Exconvict | From Carson City to Florence

CALIFORNIA, NEVADA, and IDAHO

EXCONVICT

Both prison doctors had worried Plummer might die before the pardon was obtained, and he had also become concerned about the disgrace to his family if he were to die in prison. Dr. Taliaferio wrote Governor Weller, "I know that the idea of dying a convict presses very heavily upon him." His condition was diagnosed as phthisis pulmonary, a progressive wasting of the lungs resulting from the formation of scar tissue around invading bacteria. The effects were a shortness of breath, sapping of strength, loss of weight, and general deterioration of health; and prescribed treatment was a nutritious diet and rest.[86]

After receiving the pardon, Plummer returned to the house at 94 Spring Street and was cared for by Mrs. Robinson, probably the widow of his former partner at the Wilson Valley ranch. In way of reminder to the community of his past services, his first act after a month and half of recuperation was to make a citizen's arrest of "Ten Year Smith," an escapee from San Quentin. Because of the many letters inquiring about his health directed to prison doctors and the petition presented to the governor by the officials of the county, Plummer may have returned to Nevada City with hopes of regaining the opportunities for a career that had formerly been open to him. If so, he was soon disillusioned. The days when he had been a dashing young marshall engaged to a respectable daughter of a merchant were definitely over for good. Old prejudices were still alive and were fueled by his exconvict status; many even held it against him that he did not die after receiving a pardon on account of "precarious health."[87]

Reconciling himself as best he could to his new status in the community, Plummer resumed the bakery partnership with Henry Heyer, optimistically refusing to believe he would not be allowed to make a new start. Nevada City had grown in his months of absence, new businesses downtown and new homes on the outskirts. Directly across from the National Hotel, on Broad Street, a bathing, haircutting, and shaving saloon had been opened, with both warm or cold baths available, and Squire Williams's Gothic Revival mansion on Prospect Hill was nearly completed. There was scarcely a house for rent to be found; even little cabins back in the hills were occupied, and rooms at the three-story U. S. Hotel could easily be filled at the price of 75 cents per night.[88]

Though all the wealth Plummer had accumulated during his four years in Nevada City enterprises had been used up by the expense of two trials and two appeals, there was still financial opportunity in the area, as Judge Walsh, Plummer's former running mate in the disastrous campaign of 1857, had just proven. As Walsh had attempted to convince the doubting Thomases during the campaign, he was himself a miner. In 1859, he had purchased several supposedly worthless claims in the Virginia Range of western Nevada from a Henry Comstock, claims that had proven impossible to work due to the presence of a pesky clay that stuck to pick and shovel and sucked at the digger's boots like quicksand. However, it was soon discovered that this gummy, bluish-gray clay that lay beneath the gold-bearing quartz, contained the richest silver deposits ever uncovered. As word of the silver's staggering worth spread, the town of Virginia City, Nevada, quickly sprang up near the lode. By early spring of 1860, the resulting silver stampede to the Comstock nearly drained Nevada City. In spite of an unusually heavy snowstorm as late as 6 April, Henness Pass was busy with the traffic of those who had caught silver fever -- Plummer among them. Though most of the prospective silver miners drifted back dead broke in a matter of weeks and Nevada City again returned to overflowing, a few lucky investors stayed on in Virginia City to make their fortunes. One of these was William Stewart, the young lawyer who had served with Plummer and David Belden on the executive committee of the Democratic Club a few years earlier. After becoming a millionaire, Stewart got himself elected to the U.S. Senate and moved to Washington, where he constructed a three-story castle equipped with speaking tubes, a grand staircase, carved chandeliers, and a tapestried ballroom. The silver magnate's castle soon became a more popular tourist attraction than the White House itself.

