Vigilante Days and Ways The pioneers of the Rockies; the makers and making of Montana and Idaho

For the first three or four years after the settlement of Montana, a favorite mode of returning to the States was by Mackinaw boat, down one or the other of the two great rivers...

Good men who were intimate with Joseph A. Slade before he went to Montana gave him credit for possessing many excellent qualities. He is first heard of outside of his native vil...

The stage coach is one among the most vivid memories of the boy of half a century ago. The very mention of it recalls the huge oval vehicle with its great boot behind, fronted b...

No two men filled a broader space in the early history of the Florence mines than Pinkham and Patterson. Their personal characteristics gave them a widespread notoriety, and a s...

Mr. Beachy’s convictions gave him no rest. Without a shadow of evidence to sustain him, or a clew to guide him, he went to work to ferret out the crime. His friends laughed at a...

The banishment of Moore and Reeves was regarded by the roughs as an encroachment upon the system they had adopted for the government of the country. Long impunity had fostered i...

In May, 1863, a company of miners, while returning from an unsuccessful exploring expedition, discovered the remarkable placer afterwards known as Alder Gulch. They gave the nam...

Late in the Fall of 1872, I spent a few days in Salt Lake City. One evening at the Townsend House, while conversing with Governor Woods and a few friends upon the events which h...

While the events I have just recorded were in progress at Bannack, the Vigilantes of Virginia City were not inactive. Alder Gulch had been the stronghold of the roughs ever sinc...

Had it been possible at any time during the period I have passed under review, for the peaceable citizens of Bannack to return to their old homes in safety, such was the terror...

In the former chapters of this history, we have seen that the people of Montana did not adopt the Vigilante code until a crisis had arrived when the question of supremacy betwee...

The confederates of Ives spared no efforts, while his trial was in progress, to save him. When intimidation failed, they appealed to sympathy; and when that proved unavailing, i...

George Ives, whose name is already familiarized to the readers of this history, by the prominent part he acted in the robberies of the coach, and the contemplated attack upon Ha...

“In the name of all that is wonderful, Hill, what has kept you up till this late hour?” was the eager inquiry of Mrs. Maggie Beachy of her husband, when that gentleman entered h...

On the day of the departure of Hauser and myself for Salt Lake City, as described in the preceding chapter, an episode occurred affecting Colonel Sanders, which illustrates in s...

Some men are villains by nature, others become so by circumstances. Hogarth’s series of pictures representing in contrast the career of two apprentices illustrates this truth be...

People who were living in the West in 1856, well remember the terrible Winter of that year, and the suffering it occasioned among the poorer classes. Severity of weather, scarci...

The placer at Alder Gulch was so extensive, so easy of development, and so prolific, that many of the miners who commenced work upon it in the early days of its discovery, fortu...

No longer in fear of attack by the Indians, immigrants had been steadily pouring into the Territory over the Salt Lake route during the month of June. Many came also over the mo...

Several days after the execution of “Red” and Brown, when their bodies were taken down for burial, there was found, fastened to each, a monograph which has few parallels for bre...

Dr. A. J. Oliver had been running a letter express between Bannack and Salt Lake City during the year, and early in the autumn had substituted for a single saddle horse and pack...

Alarmed at the indignation which this brutal deed had enkindled in the community, Moore and Reeves, at a late hour the same night, fled on foot in the direction of Rattlesnake....

Gold was first discovered in what is now known as Montana by Francois Findlay, better known as Be-net-see, a French half-breed, in 1852. He had been one of the early miners in C...

The work so well begun was prosecuted with great energy. The ruffians had fled from Virginia City and Bannack, over the range to Deer Lodge and Bitter Root, intending gradually...

Early in the afternoon of a cold day late in November, 1863, Leroy Southmayd, Captain Moore, and a discharged driver known as “Billy,” took passage in Oliver’s coach at Virginia...

During the year preceding the period whereof I write, and in fact from the time of the discovery of the Salmon River mines, nearly every train or single company of immigrants go...

While recovering from his wound, Plummer, by constant practice, had acquired an expertness in the use of the pistol with his left hand, nearly equal to that of which Crawford’s...

“We’ve got a woman for breakfast this time, and a Chinawoman at that,” said X. Beidler, as he drew up to the well-filled breakfast table of the saloon where he boarded. “There’s...

This man, on some accounts the most noted among the roughs of Idaho, was of patrician origin,—the degenerate scion of a family which boasted among its members some of the leadin...

The attachments formed between men, where the privileges and enjoyments of social life are confined to the monotonous round of a mining camp, are necessarily strong. The surroun...

Towards the close of the Summer of 1862, the band organized by Plummer having increased in numbers, he selected two points of rendezvous, as bases for their operations. These we...

Intelligence of the discovery in 1861 of extensive placers on the head waters of Salmon River, excelling in richness any former locations, had been circulated through all the bo...

While the little community at Bannack were snugly housed for the winter, anxiously awaiting the return of warm weather to favor a resumption of labor in the gulch, numerous comp...

After sentence of banishment was pronounced upon them, Moore and Reeves went to the mining camp in Deer Lodge Valley, located near the present site of Deer Lodge City. Messrs. B...

Soon after the transactions recorded in the last chapter, the Virginia City Vigilantes were informed that Bill Hunter had been seen in the Gallatin Valley. It was reported that...

Retribution followed rapidly upon the heels of disclosure. The organization of the Vigilantes of Nevada and Virginia City was effected as quietly as possible, but it embraced ne...

Intelligence of the capture of Ives preceded the arrival of the scouts at Nevada. That town was full of people when they entered with their prisoners. A discussion between the c...

Florence was now the established headquarters of the robbers. Its isolated location, its distance from the seat of government, its mountain surroundings, and, more than all, its...

It is charitable to believe that Henry Plummer came to Bannack intending to reform, and live an honest and useful life. His deportment justified that opinion. His criminal caree...

Crime, as an organized force in Montana, ceased with the execution of Plummer and his infamous band early in 1864. The perseverance with which they were pursued, and the swift p...

The Snake River or Lewis fork of the Columbia takes its rise in a small lake which is separated by the main range of the Rocky Mountains from the large lakes of the Yellowstone,...

One cold morning, a few days after the attempted robbery of Mr. Hauser and the writer, a train of three wagons, with a pack train in company, left Virginia City for Salt Lake Ci...

Prospecting, as it is called, for gold placers and quartz veins has grown into a profession. No man can engage in it successfully unless he understands it. There are certain ind...

The decay of a mining town is as sudden and rapid as its growth, and the causes which occasion it as problematical. Few, comparatively, of the great number of placer camps in th...

A new candidate for bloody laurels now appears in the person of Charley Harper. He arrived in Walla Walla in the Fall of 1861. A young man of twenty-five, of medium size, of ere...

When the rumored discovery in the Summer of 1861 of extensive gold placers on Salmon River was confirmed, the intelligence spread through the Territories and Mississippi States...

The next movements of the Vigilantes were followed up with remarkable expedition. The work they had laid out contemplated the execution of every member of Plummer’s band who, up...

We return now to Charley Harper, whom we left at Colville on the Upper Columbia, a fugitive from the Vigilantes of Florence. Fear had exercised a healthful restraint upon his co...

As soon as the Berrys were assured of the identity of the villains who had robbed them they appealed to the people to assist in their capture. The robbers had stripped them of a...

Dutch John was still a prisoner in charge of Fetherstun, in the gloomy cabin on Yankee Flat, a euphonious title given to a little suburb of a dozen cabins of the town of Bannack...

Of the early history of this individual I know but little, and but for circumstances attending his “taking off,” should not trouble my readers with any notice of him. That he wa...