During weeks of being cooped up together on the Vail farm, Cleveland and Plummer had already begun to get on each other's nerves, and Electa's falling in love with Plummer rather than Cleveland had not improved their relationship any. Their trip to Bannack was not a comfortable one. Though the exact day of their arrival is unknown, Granville Stuart, who, since entertaining Plummer at Gold Creek had decided to open a butcher shop in Bannack, wrote in his diary that Plummer was living in Bannack by 23 November 1862.[17]
Fortunately for the upwards of four hundred men and forty women holed up in tents, wickiups, wagons, dugouts, and cabins, the first winter at Bannack turned out to be relatively mild -- as far as weather goes. There was food, a Mormon freighter having unloaded ten wagons of supplies -- bacon, beans, and black flour -- and residents had wisely jerked some game meat. At the point snow and cold made further mining activity impossible for the time being, gold seekers had panned and sluiced over $700,000 from the banks and bars along the Grasshopper, and were lavishly spending their plentiful gold dust in the few available businesses. Impatient miners found an outlet for their restlessness by poring over the sparse books and newspapers being passed back and forth or by gathering in the saloons.[18]
Wilbur Sanders, later to become Montana's first senator, mentions the important role played by the saloons: They occupied a "large space in the social and public life of the camps to which nearly everyone was driven," he wrote. Most were "hospitably conducted by well-behaved attendants or proprietors, only a few of them contented to be known as bad."[19]
Of the "bad" saloons, the one guaranteeing the most action was the Elkhorn, so named because of the pair of huge antlers the owner Cyrus Skinner had purchased and tacked over the front door. Inside was a long, polished, dark wood bar, a few card tables, and, attached to one wall, two rows of bunks with grass-stuffed mattresses, usually occupied by customers. Skinner had arrived in Bannack with a record of five prison commitments behind him. From his native Ohio, he came west searching for land, but soon after his arrival took up with the rougher element. It was rumored that he had ridden with the well-known California bandit, Rattlesnake Dick. At any rate, he was convicted of grand larceny and sentenced to three years in San Quentin, from where he broke jail and took work as a laborer, only to be recaptured and sent back to San Quentin with ten years added to his previous sentence as punishment for the escape. Prison records describe him as 5' 91/2" with hazel eyes and dark hair. On his left hand was tattooed an anchor and ring ensemble, on the left arm a woman with child done in blue ink, and on the right arm only a woman -- all three adornments making for colorful bartending.[20]
When Skinner escaped prison for the final time, he headed for the new gold fields in the Clearwater area of Washington Territory, setting up as a saloonkeeper in Florence, but later joining the stampede to the Grasshopper. He may have been a little loud and overbearing, but he was a jovial host and not choosy about his customers, gladly welcoming plenty of the type Dimsdale characterized as "that brutal desperado whose formula of introduction to a western barroom is so well known in the mountains: 'Whoop! I'm from Pike County, Missouri. I'm ten feet high... I smell like a wolf, I drink water out of a brook like a horse. Look out, you I'm going to turn loose.' "[21]
Skinner's rowdy clientele brought him, if not a good reputation, at least a good profit, which enabled him to latch on to one of the few available white women in the area, Nellie. And he believed in treating women with respect. Once while casually firing into a group seated around a campfire, whom he innocently assumed were only Indians, he nearly winged the very respectable Mrs. Biddle, who had just arrived in town with her husband. When informed of his near accident, Skinner apologized profusely, explaining he would not kill a woman for the world and offering to make it all right again by setting up drinks on the house. Dr. Biddle left his distressed wife, who was several months pregnant, sitting alone by the fire while he accepted the invitation.[22]
