The Hanging | The Mob and More Hangings | Restoration of Order | Plummer's Supposed Reign of Terror

Sunday morning dawned with temperatures far below zero and snow covering the ground, and "an unusual silence seemed to brood over the little settlement," Thompson recalled.[118] Though James Vail was out of town, Martha prepared breakfast as usual for her children and boarders. Plummer, who had left the cabin he and Electa had shared and moved into a room at the Goodrich Hotel, had been "ailing for several days" and was spending much of his time at Martha's home resting. He was feeling well enough, though, to come to the Sunday breakfast table to join the family, Joseph Swift, and Thompson.

For Thompson, the meal was a constant struggle for self-mastery. He knew the vigilantes planned to hang Plummer that evening, and he was tempted to warn him so he could escape. As he ate, he kept remembering how Plummer had helped him from time to time, and his conscience bothered him, but when he recalled the murder of the Magruder party, he felt a conflicting emotion. From the first he had wondered how Plummer knew that Doc Howard and his friends were criminals, and he could not help thinking there might be a connection somehow between them and Plummer. As Thompson viewed his moral predicament, the choice lay between his love for one man and his duty to the community. The decision was made easier, however, by realizing it would be dangerous to interfere with the vigilantes' plan. He kept quiet. Leaving the Vails, he went to open his store, where Edgerton soon joined him, drew up a chair in front of the stove, and began chatting. Outside the street was nearly empty -- Buck Stinson, making his rounds, poked his head in the door once and Ned Ray dropped in for a few minutes. Thompson thought both deputies seemed "very nervous and anxious to know what was taking place."[119] At supper Plummer was still sick and could eat but little and then lay down on the lounge. About eight o'clock Thompson went to the Edgerton's cabin where he was told Sunday night choir practice, usually held at Mattie's home, had been cancelled. Mary did not want her daughter and niece anywhere in the vicinity of Yankee Flat, not with the Vail cabin being located there. Thompson sat with Mary's family the rest of the evening, waiting and listening.

Things were not going according to plan. A vigilante group was supposed to have been formed already upon Beidler's arrival with the letter of execution, the advance planning indicating intentions of killing Plummer may well have existed even before Yeager's alleged confession, probably since the time of the Ives's trial as had been rumored in Bannack. Due to the lack of enthusiasm among Bannack citizens on the first night, Dimsdale wrote, "It was resolved to spend the following day in enlisting members, though no great progress was made after all."[120] As both Thompson and Mattie acknowledged, Plummer "had attracted many friends," and "plenty of people in town... did not believe he was the leader of the road agents."[121] In order to persuade those reluctant to take arms against an elected official, Henry Tilden was produced to testify of Plummer's involvement in crime. A final impetus was given by the rumor that three horses intended for the escape of the sheriff and his deputies were being brought into town. Up to the last moment, men off the street were hastily recruited for the three arrest parties by shoving loaded shotguns into hesitant hands and insisting, more than once if necessary, that they come along.

At about ten o'clock, Thompson and the Edgertons heard the creak of snow on the path that passed their home, fifty to seventy-five men splitting into three squads after crossing the bridge. Buck Stinson, still wearing the suit he had put on to take his wife to church, was taken at the cabin where the couple boarded, and Ned Ray was found on a gambling table where he had passed out. The group who came for Plummer quietly surrounded the Vail cabin. Plummer, still feeling ill, lay on Martha's lounge, unarmed. When the knock came at the door, she answered and saw a "well known citizen" who asked for Plummer. He got up and came to the door without a weapon, supposedly an unusual thing for him to do, and then putting on his coat, joined the group waiting outside. Martha was alarmed, but Plummer calmed her, saying the men only wanted to talk to him about Dutch John. He walked across to Sanders's cabin and knocked at the door. Though Sanders was inside, he had hoped to avoid a final encounter with Plummer and quickly extinguished his lantern. Plummer now spoke to the assembled men, who faltered in their purpose, halting outside the cabin. Realizing a crisis had developed and that he must appear, Sanders stepped out, quickly giving a military command: "Company! forward march!" The group obeyed, but Plummer had recognized Sanders's voice and spoke to him. "You men know us better than this." Sanders stood firm in his resolve. As they walked, the three prisoners protested their innocence, and Plummer asked that they be given a trial. He was indisputably a brave man, but it was a bravery derived from overcoming fear of losing a life whose value he keenly recognized.

