WILBUR SANDERS. Courtesy of Montana Historical Society(Click on image to see full size)
On January 8 -- another cold, blustery day -- four handpicked men set out from Virginia City. They were armed with weapons, a copy of Yeager's confession, and a writ of execution for the miners' sheriff and his two deputies who resided at Bannack. [2] Though not the lieutenant in charge, John Xavier Beidler was one of the most eager members of the party. "X.," as he was called at the mines, was thin and so short that his shotgun muzzle towered a good inch above his head. He had narrow, sharply sloping shoulders, and only his stubby fingertips protruded from the sleeves of his oversized coat. Though acquaintances judged him "far below the average of men in physical power," he was hardy and brave. [3] By chance, he had encountered the discouraged vigilantes returning from Cottonwood, informed them of Yeager's whereabouts, and later hurried to Dempsey's ranch to join the main party awaiting the captain's return. As one admirer expressed it, "X. was not going to miss being in at the death!" [4]
The excitement that lay ahead at Bannack would be even greater than that which Beidler had experienced at the cottonwood tree by the Stinking Water River, for the present hunt should result in the death of the civic leader of the mining communities, plus two of Beidler's personal enemies. Despite the small party's anxiousness to reach their destination, the freezing weather and choked trails made for slow travel. It was nearing midnight of the following day when they reached Bannack, but since it was a Saturday night, saloon revelry was in full swing. On his last visit, Beidler had stopped at Durand's for a game of billiards, but now he had no time for such frivolities. He and his companions took it for granted that a certain Bannack resident had kept his promise to organize a local branch and thus provide the Alder Gulch visitors with needed support. Therefore there was no reason the three executions could not be carried out that very night. [5]
In the back room of a main street store, the Alder Gulch four met with several of the town's leading citizens, warning them that a robber band was about to sack the town. But as the meeting proceeded, it became obvious that there was no Bannack branch. Hurriedly the four vigilantes presented the assembled group with the copy of Red's confession, but it brought no flood of volunteers. Beidler's party had exposed themselves to the disagreeable trip with the expectation of prompt action; instead, they were encountering questions, disagreements, and a prolonged discussion. The Bannackites were not convinced by Red's charge that their sheriff headed an outlaw gang.
Since the lieutenant in charge of the vigilante squad was as eager as Beidler to perform the executions that same night, he suggested they summon a robbery suspect to the meeting and convince the group of skeptics by wringing a confession from him. But when Dutch John Wagner was led in, he denied knowing anything about a robber gang. Even under questioning of attorney Wilbur Sanders, John did not break. Nursing his frostbitten hands, the big man stood at the front of the room and argued in a broken accent that so far as he knew, there was no outlaw band. Dutch John was so steadfast that at last his questioners gave up and dismissed him, returning him to the cabin where they were secreting him from the miners' law officers. It was now only a few hours until dawn, and as Beidler watched in consternation, the crowd began to disperse. Only three men remained behind to take the membership oath, not nearly enough to attempt the perilous project. For the vigilantes, the meeting had been a stunning failure, a bitter disappointment at the end of a hopeful journey. [6]
The lieutenant was still optimistic about a greater enrollment the next day, but Beidler was a man of less patience. He had never been able to tolerate delay. When anybody or anything kept him waiting, he was apt to become, in his own words, "boiling, you bet, and indignant into the bargain." This trait set him at the opposite pole from his friend Captain Williams, who for unknown reasons had chosen to miss the most critical execution of all. But despite this personality difference, Beidler and Williams shared a keen satisfaction in their newfound power. Both were poor farm boys from Pennsylvania, who as youths had served as apprentice shoemakers, and as young men, undergone a series of business failures. Though Beidler frequently boasted that he had "commenced life for himself at an early age," he did not separate from his family until he was twenty-six. [7]
He was a middle child in a family of twelve, who resided in Dauphin County, Pennsylvania. When he was fifteen, his father died, and the following year, his German-born mother. After his parents' deaths, the uneducated youth remained at the family home with his brothers and sisters and worked as a cobbler. Later they all relocated to Illinois, where John Xavier made an unsuccessful attempt at farming and then drifted on to Kansas and Colorado, working by turns at broom making, brickmaking, and freighting. [8] Then in 1863 he and an acquaintance named John Grannis followed the gold stampede to Alder Gulch and there staked claims. After only a few days of ditch digging, Beidler concluded that "there was lots of work of the kind" he "did not like." He left the digging to Grannis, who was so "sick with the Diareho," he jotted down in his diary, that he could scarcely lift a shovel. Beidler's next business venture was more to his liking. In Bannack, he exchanged a sack of gold dust for eight mule loads of sugar, shovels, and boots, which he transported back to Alder Gulch and sold to the miners camped along the twelve-mile trail between Junction and Summit. "I sold gum boots for an ounce an inch," Beidler vaunted. "I got 8 ounces of gold for a pair -- no matter how long the leg was. But the miners were making money fast and didn't notice it -- had to have boots." [9]