Plummer, though no stranger to Skinner's, preferred the more respectable and quieter saloon at the Goodrich Hotel, also frequented by Cleveland, who had the habit of getting a little high and boasting how he was out to kill Plummer, scornfully referring to him as his "meat." Plummer remained unconcerned over these threats for some time, but eventually hostilities between the two came to a head. Both Dimsdale and Nathaniel Langford related the incident surrounding the final quarrel, complete with direct quotations from the participants, though their information reached them from at least thirdhand, and we must keep this in mind when we read, as well as their general purpose in telling the story in the first place -- to provide evidence that Plummer was a cold-blooded killer.[23]
One bitterly cold morning, Plummer had joined a group huddled on the low benches around the big wood stove in the Goodrich saloon when Cleveland, who had already been drinking heavily and was armed, made an entrance. He swaggered to the bar, bragging in a loud voice that he was chief of the town and would gladly fight anybody who thought he was not. When Plummer let the remark pass, Cleveland began harassing Jeff Perkins about an overdue debt. Perkins insisted he had already paid back the money, but Cleveland continued needling him, handling his gun meaningfully from time to time to intimidate the unarmed Perkins. Plummer advised Cleveland to drop the matter as the debt was paid and he should be satisfied. Then, to prevent Cleveland from carrying out "his apparent design of shooting Perkins... Plummer fixed his eyes sternly upon him and in a calm tone told him to behave himself." Cleveland grudgingly quieted down for the moment, but soon added, "in a defiant and threatening manner, with mingled profanity and epithet," that he was not afraid of anybody. Plummer jumped up. "I'm tired of this," he said, drawing his pistol and firing at the ceiling. A second shot struck Cleveland, who fell to his knees, pleading, "You won't shoot me when I'm down?"
"No," Plummer said, "get up." As Cleveland raised to his feet, he grasped wildly for his gun, but was too drunk to get it up, and Plummer quickly landed two more shots. Even a sober Cleveland would have been no match for Plummer, who "was the quickest hand with his revolver of any man in the mountains. He could draw the pistol and discharge the five loads in three seconds."[24]
During the shootout, the barber who kept a chair in one corner of the saloon and was accustomed to ignoring such distractions, continued shaving his customer without interruption. Though Cleveland still lay on the floor unattended, no one seemed interested in helping him. Finally Hank Crawford, the town butcher, took the wounded man home with him, coming back to Plummer later for Cleveland's blankets. When Plummer asked what Cleveland had said about the incident, Crawford reported that Cleveland refused to comment on the original trouble between him and Plummer, saying only that it was nobody's business. As for his own plight, he had stoically remarked, "Poor Jack has got no friends. He has got it, and I guess he can stand it."
Plummer responded that it was well for Cleveland that he had said nothing against him, "for if he had I would kill him in his bed." Cleveland died with no further help from Plummer, Crawford arranging burial.[25]
Though friends warned Plummer he was apt to be lynched for the shooting, no charges were brought against him, mainly because it was generally suspected that Cleveland had recently robbed and killed a young man named George Evans and therefore deserved to be shot.
Using Cleveland's case as a demonstration of the reliability of "what was generally suspected," note that Dimsdale pins the blame for George Evans's disappearance on Cleveland for the reason that the latter had no money before the murder and "was seen riding close to the place and the next day he had plenty."[26] So much for good, hard evidence. Granville Stuart wrote that he "suspected that Charles Reeves and William Graves (Whiskey Bill) committed this murder. "[27] Actually it was never known for certain whether Evans was murdered. One day he had disappeared, and later a nude body was found in the general vicinity, but the body was never identified as Evans. Guilty or innocent of Evans's murder, Cleveland was still unpopular, and the community regarded his death lightly.
