The crimes and punishment of many a daring desperado have been chronicled in these pages; but among them all, none was more worthy of death than the blood-stained miscreant whose well-deserved fate is recorded in this chapter. According to his own confession -made when all hope was gone, and death was inevitable, and when nothing was to be gained by such a statement, but the disburdening of a conscience oppressed by the weight of guilt -Jacob Seachriest was a native of Pennsylvania, and had been a thief, road agent, and murderer for twelve years; during which time he had murdered, single-handed or in company with others, twelve individuals.
In a former chapter of this history -the one detailing the arrest and execution of Jem Kelly at Snake River -it will be remembered that the body of a man, shot through the back of the head, was found in a creek by a patrol of the Vigilantes, and buried in a willow coffin. The full particulars of the tragedy we are unable to furnish to our readers; but Seachriest confessed that he and his comrades cast lots to determine who should commit the bloody deed, it being repugnant, even to their notions of manhood, to crawl up behind an unarmed man, sitting quietly on the bank of a creek, and to kill him for the sake of what he might chance to possess, without exchanging a word. The "hazard. of the die" pointed out Seachriest as the assassin; and with his pistol ready cocked, he stole upon his victim and killed him instantly, by sending a ball through his brain. A stone was fastened to the body, and it was sunk in a hole formed by an eddy in the stream, the thieves having first appropriated every article of value about his person.
The captain was much moved by the sad spectacle, though well accustomed to the sight of murdered victims, having served through the war against the border ruffians in "Bleeding Kansas," and having gone through a checkered career of adventure, including five years' life by the camp-fire. He said, with much emotion, "Boys, something tells me I'll be at the hanging of this man's murderer, within twelve months of this day," and so it fell out; though most unexpectedly.
Shortly after the execution of John Keene for the murder of Slater, information was sent to the Committee, that a man named Jack Silvie had been arrested at Diamond City -a flourishing new mining camp in Confederate Gulch, one of the largest and richest of the placer diggings in Montana. The town is about fifteen miles beyond the Missouri, and about forty miles east of helena.
The charges against the culprit were robbery, obtaining goods under false pretenses, and various other crimes of a kindred sort.
It was also intimated that he was a man of general bad character, and that he had confessed enough to warrant the Committee in holding him for further examination, though the proof of his commission of the principal offense of which he was accused was not greater, at the time, than would amount to a strong presumption of guilt.
The messenger brought with him copies of the confession made by the prisoner, under oath, before the proper person to receive an obligation. The substance of his story was that he was an honest, hard-working miner; that he had just come into the country, by way of Salt Lake City; that on reaching Virginia City, and while under the influence of liquor, he had fallen into bad company, and was initiated into an organized band of robbers. He gave the names of about a dozen of the members of the gang, and minutely described the signs of recognition, etc. It was evident from his account that the ceremonies attending the entry into this villainous fraternity were simple and forcible, although not legal. The candidate was placed in the center of a circle formed of desperadoes; one or two revolvers at full cock were presented at his head, and he was then informed that his taking the obligation was to be a purely voluntary act on his part; for that he was at perfect liberty to refuse to do so; only, in that case, that his brains would be blown out without any further ceremony. Though not a man of any education, Silvie could not afford to lose his brains, having only one set, and he therefore consented to proceed and swore through a long formula, of which he said he recollected very little distinctly, except a pledge of secrecy and of fidelity to the band.
On receipt of the intelligence, a captain, with a squad of four or five men, was immediately despatched to Diamond City, with orders to bring the prisoner to Helena as soon as possible. The party lost but little time in the performance of their duty, and on the following day the chief of the Committee rode out, as previously agreed upon, in company with X (a letter of the alphabet having singular terrors for evil-doers in Montana, being calculated to awaken the idea of crime committed and punishment to follow, more than all the rest of the alphabet, even if the enumeration were followed by the repetition of the Ten Commandments) and meeting the guard in charge of the prisoner, they accompanied them into town. Silvie was confined in the same cabin in which John Keene passed his last night on earth. A strong guard was detailed for the purpose of watching the prisoner, and the Committee being summoned, the case was investigated with all due deliberation; but the Committee was not entirely satisfied that the evidence, though complete, was all of such a reliable character as to justify a conviction; and therefore, they preferred to adjourn their inquiry, for the production of further testimony. This was accordingly done, and the prisoner was removed to an obscure cabin, in a more remote part of the town, where the members of the Committee would have an opportunity of free access to him, and might learn from his own lips what sort of a man they had to deal with.