Though Plummer maintained his residence in Nevada City, he kept claims in the Virginia City area for the next two years after discovery, making regular trips over the pass to visit his mines. Also, at Nevada City he became a partner in Cahalan & Company, a silver and gold mine located on Scott's Flat, and in the fall of 1860, he formed the Flora Temple Company, excavating gold in Kelsey Ravine, a lead of quartz nearly fifteen inches thick and only about ten feet down, so rich, according to the Democrat reporter who claimed to have seen quartz samples, that hardly a piece could be picked up that did not contain gold.[89]

In addition to his economic pursuits, Plummer once more involved himself in local political affairs, though his name never again came up as a nominee for office. In preparation for the coming national election, Nevada City Democrats met to form a Douglas and Johnson Club in support of the election of Stephen Douglas for president, and Plummer enrolled as a member. Their effort on Douglas's behalf was in vain; in November 1860, the Democratic candidate was defeated by Abraham Lincoln.[90]

As marshall, Plummer had been required to attend all the performances at the theater to keep order, but now he was free to go for the enjoyment, having a choice between serious drama, such as Othello, a "seriocomedy" of Henry IV, or vaudeville. The prime attractions at the Melodeon the fall of 1860 were Negro delineations, banjo solos, songs by Joe Taylor, mockingbird imitations, songs and dances of the Bingham girls, jigs, and bone solos. The Democrat recommended the program as well worth the half-dollar admission, the jig dancer and mockingbird imitator having "no superiors in their line."[91]

While leaving the Melodeon one evening in November, Plummer suffered a freak accident. During the final acts of the performance, he had been standing on a platform erected for the press, and when he jumped down at the close of the curtain, he hooked the little finger of his left hand, one permanently bent from a previous accident, over the back of a seat, breaking the bone and leaving the finger attached by nothing more than a strip of skin, a very painful ending to an evening's entertainment and the first in a series of accidents in store for him.[92]

Not all of the entertainment Plummer chose was as innocent as attending the theater. An editorial had recently appeared in the paper about the "increasing immorality of the people of our good city," with "business men, lawyers, judges, and the common bummer" gambling and drinking whiskey "from daylight till dark and even till the small hours of the morning."[93] No longer having the reputation of a law officer to uphold, Plummer was not long in joining the "immoral" crowd enjoying themselves until the early hours. Despite his bad reputation, there was a certain type of woman in town who still found Plummer attractive, and such women knew how to offer him consolation for what he had lost within the past year. But even this type of woman was in short supply with the city's ratio at eleven men to one woman, so there was always stiff competition and constant quarreling for their company. Plummer made a good target for hostile drunks because his imprisonment had earned him the contempt of half the town, he spoke with an eastern accent, and he was still frail from the bout of consumption. Due to his normally peaceful and quiet nature, he gave the appearance that he would not fight back, but he always did if pushed far enough.

In February 1861, he was involved in a fracas at the house of Irish Maggie on Pine Street. Because of conflicting rumors about what actually took place, some newspapers refrained from going into detail in printing the story, but the Journal had no compunction about writing up a detailed and damaging account, correct or not, of how Plummer had been "closeted" with a woman when W. J. Muldoon pounded on the door and demanded admittance. On being told that the woman was with another party and could not see him at the moment, he asked who she was with. When told it was Plummer, Muldoon referred to him by an epithet that so angered Plummer, he opened the closet door and attacked Muldoon. In the ensuing struggle, Plummer struck Muldoon on the head with a pistol, cutting a gash in his skull, but the police were not called in. Muldoon survived the blow, and Plummer, in his typical fashion, came around later to talk things over, and the two men made up their differences. His next skirmish at a house of entertainment would not end so favorably.[94]

The firing on Fort Sumter had taken place in April, and accordingly many of the disputes in the pleasure houses were brought on by the resulting tension between North and South. In May, Plummer was called as a trial witness to one such dispute in which one of the participants died from a knife wound. Speaking with his customary understatement, Plummer testified that the two men involved in the fatal controversy were "having some words."[95]