Though Bannack was located in Dakota territory, the town was completely isolated from any government issuing from the faraway capital at Yankton, where officials were scarcely aware of the new mining camp under their jurisdiction. Residents had their own safety to worry about rather than the safety of suspected miscreants. In order to survive, each had to defend himself as best he could. As Granville Stuart explained, "There was no safety for life or property only so far as each individual could, with his trusty rifle, protect his own"[28]
Langford concurred that "shooting of pistols and duelling were so common as... to excite no attention. Many bloody encounters . .. were regarded as very proper settlements of difficulties between the parties."[29] Both he and Dimsdale provide valuable information about their times when they stray from their obsession with proving Plummer "a very monster of iniquity." Dimsdale understood the gold camp mentality better than might be expected from an ailing, Christian schoolteacher. According to the "Mountain Code," as he called it, being called a "liar, thief, or a son of a b -- - h" was justification for instantly killing the insulter. Preserving a reputation for manhood required a response of immediate violence, using "whatever weapon is handiest -- foot, fist, knife, revolver, or derringer." Westerners lived in an environment of constant excitement, and "in the moment of passion, they would slay all around them, but let the blood cool, and they would share their last dollar with the men whose life they sought a day or two before."[30]
Plummer's behavior during the Cleveland affair can evidently be chalked up as adherence to the Mountain Code. Cleveland used epithets that threatened his manhood, and Plummer responded with immediate violence. However, the killing of Cleveland was not to be written off so easily. The butcher, Hank Crawford, lived in fear that Plummer believed Cleveland had revealed secrets about him immediately before his death. Crawford was waiting for just the right moment to try to convince the miners' court to bring charges of murder against Plummer.
BANNACK S FIRST CRIMINAL TRIAL
Crawford's opportunity to be free from the supposed threat of Plummer came a
short time later. For the price of a few blankets, Charlie Reeves had bought a
Sheep Eater (Bannock) wife from the Indians camped south of town, and when he
abused her, she ran home to her father, who let her stay but refused to return
Reeves's blankets. After engaging in an unsuccessful scuffle with the chief,
Reeves gave it up and went to brood over a drink, came back and fired a few
shots, and then accompanied by two friends, named Moore and Mitchell, returned
to fire on the camp again. On the second attempt two whites and several Indians
were wounded and one white and several Indians killed.
This incident gave rise to the charge made later in one of the pioneer's
reminiscences that the road agents maliciously tried to stir up the Indians
against the whites,[31] and rather than a feeling of concern over the loss of
Indian lives there was a general fear of reprisal by the tribe for Reeves's
attack. To discover the then current attitude toward the natives of the area
one has only to consider public reaction to Colonel Patrick Connor's attack
at the Bear River. As other writers have pointed out, Colonel Connor was lauded
as a hero for surprising the same tribe assailed by Reeves at their winter
quarters and slaughtering over two hundred members as they attempted to flee
across the ice on the half-frozen river. Typical comments about the massacre
were expressed by Emily Meredith, a "learned" and "very religious" woman who at
the time was wintering in Bannack. Though she wrote home about her
disappointment that when Colonel Connor had "destroyed" the Indians he had
not "regained the mail" they had stolen, she indicated no concern about his
killing innocent women and children.[32]
X. Beidler showed a similar disregard for Indian life in a story he related of
his adventures as a packer: "An Indian came to my camp one evening looking
pretty hard up,... I fed him." Next evening "he came into my camp again. I fed
him supper again.... That Indian came back to my camp again -- third time --
then I got tired. We had some picks and shovels along and we dug a hole and
placed him and his horse into it after killing them."[33]
When citizens heard Reeves and Moore had stirred up trouble by assaulting the
Indian camp over a personal problem and in the process being so careless as to
injure and kill white men, they decided to take action. Reeves, Moore, and
Mitchell fled in the direction of Rattlesnake Creek, and Plummer, hearing
rumors that he was also to be charged for the murder of Cleveland, left with
them. But those who went in their pursuit the next morning allowed themselves
to get in the embarrassing position of being forced to negotiate with the
suspects or be shot. After the two parties talked matters over sensibly, the
four men agreed they would come back to town on the promise, undoubtedly at
Plummer's insistence, of being given a fair trial. It would be a first for
Bannack because up to this time the local courts had been used exclusively for
settling disputes over mining rights.