Despite the lucrative transaction made possible by his mining profits, Beidler heard the vigilante rumblings and jumped at the chance to "quit prospecting for gold and prospect for human fiends." He had acquired a taste for lynchings the previous fall when he and several companions had secretly hanged two men and banished a third, named Brent. Later the lynchers discovered that Brent had been innocent, but by that time, it was too late. In exiting the area, the young man had run into an Indian war party and been killed. This fatal error of judgment, however, did not shake Beidler's faith in his infallibility at intuiting a man's guilt or innocence. And in the hours before dawn of January 10, 1864, he was convinced that the three Bannack lawmen were guilty of conducting a ring of outlaws. He saw no reason to grant the three a hearing. The Saturday night fiasco in the storeroom was an irritating setback which left him "chomping at the bit" for a Sabbath execution. [10]
But the ranks were still not swelling. They were only eight -- the four visitors, attorney Wilbur Sanders (one of the founders of the Alder Gulch vigilantes), and the three Saturday night converts. Despite the grimness of any situation, Beidler was one to wrest a glint of humor. He and Captain Williams shared a love of pranks, and each had a stock of ready jokes which they enhanced with colorful frontier language. In regards to his drinking problem, for example, Williams once wrote: "Joined the Good Templars last knight will never drink another drop of whiskey as long as I live unless I get snake bit I will not look for a snake either." In a similar vein, Beidler made light of the voracious appetite which was eventually to flesh out his jowls and round his paunch: "By that time I could have eaten a pickled Chinaman." Like Williams, Beidler had a fondness for drink, usually keeping his coat pocket stocked with gin or brandy, which he considered "big medicine, you bet." [11]
Thus while the eight members busied themselves in recruiting Bannack residents, or any travelers passing through town, Beidler could see no harm in indulging in a billiards game and a few drinks. Fortunately the past spring's whiskey famine was at an end. The severe shortage had prompted one merchant to offer "a small bottle" of spirits at "25 cents a smell," [12] but by summer, long freight trains -- composed of as many as twenty tandem wagons -- had rolled into town with the precious item. Saloonkeepers such as Cyrus Skinner had laid in barrels of whiskey, kegs of rum, and sufficient eggs to concoct the town's most popular drink, a Tom and Jerry. [13]
Yet the conviviality in the saloons gave little impetus to the recruiters' progress. Merrymakers who were invited to join the vigilante undertaking were making such noncommittal responses as "I'm disinclined to join until I have some further explanation of the matter." [14] Though the two deputies were not especially well liked, as one citizen noted, Sheriff Plummer "was extremely popular with the people of the Territory." In near desperation, Wilbur Sanders called a second meeting in the storeroom, intending to use some prosecution tactics to sway his audience. When the group had assembled, he presented a surprise witness, a boy of fifteen years. Henry Tilden was the ward of Sanders and his uncle, and the close relationship, plus the fact that the boy had kept his story secret until this precise moment, may have bothered the group a bit. Nevertheless, the timorous youth related that one wintry night, three hooded men had halted him on Horse Prairie. After searching him and finding no weapon, nor any other article of value, they sent the terrified lad on his way. Tilden believed that one of the disguised men was the sheriff. In spite of the darkness and snowstorm, the boy said, he could tell it was Plummer by his overcoat lining! Though Sanders felt certain that young Tilden's story would convince all listeners that it was necessary to kill the town's three officers immediately, again the meeting broke up without enough volunteers to carry out the execution. [15]
Beidler was disgruntled and restless, but it was Sanders who faced the problem of formulating a plan to eliminate the only serious threat to the fledgling vigilance society. Sheriff Plummer had announced that it was "time a stop was put to" the lynchings in the area. [16] Yet the lawyer's antipathy for the sheriff went beyond that issue. On Sanders's and his uncle's arrival in the territory, they had become embroiled in a gentlemanly conflict with the leading Democrat, Colonel Samuel McLean, and the two newly arrived Republicans regarded Plummer as McLean's handpicked candidate. [17] It was for McLean's younger, and much leaner and handsomer, associate that Sanders reserved his special sarcasm. He would refer to Plummer as "the great minister of order," or compare the sheriff to a king whose crown rested uneasily upon his brow." Unlike the sheriff, Justice Sidney Edgerton's nephew was out of his element on the frontier. At age twenty-nine, the lanky, New York-born lawyer had uprooted his Ohio family -- consisting of his sweet-tempered, rather plain wife, two small sons, and a servant girl -- to come West with his more illustrious uncle. Though Sanders had agreed to serve as Edgerton's secretary, the younger man had crossed the plains with visions of one day becoming an important man in the new territory. But at the mines, he discovered that the criteria for judging a man differed radically from the Victorian ideal of respectability. In Bannack a man earned the respect of his peers by locating a rich mining claim, displaying expert marksmanship, and riding a spirited horse. While Edgerton was such a poor horseman that he looked "worried and uncomfortable" atop any mount, Sanders was so inept with a weapon that he once tested his newly acquired pistol while still in his pocket, setting his overcoat ablaze. [19] Not that the greenhorn lacked elan and courage. At church services, he regularly embarrassed his young cousin Mattie by singing too loudly and enthusiastically, while in the mining camp haunts, he would not hesitate to insult an armed rough. And when dealing with weighty problems, he was creative about possible resolutions. Since his two previous attempts to enlist a lynch party had failed, he decided to change the method of execution to one requiring less manpower.