(Click on image to see full size)
Bannack's Hangman's Gulch, site of the execution of Sheriff Henry Plummer and his two deputies on 10 January 1864. (Photo by Boswell, 1985)

There had to be a first moment of terror when he knew they would not listen to reason, that they really intended to hang him. The armed men quickly formed a circle around the gallows to hold back the gathering crowd as they waited for Tilden to run to the Edgertons for more rope. Plummer spoke of his wife, wanted to see his sister-in-law, and asked for time to settle his business affairs, but his requests were not considered. Ray's turn came first. As Madam Hall, sobbing loudly, tried to force her way through the barricade of Armed men to reach her lover, Ray was hoisted up and dropped, and she was roughly escorted back to her cabin. Stinson was next. Plummer, walking around nervously inside the circle of vigilantes, was becoming "awfully alarmed." At first no one approached him. "Now came a moment of suspense," Thompson says. "Under the gallows which he had erected and used as an officer of the law in sustaining good government, stood a nice clean looking young man, only twenty-seven years of age, of pleasing and affable manners and of good ability."[122] Joseph Swift, belatedly learning of what was taking place, rushed to the scene, fighting his way up to Plummer and pleading that he be spared until he "had to be forcibly removed." Swift then "threw himself on the ground at the outskirts of the crowd and wept like a child." Seeing him, Plummer pulled off his scarf and tossed it in Swift's direction. "Give this to Joe," he said.'" Stinson and Ray had "discharged volley after volley of oaths and epithets," but Plummer now stood quietly as his arms were pinioned. "Give a man time to pray," he told them, but they would have none of it, and so he made a final request, "Give me a high drop, boys." They did.

Watching Plummer leave with the large group of armed men, Martha Vail had become frightened and ran to the Edgertons, "hysterically calling" for Francis Thompson. Mattie remembers seeing her "weeping bitterly" as Thompson and Mary tried to calm her by repeating what Plummer had told her -- the sheriff was only wanted in town to discuss Dutch John's arrest. "[124] When they had quieted Martha, Thompson escorted her back to her cabin, staying with her and pacifying her as best he could for what seemed to him like an endless time. Finally an unidentified man appeared in front of the cabin with the message, "It's all over!" Thompson now had to tell Martha what had really happened. On hearing the truth, she fainted and he ran next door for Hattie, bringing her to tend Martha so he could leave. If Martha had been permitted to follow after Plummer, the hanging might have been prevented. On a previous occasion, the trial of Stinson, the miners had shown a weakness for the tears of respectable women and reversed the decision.

(Click on image to see full size)
Bannack's Meade Hotel. Built in 1875 as a county courthouse and later converted to a hotel, the brick structure stands on the original site of the temporary morgue of Plummer and his deputies. The hotel's owner, Amede Bessette, wrote that the last man hanged by the vigilantes at Bannack, who was named Rawley, was probably innocent. (Photo by Boswell, 1985)

(Click on image to see full size)
Meade Hotel interior. (Photo by Boswell, 1985)

For an hour, armed guards paced about the scene of the execution, then dispersed, leaving the bodies hanging on the gallows for the night. The next day the frozen corpses were carried to an unfinished building. Plummer's scarf was never given to Joseph Swift.

Mrs. Stinson and Sarah Wadams came to the makeshift morgue to retrieve Buck's gold wedding band, finding the hand frozen so solid they had to cut off his fingers to extract the ring. '" Since Ned Ray had been dressed in buckskin at the time of his arrest, Madam Hall was permitted to take his body to her cabin for burial preparation. Martha did not come for Plummer.

Witnesses remember seeing all of the men laid out: "In the lower part of a two-story log house not yet completed, lay on the floor, frozen solid, the bodies of the three... side by side, with each a deep groove in the neck showing the marks of rope strand spirals; clad in their Sunday clothes, newly shaved."[126] A pencil drawing made of the hanging, the only representation of Plummer known to exist, shows him clean shaven and clad in "Sunday clothes" at the time he was taken.'" Using Plummer's own funds, Thompson arranged for the burial, though Plummer was not allowed a plot on cemetery hill.