On their return to Bannack, Plummer was immediately put on trial for killing
Cleveland and found innocent before midnight. This prompt verdict provides a
clue that the story of the shooting as reported by Dimsdale and Langford is not
very accurate since Plummer's actions could scarcely be considered
self-defense. Dimsdale wrote that "Plummer was tried and honorably acquitted on
account of Cleveland's threats," and Langford added that several witnesses
testified that Cleveland had threatened to shoot Plummer on sight.[34] However,
a less well-known version of the Cleveland affair, as likely to be true as
Dimsdale's since neither mentioned a source, stated that the shooting came
about when Plummer tried to break up a conflict that had developed between
Cleveland and another man, and that Cleveland, not Plummer, fired the first
shot. At the trial Plummer testified before the miners' court that Cleveland
had been trailing him ever since he had left California, threatening revenge
for Plummer for once having testified in a case that resulted in Cleveland
being sent to prison. This version better explains the prompt verdict of the
jury and better coincides with Langford's statement that Cleveland entered
the saloon on that fateful day with a threat to get even for something that had
happened on the "other side" of the mountains. In addition, it explains
Cleveland's reluctance to divulge to Hank Crawford the nature of the trouble
between himself and Plummer, as well as making more plausible the two of them
having been together at Benton, Sun River, and Bannack, though they were not
friends.[35]
Since we have no eyewitness account of what transpired on that winter morning
in the Goodrich saloon, we can only conclude that the jury heard evidence that
convinced them Plummer had fired to save his own life and therefore acquitted
him. But what we can glean from both Dimsdale and Langford's narratives of the
affray is Plummer's habit of assuming responsibility for keeping order
wherever he went, as well as his manner of handling himself. As Langford put
it, Plummer was always "cool."[36]
The trial of Reeves, Moore, and Mitchell was held the day after Plummer's and
drew so much advance attention that it was necessary to send up-canyon for
unprejudiced jury members. One of those who volunteered for jury duty was
Nathaniel Langford, who despite the below zero temperatures was attempting to
build a sawmill. The trial took place in a large, overheated log building with
the entire male population of the mining district in attendance and the
overflow spilling out into the snowy street. Though on the night before lawyer
William Rheem had promised to serve as prosecuting attorney, on the morning of
the trial he surprised the court by announcing that he had switched over to
the defense. The court was left without a prosecutor and had to enlist the
services of Mr. Copley, even though, according to Dimsdale, his talents lay
elsewhere. The assembled miners elected Mr. Hoyt as judge of the court and Hank
Crawford as sheriff.
After hearing the evidence, the jury's decision was delayed for
quite some time by Langford's insistence on the death penalty for all three
men, but eventually he agreed to a verdict of manslaughter with a punishment of
confiscation of property and banishment, but only after the weather had warmed
up some. The new sheriff, Crawford, who claimed he had never fired a weapon at
a man in his entire life, did not enjoy his duties and wanted to resign, but
was persuaded to stay on. His first assignment was to sell the guns confiscated
from the banished prisoners, and in so doing, he made the mistake of also
selling the gun belonging to Plummer, who had been found innocent. In order to
right this wrong, the miners ordered Crawford to retrieve all the arms and
return them to their original owners, even though this left the sheriff to pay
all expenses of the trial personally, including the board of the prisoners.
When he demanded reimbursement for these bills as well
as the cost of caring for and burying Jack Cleveland, the miners'
court authorized him to seize Cleveland's horses, but he again ran
into trouble because Cleveland had had a partner with rights to half
of the herd. Throughout Crawford's problems, he and Plummer had
a series of disagreements, so "some of the boys," Dimsdale said,
"brought them together and they shook hands, Plummer declaring
that he desired his friendship."[37] Despite the frequent quarrels in the
mining camps, this practice of making friends all around afterwards
was quite common.
Quarrels and subsequent reconciliations continued as the long
cold winter wore on. Often the cause was no more than cabin fever
aggravated by alcohol, but another frequent source of strife were the
Civil War issues being decided on the battlefields back in the States.
During the final weeks of unsolicited idleness, even the most minor
of incidents could provoke a brawl. Buck Stinson, the barber who
rented corner space for his chair in Cyrus Skinner's saloon, once
reproved a man for speaking too crossly to a boy, and an argument
followed that progressed to blows. Though the clinch was quickly
broken up, Stinson and his adversary continued to seethe, walking
the streets armed to the teeth until Plummer finally intervened, persuading Stinson to break down and apologize, thus putting an end to
the feud.
