A second attorney banished from Alder Gulch was Harry Percival Adams Smith, a man with the reputation of never having turned a needy person away empty-handed. Despite his being "demoralized" by gambling and drink, Wilbur Sanders admitted, Smith was a lawyer of "very remarkable ability." [2] Fifteen years older than his colleague Thurmond, H. P. A. Smith had also enjoyed a more distinguished career. He was born in Franconia, New Hampshire, in 1820 and admitted to the bar in Maine, from where he migrated to the opposite coast to practice law. In the early 1850s he won election to California's state assembly, but in 1855 traveled to Kansas. There the territorial governor appointed him and three others to organize Arapahoe County. On November 14, 1858, the four colonizers camped on Cherry Creek and proceeded to lay out a townsite on both banks. The budding frontier settlement, Smith proposed, should be called Denver, the name it bears today. [3] But not long after Denver was declared part of Colorado Territory, Smith and fellow attorney Samuel McClean were off to the northern mines. At Bannack and Alder Gulch, Smith conducted several well-known criminal cases. In January 1863, he represented Henry Plummer; in June, Buck Stinson and Hayes Lyons; and in December, George Ives. [4]
When the vigilantes read Smith his exile notice -- on grounds of having defended desperadoes -- the forty-three-year-old lawyer reportedly struck a melodramatic pose and quoted a politician who nineteen centuries earlier had been in a similar predicament: "Banished from Rome! What's banished but set free from daily contact with the things I loathe?" Then, like Thurmond, he fled south. On arrival he checked in at the Salt Lake House, but had scarcely unpacked his bag when the commanding officer of Camp Douglas sent soldiers to his hotel room to arrest him. From an unidentified source at the northern mines, Gen. Patrick Connor received warning that "Smith was a notorious and loudspoken Secessionist, whose peculiar delight was to render noisy homage to Jeff Davis, and cast contumely on 'Lincoln's hirelings.' " After discovering that Smith was a New Hampshirite, Connor administered the oath of allegiance and released the prisoner, but under condition that he leave Utah Territory within seven days. [5]
After drifting as far southwest as Arizona, Smith returned to Montana in 1865. Finding the Executive Committee still "in full vigor," he stated, "I went... at once to them, and told them I had come back to meet any charges that could be made. None were or could be." Smith settled in the Helena area, resumed his law practice, and returned to playing his favorite role, Iago, in amateur theater. In December 1868, he presented a lecture on the California gold rush, with benefits to be used to purchase awards of merit for schoolchildren. Though a bloc of citizens attempted to prevent the lecture on grounds that Smith had once been banished, his lively oration drew a large crowd to the unheated theater. At age fifty -- only two years after his lecture -- he died in Helena. "He was," the obituary read, "a man of much more than ordinary ability, but ruined himself and doubtless shortened his life by dissipation and irregular habits." [6]
But for a matter of timing, Wilbur Sanders might have been exiled along with Thurmond and Smith, rather than serving as the vigilante prosecutor. While he was prosecuting George Ives for the murder of Nicholas Tiebolt, a group of what Sanders considered to be "highwaymen" offered the lawyer $500 to defend them. In relating the incident, Sanders claimed that he told the highwaymen, "You have not got enough money to buy me." [7] Yet in a letter to his sister, he admitted that he had rejected the attractive offer only because he was "so mixed up with the prosecution" that he "could not defend." Then when the highwaymen offered him the same sum to neither "prosecute nor defend but keep still," he did not decline their proposal until "after consideration." His decision to continue with the prosecution of Ives served his career well. "I am," he boasted after the trial, "the only Lawyer of the Union persuasion in this Territory east of the Rocky Mountains [He evidently thought Smith was a Secessionist.] and of course I think the best.... The people were tickled with the way I tried the case." He closed the letter by "rejoicing" in the hope that his reputation as a fearless prosecutor would enable him to become Montana Territory's first delegate to Congress. In the fall of 1864, he and territorial governor Edgerton conducted a vigorous campaign on behalf of Sanders's candidacy. The October election was the culmination of the political contest nephew and uncle had been waging with Democrat Samuel McLean. But citizens selected not the man who had plotted the assassination of the miners' law officers, but Plummer's most ardent supporter, by a margin of 3-2. In 1890 Sanders redeemed the loss by becoming the state's first senator. And by becoming Montana Historical Society's first president, he also had a hand in preserving the records which would describe the controversial events of early 1864. [8]
