Historic Homicide
Northern Humboldt’s Mysterious Murderer:
​The Unsolved Cases of Bert Porter and Joseph Vierra

Charles Herbert “Bert” Porter was born in approximately 1876 in Anaheim, California, to Achsa “Axie” Porter and Addison Porter and was the oldest of their eight children. The family moved around California, eventually arriving in Humboldt County in 1887, where Addison Porter established a blacksmith shop. After the closure of Camp Curtis in Arcata, the family moved to Bayside for a year before resettling in Dow’s Prairie, where they operated the family blacksmith shop until 1913. 

Bert Porter Image from Dow's North of Mad River by Loberta Gwin

On Thanksgiving Day, November 25, 1908, Bert Porter went out duck hunting “on the lagoon to the north of the mouth of the Mad River.” William Parton, Walter Liscom, and Mr. and Mrs. Rogers of Arcata were all in a boat on the lagoon when they heard a gunshot. They looked up just in time to see Bert Porter, who had been sitting on the shore of the lagoon, fall over. Thinking that his gun exploded, the party rowed over to the shore and approached Bert Porter. When they reached him, it was clear that Bert was deceased; his gun was loaded, and he had a rifle bullet through his head. Initially, it was theorized that a stray bullet had killed Bert, but the next morning, the story of Joseph Vierra’s death with similar suspicious circumstances had spread like wildfire.

​Records of Joseph Vierra’s life are difficult to find, and not much is known beyond what was published in the newspapers following his death. Joseph Vierra was a young Portuguese man who worked at Minor Mill and Lumber Company at the time of his death. On the morning of the shooting, Joseph Vierra had eaten breakfast at Glendale around 6:00 AM before making his way down the trail that leads to the worksite. Other workmen traveling down the same path discovered Joseph’s body; he had been killed by a gunshot. 

The engineer at the Glendale mills reported that the same morning of Joseph’s murder, he had been on his way to work when he saw a “match struck in an empty cabin alongside the road, and he started to investigate.” Just as the engineer put his head into the cabin window, a voice from within exclaimed, “Lookout! I mean business!” At the same time, the unidentified man “threw his rifle to his shoulder, the muzzle resting on the window frame just under the engineer’s nose.” Understandably, the engineer fled.

Interior of Porter's Blacksmith Shop, c. 1900 Image from Dow's North of Mad River by Loberta Gwin

This second murder of Joseph Vierra made the community convinced that there was a “maniac” on the loose. A massive search of the woods was conducted, and “all the roads were patrolled, and it would seem impossible for anyone to escape.” However, by March of 1909, it was clear that officials did not have much more than rumors. A coroner’s inquest was held in an attempt to gain more information about Bert Porter’s death. Unfortunately, no new developments came from the inquest. The jury only confirmed what was already known: Bert had been murdered by a party or parties unknown. 
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Suspicion had fallen on a man named George Brown, who testified that he did not know about the murder of Bert Porter. George Brown had come under suspicion due to his well-known feud with Eli Thornton, whom he had made violent threats towards in the past. George and Eli had become rivals after they both showed interest in Miss Pearl Cornelius of Arcata Bottom. The theory was that George Brown shot and killed Bert Porter, who he had mistaken for Eli Thornton. However, the jury was not convinced, and George Brown was acquitted. District attorney Gregor stated that as far as he knows, “nothing further will develop in this most mysterious murder case in the annals of Humboldt crime.”

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Sources:
FamilySearch.org, Charles Herbert Porter
Gwin, Loberta, Dow’s North of Mad River, 2000
​Ferndale Enterprise, December 1, 1908