Another dispute that came out of a card game at Skinner's had a more tragic
ending. When a miner named Dick Sapp accused his professional opponent,
Banfield, of filling a flush from the deck, the gambler drew on him. Others
quieted Banfield and the game resumed, but in only a few minutes Sapp again
protested he was being conned, and this time the gambler got off a shot at the
unarmed man before others could intervene. Dr. Bissell quickly handed off his
revolver to Sapp to make it a fair contest, and the two men dodged back and
forth behind the posts holding up the roof, emptying their revolvers on each
other without even once hitting the mark. They then switched to hand-to-hand
combat, though still without injury to either party, until others broke them
apart, suggesting they be friends and have a drink together. Before they could
take the first sip, they heard a groan and, looking under the table, discovered
that Toodles, a shepherd dog who also frequented the saloon for warmth and
company, had been hit in the shooting melee and was dying. The next groan
issued from the row of bunks along the wall, where they found that George
Carrhart, a former legislator from Nevada, had also been hit. Dr. Bissell
quickly put down his drink and lifted Carrhart to a table to examine him,
reporting the wounded man could not possibly be saved. Moore and Reeves, who
had been sleeping away their time until banishment, woke up and commenced
firing at the two men who had killed their friend Carrhart, and Sapp ran from
the saloon, catching a shot in the little finger. Banfield was struck in the
leg and died later from lack of care of the wound. Sapp stayed at home the
remainder of the night sulking over the unfairness of the incident and
returned to Skinner's the next day backed up by a few friends who had
volunteered to help him settle the score with Moore and Reeves. Though it was
no easy task, Cyrus Skinner eventually took the fight out of both sides by
offering drinks all around.
The habit of peacefully resolving such conflicts contributed to most of the
residents making it safely through the first winter at Bannack, though there
were some casualties and not just from hot tempers and gunplay, but from more
impersonal killers such as pneumonia, typhoid, and mountain fever. When the
ground became frozen too hard to chip out graves for victims, survivors sledded them to a temporary morgue built atop cemetery hill, a small stockade
designed specifically to keep out hungry coyotes and wolves. The below-zero
temperatures insured that bodies of the dead would be preserved until a thaw
allowed for a decent burial.[38]
TRIUMPHANT SPRING OF 1863
Springtime meant chinook winds melting drifted snow and thawing frozen earth to
a soggy muck, and maybe a courageous bluebird or two making a flashy, but
absurdly early, appearance. And the miners busied themselves with more
important matters than squabbling in the saloons. Those who had already
acquired a claim immediately set to panning and sluicing, or slooshing, as it
was commonly pronounced, while newcomers rushed to stake out the permitted one
hundred feet, exploring new gulches up and down the Grasshopper. Some branched
out much further, such as the Stuart expedition, which scouted the Yellowstone
area, and its splinter group, which missed connections with the main party
and ended up discovering the fabulous lodes in Alder Gulch, destined to surpass
and eventually evacuate Bannack.
In March, the mining districts had become part of the newly formed Territory of
Idaho, but the word had not yet reached those affected most by the decision.