During that turbulent winter, some residents voluntarily chose exile, not only the "other-siders" who retreated to the Blackfoot area, but, much to the vigilantes' disappointment, several suspected outlaws who thus evaded justice. Among those who took part in the exodus were J. F. Irwin and Johnny Gibbons (a youth of mixed blood who was part owner of Robert Dempsey's Deer Lodge Valley ranch). Like George Brown, George Lane, and Bill Hunter, Gibbons had worked for George Ives's acquittal. It had been he who had ridden to Virginia City to retain attorneys Thurmond and Smith for the defense. [9]
A third self-exile was N. Barney (Billy) Terwilliger. The twenty-eight-year-old painter from New York, who specialized in horse trading while at Bannack, was also considered a gang member. Two other suspects, Charley Reeves and Augustus Moore, had disappeared before the vigilantes organized. The two men had mined together in California and gotten in serious trouble together at the Grasshopper Creek mines. For killing both whites and Indians during a drunken shooting spree, a Bannack miners' jury appropriated all of Moore's and Reeves's property and banished them. But when Moore -- in his midthirties at the time -- nearly died from exposure while living in the drafty brush wickiup he and Reeves constructed in Deer Lodge Valley, the miners allowed the two convicted men to return to Bannack until warm weather. They spent the remaining cold months at Cyrus Skinner's saloon drinking, gambling, and sleeping in the bunks. Though close friends, they presented a strong contrast: Reeves, a gambler from Pennsylvania, was lean, handsome, well groomed, and gregarious, while Moore was described as a "short, stout" Missourian with a "desperately bad face," who "had but little to say." Rather than being grateful for the miners' leniency in allowing him to return temporarily, he held a grudge against those who had originally convicted him. Because Conrad Kohrs (later to be known as Montana's Cattle King) had been a member of the arrest party, Moore once approached the Bannack butcher in a saloon, called him names, and spit in his face. But in late spring, Moore did comply with the terms of his banishment. According to one rumor, he was so resentful of good-looking Charley Forbes that shortly before leaving the area he murdered him. There is, however, no evidence that Forbes was actually killed. Nevertheless, "Gad" Moore was on Yeager's list and would have been hanged had he not left the area. [10]
Despite the claim that exterminating the alleged robber gang had "scourged crime out of existence," robberies did continue, and so did the lynchings. "Our country," Langford stated in a personal letter, "is still full of bad men." In the spring of 1867, Langford and the other members of the Executive Committee accused a Virginia City man of "being a spy and reporting to confederates in Idaho the dates when the treasure coaches left the Territory." Shortly afterwards, the accused man was found hanging from a fence rail with the word "Vigilantes" pinned to the back of his coat. [11]
And since drinking and gambling at the mining settlements continued, so did the affrays. In the summer of 1864, the sound of gunshots was so common that Captain James Williams "paid no special attention." And in the autumn of 1866, a traveler bound for Alder Gulch stumbled upon a body floating in the peaceful Sun River. The murdered man "was naked lying in a deep, clear pool of water. The clothing had no doubt been removed and destroyed for reasons best known to the murderers," while "cards were scattered all over the ground. The only indication of the cause of death." [12]
The previous spring, another card game had provided the setting for the James Daniels affair. Nathaniel Langford, as a Virginia City committee member, admitted that the vigilantes who lynched Daniels had "committed an irreparable error." An Idaho City editor who had known the victim for several years described Daniels as "an enterprising, honest citizen, leading an industrious, irreproachable life." A former businessman of Colusa, California, and of Idaho, Daniels journeyed to Helena in early 1866 to establish himself there. One March evening he visited a community gathering place, became inebriated, and sat in on a hand of "whiskey poker" being dealt by gambler Andrew Gaitley. When Daniels uttered a disparaging remark about his luck, Gaitley interpreted it as an accusation that he was cheating. He hopped up, grabbed his stool, and swung it at Daniels, knocking him flat on his back. Then with Daniels pinned between the stove and wall, Gaitley jumped on him and commenced beating him. Though no physical match for the gambler, Daniels managed to draw his knife and fend off his antagonist by cutting him twice. When Gaitley died of his wounds, a jury found Daniels guilty of manslaughter and the judge sentenced him to three years in territorial prison. Later, acting governor Thomas F. Meagher granted a pardon, and Daniels returned to Helena to settle business matters. As he was examining merchandise in a back room, vigilantes stealthily entered and under cover of darkness dragged the merchant from the store. [13]
