Henry Plummer by Emerson Hough

Henry Plummer by Emerson Hough - Page 4

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The Vigilantes now organized with vigor and determination. One bit of testimony was added to another, and one man now dared to voice his suspicions to another. Twenty-five determined men set out to secure others of the gang now known to have been united in this long brotherhood. Some of these men were now fleeing the country, warned by the fate of Ives; but the Vigilantes took Red Yager and Buck Stinson and Ned Ray, two of them Plummer's deputies, as well as another confederate named Brown. The party stopped at the Lorain Ranch, near a cottonwood grove, and tried their prisoners without going into town. Red Yager confessed in full before he was hung, and it was on his testimony that the whole secret league of robbers was exposed and eventually brought to justice. He gave the following list:

Henry Plummer was chief of the gang; Bill Bunton, stool-pigeon and second in command; George Brown, secretary; Sam Bunton, roadster; Cyrus Skinner, fence, spy and roadster; George Shears, horse thief and roadster; Frank Parish, horse thief and roadster; Bill Hunter, telegraph man and roadster; Ned Ray, council-room keeper at Bannack; George Ives, Stephen Marshland, Dutch John (Wagner), Alex Carter, Whiskey Bill (Graves), Johnny Cooper, Buck Stinson, Mexican Frank, Bob Zachary, Boone Helm, Club Foot George Lane, Billy Terwilliger, Gad Moore, were roadsters.

Virginia City's first cemetery, referred to as Boot Hill, contains the

graves of five "road agents" hanged by Montana Vigilantes

in 1864. July, 2008, Kathy Weiser.

This image available for photographic prints and downloads HERE!

The noose was now tightening around the neck of the outlaw, Henry Plummer, whose adroitness had so long stood him in good stead. The honest miners found that their sheriff was the leader of the outlaws! His doom was said then and there, with that of all these others.

A party of the Virginia City law and order men slipped over to Bannack, Henry Plummer's home. In a few hours the news had spread of what had happened at the other camps, and a branch organization of the Vigilantes was formed for Bannack. Stinson and Ray were now arrested, and then Plummer himself, the chief, the brains of all this long-secret band of marauders. He was surprised with his coat and arms off, and taken prisoner. A few moments later, he was facing a scaffold, where, as sheriff, he had lately hung a man. The law had no delays. No court could quibble here. Not all Plummer's wealth could save him now, nor all his intellect and cool audacity.

An agony of remorse and fear now came upon the outlaw chief. He fell upon his knees, called upon God to save him, begged, pleaded, wept like a child, declared that he was too wicked to die thus soon and unprepared. It was useless. The full proof of all his many crimes was laid before him.

Ray, writhing and cursing, was the first to be hanged. He got his finger under the rope around his neck and died hard, but died. Stinson, also cursing, went next. It was then time for Plummer, and those who had this work in hand felt compunction at hanging a man so able, so urbane and so commanding. None the less, he was told to prepare. He asked for time to pray, and was told to pray from the cross-beam. He said good-by to a friend or two, and asked his executioners to "give him a good drop." He seemed to fear suffering, he who had caused so much suffering. To oblige him, the men lifted his body high up and let it fall, and he died with little struggle.

To cut short a long story of bloody justice, it may be added that of the men named as guilty by Yager every one was arrested, tried, and hung by the Vigilantes. Plummer for some time must have dreaded detection, for he tried to cover up his guilt by writing back home to the States that he was in danger of being hanged on account of his Union sympathies. His family would not believe his guilt, and looked on him as a martyr. They sent out a brother and sister to look into the matter, but these too found proof which left them no chance to doubt. The whole ghastly revelation of a misspent life lay before them. Even Plummer's wife, whom he loved very much and who was a good woman, was at last convinced of what at first she could not believe. Plummer had been able to conceal from even his wife the least suspicion that he was not an honorable man. His wife was east in the States at the time of his death.

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!

Plummer went under his true name. George Ives was a Wisconsin boy from near Racine. Both he and Plummer were twenty-seven years of age when killed, but they had compressed much evil into so short a span. Plummer himself was a master of men, a brave and cool spirit, an expert with weapons, and in all not a bad specimen of the bad man at his worst. He was a murderer, but after all was not enough a murderer. No outlaw of later years so closely resembled the great outlaw, John A. Murrell, as did Henry Plummer, but the latter differed in one regard:—he spared victims, who later arose to accuse him.

The frontier has produced few bloodier records than Plummer's. He was principal or accessory, as has been stated, in more than one hundred murders, not to mention innumerable robberies and thefts. His life was lived out in scenes typical of the early Western frontier. The madness of adventure in new wild fields, the lust of gold and its unparalleled abundance drove to crime men who might have been respected and of note in proper ranks of life and in other surroundings.

~~~~~~

Note: Today, historians question whether Plummer was actually an outlaw, or was set up by politicians. For an updated story see Henry Plummer - Sheriff Meets A Noose

Go To Next Chapter - Boone Helm

Compiled and edited by Kathy Weiser/Legends of America, updated March, 2010.

Other Works by Emerson Hough:

The Story of the Outlaw - A Study of the Western Desperado - Entire Text

The Cattle Kings

The Cattle Trails

Cowboys on the American Frontier

The Frontier In History

The Indian Wars

Mines of Idaho & Montana

Pathways To the West

The Range of the American West

About the Author: Excerpted from the book The Story of the Outlaw; A Study of the Western Desperado, by Emerson Hough; Outing Publishing Company, New York, 1907. This story is not verbatim as it has been edited for clerical errors and updated for the modern reader.

About the Author: Emerson Hough (1857–1923).was an author and journalist who wrote factional accounts and historical novels of life in the American West. His works helped establish the Western as a popular genre in literature and motion pictures. For years, Hough wrote the feature "Out-of-Doors" for the Saturday Evening Post and contributed to other major magazines.

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