Many would not have cared about its implications anyhow since their intentions
were to get rich quickly and go back home to the States. Henry Plummer did not
fit into this latter category, though; he had made the West his home for eleven
years and was interested in the future of the territory. He was among those
searching out rich claims that spring; wealth would make an easier transition
to the respectable life he planned to lead with Electa. With years of mining
experience under his belt, the success he usually had could hardly be
attributed to mere luck. In all the camps he had observed eager placer miners
skimming off the loose gold and moving on, leaving that embedded in the quartz
for those who came after. But there was a problem at Bannack in obtaining
equipment for quartz mining, and hammering the outcroppings to a powder by
hand, as some did, was slow and inefficient. After taking out claims on the
Dacotah lode, Plummer and his partner solved the equipment problem by hiring a
blacksmith to jimmyrig a water-powered stamp mill of wooden stems and metal
shoes and dies cut from old wagon tires and forged together. Despite its crude
construction, the little stamp mill successfully crushed out phenomenal
amounts of gold for its owners.[39]
Plummer's mining endeavors worked out much better than his truce with Hank
Crawford, which continued to suffer its ups and downs, Plummer ending each
verbal skirmish with a request to drop hostilities and Crawford refusing out of
distrust and fear. For a time, Plummer continued trying to be friendly, but
finally suggested that if Crawford did not care to be friends, they could at
least meet as inhostile strangers. Crawford's associates, reporting they had
seen Plummer lingering outside the butcher shop one night as though he might be
watching Crawford, warned him to keep up his guard, and he followed their
advice.[40]
Soon after, Plummer, no longer friendly but obviously angry, confronted
Crawford about a rumor he had been spreading around camp that Plummer had
intentions of courting an Indian woman named Catherine. Because of his
engagement to Electa, Plummer was concerned about keeping a good reputation and
challenged Crawford to a fistfight, but Crawford refused. Plummer then proposed a duel, and Crawford speedily sent word to his friend, Harry Phleger,
that he needed help and wanted him to come to Peabody's saloon. When Plummer
and friends arrived at Peabody's, Phleger greeted them cordially and invited
them to have a drink, but all refused the offer. Turning to the one he believed
most approachable, Deaf Dick, Crawford said in a raised voice, "Well, Dick,...
you'll drink anyhow." When Deaf Dick retorted he would not drink with any
coward, Crawford stepped forward to strike him, and Plummer handed his revolver
to Dick, who was unarmed. Seeing Dick armed, Crawford handed off his own gun to
Phleger, saying he supposed he was going to be shot now. Phleger wanted to know
by whom, to which Crawford responded, "Plummer, I suppose." On hearing this,
Phleger drew on the lot of Plummer's friends, and as Plummer wrestled with him
in an attempt to get one of the guns, he was thrown by Phleger, who then kept
the group covered as he and Crawford retreated out the door. Back at his room,
Crawford was so worried over Plummer's skill with a weapon and his own
ineptness that he broke down and cried himself to sleep, leaving Phleger to
keep the watch alone the entire night.
After a few days, Plummer sent word to Crawford suggesting they drop the feud,
but Crawford rejected the offer, saying to those who had brought the message,
"He or I must die or leave the camp." Two days later Crawford found the chance
he was waiting for when he spotted Plummer standing across the street with one
foot resting on a wagon spoke and his gun lying across his knee. Egged on by
others, Crawford fired with a double-barreled shotgun, a ball entering
Plummer's arm at the right elbow, traveling down the arm and lodging in the
wrist. The force of the blow knocked Plummer down. "Some son of a bitch has
shot me!" he said to those who came to help him up. Though it would appear
likely he would know it was Crawford who had fired the shot if the two men
had been stalking each other for several days as Dimsdale and Langford
reported, we have no better account to which to turn. With his right arm
dangling uselessly, Plummer stood up, facing Crawford and calling him a coward.
"Fire away," he told him, and Crawford did but missed and then fled as Plummer
continued walking down to his cabin, holding his gun in his left hand. Running
to the Wadams' cabin, Crawford asked to be admitted and hid himself behind
flour sacks until dark.[41] When his brother brought him a horse, he left the
territory, not wishing to be around to accept Plummer's invitation for a second
meeting in two weeks.
The doctor who attended Plummer advised removing his right
arm in order to save his life, but Plummer refused, saying he would
rather die than live without his arm. The attempted surgery failed to
locate the ball, and with friends standing by through tense days and
nights, Plummer, his arm swollen to three times its normal size, lay
with his life in danger. At last his fever broke and recovery began.