At dawn a resident returned from Dry Gulch and reported finding "the lifeless form of James Daniels swaying in the wind." After a well-attended funeral, an indignant citizen delivered a speech against "this secret midnight conclave" to a crowd labeled "the largest auditory ever gathered in this territory." In condemning the lynching of James Daniels, Langford was only siding with the majority; still, in his book he could not resist presenting the incident in the best light possible for his fellow vigilantes. Though the trial had proven that Daniels was "a peaceful, quiet, and hard working man," Langford depicted him as "hardened in vice and crime, and possibly,... one of the worst of all the ruffians." [14]
The Daniels lynching, Langford confessed, "was not an isolated instance." But he contended that such unwarranted executions were carried out by "certain irresponsible" vigilantes, "a few vicious men." His argument would have carried more force had not equally irresponsible executions occurred under Captain Williams's leadership. In addition to Joseph Alfred Slade's lynching, there is the case of an intoxicated miner who, upon returning home from a saloon, accidentally entered the wrong cabin. The surprised husband and wife, another resident recalled, "raised a hullabaloo about it and the vigilantes took him out and strung him up." A witness thought that the victim "was just drunk enough, didn't know he was getting in the wrong house. But they hung him anyway,... no trial." Captain Williams also hanged Slade without trial. "If Slade had only acted a little decent," Charley the Brewer stated, "we would have turned him loose." But since Slade was too drunk to behave decently, Dutch Charley "got up then and put the rope around his neck." Despite the example set, drunken rowdiness remained a common crime among all social classes in the mining camps. [15]
Another execution which could not be blamed on a few renegade vigilantes was that of James Brady. Captain Williams made the arrest personally, and the Executive Committee found Brady guilty of murdering a man named Murphy. After Brady's hanging, however, it was discovered that Murphy was still alive. [16] But the most blatant killing of an innocent man must be attributed to the Bannack vigilantes. Though R. C. Rawleigh had committed no crime -- other than stating that the vigilantes had hanged some good men at Bannack -- in November 1864 a midnight conclave surprised the educated, middle-aged amputee at his cabin. At dawn the curious gathered about the gallows to view the frozen corpse. During the previous night's struggle, the lynch party had ripped the front of Rawleigh's coat, and the back portion bore a brand in the shape of a flatiron. The victim's trousers were also badly ripped, and from the cuffs extended the ankle bones of his two severed feet. [17]
Like Captain Williams and the Bannack branch of the organization, X. Beidler participated in his share of dubitable proceedings. Not all early citizens had faith in the undersized lieutenant's powers of intuiting guilt or innocence. On January 24, 1870, two hundred antivigilantes addressed a warning note to J. X. Beidler: "We... will give you no more time to prepare for death than the many men you have murdered.... We shall live to see you buried beside the poor Chinaman you murdered." Pioneer Mary Stanchfield, known as a "remarkable woman," also doubted Beidler's honesty. On her arrival in the area, Beidler had hailed their Missouri River steamer, begging to be taken aboard and claiming that he was a "refugee from Indians that had been chasing him and came near enough to shoot holes in his hat." Mrs. Stanchfield always believed that "X. did the shooting himself." [18]
Nevertheless, when at the age of fifty-eight the confirmed bachelor died of heart failure in his Helena hotel room, his obituary praised him as "a hero of the frontier" who took a "great part in instituting... the grand civilization." Though he was once a Wells Fargo messenger and after the organization of Montana Territory became a deputy United States marshal, Beidler's chief fame rests on his vigilante exploits. He bragged that he had pursued and executed "thirty men of the Plummer gang," and in addition "presided" over several Helena hangings. [19] One of his fondest memories, as recalled on his deathbed, was his assault on a suspected horse thief.
