Henry Plummer by Emerson Hough

Henry Plummer by Emerson Hough - Page 2

These Eastern men were different from those who had been schooled in the mines of the Pacific Slope. They still clung to law and order; and they did not propose to be robbed. The first news of the strikes brought over the advance guard of the roughs who had been running the other camps; and, as soon as these were unmasked by acts of their own, the little advance guard of civilization shot one of them, Arnett, and hung two others, Jernigan and Spillman. This was the real beginning of a permanent vigilante force in Montana. It afforded perhaps the only known instance of a man being buried with a six-shooter in one hand and a hand of cards in the other. Arnett was killed in a game of cards, and died with his death grip thus fixed.

The new diggings did not at first prove themselves, and the camp at Bannack on Grasshopper Creek, was more prosperous. Henry Plummer, therefore, elected Bannack as his headquarters.

Bannack, Montana is a ghost town today, July, 2008, Kathy Weiser

This image available for photographic prints HERE!

Others of the loosely connected banditti began to drop into Bannack from other districts, and Plummer was soon surrounded by his clan and kin in crime. George Ives, Bill Mitchell, Charlie Reeves, Cy Skinner, and others began operations on the same lines which had so distinguished them at the earlier diggings, west of the range. In a few weeks Bannack was as bad as Lewiston or Florence had ever been. In fact, it became so bad that the Vigilantes began to show their teeth, although they confined their sentences to banishment. The black sheep and the white began now to be segregated.

Plummer, shrewd to see the drift of opinion, saw that he must now play his hand out to the finish that he could not now reform. He accordingly laid his plans to kill Jack Crawford, who was chosen as miners' sheriff. Plummer undertook one expedient after another to draw Crawford into a quarrel, in which he knew he could kill him; for Plummer's speed with the pistol had been proved when he killed Jack Cleveland, one of his own best gun-fighters. Rumor ran that he was the best pistol shot in the Rockies and as bad a man as the worst. Plummer thought that Crawford suspected him of belonging to the bandits, and so doomed him. Crawford was wary, and defeated three separate attempts to waylay and kill him, besides avoiding several quarrels that were thrust upon him by Plummer or his men. Dick Phleger, a friend of Crawford, was also marked by Plummer, who challenged him to fight with pistols, as he frequently had challenged Crawford. Phleger was a braver man than Crawford, but he declined the duel. Plummer would have killed them both. He only wanted the appearance of an "even break," with the later plea of "self-defense," which has shielded so many bad men from punishment for murder.

Plummer now tried treachery, and told Crawford they would be friends. All the time he was hunting a chance to kill him. At length he held Crawford up in a restaurant, and stood waiting for him with a rifle. A friend handed Crawford a rifle, and the latter slipped up and took a shot from the corner of the house at Plummer, who was across the street. The ball struck Plummer's right arm and tore it to pieces. Crawford missed him with a second shot, and Plummer walked back to his own cabin. Here he had a long siege with his wound, refusing to allow his arm to be amputated, since he knew he might as well be dead as so crippled. He finally recovered, although the ball was never removed and the bone never knit. The ball lodged in his wrist and was found there after his death, worn smooth as silver by the action of the bones. Crawford escaped down the Missouri river, to which he fled at Fort Benton. He never came back to the country. Plummer went on practicing with the six-shooter with his left hand, and became a very good left-hand shot. He knew that his only safety lay in his skill with weapons.

Plummer's physician was Dr. Glick, who operated under cover of a shotgun, and with the cheerful assurance that if he killed Plummer by accident, he himself would be killed. After that Glick dressed the wounds of more than one outlaw, but dared not tell of it. Plummer admitted to him at last that these were his men and told Glick he would kill him if he ever breathed a word of this confidence. So the knowledge of the existence of the banditti was known to one man for a long time.

Virginia City, Montana

Virginia City sprang into existence after prospectors discovered gold at

Alder Gulch. Photo courtesy National Park Service.

As to Bannack, it was one of the wildest camps ever known in any land. Pistol fire was heard incessantly, and one victim after another was added to the list. George Ives, Johnny Cooper, George Carrhart, Hayes Lyons, Cy Skinner, and others of the toughs were now open associates of the leading spirit, Plummer. The condition of lawlessness and terror was such that all the decent men would have gone back to the States, but the same difficulties that had kept them from getting across to Florence now kept them from getting back East. The winter held them prisoners.

Henry Plummer was now elected sheriff for the Bannack mining district, to succeed Crawford, whom he had run out of the country. It seems very difficult to understand how this could have occurred; but it will serve to show the numerical strength of Plummer's party. The latter, now married, professed to have reformed. In reality, he was deeper in deviltry than ever in his life.

The diggings at Gold Creek and Bannack were now eclipsed by the sensational discoveries on the famous Alder Gulch, one of the phenomenal placers of the world, and the most productive ever known in America. The stampede was fast and furious to these new diggings. In ten days the gulch was staked out for twelve miles, and the cabins of the miners were occupied for all of that distance, and scattered over a long, low flat, whose vegetation was quickly swept away. The new camp that sprung up on one end of this bar was called Virginia City. It need not be said that among the first settlers there were the outlaws earlier mentioned, with several others: Jack Gallagher, Buck Stinson, Ned Ray, and others, these three named being "deputies" of "Sheriff" Plummer. A sort of court was formed for trying disputed mining claims. Charley Forbes was clerk of this court, and incidentally one of Plummer's band! This clerk and these deputies killed one Dillingham, whom they suspected of informing a friend of a robbery planned to make away with him on the trail from Bannack to Virginia City. They were "tried" by the court and freed. Hayes Lyons admitted privately that Plummer had told him to kill the informer Dillingham. The invariable plan of this bloodthirsty man was to destroy unfavorable testimony by means of death.

The unceasing flood of gold from the seemingly exhaustless gulch caused three or four more little camps or towns to spring up; but Virginia City now took the palm for frontier reputation in hardness. Ten millions in "dust" was washed out in one year. Every one had gold, sacks and cans of it. The wild license of the place was unspeakably vitiating. Fights with weapons were incessant. Rude dance halls and saloons were crowded with truculent, armed men in search of trouble. Churches and schools were unknown. Tents, log cabins, and brush shanties made the residences. "Hacks rattled to and fro between the several towns, freighted with drunken and rowdy humanity of both sexes. Citizens of acknowledged respectability often walked, more often perhaps rode side by side on horseback, with noted courtesans, in open day, through the crowded streets, and seemingly suffered no harm in reputation. Pistols flashed, bowie-knives flourished, oaths filled the air. This was indeed the reign of unbridled license, and men who at first regarded it with disgust and terror, by constant exposure soon learned to become part of it, and to forget that they had ever been aught else. Judges, lawyers, doctors, even clergymen, could not claim exemption."

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From the Rocky Mountain General Store

Great American Bars and Saloons by Kathy Weiser, Owner/Editor of Legends of America - Kathy Weiser's first venture into the publishing world takes you into the many watering holes of America's past, particularly the numerous saloons that sprouted up during our nation's Wild West days. This great photographic review displays hundreds of vintage photographs from California to Arizona, the mining camps of Colorado, all the way to New York and its turbulent days of Prohibition. Hardcover, 2006, 224 Pages. Signed by the author!!