In the spring, at least according to X. Beidler, a document arrived in the dying town of Bannack approving the application that Plummer had forwarded to Washington to be the first U.S. marshall of Idaho territory east of the Rockies.[128]

THE MOB AND MORE HANGINGS

Following the hanging of the sheriff and his two deputies, the vigilantes sought out "the Greaser," so called because he was the only Mexican in town. Though Joe Pizanthia had not been implicated with the road agent gang, Langford said the armed party went "with a view of investigating his career in the Territory."'" They had heard he had recently been involved in a brawl and was holed up somewhere recuperating from a chest wound. One of Plummer's more respected deputies, Smith Ball, who had joined in the search, pushed open the door of the cabin where "the Greaser" was hiding, and received a shot in the leg. The man behind Smith Ball was hit in the chest and died immediately. Deputy Ball tied a handkerchief over his wound and joined others in firing into the cabin, the general shooting becoming so wild that stray bullets whizzed through the door and window of Thompson's store, located in front of the cabin. Looking out, Thompson spotted Edgerton, a Henry rifle in his hands, standing among the excited group.[130]

When the Mexican did not surrender, the crowd asked Edgerton for the loan of the howitzer cannon stored in his cabin and he consented. Mattie watched the men, "white-faced and trembling," drag the gun and shells from under her father's bed.[131] They returned to the besieged cabin, towing the little brass cannon behind them with a rope, and, after appropriating a box from Thompson's store for a mount, shelled Pizanthia's hideout until it exploded. The suspect could now be seen lying on the dirt floor, crushed beneath the fallen door, and Smith Ball fired into the body until his revolver was empty. Removing the rope from the cannon, they slipped it over Pizanthia's head and he was dragged to a pole and strung up. Pizanthia, still half alive, was then riddled with more than a hundred bullets. Setting fire to the debris of the cabin, they tossed the body into the flames in way of a funeral since none present cared to bury the suspected criminal.

Not wishing to admit to his family that he had been among the crowd, Edgerton returned home with a more acceptable explanation. Mattie said he told them he "had witnessed the scene from the hill above," then turned on his heel and gone home since "he thought it about time for the Chief Justice to be elsewhere."[132]

In his chapter entitled "The Execution of 'The Greaser,' " Dimsdale condoned the mob's actions as "prompt and really necessary severity," adding that had the punishment been left to "outsiders, the penalty would have been cruel and disgusting in the highest degree."[133]

Pizanthia's killing is usually represented as the single instance in which things got out of control, but apparently the situation in Bannack was unstable and disorderly from the moment of Plummer's execution. Directly after the hanging of the sheriff and his deputies, hotel owner Bill Goodrich ran to Chrisman's store and grabbed Plummer's double-barreled shotgun, supposedly "the envy of every miner in the camp," as payment for his hotel bill, then "rushed into the street thronged with excited people and brandishing the gun above his head, shouted so all could hear: 'The gun is mine! The gun is mine! It cost me $275 and I mean to keep it.' "[134]

The excitement in the streets had not died down by morning; the curious were flocking in to see the bodies dangling from the small pine-tree frame in the gulch a few hundred yards off Main Street. One witness wrote, "I would not believe it until I saw for myself and he (McMurtry) accompanied me. Said it was not safe for me to go alone."[135]

It was in this chaotic setting that Pizanthia's execution had taken place. The next score to be settled was with Dutch John, suspected of attempting to rob the Moody wagon train, and the vigilantes voted for his immediate hanging. John was taken to the same building where two of the bodies had lain for two days -- Stinson still on the floor but Plummer now on the bench, their hands tied behind them. By lantern light, a rope was thrown over a beam and a barrel placed under it. Dutch John told them he had never seen a man hanged before and wondered if it would take long to die. He was assured that it would be very short and he would not suffer much pain.[136]

Back at Virginia City, the committee ordered that five more of the gang be rounded up -- Haze Lyons, Boone Helm, Jack Gallagher, Frank Parish, and Clubfoot George Lane -- and their death sentences carried out, X. Beidler acting as hangman. Dimsdale's statement that all five confessed to their crimes during questioning is contradicted by a witness. John Grannis, the same miner who had stood guard all night during the Ives trial, wrote in his diary the night after the joint hanging: "Obeying a notice of the vigilance committee I went to Virginia this morning... I was on guard all day and saw them hung. The five was hung in a row. All of them maintained their innocence to the last."[137]

