USA > Idaho > Vigilante days and ways : the pioneers of the Rockies, the makers and making of Montana, Idaho, Oregon, Washington, and Wyoming, Vol. I > Part 8
USA > Montana > Vigilante days and ways : the pioneers of the Rockies, the makers and making of Montana, Idaho, Oregon, Washington, and Wyoming, Vol. I > Part 8
USA > Oregon > Vigilante days and ways : the pioneers of the Rockies, the makers and making of Montana, Idaho, Oregon, Washington, and Wyoming, Vol. I > Part 8
USA > Washington > Vigilante days and ways : the pioneers of the Rockies, the makers and making of Montana, Idaho, Oregon, Washington, and Wyoming, Vol. I > Part 8
USA > Wyoming > Vigilante days and ways : the pioneers of the Rockies, the makers and making of Montana, Idaho, Oregon, Washington, and Wyoming, Vol. I > Part 8
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dence of one who gloried in his iniquity. Peace- able, honest, well-meaning citizens, completely overawed, were fortunate to escape insult or abuse, as they passed to and fro in pursuit of their occupations. Woe to the unfortunate miner who entered the town if it were known or believed that there was any treasure on his per- son ! If not robbed on the spot, or lured into a hurdy-gurdy saloon, or cheated at a gambling table, he was waylaid by disguised ruffians on his return to his camp, and by threats and violence, or when these failed, by death itself, relieved of his hard-bought earnings. For one of these sufferers to recognize and expose any of his assail- ants was simply to insure his death at his hands the first convenient opportunity.
One of these side exploits was marked by features of peculiar atrocity. An aged, eccen- tric German miner, who lived alone in a little cabin three miles from town, was supposed to have a considerable amount of gold dust con- cealed in his dwelling. One morning, early in August, a neighbor discovered that the house had been violently entered. The door was broken and scattered in pieces. Entering, he beheld the mangled corpse of the old man lying amid a general wreck of bedding, boxes, and trunks.
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The remains of a recent fire in a corner bore evidence of the failure of the design of the rob- bers to conceal their crime by a general conflagra- tion. The miners were exasperated at an act of such wanton and unprovoked barbarity. A coro- ner's jury was summoned and such an inquest held as men in fear of their lives dared to ven- ture. The verdict, as might have been antici- pated, was " murdered by some person or persons unknown." Here the affair has rested ever since.
Acts of violence and bloodshed were not un- frequent among the robbers themselves. Soon after the murder of the German, a company of them, who had been gambling all night at one of the saloons, broke up in a quarrel at sunrise. Before they reached the street, a revolver in the hands of Brockie was discharged, killing in- stantly one of the departing brawlers. The murderer surrendered himself to a justice of the peace, and escaped upon the singular plea that the shot was accidental and did not hit the per- son he intended to kill. One of the jury, in a letter to a friend, wrote: "The verdict gave universal satisfaction, the feeling over the homi- cide among good citizens being that Brockie had done a good thing. If he had killed two of the ruffians instead of one, and then hung
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himself, good men would have been better pleased."
Hickey, the intended victim, was one of the worst men in the band. The year following this occurrence, in a fit of anger induced by intoxi- cation, at a store in Placerville he made a desper- ate assault upon a peaceable, inoffensive indi- vidual who was known by the name of "Snap- ping Andy." Hurriedly snatching a pickhandle from a barrel, Andy, by two or three well- directed blows, brought his career of crime and infamy to a bloody close.
For some reason, probably to place him be- yond the reach of the friends of the murdered robber, Brockie was assigned to a new position. Ostensibly to establish a ferry at the mouth of Whitebird creek, a few miles from town, but really for the purpose of furnishing a convenient rendezvous for his companions, he took up his abode there. It was on the line of travel be- tween Florence and a gold discovery reputed to have been made on a tributary of the Boise river.
About the middle of September, Arthur Chap- man, son of the surveyor-general of Oregon, while waiting for ferriage, was brutally assaulted by Brockie, who rushed towards him with pistol
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and knife, swearing that he would "shoot him as full of holes as a sieve, and then cut him into sausage meat." With an axe which he seized upon the instant, Chapman clove his skull to the chin. Brockie fell dead in his tracks, another witness to the fulfilment of that terrible denunciation, " whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed." Chapman was honorably acquitted of crime.