During this period of his nation's unrest and his own personal disgrace, Plummer formed a relationship with a woman, reportedly beautiful, who was employed by Mr. Ashmore, which would mean that she was probably either an actress or a prostitute. Though the woman assumed the name of Mrs. Plummer, no marriage ceremony ever took place. In October, while preparing to visit his lady friend at Ashmore's establishment, Plummer became involved in an argument with a Secessionist antagonist, and the resulting struggle delivered the coup de grace to his ill-fated attempt at a social and political comeback in Nevada City. "At about 2 o'clock last Sunday morning," the Democrat reported,

a difficulty occurred at a house of ill-fame on Commercial Street between Henry Plumer and William Riley, resulting in the death of the latter. It appears that they had both been drinking pretty freely and got to quarreling in the entry when Riley struck Plumer on the head with a knife, cutting through his hat and inflicting a deep wound in his scalp. Plumer at the same time drew his revolver and fired at Riley. The ball took effect in his left side and must have killed him instantly. Plumer was taken into custody by officer Kennar and lodged in jail. Riley was a young man about 21 years of age and was formerly from Huntsville, Missouri. He had been living within the vicinity of Nevada for a year or two and we are informed was quarrelsome and dissipative.

A surgeon was called to the jail to tend Plummer's scalp wound, and the next afternoon "Mrs. Plummer" came to his cell to visit. While she was still there, a guard, on orders from a higher officer, opened both the cell and jail doors and turned away, allowing Plummer to walk out. Though officials claimed the incident had been an accident, Plummer, who had many friends among the law officers, was not apprehended as he walked away, and he did not leave town until evening. Officers told the reporter for the Democrat, "There is no prospect of his being caught. The circumstances connected to the killing of Riley as generally understood would hardly justify Plumer's conviction for murder. But this being the second man he has killed in Nevada and knowing there was a strong prejudice against him in the county, he doubtless thought it prudent not to risk a trial." The newspaper that had covered every one of Plummer's exploits as marshall, every capture of a wanted man or raid on a gambling den, now closed his career in Nevada City on a rather ungrateful note: "If Plumer shows as much tact in keeping away from the county as he did in leaving the jail, the community will have no particular occasion to deplore his departure, as the cost of an expensive trial would have probably resulted in still leaving him here, a most useless if not dangerous man."[97]

It is nearly impossible to overestimate the amount of hatred generated toward Plummer during the political campaign of 1857, but an idea of its magnitude came out during the two trials. Mr. Wall, a respectable merchant displeased over enforcement of city ordinances, informed John Vedder that if he wanted to shoot Plummer, he would "go his security," and Rice went to Wall saying he was a "friend of the prosecution," suggesting that someone get Lucy drunk to obtain more ammunition for the case against Plummer. Nevada City merchants had wanted law and order, but their idea of order was keeping the miners in line, not imposing fines against merchants who endangered the city by refusing to comply with fire ordinances. Even the editor of the Journal, who considered himself the public conscience, felt wronged at having to pay a fine for not owning the required fire prevention equipment. Out of such minor resentments came the campaign to sway the thinking of those who had elected Plummer in the two previous elections -- the miners. Plummer's life story is a study in the complex relation between the law and the individual, and one of the issues it makes clear is how few good citizens expect the law should be applied to them personally. When two of the judges who presided over Plummer's case found themselves in a situation similar to his, they used their legal expertise to place themselves out of reach of the law. But Plummer, out of respect for the law, surrendered himself to the courts, believing he would receive justice; instead, he lost everything he had gained up to that point in his life. The verdict rendered by his jurors became his initiation into an understanding of the fallibility of individuals who carry out the processes of justice. As an initiate, he had no intention of again placing his fate in the hands of a local jury. As the news reporter commented, he would not risk a third trial in the area. By leaving before the inquest into Riley's death, Plummer became an outlaw; but the experiences of his last four years in Nevada City provided him with an insight into the justice system that few lawmen ever attain.

