The Vigilantes of Montana:
1864 Revisited

The Election of May 24, 1863

The Bannack Mining District Records, SC 238, Montana Historical Society Archives, Helena, contain the proceedings of a meeting held at Bannack City on May 24, 1863, "for the purpose of electing a Judiciary and Executive for Bannack District." The meeting was chaired by the district president, Walter Dance. To be elected were a judge to preside in felony matters, a sheriff to assist the president and the judge, and a coroner. B. B. Burchett was elected judge, Henry Plummer sheriff, and J. M. Castner coroner. Plummer received 307 out of 554 votes cast, a larger majority than any of the others elected.

To complete the organization of a justice system, Sheriff Henry Plummer appointed as deputy sheriffs, Smith Ball, Buzz Craven, J. W. Dillingham, Ned Ray, and Buck Stinson. The first three were highly respected men in Bannack. The latter two, were not as well respected. Buck Stinson had come to Montana from Missouri in the winter of 1862, to Hell Gate, moving to Bannack in early 1863. He set up as a barber in Skinner's saloon, found a wife, and settled into a cabin next to Edward (Ned) Ray. Ned Ray had come to Bannack from Salt Lake City.

Shortly after his election and selection of deputies, Henry Plummer left Bannack to return to the Vail farm on the Sun River to marry his fiance, Electa Bryan. Francis Thompson was at the Vail farm when Plummer arrived on June 2, 1863. The wedding ceremony took place on June 20, 1863, with Father Minatre, a Catholic priest from St. Peter's mission officiating. It took Henry and Electa about a week to make the trip from Sun River to Bannack in a wagon, camping out at night.

Did the miners court work? In the case of civil matters , the answer is yes. In the literature there is a great deal of proof that disputes were settled promptly and without violence. In the case of criminal trials the results are mixed, but on the whole, yes, the miners courts did work.

The first criminal trials were of Plummer for killing Cleveland, and no evidence exits that the court and jury did not perform correctly. The second criminal trial was for Moore and Reeves, immediately after the Plummer trial, in January, 1862. They had shot up an Indian camp killing a few Indians, and more seriously at the time, a white man. In this case, Nathaniel Langford served on the jury, and held out for a time for the death penalty, but finally gave in and agreed to a sentence of banishment. The system did work.

The next trial was for the shooting death of D. H. Dillingham, who was appointed Deputy Sheriff by Henry Plummer just after the May 24, 1863, election. In fact, Dillingham was the recording secretary at this election. I have not been able to find the exact date of the shooting and trial, but it was during the month of June, 1863, while Henry Plummer was in Sun River being married, and returning to Bannack.

This is the trial cited most often for the failure of the miners court in criminal cases. Buck Stinson, Haze Lyons, and Charley Forbes were tried for the public shooting death of Dillingham. Jack Gallagher was the Deputy Sheriff who made the arrest. At the trial, Forbes went free, but Stinson and Lyons were sentenced to death. On the way to the gallows there was a second vote, and after much confusion, the two condemned men went free, Stinson to return as Deputy Sheriff in Bannack. One or more of the three, Forbes, Stinson, Lyons, fired the shots that killed Dillingham; none were punished. This was, indeed, a miscarriage of justice. But the next criminal trial was not.