It will not be deemed out of place to record here the desperate fortune of one Matt Bledsoe, who became notorious as an independent free- booter, and killed several persons in the valley of the Upper Sacramento and Upper Willamette. His bloody character preceded his arrival at Florence in the fall of 1861. He acknowledged no allegiance to any band, and avowed as a ruling principle that he would " as soon kill a man as eat his breakfast." While engaged in a game of cards with a miner at a ranche on Whitebird creek in October, 1861, he provoked an altercation, but the miner being armed, he did not, as was usual with him, follow it up by an attack. The next morning, while the miner was going to the creek, he shot and killed him. Mounting his horse he rode rapidly to Walla Walla, surren- dered to the authorities, asked for a trial, and on
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his own statement that he "had killed a man in self-defence," was acquitted.
A leap forward in his history to twelve o'clock of a cold winter night of 1865 finds this same villain in company with another, each with a courtesan beside him, seated at a table in an oyster saloon in Portland. Some angry words between the women soon involved the men in a quarrel, which Bledsoe brought to a speedy ter- mination by a fatal blow upon the head of his antagonist. He was immediately arrested, tried, convicted of manslaughter, and sentenced to the penitentiary for a long term of years. During the following fall he escaped, was rearrested, and after trial, returned to prison to serve out a prolonged sentence.
Perhaps in the early history of no part of our country were greater difficulties overcome in moving from one place to another than in the mining districts of Oregon and Idaho. Essen- tially a mountain region, and in all portions of it away from the narrow valleys formed by the streams filled with the remains of extensive vol- canic action, its surface, besides being broken into deep cañons, lofty ridges, inaccessible preci- pices, impassable streams, and impenetrable lava beds, was also covered everywhere with the sharp
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points and fissured hummocks which were cast out during a long and active period of primeval eruption. There were no natural roads in any direction. The trail of the Indian was full of obstacles, often indirect and generally impracti- cable. To travel with vehicles of any sort was absolutely impossible. The pack animal was the only available resource for transportation. The miner would bind all his earthly gear on the back of a mule or a burro and grapple with obstruc- tions as they appeared, cutting his way through forests almost interminable, and exposing himself to dangers as trying to his fortitude as to his ingenuity. The merchant who wished to transport goods, the saloon-keeper who had liquors and bil- liard tables, the hotel-keeper whose furniture was necessary, all had to employ pack animals as the only means of transportation from the towns on the Columbia to the mining camps of the interior. The owner of a train of pack animals was always certain of profitable employment. His life was precarious, his subsistence poor, his responsibili- ties enormous. He threaded the most dangerous passes, and incurred the most fearful risks, - for all which he received adequate compensation.
The pack-train was always a lively feature in the gigantic mountain scenery of Oregon and
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Idaho. A train of fifty or one hundred animals, about equally composed of mules and burros, each heavily laden, the experienced animal in the lead picking the way for those in the rear, amid the rocks, escarpments, and precipices of a lofty mountain side, was a spectacle of thrilling inter- est. At times, the least mis-step would have pre- cipitated some unfortunate animal thousands of feet down the steep declivity, dashing him to pieces on the rocks below. Fortunately the cau- tious and sure tread of these faithful creatures rendered such an accident of very rare occur- rence, though to the person who beheld them in motion for the first time the feeling was ever present that they could not escape it. The arri- val of one of these large trains in a mining camp produced greater excitement among the inhabi- tants than any other event, and the calculations upon their departure from the Columbia river and their appearance in the interior towns were made and anticipated with nearly as much certainty as if they were governed by a published time-table.
The confidence of the owner of a train of pack-animals in their sagacity and sure-footed- ness relieved him of all fear of accident by travel, but he could never feel as well assured against the attacks of robbers. All the men in
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charge of a train were well armed and in momentary expectation of a surprise. Fre- quently on the return trips they were entrusted by merchants with large amounts of gold dust. Opportunities of this character seldom escaped the vigilance of the robbers, - and any defect in the police of the departing train insured an attack upon it in some of the difficult passes on its route to the river.
The packer of a train belonging to Neil Mc- Clinchey, a well-known mercantile operator of the Upper Columbia, in October, 1862, when four days out from Florence, on his return to Walla Walla, was stopped by a masked party of which Harper was supposed to be the leader, and for want of sufficient force robbed of fourteen pounds of gold. As he gave the treasure into the hands of the assailants, the villain who took it said in a consoling tone : " That's sensible. If every man was as reasonable as you things would go along smoother."
Shortly after this robbery, Joseph and John Berry were returning to the river with their train. They had gone but forty miles from Florence, when they were confronted by three men in masks, who, with levelled pistols, com- manded them to throw up their hands. Seeing
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that resistance was useless they obeyed, and were relieved of eleven hundred dollars. The pack- ers recognized the voices of David English and William Peoples, - and the third one was after- wards ascertained to be Nelson Scott. The vic- tims returned with all possible expedition to Lewiston, where the report of their loss excited the most intense indignation.
