Ye Old Mendocino County
One hundred thirty-two years ago a Little Lake coroner’s jury reached a finding that my great grandfather’s horse had justifiably shot and killed Benjamin Frost on the trail between Mendocino and Willits. A judge sat at the inquest, but it was a jury who brought in the verdict. Those jurors may have suspected that my then 11-year-old great uncle actually did the shooting and reached their verdict to protect him. The bottom line amounted to: the Robertsons (my great grandfather and great uncle) were law-abiding, hard-working folk, the Frosts were more or less the opposite. If a Frost was shot dead in the presence of two Robertsons, the Little Lake jury possessed enough common sense to recognize which party was in the wrong. Having a rearing horse to pin things on made the jury’s decision all the easier. The jury’s verdict was an indirect statement to the lawless Frost clan: If one of your ilk gets shot down, so much the better, and to further the message we are going to say that he was shot by a horse and the equine’s actions were justifiable.
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