Why not, he suggested to his uncle, hide a few sharpshooters in the stable and fire on the three lawmen as they were mounting their horses. But Edgerton vetoed the idea, complaining that it did not seem as lawful as hanging. [20] So Sanders turned to an alternative plan; he initiated a rumor that Plummer and deputies Stinson and Ray were preparing to flee. Then he sent recruiters into the streets, instructing them to pass out loaded shotguns to any hands willing to accept. The new plan worked. Ironically, among those willing to help kill the sheriff were many members of the Union League, a club which only a few months previous had unanimously recommended Plummer as deputy United States marshal of the eastern mines. [21]
It was night when the action finally commenced. Tensed for the danger and excitement ahead, recruits divided into three groups -- each with a lieutenant and about twenty men -- and marched toward the two-log bridge slung over Grasshopper Creek. On entering Yankee Flat, one party headed for Bill Toland's cabin, where deputy Buck Stinson and his wife boarded. No man present could have been more pleased at the thought of Buck's rapidly approaching demise than Beidler. For X. it would be a pleasurable climax to seven months of frustration. The previous June he had built a scaffold and dug a grave for Stinson but, since both had gone unused, had been unpaid for the hard manual labor. Adding insult to injury, town roughs had urinated in the empty grave and taunted its digger by sticking up signs around town announcing that X. had "Graves TO LET. " But this time there would be no escape for Buck, no sympathetic audience-jury to reverse a previous verdict. [22]
WILBUR SANDERS. Courtesy of Montana Historical Society
(Click on image to see full size)
Their heavy boots crunching on the snow-packed path, the party assigned to take Stinson advanced briskly. They knew for a certainty that the deputy was inside the Toland cabin. A spy had reported that Buck and his wife had just eaten supper and were still visiting with their hosts. Because Buck was handy with a gun, it was essential to catch him off guard. Nobody dared call Buck a coward. And, with his uncomely profile, nobody could accuse him of being handsome. He had large, sunken eyes and an upturned nose which projected from a deep indentation between a bulging forehead and a slightly protruding chin. He was light complected, small, and well built, and always went clean shaven. Though he spent most weekends cutting other men's hair, he chose to wear his own long. He was a far cry from the stereotype of the long, gaunt Missourian with thin, sallow face and scanty beard, and in fact was an adopted rather than a native son. The second of seven children, he was born into a highly respected North Carolina family. While he was a small child, the family moved to Indiana and settled in a county which had been formed from Indian lands only one decade earlier. The 1840 census found the Stinsons living between the towns of Greensboro and New Castle, and listed the head of household, Alfred H., as a member of a "learned profession." When Buck was fourteen, the family again relocated, this time to a farm in northeastern Missouri, and in nearby Nodaway City, Alfred purchased a bakery. [23]
Buck's elders thought that the boy showed "promise of genius" and predicted a "brilliant and honorable future" for him. [24] But while his older brother Elias took up the study of engineering, Buck headed west. By the winter of 1862, he had reached the little settlement of Hell Gate in what is now Montana. Then in early 1863 he joined the rush to the rich placer mines near Bannack and there -- in a corner of Cyrus Skinner's false-fronted, main street saloon -- set himself up as a barber. [25]
Despite the acute shortage of women, Buck managed to find a wife. The young couple settled into a cabin nestled in the bend of Grasshopper Creek and located half a block off main street. Since their cabin was almost directly across the street from the saloon that housed his barber chair, the walk from home to work was only a few steps. A second convenience was that the other town deputy, Edward Ray, lived next door. In addition to barbering and sharing law enforcement duties, Buck acted as recorder, receiving fifty cents for each mining claim he jotted down in the ledger. [26]
Drawing of Buck Stinson. By. C. M. Callison Diaz
(Click on image to see full size)
Life at the Grasshopper mines was exciting. Old Californians were proclaiming that they had never seen better prospects for high returns, and most necessities were available, that is, if the shopper did not mind paying $2. 50 per pound for flour, beans, salt, and cream of tartar. The great worry was an Indian attack, such as some emigrants had experienced on the trail. One wagon train reported that en route "the Indians killed five and wounded two of the party, and took two wagons away from them." A few weeks later, three men straggled into town claiming to be the only survivors of a twenty-eight-man company that had set out from Denver. "These tribes are at war with each other all around us," a worried gold seeker wrote home, "and we know not how soon we will have to fight them. We expect it every day." [27]
Tension between the races increased when Indians stole a horse herd from a ranch three miles outside town. In mid-March a posse rode into the mountains to recover the stolen livestock, but failed to return. Since some of Buck's friends were among the missing men, he led a second posse to an Indian encampment, and, in retaliation for the missing white men, killed five Indians, among them a high-ranking Lemhi Shoshoni named Snag, who was a nephew (or a cousin's son) of Sacajawea. When the commander of Utah's Camp Douglas heard of the incident, he warned the Bannackites "to let the Indians alone, and they will let you alone." Though Buck may have smarted under the chastisement, a visiting news correspondent labeled the colonel's advice "sensible." [28]
Shortly after the June stampede to Alder Gulch, Buck became involved in a second controversial incident. Deputy D. H. Dillingham believed that Stinson, Hayes Lyons, and Charley Forbes were plotting to rob two miners and informed the supposed victims. Buck and his friends swore that "it was all a d----d lie" and at Virginia City angrily confronted Dillingham, demanding that he "take back those lies." After a general scramble for revolvers, shots rang out and Dillingham fell dead. Despite Lyons's statement that he had fired the fatal shot, it appeared that Buck also had fired. At the ensuing trial, an audience-jury acquitted Forbes, but found Lyons and Stinson guilty of murder. Though Judge William Steele lamented having to execute young men of "fitness, both by culture and manners, for any sphere of active business," he sentenced the two to hang. [29] On pronouncement of the death sentence, women in the audience began to weep, protesting that it was not fair to hang Buck and Hayes simply because they were not as good looking as Charley Forbes. With Beidler fuming at the women's interference, the assembled miners exercised their prerogative of holding a second vote on a death sentence. Though the count was close, the majority favored reducing the sentence to banishment. Realizing that he was lucky to be alive, Buck hastened back to Bannack and resumed his deputy duties. [30]
BANNACK MAIN STREET. Photo by Boswell
(Click on image to see full size)
