Death by dueling talk in Sonoma on Jan. 14

Thanks to a certain hit Broadway musical – and its bestselling original cast album – a whole new generation of American youths are learning about the art of dueling. As fans of “Hamilton: the Musical” now know, Alexander Hamilton – American founding father and the first U.S. Secretary of the Treasury – was shot dead in a duel, killed by his political rival Aaron Burr. The musical even contains a song titled “Ten Dueling Commandments,” describing the dueling process in intricate, and highly singable, detail.

That notorious event will be discussed at the Sonoma Community Center at 2 p.m. this Saturday – minus the infectious hip-hop singing, presumably – by local historians Dave Brummett and Jim Danaher. The lecture, presented by the Sonoma Historical Society, is titled “The Story of Formal Dueling in America, 1621-1859.”

“The guns used in a duel were specially-made dueling pistols,” says Brummett. “They used smooth bore, round shots, which were not the usual kind of bullets.” The good news is that such rounded projectiles often missed the person they were being fired at. “The bad news,” Brummett adds, “is that when you got hit, you got hurt – and there was usually nothing the doctors could do to save you.”

Brummett has taught at the high school and college levels. Danaher is a retired junior college speech instructor, and has served as a tour guide with the Sonoma State historical parks.

“The tradition of dueling came to America from England,” Brummet explains. “It was mostly practiced by Southern gentlemen, originally in South Carolina. These were wealthy men who sat around worrying about their honor all the time. Most of the time, when a duel took place, it was because someone insulted the honor of some wealthy plantation owner they were business rivals with.”

Ironically, he says, when a person was challenged to a duel and refused, they were often accused of cowardice by their friends – and ended up the dueling people they actually liked.

“In most states it was illegal to duel,” Brummett points out, “but people were rarely were convicted of it. I read somewhere that during the War of 1812, one-third of the officers killed during the war were killed in duels, not on the battlefield.”

Though duels were occasionally fought in California, Brummett says such events were rare. To his and Danher’s knowledge, only one duel ever took place in Sonoma, and it was not a formal duel, fought with the ceremonial pistols.

It was, in fact, a swordfight.

“We searched all over, looking through every local reference we could find,” Brummett says. “We checked the Society of Pioneers museum. We searched the Sonoma County Historical Library. There was nothing about dueling. Only this one little story about a duel between Dr. Edward Turner Bale and Don Salvador Vallejo.”

According to Brummett, Dr. Bale – a Napa landowner who’d accused Vallejo of improper advances toward his wife – ended up losing the fight, and immediately ran away and hid in a nearby building. Bale was eventually apprehended and brought before the local judge.

“He was found guilty but the sentence was overturned,” says Brummett. “Instead, Vallejo was instructed to escort Bale to the county border, where Bale was certain he was going to be killed. Instead, Vallejo told him he’d rather make up and be friends.”

So, the only duel to be fought in Sonoma was, in the end, a story with a happy ending. That, as in the aforementioned battle between Hamilton and Burr, was not usually the way such tales concluded.

“It’s a very interesting history,” says Brummett. “I think people will be very entertained.”