Meiggs dies in in Lima in 1877…

Meiggs dies in in Lima in 1877 while constructing a railroad in Costa Rica that will be completed by his nephew, Minor C. Keith, and is buried at Presbítero Maestro cemetery in downtown Lima.

His death only worsens the economic chaos in Peru.

His Peruvian contracts were wildly profitable, but his financial situation had begun to disintegrate by 1876 and he had found it more difficult to obtain credit.

Meiggs is said to have paid back every cent he obtained by the warrant fraud, and his other debts, amounting to as much as a million dollars, refusing only to pay back speculators who obtained the warrants at deep discounts.

In preparation for his never-to-occur return to San Francisco, he had gotten the State Legislature to pass a bill making it illegal to try him for offenses occurring before 1855.

The bill was vetoed by the governor.

In 1977, one hundred years after Meiggs' death, Judge Harry W. Low of the California Superior Court, in San Francisco, will grant a motion to quash the indictment against Meiggs stemming from the fraud, on the grounds that Meiggs had rehabilitated himself, and had gone to a Higher Court.

This marks the conclusion of a lengthy campaign by Meiggs' supporters to clear him.

Meiggs is credited with founding the town of Meiggsville, California, later renamed Mendocino.