epitaph, reading:[8]

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.[9][10]

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. The visit was probably in 1893.[11][12]

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).[8]

After the Mexican-American War, William Phipps Blake, accompanying the party of Robert S. Williamson, made note of the monument and an "unusual number of grizzly bears" in 1853, writing that it was a "durable monument."[13] William Ingraham Kip noticed the bark was beginning to cover the epitaph in 1855.[14] By the time John Xantus was living at Fort Tejon, between 1857 and 1859, the inscription had been covered by new bark.[15]

Lebeck's body is exhumed in 1890.
The Foxtail Rangers next to the Peter Lebeck Oak at Fort Tejon, 1890

In 1890, an informal group from Bakersfield, called the Foxtail Rangers, removed the bark in the late 19th century with the permission of Edward Fitzgerald Beale and rediscovered the inscription in reverse on its underside.[16][8] Four feet under the surface, they exhumed a skeleton "nearly six feet long, and broad in proportion" with "a remarkable state of preservation."[17] The body was laid east-west, with the left arm folded over the breast. The right forearm, both feet, and the left hand were missing. Two ribs on the left side were broken.[18]

The removed bark was initially in the possession of the local sheriff. In 1904, Truxtun Beale, Edward's son, sued in the Superior Court for possession of the epitaph.[19]

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.[20][8] 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.[21][13]

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] 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 and buried under an oak in Tejon Pass.[23][8] Austin also describes Lebeck and the Lebeck Oak in The Flock.[24] San Joaquin poet Don Thompson writes of Lebeck in his collection Local Color.[25] The town of Lebec, California is named for him.[1][26][5][3][2]

See also

Notes
  1. 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.
  2. 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.
  3. 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.
  4. Pavlik, Bruce M. (1991). Oaks of California. Los Olivos, CA: Cachuma Press. ISBN 0-9628505-2-7. OCLC 24908095.
  5. 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.
  6. Hoover, Mildred Brooke; Kyle, Douglas E. (2002). Historic spots in California. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press. ISBN 0-8047-4482-3. OCLC 50735628.
  7. Wood 1954, pp. 24–26.
  8. Wood 1954.
  9. Wood 1954, p. 26.
  10. Storer & Tevis 1955, p. 35.
  11. Storer & Tevis 1955, p. 210.
  12. Wood 1954, pp. 59–60.
  13. Wood 1954, pp. 60–63.
  14. Cullimore 1949, p. 16.
  15. Xántus & Zwinger 1986.
  16. Brewer 2001.
  17. Wood 1954, pp. 52–58.
  18. Cullimore 1949, p. 16-17.
  19. "Noted Tree Causes Lawsuit". San Francisco Call. April 12, 1904. Retrieved 17 May 2023.
  20. 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.
  21. Cullimore 1949.
  22. "Peter Lebeck Chapter #1866". Retrieved 28 Dec 2022.
  23. Austin, Mary Hunter (1905). Isidro. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company.
  24. Austin, Mary (2001). The flock. Reno: University of Nevada Press. ISBN 978-0-87417-754-1. OCLC 182987084.
  25. Thompson, Don (2014). Local color. Hemet, California: Aldrich Press. ISBN 978-0-615-95425-7. OCLC 959243802.
  26. Thrapp 1990.

References
  • Brewer, Chris (2001). Historic Kern County: An Illustrated History of Bakersfield and Kern County. Bakersfield, California: HPN Books.
  • Cullimore, Clarence (1949). Old Adobes of Forgotten Fort Tejon. Bakersfield, California: Kern County Historical Society.
  • Saunders, Charles Francis (June 12, 2014). The Southern Sierras of California. Many Moons Press. ISBN 978-0970048189.
  • Storer, Tracey I.; Tevis, Lloyd P. (1955). California Grizzly. Berkeley and Los Angeles, California: University of California.
  • Thrapp, Dan L. (1990). Encyclopedia of Frontier Biography. Vol. II. Spokane, Washington: A.H. Clark Co. ISBN 978-0803294189.
  • Wood, Raymund Francis (1954). The Life and Death of Peter Lebec. Fresno, California: Academy Library Guild.
  • Xántus, János; Zwinger, Ann (1986). John Xántus, the Fort Tejon letters, 1857-1859. Tucson: University of Arizona Press. ISBN 978-0-8165-3584-2. OCLC 610015380.
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