Within the next few days, Stephen Marshland, Billy Bunton, Cyrus Skinner, Alex Carter, Johnny Cooper, George Shears, Bob Zachary, Bill Graves, and Bill Hunter were all hanged. Though Dimsdale assured the deaths were quick, easy, and "without seeming pain," eyewitnesses again presented a more realistic picture. In way of example, George Bruffey, who watched the hanging of five men at Virginia City, noted that Frank Parish, so crippled he had to be helped on to the box placed underneath his intended noose, "struggled hard" in dying.[138] Another reassurance Dimsdale occasionally gave, which tends to put additional strain on his credibility, is that the gang members had some sort of death wish, and when informed of their doom, "appeared perfectly satisfied."[139]A more realistic interpretation is that despite their bad reputations, the victims of the vigilantes showed considerable courage in facing death. No one can say for certain that all of these men were guilty as charged. Undoubtedly most had bad names, ranging in degree of notoriety from exconvict, former insane asylum inmate, squawman, and Secessionist to cripple. The general belief is that all deserved what they got, historian K. Ross Toole expressing the consensus opinion that no evidence exists that any of the victims were innocent.[140] The problem with such a statement is that the process is supposed to work the other way -- evidence is required to prove guilt, not innocence.

The final hanging at Bannack took place at the end of 1864, the victim being R. C. Rawley, who had made the blunder of expressing an opinion that the committee members were "strangling --'s" and that they had hanged some "good men." The Vigilance Committee, according to Dimsdale, could not allow such conduct to "remain unpunished" and investigated the Rawley case. They were able to uncover belated evidence that he had actually helped the gang and would in the future again "connect himself with some new gang of thieves, and as it was more than suspected that such an organization was contemplated, it was determined to put a sudden end to all such doings, by making an example of Rawley.... They arrested him at night... without the knowledge of a single soul except his actual captors.... The first intelligence concerning his fate was obtained from the sight of his dead body, swinging in the wind on the following morning." Dimsdale concluded his account of the episode with, "The effect of the execution was magical. Not another step was taken to organize crime in Bannack, and it has remained in comparative peace and perfect security ever since."[141]

But an early pioneer named Amede Bessette, who knew this final Bannack victim well, disagreed with Dimsdale that Rawley, or, as he spelled the name, Reighly, had any intentions of connecting himself to a gang of thieves. Though likable enough, Bessette wrote, Reighly was only a "little, harmless, educated fool," who would not have had the courage to join the road agents, nor would they have wanted him in their band since, after suffering the misfortune of freezing both feet and having them amputated, he was left to hobble about on two wooden pegs. On hearing one morning just at daybreak that a man was "frozen stiff at the end of a rope," Bessette walked out to the gallows, describing the sight that met his eyes as follows: "I saw Reighly at the end of a rope. Below his shoulder his coat was torn about six inches square and the piece hung down: Four or five inches to the left of the center of his back another piece of his coat was torn in the shape of a flat-iron. In both places the white lining of his thin coat could be seen. His pants were torn in a half dozen places. Two bones in place of human feet projected from the legs of his pants. His tongue hung about an inch out of his mouth." Though Bessette hastened to add that his purpose was not to speak ill of the Vigilance Committee, he stated he believed that in this particular case "an honest mistake was made."[142] Mistake or not, the awesome sight of Rawley's body swinging in the morning gloom had the desired effects of stemming further criticism of the vigilantes and preventing further attempts to defend Plummer in fact up to the present day.