They were not long in arriving at a satisfactory conclusion on this point. He at first adhered to and repeated his old story and confession; but gaining a little confidence, and thinking there was not much danger to be apprehended from the action of the Committee, he at length denied every word of his former statement, made under oath; said it was all false; that he knew of no such organization as he had told of, and declared that he had been compelled to do this for his own safety. After being cross-questioned pretty thorough, he told the truth, stating that he had given a correct statement in the first place; only, instead of joining the band in Virginia City, he had become acquainted with some of the leaders, on the Columbia River, on the way up from Portland, and that he had accompanied them to Virginia City, M.
T., traveling thither by way of Snake River. (It was on this trip that he committed the murder before described.) This was the fatal admission on the part of the prisoner, as it completed the chain of evidence that linked him with the desperadoes whose crimes have given an unenviable notoriety to the neighborhood of that affluent of the Columbia -the dread of storm-stayed freighters and the grave of so many victims of marauders -Snake River.
Another meeting of the Executive Committee was called during the day, and after due deliberation, the verdict was unanimous, that he was a road agent, and that he should receive the just reward of his crimes, in the shape of the penalty attached to the commission of highway robbery and murder, by the citizens of Montana. After a long discussion, it was determined that he should be executed on the murderer's tree, in Dry Gulch, at an hour after midnight. The prison guards were doubled, and no person was allowed to hold converse with the prisoner, except by permission of the officers.
The execution at night was determined upon for many sufficient reasons. A few of them are here stated: It had been abundantly demonstrated that but for the murder of Slater having occurred in open day, and before the eyes of a crowd of witnesses, Keene would have been rescued; and the moral effect produced by a public execution, among the hardened sinners who compose a, large part of the audience at such times, is infinitely less than the terror to the guilty, produced by the unannounced but inevitable vengeance which may at any moment be visited upon their own heads. Such a power is dreaded most by those who fear its exercise.
The desire to die game, so common to desperadoes, frequently robs death of half its terrors, if not of all of them, as in the ease of Boone Helm, Bunton and others. Confessions are very rarely made at public executions in the mountains; though scarcely ever withheld at private ones. There are also many honest and upright men who have a great objection to be telegraphed over the West as "stranglers," yet who would cheerfully sacrifice their lives rather than by word or deed become accessory to an unjust sentence. The main question is the guilt of the prisoner. If this is ascertained without doubt, hour and place are mere matters of policy. Private executions are fast superseding public ones, in civilized communities.
There is not now -and there never has been -one upright citizen in Montana, who has a particle of fear of being hanged by the Vigilance Committee. Concerning those whose conscience tells them that they are in danger, it is of little consequence when or where they suffer for the outrages they have committed. One private execution is a more dreaded and wholesome warning to malefactors than one hundred public ones.
If it be urged that public executions are desirable from the notoriety that is ensured to the whole circumstances, it may fairly be answered that the action of Judge, and jury, and counsel is equally desirable, and, indeed, infinitely preferable, when it is effective and impartial, to any administration of justice by Vigilance Committees; but, except in case of renowned road agents and notorious criminals whose names are a by-word before their arrest, or where the crime is a revolting outrage, witnessed by a large number, the feeling of the community in a new camp is against any punishment being given, and the knowledge of this' fact is the desperado's chief reliance for escape from the doom he has so often dared, and has yet escaped.
When informed of his sentence the prisoner seemed little affected by it, and evidently did not believe it, but regarded it as a ruse on the part of the Committee to obtain a confession from him. After the shades of night had settled down upon the town of Helena, a minister was invited to take a walk with an officer of the Vigilantes, and proceeded in his company to the cabin where Silvie was confined, and was informed of the object in view in requesting his attendance. He at once communicated the fact to the culprit, who feigned a good deal of repentance, received baptism at his own request, and appeared to pray with great fervor. He seemed to think that he was cheating the Almighty himself, as well as duping the Vigilantes most completely.
At length the hour appointed for the execution arrived, and the matter was arranged so that the prisoner should not know whither he was going until he came to the fatal tree. The Committee were all out of sight, except one man, who led him by the arm to the place of execution, conversing with him in the German tongue, which seemed still further to assure him that it was all a solemn farce, and that he should "come out all right;" but when he found himself standing tinder the very tree on which Keene was hanged, and beheld the dark mass closing in on all sides, each man carrying a revolver in his hand, he began to realize the situation, and begged most piteously for his life, offering to tell anything and everything, if they would only spare him. Being informed that that was ''played out" and that he must die, his manner changed, and he began his confession. He stated that he had been in the business for twelve years, and repeated the story before related, about his being engaged in the perpetration of a dozen murders, and the final atrocity committed by him on Snake River. He stated that it was thought their victim was returning from the mines, and that he had plenty of money, which, on an examination of him after his death, proved to be a mistake.
