The Complete List of Old West Vigilantes

Complete List of Old West Vigilantes

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Dodge City Vigilantes (1873) – Established in 1872, Dodge City, Kansas was teeming with buffalo hunters, railroad men, soldiers, transients, and desperadoes. In the first year of its existence an estimated 15 men were killed in Dodge City, all winding up in Boot Hill.

By early 1873, local businessmen were concerned about the violence in the town that was not yet organized with city officials or lawmen. They soon hired gunfighter named Billy Brooks as a private lawman. However, when Brooks did not tame the lawlessness of the city, men began to take matters into their own hands by forming a vigilante committee.

Dodge City, Kansas in 1876.

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The committee effectively rid the town of some of the worst offenders by notifying six of the leading desperadoes that they must leave Dodge immediately. Four went, but two were defiant and remained. When the specified hour had passed, twelve double-barreled shotguns were loaded with buckshot, the men were hunted down, and then killed.

However, the vigilante group, like many others in the west, soon became the main source of violence. With power gone to their heads and attracting violent men, things were quickly out of hand. On March 134, 1873, Tom Sherman, who ran a dancehall, chased a man out of his saloon and shot him. As the man lay dying and writhing in pain, Sherman walked over to him and said, "I'd better shoot him again, hadn't I boys?" He then aimed his gun at the man's head and pulled the trigger point blank.

On June 3, 1873, the violence escalated to the point that two of vigilante members killed a man named William Taylor. However, Taylor was employed by Colonel Richard Dodge, the commanding officer of Fort Dodge. The officer was so outraged that he immediately telegraphed the Kansas Governor and gained special permission to arrest the guilty parties. His troops entered Dodge City the next day and arrested Bill Hicks who was later convicted. On June 5th, the soldiers arrested five more of the worst vigilantes, including Tom Sherman.

Vigilante Notice Montana Vigilantes (1863-1864) - During Montana's gold rush days of 1863, the law was sometimes non-existent in the region that was then in the Territory of Idaho. However, that was not the case in Virginia City, when a young miner was found murdered. A posse was quickly formed to track the killers and they soon returned with three suspects, who were tried in a miners' court in Nevada City, a few miles downstream from Virginia City. Tried in December, 1863, one man was convicted and hanged for the crime, but of the other two, one was banished from the territory and the other set free.

Outraged locals decided that justice in the court was too slow and ineffective and the Montana Vigilantes were born. Five members were originally sworn in as the Montana Vigilance Committee, patterned after the San Francisco Vigilantes of 1856. Almost immediately, orderly arrests and trial courts became obsolete as a reign of lynching began to take place. By the end of February, 1864, 22 men had been lynched.

The most famous victim of the Montana Vigilantes was Henry Plummer, who, after arriving in Montana in 1862 and was elected Sheriff of the Bannack Mining District in May 1863. At the same time, a group of road agents called the Innocents were operating in the area and the vigilantes suspected Plummer of being the leader of the group. On January 10, 1864, Plummer was hanged by a mob at Bannack.

Today, historians disagree as to whether these many men that were hanged during Montana's Vigilante days were truly guilty.

Some of the first road agents to be hanged by the

Montana Vigilantes were executed in January, 1864 at

this building in Virginia City. At the time, the building

was under construction and five bandits named Frank

Parish, Boone Helm, Jack Gallagher, Haze Lyons, and

Club Foot George Lane. July, 2008, Kathy Weiser

In fact, some researchers believe the entire affair was a cover-up for the "so-called" vigilantes who were actually committing the many crimes occurring in the area.

Random lynchings continued in Montana Territory throughout the 1860s until a backlash against extralegal justice finally took hold around 1870.

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