He took the law enforcement work seriously, regularly riding long distances to issue a warrant or to summon trial witnesses from a remote camp. After some overnight assignment, one resident recalled, Buck would "gallop demonstratively into town on a powerful horse with his roll of blankets flopping behind the saddle," rein up in front of the hotel, and inquire whether the stage had made it in safely. If it had, he would head for the saloon to make up for the dry days on the road. On one such occasion, he became quite drunk and then stepped into the street to scold Carlo, the watchdog who protected Buck's wife while he was out of town. Like the other Bannack males, the handsome mastiff liked to spend his free time lounging about main street and had become a favorite pet not only of the Stinsons, but of the other townspeople as well. Though Carlo was extremely loyal to his master and usually obedient, on this particular occasion he did not respond to Buck's call, but continued following at the heels of a man who had been petting him. Apparently Buck had failed to learn his lesson from the Dillingham affair, for he drew his revolver and fired in the disobedient dog's direction. Though he probably had not intended to hit the target, the huge animal fell to the ground, gasped, and then relaxed its massive head in death. To the crowd who immediately gathered about the dead animal, Buck ruefully muttered, "If I ever get drunk again, I hope some son-of-a-gun will kill me." [31]
On Buck's future trips, his wife would be left without her canine protector. Usually, however, she was in less danger at home than her husband was on the road. In the lawless territory, attempting to enforce an order issued by a miners' court could be a risky undertaking. When Buck left Bannack the first week of January 1864 with an arrest warrant for "Club-Foot" Mathews in his pocket, it was to be his final mission. Mathews, a plaintiff charged, had departed for Salt Lake without settling a substantial debt. After two days' travel, deputies Stinson and Ray overtook Mathews's party, and, from a distance, Buck called out for permission to approach camp, explaining that he had a warrant. Though the members of the party realized that the deputies were acting under orders of the miners' court, freighter Alex Toponce refused to let them enter the camp. But while Buck was arguing with Toponce, Mathews admitted to his companions that the warrant was "just." As a sign of good faith, he handed the deputies the money to cover the debt and promised to follow them back to town to settle with his creditor. On Mathews's arrival in Bannack, Buck delivered the greenbacks he had held as surety and in turn the debtor gave them to the merchant. The matter had been peacefully resolved without Buck's ever realizing that his life had been in danger. But members of Mathews's party later related that when the deputies had appeared with the warrant, "Alex Toponce wanted us to take Buck and hang him at once." "Of course," one witness said, "we could not agree to that." [32]
Thus on the morning of January 10, Buck was still alive and well, but since the sheriff was ailing, the two deputies assumed the job of patrolling Bannack's streets. It was a cold, gloomy day, and the town appeared to be nearly deserted. Because there were no customers to wait on, merchant Francis Thompson sat beside his fire chatting with crony Sidney Edgerton. "Buck Stinson's head suddenly appeared at the door," Thompson remembered, "but he said nothing and did not come in." A short time later, Ed Ray "stepped in and made some casual remark," but other than the two deputies, "few people seemed moving in the village street." [33] Buck and Ed continued their rounds, not realizing that the conversation they had interrupted between Thompson and Edgerton had been about them.
Bannack's Sunday morning silence was deceptive, for behind closed doors significant meetings were taking place. By nightfall, vigilantes were passing out weapons. After eating supper, the Tolands and their boarders had gathered about the hearth for a chat. Buck was wearing his Sunday suit and his wife her best dress. She was a regular churchgoer, and he always accompanied her to the meeting held in a tepee-shaped structure on Yankee Flat. Each Sunday evening a handful of worshipers endured a lengthy sermon presented by an uneducated orator who passed himself off as a preacher. While the tepee owner slouched against the door frame and amused himself by observing the service, his cats and dogs strolled among the congregation, sniffing shoes and dress hems and demanding to be stroked. It is doubtful that Buck was looking forward to leaving the Toland's fire, walking half a block in the cold, and subjecting himself to the sermon. While he delayed, the door creaked open and before he knew what was happening armed men were crowding into the small room. [34]
They surrounded Buck, leveling shotguns at his head and saying, "We want you." Buck's wife sprang to her feet and locked her arms about her husband. For a moment the vigilantes hesitated: a woman's body was firmly planted between their guns and the man they wanted. Among the armed party was a twenty-four-year-old Englishman named William Roe, who for years after would carry the distressing image of Buck's capture in his mind: "His wife threw her arms about his neck and held on for dear life," Roe recalled. "I never had anything as hard to do in my whole life as came to my lot then. That woman standing there with her arms about her husband's neck, sobbing pitifully, tears streaming down her cheeks and begging us not to take him. I had to use force to remove her arms and hold her while the men with me led him away." [35]
Meanwhile, a second arrest party was surrounding Madam Hall's business. Ray had formed a relationship with the madam, and since she lived with him in his small cabin near the creek, many citizens referred to her as his wife. The fact that her lean, sandy-haired, well-groomed lover was a wanted man in Salt Lake City did not necessarily diminish his attractiveness in the madam's eyes. In Carson City, Nevada, she had previously befriended another criminal, gambler William Mayfield, the killer of Sheriff Blackburn. While the condemned gambler had awaited execution, madam had tucked two files in her stockings and paid him a visit in his cell. Authorities, however, had arrested her before she had a chance to slip Mayfield the tools. [36]
Though Mrs. Stinson had immediately realized that the intruders intended to hang her husband, Madam Hall was not startled to see armed men entering her log-cabin business. At first they remained at the door, nervously surveying her customers, and then spotted Ray and advanced toward him. Dressed in an ornately fringed buckskin jacket, he sat dozing at an unoccupied gaming table. The armed men grouped themselves about him and jostled him awake. Still drowsy from his nap, Ray rose to his feet and quietly went along with his captors. It was almost as though he had been expecting a posse. As he stepped out into the cold night air, the shadowy forms awaiting him in the darkness breathed a sigh of relief that a man of Ray's reputation had been taken so easily. [37]
The New York native, age thirty-five, had come west, some said, to work as an engineer at the Bay Area city of Benicia, California. Then in October 1862, friends serving in the California Volunteers had transferred to a camp under construction in the suburbs of Salt Lake City, and he had followed, taking up residence in a Salt Lake hotel. A few weeks after his arrival, Camp Douglas officials reported that thieves had entered the army corrals that befouled the waters of Red Butte Creek, stolen two mules, and hid them at the farm of one Alonzo Gavitt. Not until April of the following year did authorities charge three men with the mule larceny. Among the defendants was J. Edward S. Ray. [38] Since Ray claimed to be innocent, his attorney obtained a separate trial. On April 8, 1863, at a session of the Third District Federal Court, one of the other defendants, William Burton, testified that Ray was not involved in the mule theft, but the third suspect, Frank Matthews, agreed to testify for the prosecution in exchange for his own freedom. As Matthews took the stand, Ray's lawyer halted proceedings to object to the witness. Though the judge ruled to allow Matthews's testimony, he did warn the jurors to listen "with considerable discredit." Next, the defense produced two character witnesses for Ray, as well as an ex-soldier, James Talbot, who testified that on November 15, 1862, the night of the crime, he had received his discharge and spent the evening gambling with Ray at a Salt Lake hotel. The court recessed that day with likely prospects of Ray's acquittal.