RESTORATION OF ORDER

By February 1864, Plummer's gang was eradicated, the reign of terror was ended, and law and order prevailed, or so Dimsdale, Langford, Sanders, and others would have us believe. Pemberton, the young lawyer who acted as court reporter at Ives's trial and later became a judge, stated that "after Plummer was hung, life and property were safe. It was said that a man might lay a sack of gold dust down on the sidewalk and it would be there till the buckskin rotted off, before anyone touched it."[142]

(Click on image to see full size)
Boot Hill, Virginia City, Montana. Though vigilantes reported that the five men whose graves are pictured above confessed their guilt, witnesses to the joint hanging wrote that all five maintained their innocence to the end. (Photo by Boswell, 1985)

Actually, travelling with gold dust was still unsafe, as Edgerton realized when he asked his wife to quilt gold ingots into the lining of his coat so they would not be detected if he were detained while on his way to Washington. Though the vigilantes' dogged persistence in tracking down anyone suspected of crime persuaded those with a propensity for obtaining their gold the easy way to lie low for a while, road agent activity soon continued -- and on a larger scale than before. Alex Toponce, a freighter operating between Virginia City and Salt Lake, wrote in his reminiscences about ten road agents holding up and killing all but one passenger on a Wells Fargo stage in 1865,[144] and James Miller noted in his diary, during July of the same year, that twenty road agents had just held up a stage, killing four people.[145] The Montana Post contained articles in 1865 that expressed great concern over the continuing road agent problem, and it is interesting to note that the attacks after January 1864 showed more earmarks of being performed by a gang, by the large number of robbers and better organization, than those committed during Plummer's time. Those usually involved no more than two or three persons.

The Vigilance Committee was kept busy punishing robbers and road agents for several years after February 1864, not disbanding until years later when the press and courts chastised them for conducting their own "reign of terror." Citizens posted a public notice warning them that future hanging would be retaliated five to one.

Before evaluating the evidence against Plummer, it is appropriate to take a closer look at the credentials of his executioners, those credited with ushering in the so-called era of safety. The contention that the vigilantes enjoyed popular support becomes a moot point when we realize that their method of enlisting members was at times identical to their method of punishing those they considered guilty. The son of Alexander Davis, a judge of the miners' court, wrote that when his father was "importuned" to join the vigilante organization, he "politely refused to do so, informing the members that his principles would not permit him to be a party to executions that did not have the sanction of a court and jury. The members, miffed at his seeming censure of their actions, apprised him that he had the choice of joining the Vigilantes, leaving the region or being hung."[146]

Though Sanders assured historian H. H. Bancroft that the organization was made up of "the best people in the community,"[147] a lawyer would be hard put to defend the morality of some of their tenets. While the executive committee was responsible for "any criminal act," the governing bylaws stated that "the only punishment that shall be inflicted by this Committee is DEATH thus making no attempt to equate punishment to severity of crime.[148] Alex Toponce claimed that when Mrs. Slade protested her husband's execution on charges of being disorderly, Captain Williams of the vigilance organization threatened her with the same fate as her husband if she did not quiet down. Even Bill Fairweather, discoverer of gold in Alder Gulch, narrowly escaped being hanged for his vociferous insistence that there had been a miscarriage of justice in Slade's instance. There is also the example of a Mason, fearing for his life after being falsely accused of a crime, who came to the brotherhood for protection. But those who were not Masons had no such protection to turn to. Being suspected of any crime left a citizen in a panic for his life, a situation comparable to the Salem witch trials, except that in Massachusetts the accused was at least tried in a public court.

Their practice of impounding the property of those they hanged left the vigilantes open to charges of being motivated by personal profit, no matter how petty, from the death of their victims. There is the taint of booty to Captain Pitts ordering the roundup of the late Johnny Cooper's horses, or in Beidler's coveting Dutch John's bead leggins and pocketing the knife he found on the corpse of Nick Tiebolt, explaining to those who saw him that he recognized the knife as one Tom Baume had loaned to Nick a year ago.

In cases where a victim had considerable wealth, such as Cyrus Skinner or Henry Plummer, the issue of appropriating the property of the deceased became more important. Laying claim to a suspect's mining interests to pay "expenses" could prove a strong temptation, especially in a country where gold fever infected even the most stalwart citizens. Edgerton, for one, left the territory with over seventy-five claims to his credit.[149]Small wonder rumors such as the following sprung up later: "Plummer's body had hardly frozen in the cold night air before a wagon train pulled out with oak kegs filled with raw gold. It had been loaded from three cabins of first-rank citizens, previously poor as church mice, but wealthy after that hour. On returning to Bannack the freighters told everything. Vigilante leaders ran some of them out of the country and threatened to hang others if they did not shut up."[150]

A third problem that should be mentioned is that the executioners did not follow the procedure they had set up in their bylaws. Captains and their companies were supposed to arrest a suspect and then present proof to the executive committee whose duty it was to make final judgment. Bylaws stated specifically that the supreme ruler was to reside in Virginia City. Yet the captains rarely made the required trip back to Virginia City with their prisoners, preferring instead to take advantage of the nearest corral beam or cottonwood limb.