The event occurred shortly after Bill Hunter's death. Miner William Sprague had ridden his sorrel mare to Virginia City to buy a loaf of bread. Dismounting in front of the town bakery, Sprague tossed the reins over a post but did not bother to tie them. Five minutes later he returned to the street to find his horse gone. When an observer informed him that a man had ridden the mare up the gulch, Sprague hurried in that direction, meeting Beidler on the way and enlisting his help. "We took the first two horses we could find and galloped up the gulch," Sprague recounted. After riding only four miles, they overtook their "game." The mare was bestrode by what his two pursuers considered a "murderous looking Frenchman." In appropriating the two horses, Beidler and Sprague had committed the identical crime as their "game," who might have had an equally justifiable reason for being astride the mare without permission. But Beidler believed that those who had engaged in vigilance activities were above the law. He did not summon an interpreter or report the incident to authorities. Since he judged the foreigner a "suspicious character," his inclination was toward a hanging, but, after a debate with his partner, he agreed to a flogging instead. The suspect "was stripped to his waist and tied to a tree with a lariat," Sprague said, "and both X. and I took turns at whipping him with willow switches." After punishing him "severely," they untied him and, despite his bleeding wounds, forced him to walk the four miles to town. There they warned the foreigner that if they ever saw him again they would hang him. [20]
In early 1890, when Beidler's death seemed imminent, Sprague paid a bedside visit. On recognizing his former Colorado acquaintance, the dying man smilingly asked, "Do you recollect how we licked that French horse thief in Alder Gulch?" After twenty-five years, Beidler still relished the memory. At 6:00 A.M. on January 22 the ex-vigilante died. The Montana Pioneers' Society conducted the funeral the following afternoon at Ming's Opera House, with Senator Wilbur Sanders delivering the oration. [21] Beidler's gravestone plaque reads, 'PUBLIC BENEFACTOR, BRAVE PIONEER, To TRUE OCCASION TRUE, and above this inscription is the vigilantes' secret symbol "3-7-77."
Three years before the death of his most famous lieutenant, James Williams had taken his own life. The captain's final years were beset with problems: he was in financial distress; he could not control his drinking; he was disappointed over his defeat as the Republican's candidate for county sheriff; and his wife Lizzie constantly reminded him of his failures. In addition, there were persisting rumors that during the vigilantes' reign "some men were hung without sufficient proof of their guilt," and former vigilante leaders might face legal prosecution for past actions. Yet Williams's acquaintances did not seem to recognize his growing depression. Apparently the man who believed that he could read the souls of his fellowmen was himself little understood. Some of his friends refused to believe that the former vigilante chief had committed suicide, insisting instead that surviving members of the outlaw gang had taken their vengeance. [22]
At the time of his death Williams was fifty-three. After observing his starving livestock during the hard winter of 1887, the rancher had ridden to Virginia City to discuss a loan. On leaving the bank, he walked to the drugstore, bought an ounce of laudanum, and returned to his ranch. Then on the morning of February 21, the captain, as he was still called, plodded through heavily falling snow to a dense willow grove in a lower field. It was two days before searchers discovered the frozen corpse. The investigating officer was not certain when or where Williams had ingested the poison. Apparently he had wandered in the willows for several hours and then cut a hole in an icy stream with intentions of drowning himself. But finding the water too shallow, he crawled on hands and knees for two hundred fifty feet and there died. Searchers found his bulky form on one side in the snow, with scarf and mittens as a pillow and the empty laudanum bottle beside him. Though friends supposed that the captain's motivation was fear of financial ruin, Williams's despondency may have run much deeper, for in killing himself he had only shifted the burden of rearing the five minor children to his widow. But the ex-schoolmarm was made of sterner stuff than her husband. She not only accepted the challenge, but prevailed. On her death, the seven children buried their seventy-two-year-old mother next to their father in the unmarked grave in a cemetery overlooking the Stinking Water River. Later they erected a small granite monument to the couple. [23]
In 1907 the Montana legislature honored the vigilante leader by placing a bronze plaque in the capitol's main hall: "To commemorate the name and deeds of James Williams... through whose untiring efforts and intrepid daring, law and order were established in Montana, and who... brought to justice the most desperate criminals in the Northwest." But one Montana historian wrote a less laudatory eulogy for the captain: "This man," one of James Williams's contemporaries wrote, "has done more hanging than any other man in the West, legally or not, just or unjust." [24]