DRAWING OF EDWARD RAY. By C. M. Callison Diaz
(Click on image to see full size)
But on the following morning, the prosecution dashed the optimism. A Lieutenant Gately took the stand, holding in hand a payroll record that indicated that Talbot's discharge had not occurred on November 15, but two days later. The outraged judge immediately ordered Talbot placed under arrest for perjury and then dispatched the jury to the deliberation room. After the dramatic episode they had just witnessed in the courtroom, the jurors did not require much time to reach a decision. They soon returned, delivering to the judge the following signed statement: "We, the jurors, in the case of Edward Ray, charged with stealing two mules, the property of the United States government, find him Guilty as alleged in the indictment.'" [39]
Matthews walked from the court a free man; confessed thieves Burton and Gavitt received sentences of "sixty days hard labor," [40] and James Talbot, who admitted that he may have been mistaken about his discharge date but nevertheless insisted that he had gambled with Ray on the night of November 15, received ninety days, a punishment reduced "on account of his former good character." Edward Ray suffered the stiffest sentence: "One year's solitary confinement in the Penitentiary, and to pay a fine of $600 and costs of suit, taxed at $150, the culprit to remain in prison after the expiration of the sentence of the Court until the fine and cost shall be paid." If Ray could not raise the required $750, he would reside in the penitentiary for the rest of his natural life. [41] The prison warden, Colonel Rockwood, allowed convicts Burton and Gavitt to perform their "hard labor" outside the facility, but Burton could not resist the temptation to steal his employer's oxen and within a matter of weeks ended up in the Provo jail. [42] As a perjurer, Talbot was not eligible for the "hiring out program," so the warden retained him at the prison. Though Talbot was permitted to walk to the receiving room when he had a visitor, Ray spent unvarying hours of darkness in his small, solitary-confinement cell, brooding over the harsh sentence for a crime he claimed he had not committed: masterminding the theft of two mules. At the time there were very few prisoners in the penitentiary, and each night the colonel checked to see that his wards were secure in their respective cells, locked the building from outside, and withdrew the guards until dawn. The arrangement made possible one of the most ingenious prison escapes in the annals of western history. [43]
Ray had begun serving his sentence on April 11, 1863. By the first of May, the weather had turned unseasonably warm. With a forty-four-pound ball chained to one ankle, the solitary prisoner sat on his cot in a stifling cell ventilated only by a narrow slit covered with iron bars. Other than the day guard, who brought food and water and emptied the slop bucket, Ray's only opportunity for communication with the outside world came when James Talbot occasionally passed through the corridor on his way to the visiting room. Without the guard hearing, the two men commenced whispering messages as Talbot walked by Ray's cell. The continuing loyalty to a man whose problems had brought about Talbot's own imprisonment was remarkable, but perhaps Talbot believed Ray to be innocent. For whatever motive, with only seventy days remaining of his own sentence, Talbot agreed to enter into an escape plot.
He persuaded a visitor to bring him the items Ray had requested: a knife blade and a small piece of heavy metal. With those two pieces of equipment in hand, the prisoner felt he could overcome all obstacles -- a locked cell, a building with a single exit bolted from outside, and a wall too high to scale without a ladder. It took several days of waiting for the precise moment when the guard was not paying attention, but finally Talbot managed to slip the two objects through Ray's ventilation grill. By the meager light passing through the door slit, Ray fashioned a "false key." Then when the guard left at dusk, Ray began sawing the rivet that secured the ankle shackle. But as the rivet at last snapped, he discovered that he was unable to spread the heavy cuff wide enough to extract his foot, even with his shoe removed. The predicament was severe. He still had many difficult tasks to perform, and at daylight the guard would reappear and first discover the severed shackle pin and next the smuggled tools. Their discovery would bring not only punishment, but an increased security that would make any future escape schemes impossible. There was but one solution to his dilemma. Small as the gap was, Ray wrenched his foot through the iron band, gouging out the flesh in a bleeding groove that ran from ankle to toes. Though the injured foot would make the rest of his escape more difficult, at least he was free of ball and chain. [44]
With the knife blade, he sawed around the frame of his door slit and removed the grill. Then he extended his arm through the slot, reached down to the lock, inserted the homemade key, and toyed with it until he heard the welcome click. Groping his way down the dark corridor, he located Talbot's cell and worked it open with the same key. Quickly the two freed men ripped a blanket into strips and braided them into a rope. Realizing beforehand that the prison door -- hinged and bolted from the outside -- would be an impenetrable barrier, they made their way to a cell which was purposely left vacant because it had a crack in the wall. It took most of the remaining hours of darkness to break a passage, but before dawn, they crawled into the prison yard. After throwing one end of the blanket-rope to the top of the high wall and somehow hooking it there, they climbed it, swung it to the opposite side of the wall, and descended it to freedom. Then they headed for the northern mines. In printing the story of the escape, a local editor carped that if the two convicts had been executed in the first place, rather than jailed, the disaster would not have occurred. Nevertheless, he conceded that the two prisoners' efforts and strategy had been "superior." [45]
Storm clouds rested on the mountains and an occasional shower cooled the air as Ed Ray journeyed toward Bannack. During the trip, his wound commenced to heal, forming a lumpy scar tissue which the travelers he had joined called a "bunch" on the foot. [46] About ten days after Ray's arrival at Grasshopper Creek, the miners elected Colonel McLean's favored candidate, Henry Plummer, as the sheriff of all the mining districts of the area. The sheriff's ready selection of Ray as a deputy suggests that Plummer may have known the Old Californian as a respected professional of Benicia. But even if Ray had disclosed his Utah troubles, Plummer may have regarded the fugitive as an honorable man who, like himself, had been convicted by jurors who were either illiterate or too disinterested in civic affairs to read a newspaper. [47] Certainly Plummer was aware of Ray's relationship with the town madam, but upon his own pardon from San Quentin, he had formed a temporary liaison with a woman of dubious reputation. Since most men had come to the mines to get rich, few wished to devote precious time to executing court orders, and Sheriff Plummer probably felt fortunate to have the services of a frontier veteran who was willing to expose himself to the dangers inherent in administering justice.