The long and black catalogue of his crimes was too much for the patience of the Vigilantes, who, though used to the confessions of ordinary criminals, were unprepared to hear from a man just baptized, such a fearful recital of disgusting enormities. They thought that it was high time that the world should be rid of such a monster and so signified to the chief, who seemed to be of the same opinion, and at once gave the order to "proceed with the execution." Seeing that his time was come, Silvie ceased his narrative and said to the men, "Boys, don't let me hang more than two or three days." He was told that they were in the habit of burying such fellows as him in Montana. The word "take hold" was given, and every man present "tailed on" to the rope which ran over the "limb of the law." Not even the chief was exempt, and the signal being given he was run up all standing -the only really merciful way of hanging. A turn or two was taken with the slack of the rope round the tree, and the end was belayed to a knot which projects from the trunk. This being completed, the motionless body was left suspended until life was supposed to be extinct, the Vigilantes gazing on it in silence.
The two men were then detailed, and stood, with an interval of about two feet between them, facing each other. Between these "testers" marched every man present in single file, giving the pass-word of the organization in a low whisper. One man was found in the crowd who had not learned the particular "articulate sound representing an idea," which was so necessary to be known. He was scared very considerably when singled out and brought before the chief; but after a few words of essential preliminary precaution he was discharged, breathing more freely, and smiling like the sun after an April shower, with the drops of perspiration still on his forehead.
The Committee gradually dispersed, not as usually is the case, with solemn countenances and thoughtful brows, but firmly and cheerfully; for each man felt that his strain on the fatal rope was a righteous duty, and a service performed to the community. Such an incarnate fiend, they knew, was totally unfit to live, and unworthy of sympathy. Neither courage, generosity, truth nor manhood, pleaded for mercy in his case. He lived a sordid and redhanded robber, and he died unpitied the death of a dog.
Very little action was necessary on the part of the Vigilance Committee to prevent any combination of the enemies of law and order from exerting a prejudicial influence on the peace and good order of the capital; in fact the organization gradually ceased to exercise its functions, and though in existence its name more than its active exertions sufficed to preserve tranquillity. When Chief Justice Hosmer arrived in the Territory and organized the Territorial and County Courts he thought it his duty to refer to the Vigilantes in his charge to the Grand Jury, and invited them to sustain the authorities as citizens. The old guardians of the peace of the Territory were greatly rejoiced at being released from their onerous and responsible duties, and most cheerfully and heartily complied with the request of the Judiciary.
For some months no action of any kind was taken by them; but in the summer of 1865 news reached them of the burning and sacking of Idaho City, and they were reliably informed that an attempt would be made to burn Virginia also by desperadoes from the West. That this was true was soon demonstrated by ocular proof; for two attempts were made, though happily discovered and rendered abortive, to set fire to the city. In both cases the parties employed laid combustibles in such a manner that but for the vigilance and promptitude of some old Vigilantes a most destructive conflagration must have occurred in the most crowded part of the town. In one case the heap of chips and whittled wood a foot in diameter had burnt so far only as to leave a ring of. the outer ends of the pile visible. In the other attempt a collection of old rags was placed against the wall of an out-building attached to the Wisconsin House, situated within the angle formed by the junction of Idaho and Jackson streets. Had this latter attempt succeeded it is impossible to conjecture the amount of damage that must have been inflicted upon the town, for frame buildings fifty feet high were in close proximity, and. had they once caught fire, the flames might have destroyed at least half the business houses on Wallace, Idaho and Jackson streets.
At this time, too, it was a matter of every-day remark that Virginia was full of lawless characters, and many of them thinking that the Vigilantes were officially defunct, did not hesitate to threaten the lives of prominent citizens, always including in their accusations that they were strangling . This state of things could not be permitted to last; and, as the authorities admitted that they were unable to meet the emergency, the Vigilantes re-organized at once, with the consent and approbation of almost every good and order-loving citizen in the Territory.
The effect of this movement was marvelous; the roughs disappeared rapidly from the town; but a most fearful tragedy, enacted in Portneuf Canyon, Idaho, on the 13th of July, roused the citizens almost to frenzy. The Overland coach from Virginia to Salt Lake City was driven into an ambuscade by Frank Williams, and though the passengers were prepared for road agents, and fired simultaneously with their assailants, who were under cover and stationary, yet four of them, viz., A. S. Parker, A. J. McCausland, David Dinan and W. h. Mers were shot dead; h. F. Carpenter was slightly hurt in three places, and Charles Parks was apparently mortally wounded. The driver was untouched, and James Brown, a passenger, jumped into the bushes and got off unhurt.