FROM CARSON CITY TO FLORENCE

When on the last day of October 1861 Plummer shook the dust of Nevada City from his feet, he made his way over the mountains to the newly organized territory of Nevada. The scalp wound he had received from Riley was severe, a three-inch gash that had required stitches, and on his arrival at Carson City he was in a weakened condition. According to Nevada historians, he first looked up Bill Mayfield, a professional gambler he had become acquainted with on visits to his mining claims in the area. Mayfield put Plummer up at his cabin, but word soon got out about his visitor. Since Plummer was too sick to travel further, Mayfield arranged to have him moved to the home of a friend, Jack Harris. By placing a bed across the rafters a hiding place was prepared in Harris's loft. After resting Plummer on the bed and placing provisions beside him, Mayfield and Harris sealed up the ceiling and left Plummer to recuperate as best he could on his own.

Though Nevada City officials did not have a murder case against Plummer and therefore did not want him back, Blackburn, the sheriff at Carson City, heard about the fugitive and went to search Mayfield's cabin, only to find Plummer already gone. Sheriff Blackburn, a staunch Unionist and reportedly a heavy drinker with a hot temper, was himself known as "the most reckless law-breaker" in the Territory of Nevada. Perturbed at being outwitted by Mayfield, whom he disliked for being a zealous Secessionist, Blackburn "proceeded to get drunk," his usual course of action, and then went to the St. Nicholas saloon to confront the gambler. When Mayfield informed the sheriff he could not arrest him without a warrant, Blackburn showed the temper he was famous for being unable to control. On a previous occasion when his authority had been challenged, Blackburn had shot a drunken man for failing to comply with his request to stop the boisterous singing. Saying he guessed the "son of a b -- --" would be quiet now, or so the story goes, Blackburn bought drinks for the cowed bystanders, clinking glasses with them "over the corpse of his victim" sprawled on the barroom floor.

Mining camps in the Lewiston area.

In response to Mayfield's challenge of the authority to arrest him, Blackburn answered, "I tell you I can arrest you or anyone else, and d- -- you, I'll arrest you anyhow." As the sheriff drew his pistol, Mayfield's friends caught Blackburn by the arms and dragged him toward the door, but he broke away and lunged for Mayfield, who drew his bowie knife and stabbed his assailant in the chest as he approached. Leaving the sheriff to die, Mayfield ran from the saloon and hid for the remainder of the night in a hogpen, not moving to a friend's cabin until daylight. An informant, tempted by the large reward officered, soon revealed Mayfield's whereabouts, and the sheriff-killer was arrested, tried for murder, and sentenced to hang. There being considerable public sympathy for the man who had rid the community of a sheriff as unpopular as Blackburn, several citizens arranged for Mayfield to escape from jail. Because of his love for a local woman, he tarried at Carson for several months, but was finally persuaded to relocate in Idaho Territory.[98]

As soon as he recovered his health, Plummer moved on to Walla Walla, according to rumor leading behind his horse a pack mule loaded down with the proceeds received from the sale of his mining claims. It is likely he left Nevada in the spring of 1862, travelling to San Francisco, where he purchased a double-barreled shotgun, booked passage on a steamer to Washington Territory, and reached the interior via the Columbia River.

The first actual record of Plummer being in what is now Idaho comes in July 1862, his signature on the register of the Luna House, the best hotel in Lewiston. Though later to become capital of the vast area to be organized as the Territory of Idaho, at the time, Lewiston was nothing more than a "rag town," whose buildings were constructed of wooden frames covered with white cotton blankets, but it was flourishing as a supply center for surrounding gold camps such as Florence, Oro Fino, Elk City, and Pierce. By night, candles and lanterns burning inside lit up the white cloth walls and ceilings of homes and businesses with a bright glow that illuminated the entire town.