Though Ray had accompanied Stinson to Toponce's camp to issue the warrant, he did not travel nearly as much as Buck. Most of his free time was spent in the gambling halls, where he apparently had good luck. One day in January 1864, a resident recalled, Ray "sat at a card table in Percy and Hacker's saloon, with about $1,000 in $20.00 gold pieces, stacked before him. 'I have today been around and paid all my debts, and have this much left,' " he said. [48]
Deputy Ray was aware of the vigilance movement afoot in Alder Gulch. Two weeks before Beidler and his three companions arrived in Bannack, there had been a rumor that a "committee" was "intent on ridding the country of the lawful authorities." But on that occasion the Bannack citizens had stood behind their law officers by sending a picket to stand watch on the divide between Grasshopper and Rattlesnake creeks. [49] Evidently Ray had counted on the continuing loyalty of the Bannackites, but he had been wrong. Parties had captured the two deputies, and a third group faced the risky assignment of taking into custody a man known as the fastest and best shot on the eastern side of the mountains. Supposedly Plummer "could draw the pistol and discharge the five loads in three seconds," but at the moment he lay sick in a cabin next door to the Tolands. [50]
The sheriff's skill with a weapon was not the only problem; if alerted, his supporters might unite to defend the charismatic young easterner. William Henry Plummer was from a prominent family whose ancestors had settled the Maine wilderness while it was still ruled by George III. The boy grew up in a home where as many as three sea captains -- father, brothers, and brothers-in-law -- might be seated at the table at mealtime, but since he had contracted tuberculosis in infancy, he was not able to carry on the seafaring tradition. Instead, he remained on the family farm with his mother, tending the crops and livestock and studying in the village. But possessing the adventuresome Plummer spirit, he was susceptible to gold fever. At 10:00 A.M. on April 27, 1852, the teenager sailed from New York harbor aboard the United States mail steamer Illinois. So efficient was the mail service to the west coast by that date that, despite the difficult Panama crossing, his journey from coast to coast took but twenty-four days and fourteen hours. At precisely midnight of May 21, the floating palace named the Golden Gate unloaded its 1,558 passengers in the cosmopolitan port of San Francisco. [51]
In Nevada County, young Plummer located a ranch and a good claim, exchanged mining shares for a business in Nevada City, and let friends talk him into running for office on the Democratic ticket. Twice citizens elected him as the town marshal, an office he filled with efficiency and fiamboyance. Though he was popular, his habit of following his conscience rather than political expediency created recurring problems. He not only testified in court against the son of one of the richest men in town, but spent days protecting a woman of low social status against her battering husband. And when the county split in half over the murder trial of another social insignificant, Marshal Plummer raised some eyebrows among the elite by refusing to sign their petition for an immediate hanging. Accepting the opinion of a courageous judge who had heard the evidence and believed the defendant innocent, the marshal signed the petition being carried door to door by the condemned man s wife. [52]
DRAWING OF HENRY PLUMMER. By C. M. Callison Diaz
(Click on image to see full size)
Plummer's ten years in California were action packed. He conducted raids on opium dens, tracked down arsonists, captured a robber who was terrorizing two counties, and then ended his career by himself entering San Quentin on a second-degree murder conviction. When Nevada County and Yuba County officials protested that Marshal Plummer was a man of "excellent character" who was innocent of any crime, the governor granted a pardon. On returning to the community, the ex-convict discovered a fabulously rich mine -- which he named for the famed racehorse Flora Temple -- became involved in more difficulties, and eventually joined the rush to Washington Territory mines. He remained in that area less than three months, and though acquaintances recalled that he had no connection to any robber band, he did join other gamblers in the crime of placing their bets at the saloon gaming tables. [53]
It was December 1862 when Plummer reached the Grasshopper Creek diggings and began accumulating claims from novice miners who presented him shares in exchange for mining advice. That same winter a group of citizens discussed forming a vigilance committee, but when Hank Crawford (owner of the Bannack butcher shop) expressed a desire to join, he received an anonymous death threat. Crawford guessed that the threat had come from Plummer. (The ex-marshal had once broken up a lynch mob in Lewiston, and, in addition, acting-sheriff Crawford and Plummer had quarreled over horses and guns.) From out of hiding, Crawford fired a rifle at Plummer, striking him from behind and shattering his elbow, forearm, and wrist. Then Crawford fied the territory. [54]
By May, Plummer had recovered sufficiently to declare himself a candidate for the most important position in the new lands east of the mountains: sheriff of the combined mining districts. With Colonel McLean's support, he won by a larger majority than any other official the miners elected. Throughout the following months, the sheriff continued to gain popularity for his efficiency. He set up office in the back room of George Chrisman's general store and appointed deputies for Bannack and other camps. "Very early in the morning," a citizen reported, one could find the sheriff -- sporting a picturesque mustache and wearing an elegant, red-lined overcoat -- patrolling Bannack streets. He promptly carried out court orders, ranging from conducting sheriff's sales to executing convicted murderer Peter Horan (or Herron) and administering Horan's estate, which consisted of a few mining claims, a third interest in a log cabin, eight sluices, picks and shovels, and one wheelbarrow. Plummer's efforts to protect travelers carrying large amounts of gold dust caused one resident to comment that crime in the area appeared to be "played out." [55]