Dr. Smurr, who explored the basic philosophy behind the vigilance movement, pointed out the vigilantes' distrust of the jury system as represented by the miners' courts. They favored instead an organization governed by a small body and one supreme leader, who had the "duty to legislate for the good of the whole Committee," again quoting bylaws. Members were to carry out orders blindly, lawyers were not permitted to speak for the defendant, and there was no appeal to a higher court. Smurr also cited instances in which quick justice resulted in the death of innocent men. He attributed the broken pledges to prisoners who had been promised they would be taken back to Virginia City for judgment to individual captains and their companies who were "anxious to inflict summary punishment."[151]

Among the "anxious" was X. Beidler, who, frustrated in other lines of trade, "concluded to quit prospecting for gold and prospect for human fiends," and he was always present when a grave needed to be dug, a makeshift scaffold rigged, or a rope adjusted around a neck, and not just for the excitement, but in his own words: "I'll be paid, you bet."[152] Before Alex Carter was hanged, he one day happened to meet Beidler on the street, and Carter's manner of greeting the enthusiastic vigilante seems, though crude, quite appropriate. Carter, looking down from the height of his magnificent horse whom he'd named Stonewall Jackson, asked Beidler, "You grave-digging, scaffold-building s-- of a b----, what are you doing here? Do you want to hang somebody?"[153] Granted that the committee may have been formed by citizens of lofty ideals for the purpose of making a safe community, in practice it became difficult to control the actions of members at the lower levels, and Smurr's reference to the "blood-lust of enraged mobs" is perhaps a fair description of their motivation as evidenced during the execution of Joe Pizanthia.[154]

In Plummer's case, most of the aforementioned weaknesses of the Vigilance Committee came into play. His extensive holdings in gold and silver mines were at the disposal of the committee upon his death with no obligation on its part to release information as to the distribution of his property. Also, the mob instinct was evoked in the very act of overthrowing a figure of authority. And last, he was not examined and allowed to reply after his arrest as others were, namely Yeager, Brown, and the five in Virginia City. If the prescribed procedures of the committee had been followed, Plummer would have been arrested and brought to Virginia City, after which the governing body would have determined his guilt or innocence. But Plummer's guilt was decided some time before the formation of the vigilance organization. It had been decided by the Thanksgiving supper, perhaps even as early as the meeting on the Snake River when the wagon master spoke of Plummer's reputation as a desperado to Edgerton and Sanders, men steeped in rigid notions of traditional respectability and willing to accept rumor as truth.

PLUMMER'S SUPPOSED REIGN OF TERROR

Since the vigilantes relied on Dimsdale to present their case against Plummer and since his book was the only major account to appear near the time of the actual events, we will turn to it for an examination of the evidence. The first question to be answered is just how extensive was the "reign of terror" over which Plummer supposedly presided.

Dimsdale, who also blamed the road agent organization for scores of killings never detected, set the figure of documented murders at one hundred two and listed and described each case."[155]

Lloyd Magruder and four men travelling with him were robbed and murdered by Doc Howard and party.
Nick Tiebolt was robbed and killed by George Ives.
George Evans disappeared and was presumed robbed and murdered.
A Mormon was presumed to have been robbed and murdered on the road to Salt Lake City.

In addition, nine robberies occurred in which no killings took place:

In October 1863, the Peabody coach was robbed.
In November 1863, the Oliver coach was robbed.
Anton Holter was robbed of a few greenbacks and shot at by George Ives.
Mr. and Mrs. Davenport were robbed while eating their lunch on Rattlesnake Creek, though Mrs. Davenport's money was returned.
The house of Le Grau, baker and blacksmith at Bannack, was broken into and robbed, though the money was hidden too well for thieves to locate.
Dutch Fred was robbed of $5.
Henry Tilden was robbed of $10 on Horse Prairie. (Those who heard Tilden relate the incident say he had no money on him at the time.)
"Another man" was robbed of $2 or $3 a few miles from Nevada.
Wagner and Marshland attempted to rob the Moody train, but failed.