The myth of Plummer's experiences as an outlaw chief in the Lewiston area goes like this:

In the spring of 1861, among the daily arrivals at Lewiston, was a man of gentlemanly bearing and dignified deportment, accompanied by a lady, to all appearance his wife. He took quarters at the best hotel in town. Before the close of the second day after his arrival his character as a gambler was fully understood, and in less than a fortnight his abandonment of his female companion betrayed the illicit connection which had existed between them.... Soon, alas! she became one of the lowest inmates of a frontier brothel.... Every gambler or rough infesting the camp, either voluntarily or by threats was induced to unite in the enterprise; and thus originated the band of desperadoes which, for the succeeding two years by their fearful atrocities, spread such terror through the northern mines. Plummer was their acknowledged leader.... He selected two points of rendezvous as bases for their operations. These were called "shebangs." They were enclosed by mountains, whose rugged fastnesses were available for refuge in case of an attack.

In reality, Plummer spent not two years, but less than two months in what is now Idaho. Both his arrival and departure from the area are easily documented. If, as claimed by Langford, Dimsdale, and others, a gang with "designs of plunder and butchery" terrorized the Lewiston countryside for a period of two years beginning with the spring of 1861, Plummer, who spent 1861 at Nevada City, could not have had a part in the action. As noted earlier, his activities that year were closely followed by Nevada City newspapers.

Though the exact date of Plummer's recuperation and consequent departure from Carson City is not known, one thing that is certain is he did not spend the winter of 1861 and spring of 1862 operating as a road agent near Lewiston. In fact, there is good reason to believe no agents were working the roads leading from the northern Idaho mines during this period. The winter of 1861-62, one of the worst on record in the history of the Northwest, left most camps lying beneath as much as ten feet of snow from December 1861 through May 1862, nearly starving inhabitants unable to get out until late spring, and then usually on snowshoes. Under such severe weather conditions, little transport of gold and resulting road agent activity could have taken place.[100]

The limited records of Plummer's actual activities during the few weeks he spent in northern Idaho show that he arrived in Lewiston on 24 July 1862, signing the Luna House register as "Henry Plumer" and correctly listing his former residence as Nevada City, even though he had been invited to leave. He did not bring with him, as his wife, red-haired Cynthia. As the hotel register shows, the guest who signed on the lines directly above Plummer's name did have "a companion" with him, but Plummer did not.[101]

(Click on image to see full size)

Hotel register, now housed in the Luna House Museum of Lewiston, Idaho. Plummer's only extant signature provides additional evidence in dispelling the myth that he headed a gang of road agents in Idaho. Plummer spent not two years, but less than two months in this area. Also, as shown above, he did not bring red-haired Cynthia to town with him, as charged, and register her at the Luna House as his wife. (Photo by Boswell, 1985)

The claim that Cynthia left behind in Walla Walla a "fond husband and three helpless children" to "mourn her loss" could not have been accurate anyhow since she already resided in Lewiston, being married to one of the more respectable citizens there. At some point, Cynthia, who had no connection to Plummer whatsoever, decided to leave her respectable husband and take up with Bill Mayfield and Cherokee Bob, but by the time she attended the famous ball in Florence that resulted in the shootout causing Bob's death, Plummer was gone. Early residents of Montana also disagree with the idea that Plummer followed the gambler's trade in Lewiston, arguing that he was so poor at the gaming tables he could not possibly have ever been a professional.

What Plummer actually did after his arrival, rather than gambling and organizing crime, was to join in the feverish rush to secure a claim at the fabulous diggings at Florence, situated on a mountaintop south of Lewiston. With the spring thaw that liberated the snowbound, Florence's five log houses, three stores, and two whiskey mills had blossomed into a bulging metropolis, boasting nine thousand citizens. In August, as evidenced from the same hotel register, Plummer again checked into the Luna House to spend a weekend in the city, this time in the company of five other miners from Florence: Charles Reeves, Jim Harris, L. A. Payne, James Wheeler, and Charles Ridgley. Shortly after their arrival, a guest destined soon to cross paths with Plummer, Reeves, and Ridgley, also signed in at the hotel, a Pat Ford, who had moved from Walla Walla to set up a string of saloons and dance halls in the camps.