There was hardly a person in the community who had not received some sort of help from the sheriff. "Plummer was one of the most polite men I have ever known," Judge Frank Woody wrote. "He drank very little, was very sociable and good company. After I had furnished... horses to ride from Hell Gate to Deer Lodge, Plummer took quite a liking to me and was willing to do any favor I might ask." On most any evening the sheriff was in town, he could be found playing whist -- considered a gentleman's game on the frontier -- with the stately politician who would later challenge and defeat Wilbur Sanders for the honor of serving as Montana's territorial delegate to Congress. Colonel McLean trusted the sheriff implicitly, describing him as a "perfect gentleman" and "great friend." And over Nathaniel Langford's strenuous objection, a local political club, the Union League, voted unanimously to nominate Plummer as the deputy United States marshal of eastern Idaho Territory. [56] But the sheriff was having problems at home. His wife Electa insisted on returning to Ohio, and at last he gave in to her, escorting her as far as Salt Lake and promising that he would follow in a few weeks. Then he sold their home to Electa's sister and brother-in-law, Martha and James Vail. He delayed his departure, however, probably because he did not think it wise to leave Martha and her two small children alone in the wilderness environment during her husband's temporary absence. [57]
At the very time Plummer was conducting his wife to Salt Lake, they crossed paths with the Edgerton and Sanders families, who were just arriving. Soon after settling in at Bannack, the uncle and nephew commenced their sparring match with the political opposition, Samuel McLean, and also began laying plans to remove Plummer from office. The two newcomers, of course, stood in awe of the sheriff's skill with a weapon. Daily, Sanders observed Plummer -- who ranked with the best of the "bold riders" -- maneuvering his agile mount among the freighting traffic stretched out the full length of Bannack's two rows of businesses. The ambitious young lawyer also envied Plummer's ability to "get quartz claims when he pleased," and had no qualms about tagging along after the sheriff in hopes of locating a profitable mine for himself and his uncle. [58]
The month following Sanders's arrival, an event occurred which greatly alarmed the citizenry. Two disguised robbers held up the stage. The sheriff questioned passengers and driver, but no one was able to identify the culprits. "Without any sort of clue to work on," a pioneer remembered, Plummer "rolled up a few days' rations, mounted his horse, and left town alone.... Almost a week elapsed before he returned and reported his mission as fruitless." [59] November brought a second stage robbery, conducted by assailants who had been so clever as to disguise their horses as well as themselves. Then in December a hunter discovered the body of young Nicholas Tiebolt (or De Vault), and a miners' court convicted and hanged George Ives as the murderer and robber of the orphaned youth.
Despite the fear inspired by the three crimes that closed 1863, and despite the cold wave that opened 1864, the business of extracting gold from the earth continued. On January 4, six prominent Bannackites filed claims on White's Discovery Bar; among them were Judge Burchett and Sheriff Plummer. Two days previously, George Chrisman had filed a power of attorney that granted him the authority to collect $3,500 from parties who owed Henry Plummer for their interest in claim number 7 of the Dakota Lode. For unknown reasons, Chrisman would never make any accounting to the court for the Dakota Lode funds. [60] The January 10 capture of the two deputies had gone smoothly. Meanwhile the third party was preparing to seize the man who had -- at least according to Nathaniel Langford -- five notches on his gun. Quietly the armed men surrounded the Vail cabin and then tapped at the door. Plummer arose from the divan, spoke to the callers, and informed Martha that he was going downtown to see about Dutch John Wagner, the robbery suspect. The unarmed sheriff then stepped outside and commenced reasoning with the armed party, arguing that Dutch John should receive a trial. It was not at all what the group had expected, and their determination lagged. But as the party commenced to break up, Wilbur Sanders revived the martial mood by shouting an order to "March!" The three groups, who had now merged, formed a hollow square about their prisoners and commenced walking briskly toward the main street. Beidler's waiting was almost at an end; he was but minutes away from fulfilling the assignment that would crown the long ride and persistent recruiting efforts. [61]
Blowing plumes of warm breath into the cold night air, the columns of marchers recrossed Grasshopper Creek, regrouped in close formation, and turned onto the main street, trampling a wider path in drifting snow as they advanced. They were moving quickly, passing lighted saloons, and then they turned left, heading into the darkness of the gulch that contained the gallows erected to hang Peter Horan. Clouds masked the moon, but muted starlight revealed the two pine poles and their crossbar ahead, delicate black lines standing starkly against the relative brightness of the low, white hills. Beyond was the abyss cut by the gulch, and above were hazy, dark heavens sprinkled with an occasional glimmer of light. When they reached the gallows, they halted. [62] The line of armed men formed a tight circle about the three prisoners. On the outer rim, the guards faced outwards in case it became necessary to menace the condemned men's sympathizers. Madam Hall had finally realized Ed's peril and come running after him, and she now confronted the shadowy cordon bristling with shotguns and doing their best to conceal their faces with upturned collars and pulled-down hats. Sobbing, the madam tried to force her way past the guards, but they grasped her by each arm and forced her back to Ed's cabin. Her rough treatment did not deter Dr. Erasmus Leavitt, who was stomping about in the snow, from pleading with the vigilantes to release their captives. The vigilantes paid him no heed. They intended to carry out an immediate lynching and would have done so except the leaders discovered that in the press to enlist men, they had forgotten to obtain dry goods boxes as drops. A second oversight, they had enough rope to hang only one man. Sanders sent Henry Tilden dashing back to the Edgerton cabin for more rope, and as they waited, the vigilante lieutenant turned to the prisoners. "If you have anything to say," he advised, "do so at once. Your time is short."
