Henry Plummer - Montana Sheriff Meets a Noose

Henry Plummer - Page 3

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By December, 1863, the citizens of Bannack and Virginia City had had enough. Men from Bannack, Virginia City and nearby Nevada City met secretly and organized the Montana Vigilantes. Masked men began to visit suspected outlaws in the middle of the night issuing warnings and tacking up posters featuring a skull-and-crossbones or the "mystic" numbers "3-7-77." While the meaning of these numbers remains elusive, the Montana State Highway patrolmen wear the emblem "3-7-77" on their shoulder patches today. Interesting.

The vigilantes dispensed rough justice by hanging about twenty-four men. When one such man, by the name of Erastus "Red" Yager, who was about to be hanged, pointed a finger at Henry Plummer as the leader of the gang, all hell broke loose.

The residents were divided on whether or not Henry was part of the murderous gang. But one night after heavy drinking in a local saloon, the vigilantes decided that Henry was guilty and tracked him down. On January 10, 1864 fifty to seventy-five men gathered up Plummer and his two main deputies, Buck Stinson and Ned Ray.

Vigilante Hanging

The three were marched to those very same gallows that Plummer, himself, had built. Ned Ray was the first hanged, followed by Buck Stinson--both men spewing epithets every step of the way. According to one legend, Plummer promised to tell the vigilantes where $100,000 of gold was buried, if they would let him live. However, the vigilantes ignored this as they gradually hoisted him up by the neck.

After the execution, armed guards stood by the gallows for about an hour. The three bodies were left hanging until the next morning. Plummer’s was the only body placed in a wooden coffin and none were buried in the cemetery, but instead all three were buried in shallow graves in Hangman’s Gulch about a hundred yards up from the gallows.

The Vigilantes went on to hang the rest of the Road Agents that they could locate, in such locations as Hellgate (Missoula), Cottonwood (Deer Lodge), Fort Owen and Virginia City.

Vulnerable to vandalism, legend has it that the grave was broken into on two occasions. The first time, allegedly by the local doctor, who out of curiosity, severed the right arm from the body to search for the bullet that had hit Plummer when he went after Hank Crawford. Reportedly, the doctor found the bullet "worn smooth and polished by the bones turning upon it." The second time it was broken into, it was reportedly by two men around the turn of the century who, after spending several hours in a local bar, decided to dig up the grave. To prove they had done it, they severed the head and carried it back to the Bank Exchange Saloon, where it remained on the back bar for several years, until the building burned, along with all its contents. Yet, another legend states that the skull found its way into the hands of an unnamed doctor who sent the specimen back east to a scientific institution to try to figure out why Plummer was so evil.

Electa learned of her husband’s death in a letter and she always maintained that he was innocent. In fact, in the past several decades many historians, researchers and authors have also questioned whether the tale of Henry Plummer was rightfully told.

Many believe that the whole thing is all a fraud, a story fabricated to cover up the real lawlessness in the Montana Territory - the vigilantes themselves. Many of the early stories, on which the outlaw tale is based, were written by the editor of the Virginia City Newspaper, who was a member of the vigilantes, himself.

Further testimony to support the theory is that the robberies did not cease after the twenty-one men were hanged in January and February of 1864. In fact, after the "Plummer Gang" hangings, the stage robberies showed more evidence of organized criminal activity, more robbers involved in the holdups, and more intelligence passed to the actual robbers.

Sheriff Henry Plummer was hanged from the very gallows that he, himself

had built earlier in the year.

This image available for photographic prints and downloads HERE!

Having taken control, the vigilantes were ruthless. On one such occasion, in attempting to get the names of the road agents, they looped a noose around the neck of a suspect named "Long John" Franck and repeatedly hoisted him until the poor man gasped out the answers the vigilantes wanted to hear. They did the same to Erastus "Red" Yager who pointed the finger at Henry Plummer as the gang’s leader.

Further, the vigilantes brooked no criticism of their methods. When a preacher’s son named Bill Hunter expressed his outrage by shouting on a mining camp street that pro-vigilantes were "stranglers," his frozen corpse was found three weeks later dangling from the limb of a cottonwood tree.

There is really little evidence connecting Plummer with any crime committed in the Bannack area, other than the "confession" of a criminal attempting to save his own life. Plummer’s activities as an outlaw band leader in Lewiston have also been disputed; when evidence was found that he was actually living in California at the time.

Three years after Plummer was killed, the Vigilantes virtually ruled the mining districts. Finally, leading citizens of Montana including Territorial Governor Thomas Meagher, began to speak out against the ruthless group.

In March, 1867, the miners issued their own warning that if the Vigilantes hanged any more people, the "law abiding citizens" would retaliate "five for one." Though a few more lynchings occurred, it was clear that the era of the Vigilantes was past.

As to what happened to Electa -- she ultimately moved to Vermillion, South Dakota, where she married James Maxwell, a widower with two daughters. Electa and James had two sons of their own, Vernon and Clarence. Electa lived until May 5, 1912 and was buried at Wakonda, South Dakota.

The historical town of Bannack, Montana was placed under the protection of Montana’s Department of Fish, Wildlife, and Parks in 1954 and is now called the Bannack State Park.

The Hotel Meade first served as the Beaverhead County Courthouse

in Bannack, Montana.

This image available for photographic prints HERE!

Also See:

Bannack, Montana - Gold to Ghosts

Bannack Vintage Photo Gallery

Ghost Town Ghost in Bannack, Montana

Henry Plummer by Emerson Hough

Mines of Idaho & Montana

Montana Vigilantes

The Vigilantes of California, Idaho, & Montana

Book your hotel in Montana right HERE online.

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