Vigilantes: Table of Contents
The Vigilantes of Montana:
1864 Revisited

The truth about Myth 3

The assertion that Henry Plummer was the leader of a gang of "road agents" in North Idaho has already been shown to be false.

The question of the existence of a gang has been dealt with by several modern writers who have question the extravagant descriptions in Dimsdale and Langford. Here is what Dan Cushman has to say in his book, Montana The Gold Frontier.

In the article Afterthoughts on the Vigilantes, Dr. J. W. Smurr, doubts the existence of a sophisticated organization:

Dimsdale-Langford indulged in fictioneering when they described Plummer as a leader of genius. He and his cohorts blundered again and again, as the record plainly shows. As repositories of dark secrets they were flat failures.
The entire article is well worth reading, especially his comments on the miners courts.

Art Pauley published his book Henry Plummer Lawman and Outlaw, in 1980, after reading all the available literature, and doing extensive research himself, including looking into, apparently for the first time, the details of Plummer's life in California. On pages 167-8 of his book, he is discussing the summer of 1863 when Henry and Electa had taken up residence in Bannack. He says it stretches credulity to consider that Henry Plummer was the "leader" of a gang of road agents. See for yourself.

Mather and Boswell have shown in Hanging the Sheriff that Henry Plummer was never even accused of robbery or attempted robbery in California, Idaho, or Montana, until the young Henry Tilden claimed he saw Plummer among three masked men who he says (according to one version) attempted to rob him.

In a 1987 review in MONTANA MAGAZINE of Hanging the Sheriff Richard Roeder, one of the authors of the 1991 history quoted above, had this to say:

They [the authors] are probably correct that the only evidence of a connection between Plummer and the outlaws was the very shaky testimony of young Henry Tilden.
Henry Tilden was a youth of about 15, reportedly consumptive, who had come west with Sidney Edgerton, Wilbur Sanders, and their families. On November 14, 1863, in Bannack these three events unfolded.
  1. Langford and Hauser left Bannack for Salt Lake City with $14,000 in gold dust. This gold had been previously stored by Henry Plummer for them. Their route was west and south from Bannack.
  2. Henry Plummer left Bannack heading east up over Badger Pass on a trip to the Parish Ranch on Blacktail Deer Creek, near the present site of Dillon, Montana.
  3. Sidney Edgerton sent Henry Tilden west to Horse Prairie to get some cattle which had been left there earlier in the fall, and drive them back to Bannack.
These events played out as follows.
  1. Langford and Hauser reached Salt Lake City with their gold intact, and were not attacked by "road agents" or anyone else.
  2. Henry Plummer returned to Bannack from the east. If he in fact did ride to the Parish Ranch, then there would not have been time for him to make his way roundabout to Horse Prairie to the west of Bannack, attempt a robbery of Tilden, and return back to the east of Bannack. Knowing the geography of the region, it is difficult to even put him to the west of Bannack at the time of the supposed robbery attempt, given that he rode up the hill to the east, as witnessed by Sanders and Edgerton.
  3. Henry Tilden returned to Bannack from Horse Prairie about 9 or 10 o'clock that night with the story of being accosted by three masked men, one of whom he identified as Henry Plummer.
Assuming the men were masked, then it would have been impossible for Tilden to identify Plummer, since by 8:00 on November 14 in the latitude of Bannack the sun had already long set. He claimed to have recognized the red lining of Plummer's overcoat, but that would not have been possible in the darkness at that time. Thus the one piece of evidence available in 1863 linking Henry Plummer to outlaws of any kind is suspect. It certainly would not have stood up in a court of law, if one had been available to Henry Plummer before he was hung.

Mather and Boswell devote a great deal of space to the Henry Tilden case. See pages 106-8.

Dimsdale and Langford both rely heavily on the testimony of Red Yeager against Plummer. Mather and Boswell examine the "confession" of Yeager in detail on pages 108-110.