Hoffman Birney professes doubts that Dimsdale and Langford's accounts of the
trouble between Plummer and Crawford, as told above, really get to the heart of
the matter: "One is forced to ask if the true story of the events leading up to
that encounter has ever been told." He bases his doubt on Plummer's general
popularity at Bannack.[42] True, Plummer had had problems with Cleveland and
Crawford, but despite this he had actually generated a favorable impression
as a quiet, polite man ever since his arrival in Bannack. Rheem said that
though Plummer "talked but little, when he did speak, it was always in a low
tone and with a good choice of language,"[43] and even Langford admitted that
Plummer "speedily became a general favorite" in Bannack partly because of "the
advantages of a good early education" and "was oftener applied to for counsel
and advice than any other resident."[44] Plummer was consulted about the
typical problems of a new mining camp because of his years of experience on the
frontier, but he was also sought out for personal help because, having no
particular need to talk about himself, he made a good listener. And when people
brought their problems to him, Langford wrote, he showed a "power of analysis
that seldom failed."[45] Agreeing Plummer was a natural choice for sheriff,
miners cast 307 out of 554 votes for him at the next election, a much larger
majority than that received by other officers elected on the same day. On 24
May 1863, Plummer assumed his duties as sheriff of Bannack and the other
surrounding mining districts. Hank Crawford's act would not be a very difficult
one to follow.
Plummer commenced setting up his organization immediately. He was able
to enlist some respected men as deputies: Smith Ball, Buzz Caven, and J.
W. Dillingham. Others were not of such good reputation. Ned Ray, a
known rough, was also a brave man and a good shot. Though Dimsdale
claimed that Ray had escaped from San Quentin, prison records show that
he was never an inmate there. Buck Stinson, who barbered at Skinner's
saloon, was of no better reputation than Ray, despite being a married
man. However, as many writers have pointed out, Plummer's choice of
deputies was limited by the high danger and low compensation that went
with the positions. Even the sheriff received no regular salary, but was
paid only for specific services rendered: 25 cents for summoning
witnesses and jurors, $1 for serving warrants, $2.50 for attending court
trials, plus 25 cents per mile travel expenses.[46] More than anything else, sheriffing was a community
service. Plummer's main income came from his mines.
In the six months since his departure from the Vails' farm,
Henry Plummer had accomplished perhaps even more than he had
hoped towards a life-style that would be acceptable to Electa. A news
correspondent who had followed the gold rush to the Grasshopper
dispatched a long article back to the Sacramento Union, capturing the
excitement brought on by the gold fever sweeping the country.
A quiet young man dogged by a bad reputation had ridden into
Bannack one cold day in November, and by spring had taken the
town by storm. He did not need a newspaper article to tell him that.
After his election as sheriff, he filed legal record of the lot and cabin
he had purchased and then headed north on the two-hundred-mile
trip back to the Sun River for Electa.
(Click on image to see full size)
Bannack's Skinner Saloon, noted for a dangerously rowdy clientele and a host
who had a taste for tattoos and Greek Revival architecture. Accused by
vigilantes of being a "roadster, fence, and spy" for Plummer's gang, Skinner
was captured while standing in the doorway of his Hell Gate Saloon. Refusing
to permit his "chere amie" Nellie to speak in his behalf, vigilantes hanged
Skinner by torchlight from the nearest corral beam, with the words "I am
innocent" on his lips. (Photo by Boswell, 1986)
(Click on image to see full size)
Interior of Skinner's Saloon, located on main street of Bannack, Montana.
(Photo by Boswell, 1986)
Before fall, Bannock will be second to no city north of Salt Lake. Over four
hundred houses are built.... Several of the richest quartz lodes in the world
have been opened, among which the "Dacotah" is averaging $20,000 to the ton,
and in one day's crushing from the claim of Plumer and Ridgely I saw $3,800 in
neat amalgam in the retort. The richest claim in Idaho Territory was discovered
a few weeks since by a young man named E. Richardson.... In one day's crushing,
with three sluices and four men there were $2,360 taken out, and on last
Saturday they cleaned up in one afternoon's washing, $1,850. The proprietors
have refused $25,000 for one half (25 feet) of the claim. The partners are E.
Richardson, Henry Plumer (well known in Nevada), J. Cross and Cyrus Skinner....
The population is at present about 1,800, among whom are counted 147 ladies and
64 children.... Society in a new gold country! Scarcely a day passes without a
train arriving. It is estimated that over 8,000 are on the way and will
arrive before the middle of June.... No man stands higher in the estimation of
the community than Henry Plumer.[47]
(Click on image to see full size)