Carpenter avoided death by feigning to be in the last extremity, when a villain came to shoot him a second time. The gang of murderers, of whom eight were present at the attack, secured a booty of $65,000 in gold, and escaped undetected.
A party of Vigilantes started in pursuit, but effected nothing, at the time; and it was not till after several months, patient work of a special detective from Montana, that guilt was brought home to the driver, who was executed by the Denver Committee on Cherry Creek. Eventually, it is probable that all of them will be captured, and meet their just doom.
The last offenders who were executed by the Vigilance Committee of Virginia City were two horse thieves and confessed road agents, named, according to their own account, John Morgan and John Jackson, alias Jones. They were, however, of the "alias" tribe. The former was caught in the act of appropriating a horse in one of the city corrals. He was an old offender, and on his back were the marks of the whipping he received in Colorado for committing an unnatural crime. He was a low, vicious ruffian.
His comrade was a much more intelligent man, and acknowledged the justice of his sentence without any hesitation. Morgan gave the names and signs of the gang they belonged to, of which Rattlesnake Dick was the leader. Their lifeless bodies were found hanging from a hay-frame, leaning over the corral fence at the slaughter-house, on the branch, about half a mile from the city. The printed manifesto of the Vigilantes was affixed to Morgan's clothes, with the warning words written across it, "Road Agents, beware!"
Outrages against person and property are still perpetrated occasionally, though much less frequently than is usual in settled countries; and it is to be hoped that regularly administered law vill, for the future, render a Vigilance Committee unnecessary. The power behind the throne of justice stands ready in Virginia City to back the authorities; but nothing except grave public necessity will evoke its independent action.
The Vigilance Committee at Helena and at Diamond City, Confederate Gulch, were occasionally called upon to make examples of irreclaimable, outlawed vagrants, who having been driven from other localities, first made their presence known in Montana by robbery or murder; but as the lives and career of these men were low, obscure and brutal, the record of their atrocities and punishment would be but a dreary and uninteresting detail of sordid crime, without even the redeeming quality of courage or manhood to relieve the narrative.
The only remarkable case was that of James Daniels, who was arrested for killing a man named Gartley with a knife near Helena. The quarrel arose during a game of cards. The Vigilantes arrested Daniels and handed him over to the civil authorities, receiving a promise that he should be fairly tried and dealt with according to law. In view of alleged extenuating circumstances, the jury found a verdict of murder in the second degree (manslaughter). For this crime Daniels was sentenced to three years' incarceration in the Territorial prison by the Judge of the United States Court, who reminded the prisoner of the extreme lightness of the penalty as compared with that usually affixed to the crime of manslaughter by the States and Territories of the West. After a few weeks' imprisonment the culprit, who had threatened the lives of the witnesses for the prosecution during the trial, was set at liberty by a reprieve of the Executive, made under a probably honest, but entirely erroneous construction of the law, which vests the pardoning power in the President only. This action was taken on the petition of thirty-two respectable citizens of Helena. Daniels returned at once to the scene of his crime, and renewed his threats against the witnesses on his way thither. These circumstances coming to the ears of some of the Vigilantes, he was arrested and hanged the same night.
The wife of Gartley died of a broken heart when she heard of the murder of her husband. Previous to the prisoner leaving Virginia for Helena, Judge L. E. Munson went to the capital expressly for the purpose of requesting the annulling of the reprieve; but this being refused, he ordered the re-arrest, and the Sheriff having reported the fugitive's escape beyond his precinct, the Judge returned to Helena with the order of the Acting Marshal in his pocket, authorizing his Deputy to re-arrest Daniels. Before he reached town Daniels was hanged.
That Daniels morally deserved the punishment he received there can be no doubt. That legally speaking he should have been unmolested is equally clear; but when escaped murderers utter threats of murder against peaceable citizens mountain law is apt to be administered without much regard to technicalities, and when a man says he is going to kill any one, in a mining country, it is understood that he means what he says, and must abide the consequences. Two human beings had fallen victims to his thirst of. blood -the husband and the wife. Three more were threatened; but the action of the Vigilantes prevented the commission of the contemplated atrocities. To have waited for the consummation of his avowed purpose, after what he had done before, would have been shutting the stable door after the steed was stolen. The politic and the proper course would have been to arrest him and hold him for the action of the authorities.