BOX, James

BOX, James (?-?), raised pigs on Santa Cruz Island as early as 1853.

November 9, 1857 [Thomas Wallace More vs. M. J. Box]: In July of 1853 James M. Box borrowed $3000 from Thomas Wallace More (of Santa Rosa Island). As a security for the loan, the defendant Box gave several bills of sale for certain hogs on he had placed on the Island of Santa Cruz, representing them to be valuable property. Judgment was entered in the amount of $5093.95 in favor of plaintiff More. More, in demanding possession of the hogs, found that they, “by defendant's neglect, had become unmanageable and had withdrawn to the mountains where they ranged in a wild state not being worth the catching.” Martin M. Kimberly had been dispatched by More to collect the hogs. “Kimberly repaired for that purpose to said island of Santa Cruz but found that the greater part of said swine had become wild from abandonment and neglect of the said defendant and his agents and that the expense of gathering and herding them would be more than the value of the same. That said Kimberly only succeeded in capturing a small number thereof, to wit; about two hundred head of swine of all kinds from which their wild and untraceable nature escaped soon after from the control of the plaintiff, strayed away, were devoured or stolen and have totally disappeared, and that of the said herd of swine there is nothing left but a certain number of wild swine ranging among the precipitous hills of Santa Cruz, unapproachable, untamable, and daily hunted by the inhabitants of said island as fierce in nature and nuisances.”