During this weekend in Lewiston, Plummer is credited with preventing a lynching in the streets, standing up before an assembled mob to dissuade them from punishing suspected criminals without benefit of a trial. "My friends," Plummer said, "we must not in the beginning of this city do the very thing which we are gathered to prevent. These men may be guilty of the crime of murder, but we shall not be less guilty if we take the government in our own hands and put them to death other than by due process of law. Do not, I beseech you, take any steps that may bring disgrace and obloquy upon the name of our rising young commonwealth."[102] Though it is possible the speech is as fictional as much of the rest of the Idaho account, it is believable for the reasons that Plummer expressed similar ideas while at Bannack and that he had the habit of keeping the peace in the rowdy camps.

True or not that Plummer disbanded the vigilantes, Pat Ford, the new arrival from Walla Walla, held the former marshall responsible and retaliated a few days later by ordering Plummer, Reeves, and Ridgley out of his newly opened Spanish dance hall at Oro Fino, accusing them of making a "rough house," that is, breaking tumblers and upsetting tables. Though the three men promptly left the hall, Ford followed after them to the feeding lot where they had stabled their horses, and as they were mounting, fired eleven shots at them from the revolvers he held in both hands. Ridgley was shot twice through the leg, as was Plummer's horse, which later had to be destroyed. Ford was killed in the return fire of the three men, though Plummer, who was probably considered the best shot of the group, is usually blamed for Ford's death.[103]

An account of the Pat Ford incident, written up by a news correspondent and submitted to his paper, provides interesting information about Plummer's days in Idaho:

I have been a resident of Washington Territory for over twelve months, and Henry Plumer or W. Mayfield were never arrested on any charge in Lewiston, Lillooet, or Florence. True, at Oro Fino, Plumer killed Ford, and had Plumer been caught at the time, the people might have executed him. Since that time, however, the true circumstances have been developed, and all unite in bearing testimony that Plumer acted on the defensive.... All reports that either Plumer or Mayfield are hung, or have ever been arrested for robbery are base lies, circulated for the purpose of injuring men who by the force of circumstances, have become fugitives from their country. I do not attempt to justify Plumer or Mayfield in any acts they may have done in California, for I am not acquainted with the circumstances.[104]

Of course Plummer, who had left three weeks earlier and who was not a rebel anyhow, did not participate in the raid; by 6 October he had already reached Fort Benton, but this incident at Florence mentioned by the Sacramento reporter is undoubtedly the source of later rumors of the existence of a road agent gang near Lewiston. Though the news item specifically named Mayfield as the leader of the attack, with time Plummer's name evidently supplanted Mayfield's, not only because of their previous association in Carson City, but because after the Bannack hangings Plummer's name was better known than Mayfield's. Because of his known leadership ability, Plummer also seemed a more likely candidate as the rebel's projected Emperor of the West.

Plummer had left northern Idaho three weeks before the raid in the company of Charles Reeves, on 15 September to be exact, less than two months after his arrival at the Luna House on 24 July, and the Stuart brothers noted his appearance on the other side of the mountain in their diary, explaining how somewhere in the timbered mountain range between Elk City and Beaver Dam Hill, he had broken his shotgun and how they had mended it for him. After spending four days at Gold Creek with the Stuarts, Plummer decided against going on to the Grasshopper, and parting with Reeves, moved on towards the head of navigation the Missouri, planning to return East. At Fort Benton he met James Vail, who was searching for men to come back and help him protect his family against a feared attack by the Blackfeet. Following his natural bent as a law officer, Plummer agreed to return to the Sun River mission to help Vail defend the four women and children stranded there. But that story has already been told.