Five Indians were shot in two different fracases with whites, and a Frenchman named Brissette was killed when he ran to the tepee being fired on.
Banfield was shot in the melee following his gunfight with Sapp and died later from improper care of the wound.
Plummer shot Cleveland in the Goodrich saloon.
Stinson and Lyons shot Dillingham in a wickiup saloon in Virginia City.
Ives killed "a man" near Cold Spring ranch in broad daylight.

Banfield or Sapp accidentally shot Carrhart during their conflict over the poker game.
Horan murdered Keeler and was hanged for it.

Regardless of crimes that undoubtedly went undetected or unreported, those mentioned in the paragraphs above are the ones that the vigilantes knew of and accordingly reported to Dimsdale for his book and the ones that they held Plummer responsible for as head of the organization.

The evidence to support their belief in Plummer's guilt for the above crimes was also reported to Dimsdale, mainly through Sanders, who also assumed the task of proofreading the finished book for accuracy. Relying solely on this book for the charges against Plummer would eliminate any additional evidence presented by Langford, who wrote twenty-six years later and therefore included many stories that grew up after the fact. Actually, any time Langford or any other writer produces evidence against Plummer that Dimsdale did not include, it is suspect. Dimsdale, with Sanders's help, prepared the book as carefully as a legal case to include all evidence that would persuade the population that Plummer was guilty and that the vigilantes were justified in assuming power because of his corrupt administration.

A prime example of suspect evidence that is not included in Dimsdale's book is the garbled account Alex Toponce gave of the three hangings at Bannack. Toponce claimed that he refused Buck Stinson permission to serve a warrant on a member of his freighting party, after which Beidler, Fetherstun, and Howie pursued Stinson, House, and Barnes, overtaking and hanging them in a cabin on Rattlesnake Creek. "It was reported," he said, "that they hung all three of them right there, each one on a corner of the cabin, and had one corner to spare. They found a constitution and by-laws of the society on Stinson and a list of the members, 139 in all. In the morning they went on to Bannack and arrested Ed Plummer, the Sheriff, and hung him and two other white men, members of the gang, and a young Mexican."[156] If such documents as Toponce mentioned had been found on Stinson, Dimsdale and Sanders would have made good use of them, certainly including them in the book.

Though Dimsdale must be the primary reference, we will continue to supplement his work with additional information supplied by other writers for the sake of comparison and to provide details that help evaluate the case as presented by the vigilantes' spokesman.

Drawbacks in using Dimsdale as a main source have already been mentioned, the bias and exaggeration, part of which arises from the century of change separating us from Dimsdale. He was a Victorian moralist setting down a lesson about Good and Evil and the eventual triumph of the former. He saw Plummer not as a man but as a symbol, a "very demon" who committed "outrages against the laws of God and man." Any good qualities Plummer appeared to have were mere deception to cover up his "true colors."[157] Dimsdale must therefore alter his story to fit this pattern. Logically, a purely evil man would not display such traits as courage and dignity in facing death. Plummer "begged for his life," Dimsdale wrote, "falling on his knees, with tears and sighs declared to God that he was too wicked to die. He confessed his numerous murders and crimes, and seemed almost frantic at the prospect of death."[158]

An eyewitness named E. J. Porter, who claimed to be one of the hanging party, contradicted the above passage, stating that Plummer, Stinson, and Ray "all proclaimed their innocence, saying that they had not done anything to be hung for."[159] A second witness, also more believable than Dimsdale because he had nothing to prove, gave an account of the hanging to his friend, J. Holleman, who prepared a statement that was sent to H. H. Bancroft. Though Holleman wrote that he considered the sheriff guilty, he added, "I do not believe Plummer begged for his life. I heard at the time that he did but a friend of mine who was at Bannack at the time told me there was nothing to it."[160] Statements such as the one Holleman reported -- terse comments hastily jotted down in letter or diary -- help to put Dimsdale back in perspective. With need for this balance in mind, we can proceed to examine the testimony of the first witness Dimsdale presented against Plummer.