Plummer replied for the group: "We want a fair trial." "We've already held your trial," the leader said, "and the only trial you will have now will be at the end of a rope." Plummer did not give up. He had on more than one occasion dispersed a lynch mob, and with Buck and Ed adding their voices, the sheriff attempted to appeal to his captors' sense of justice. Listening to the three law officers' pleas, vigilante William Roe could "not blame them in the least." Anyone, he thought, "would have done as Plummer did, if he thought a talk would have given him his liberty." [63]
HANGMAN'S GULCH, BANNACK. Photo by Boswell
(Click on image to see full size)
Still Roe and his companions remained unmoved. "It is useless for you to beg for your life," the lieutenant said. "You are to be hanged."
As all present realized, the miners' courts allowed a condemned man at least an hour to arrange final matters. "Give us time to settle our business affairs," Plummer asked. The request fell on deaf ears. Tilden had now arrived with the rope, and trembling, cold-stiffened fingers were knotting the special loops. Guards pinioned Ed Ray's arms and led him toward a dangling noose. Later, vigilantes would report that each law officer received a high drop; chroniclers would record that fact, and posterity would believe it; but a member of the lynching party told quite a different story. [64]
Resigned to their fate, the three prisoners fell quiet, and a similar hush fell over the audience, as it strained forward to catch a glimpse of the first victim. "Walk under the rope," a guard instructed Ray. Ed moved forward and then hesitated. "Hold on," he said, "I want to pray." But when he did not speak any words aloud, one vigilante slipped the noose over his head and cinched it about his throat. "Pull up!" the executioner shouted, and men grasping the end of the rope, which had been tossed over the crossbar, yanked with such force that the gallows tilted backwards. Quickly they relaxed their grip, lowering Ray back to the ground. During the struggle, he broke the cord about his arms and inserted his fingers under the rope about his neck. Without bothering to remove the trapped hand, the executioner called for a second time, "Pull up!" They obeyed, and for several moments the deputy writhed at the end of the noose. Then one vigilante jerked the hand loose, allowing the rope to strangle Ray. His eyes and tongue protruded and his body twisted violently. It was some time before the spasms subsided.
"There goes poor Ed Ray," Buck said quietly. But they were already leading him into place, putting a second noose about his neck. They had gotten the feel of a body's resistance now and only had to hoist Stinson once. The executioner then called for the guards to bring up Plummer. Even under such demeaning circumstances, the sheriff retained a certain air of authority, and his captors hesitated to perform their assignment. They realized that there was "something terrible" about hanging such a man. The lieutenant walked over to Plummer and stood facing him; then he signaled for his men to bind their final victim. Plummer stood quietly as they tied his hands and then walked under the third noose. As the executioner placed it about his neck he said, "Give me a high drop, men," but instead they gently tugged at the rope, slowly lifting him from the ground. Then they wrapped their end of the rope around one upright and stood watching the sheriff's death agony. The human body does not succumb readily to death by strangulation; sometimes there is a pulse for as long as eight minutes. [65]
To be certain that none of the three victims still had life in their bodies, the vigilantes kept a half-hour vigil. Meanwhile, Madam Hall was keeping a vigil of her own. Intimidated into remaining inside Ray's cabin, she stood at the window, waiting for someone she knew to pass. Finally she spotted one of the men who earlier had arrested her lover, and rushing to main street, called to him, "Where is my Ed?"
"Your Ed is all right," the vigilante assured her and then before she could question him further, hurried away. It was morning before she learned the truth. At dawn friends tapped on the door and informed her that Ed was hanging frozen on the gallows. At her request, they cut him down and brought the body to her cabin for laying out. Later that same day, January 11, Mrs. Stinson went to the temporary morgue on main street to recover her husband's gold wedding band. Since his hand was frozen stiff, she had to cut off his fingers in order to remove the ring. There was no laying out necessary for Buck, because he was already wearing his Sunday suit. [66]
So Beidler and his three companions had successfully carried out the assassination of the miners' lawmen and, as bylaws stated, charged the estates of the deceased for the executions. One hundred five years after the Bannack lynchings, the national commission appointed to study violence in America would conclude that "the execution of Sheriff Henry Plummer in Montana" was "a miscarriage of justice" since "Montana was sufficiently settled... for men to have recourse to law." Despite that finding, Plummer's reputation was irrevocably defiled. Historians did not challenge the vigilantes' verdict, which had been reached without so much as questioning the suspect. [67]
Though there is no evidence that the Bannack sheriff headed an outlaw gang, posterity believed the charge simply because the vigilantes hanged him. In 1864 many of his former constituents had followed the same line of reasoning: "Plummer was... the last man that one would take to be a highwayman," Judge Woody stated. "I never dreamed or imagined that he was a road agent, until after I learned he had been hanged as such." [68]
Other Montana pioneers, however, found it difficult to reconcile the bandit-chief image with their personal knowledge of the sheriff's actions. For example, only a few weeks before the Bannack lynchings, Plummer had provided protection for a packer who was carrying a large consignment of gold dust to Fort Benton. In his declining years, packer John Largent still marveled over the incident. First, Plummer had directed Largent and his partner to Bannack, informing them that they could sleep in Francis Thompson's store. "This we did," Largent recounted, "and had spread our blankets on the floor when Plummer arrived. He slept on the store counter." The following morning, the sheriff advised Largent to make his next camp on the Big Hole River. When the two packers finally reached the fort on Christmas Eve of 1863, they found the sheriff waiting for them. Not until that moment did the pair understand that Plummer had been escorting them throughout the entire journey. The sheriff, Largent realized, "had ridden for hundreds of miles through the coldest kind of weather in order to serve as our protector.... I never understood just what moved him to this act of sacrifice, which certainly showed a strain of nobility ran through this man." [69]
But recollections of the sheriff's abundant services did little to counteract the outlaw portrait delineated by vigilante propagandists such as Dimsdale, Langford, and Sanders. The myth that Plummer had directed a robber band continued. "So easy to say," one of the sheriff's contemporaries wrote, "yet so hard to disprove -- throwing on the innocent all the burden and the strain of demonstrating their innocence, and punishing them as guilty. [70]
