Henry Plummer - Montana Sheriff Meets a Noose

Henry Plummer

Bitterroot Mountains, courtesy Big Sky Fishing

"No man stands higher in the estimation of the community than Henry Plummer"

-- Sacramento Union, May 1863

By September, 1862, Plummer was beginning to feel the effects of his tuberculosis and wanted to return home. Heading from Idaho across the Bitterroot Mountains, he traveled to Fort Benton with the intention of going back east. Unfortunately, the upper Missouri River at Fort Benton was frozen and closed to Riverboat traffic. Planning to hold over for the winter, Henry went to work as a ranch hand at the Sun River Farm, a government ranch and Indian Agency, in October.

Plummer soon became enamored with Indian Agent James Vail’s beautiful sister-in-law, Electa Bryan. Henry and Electa spent about two months together and were quickly engaged to be married.

A former cohort of Plummer’s by the name of Jack Cleveland was also vying for Electa’s attention, which incensed Henry. Nevertheless, both men headed to Bannack, Montana, the most recent site of gold rush fever, in January 1863.

Hastily built to accommodate the many miners flooding to the area, Bannack was called home to all manner of transient men including Civil War deserters from both sides, river pirates, professional gamblers, outlaws and villains. Lawlessness ran rampant as holdups occurred daily, and killings were just as frequent.

Henry soon rounded up another gang, calling themselves the Innocents, and began to relieve the gold-laden travelers from the Montana camps of their valuables. The Innocents grew quickly and became so large that secret handshakes and code words were instituted so one Innocent could recognize another.

One night while Henry was drinking in Bannack’s Goodrich Saloon, Jack Cleveland, his old nemesis, began to taunt him by making numerous references to Plummer’s outlaw activities. When Henry warned him to stop, Cleveland continued to spout his accusations and Plummer fired a warning shot. Cleveland then pulled his own six-gun, but Henry was faster and soon Cleveland lay on the floor, mortally wounded.

Not yet dead, Cleveland was taken to the home of a butcher named Hank Crawford, two doors down from the saloon. Crawford heard Cleveland’s last words as he continued to extol the tale of Plummer’s deceit and corruption. Three hours later, Cleveland was dead and Plummer was arrested. However, Plummer received yet another reprieve when he was acquitted based on witness testimony that Cleveland had threatened him.

By late spring 1863, there were more than 10,000 men hunting for gold along Grasshopper Creek and the lawlessness in Bannack had reached epidemic proportions. The frightened citizens of the settlement decided that the outlaws had to be stopped and advertised for a sheriff. Two men, vowing to corral the outlaws, stepped up to the plate - Plummer and the butcher, Hank Crawford.

Plummer lost the election to the popular butcher, an event that fired his reckless temper and he went after the new sheriff with a shotgun. However, a friend of Crawford’s stepped into the would-be melee and shot Plummer in his gun hand. Undaunted, Plummer immediately began to practice shooting with his left hand until his accuracy was just as deadly. When Hank Crawford caught wind of this, he turned in his badge and left Bannack, never to return.

Bannack, Montana in 1942. Building on left was Cyrus Skinner's Saloon, courtesy Library of Congress

In the new election for sheriff, Plummer was now elected and became the leading lawman on May 24, 1863. Plummer was quick to appoint two of his henchmen, Buck Stinson and Ned Ray, as deputies. Unknown to the people of Bannack, Plummer’s group of Innocents had now reached over 100. Having the opposite desired effect for the citizens of Bannack, crime in the town increased dramatically after Plummer was elected. In the next few months, more than 100 citizens were murdered.

On June 20, 1863, Henry and Electa were married and soon settled into their log home in Bannack. However, Electa did not stay long. Less that three months later, she left for her parents home in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. She would never see Henry again.

The Innocents stepped up their efforts at robbing the gold-laden travelers from the Montana camps and helped the Sheriff to punish the “villains” of the community on a gallows that Plummer had erected. However, the few that were hanged on it by Plummer and his men were not members of the Innocents. The Innocents were well organized and said to have killed anyone that might be a witness to their crimes, most of which were easily covered up. Blatant killings went unpunished. Local residents who suspected anything feared for their lives and kept their mouths closed. The ambitious sheriff soon extended his operations to Virginia City when he was appointed Deputy U.S. Marshal for the region of Idaho Territory east of the mountains in August of 1863

Continued Next Page

Virginia City, Montana in 1933, courtesy Library of Congress.

This image available for photographic prints HERE!

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