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First Vigilance Committee.
CHAPTER X.
FIRST VIGILANCE COMMITTEE.
PURSUIT, ARREST, AND EXECUTION OF SCOTT, PEOPLES, AND ENGLISH -ARREST, TRIAL AND BANISHMENT OF "HAPPY HARRY" - ESCAPE OF "CLUB FOOT GEORGE " -CHARLEY HARPER FLEES TO COLVILLE.
As soon as the Berrys were assured of the identity of the villains who had robbed them they appealed to the people to assist in their capture. The robbers had stripped them of all their hard earnings, and they had the sympathy of every honest man in the community. Noth- ing more was needed to kindle into a flame of popular excitement the long pent-up fires of smothered indignation. Public sentiment was elamorous for the capture and punishment of the robbers. It gathered strength day by day, until it became the all-absorbing topic everywhere. Men assembled on the street corners, in the stores, in the saloons, and at the outside mining camps to compare views and consult upon meas- ures of relief. Meantime, several parties, whose
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First Vigilance Committee.
faith in immediate action was stronger than in consultation, set out in pursuit of the robbers.
From the fact that they had passed south of Lewiston it was believed they had gone down the Columbia. Distributing themselves along the different roads and trails in that direc- tion, the pursuers made diligent search for them in every nook and corner which could afford them a hiding-place. Their diligence was suc- cessful. The robbers had separated, but were arrested in detail, - Peoples at Walla Walla, Scott on Dry creek, near there, and English at Wallula, forty miles distant on the Columbia.
The only surprise they manifested upon being arrested was at the temerity of their captors. In a community which had so long held them in fear any legal interference with their business was deemed by them an outrage. They did not pause to inquire whether their reign was near its termination, nor think that perhaps the people had decided as between longer submission to their villainies and condign punishment for their actual crimes. If they had, their efforts to escape would have been immediate. As it was, they rested easy, and reflected savagely upon the revenge in store for their captors after their friends had effected their rescue.
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First Vigilance Committee.
They were taken in irons to Walla Walla. Judge Smith ordered their removal to Florence for trial. Such was the indignation of the citi- zens of Lewiston that on their arrival there it was determined they should be tried by the peo- ple. All confidence in the law and the courts was lost. Accordingly a committee was ap- pointed to investigate the circumstances of the robbery and declare the punishment. The pris- oners were taken in charge by the committee, and confined in an unfinished building on the bank of the Clearwater, which was strongly guarded. To make their work thorough and terrify others of the band who were known to be prowling about the saloons of Lewiston, a number of persons were appointed, with instruc- tions to effect their immediate arrest. In antici- pation of this course all suspected persons except one escaped by flight. This one, known by the name of " Happy Harry," was a simple fellow, who denied all association with the band, con- fessed to a few petty offences, and was discharged on condition that he would instantly leave and never return to the country. He has never been heard of since.
One of the shrewdest of the gang, who from a personal deformity was called "Club Foot
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First Vigilance Committee.
George," well known as a robber and horse- thief, escaped arrest by surrendering himself to the commandant of Fort Lapwai (a United States post twelve miles distant), who confined him in the guard house.
The final disposition of the three villains in custody was delayed until the next day. A strong guard of well-armed men surrounded their prison. Just after midnight the sleeping inhabitants of the town were roused by several shots fired in the direction of the place of con- finement. In a few minutes the streets were filled with citizens. A former friend of Peoples, one Marshall, who kept a hotel in town, had, in attempting his rescue, fired upon the guard. In return he received a shot in his arm, and was prostrated by a blow from a clubbed musket. The cause of the melee being explained, the people withdrew, leaving the sentinels at their posts.
The next morning at an early hour the people gathered around the prison. The guards were gone and the door ajar. Unable to restrain their curiosity, and fearful that the robbers had been rescued, they pushed the door wide open. There, hanging by the neck, stark and cold, they beheld the bodies of the three desperadoes. Justice
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First Vigilance Committee.
had been anticipated, and the first Vigilance Committee of the northern mines had commenced its work. No one knew or cared who had done it, but all felt that it was right, and the community breathed freer than at any former period of its history.
Intelligence of the execution, with the usual exaggeration, spread far and wide through the mining camps. It was received with approval by the sober citizens, but filled the robber horde with consternation. Charley Harper, while on his way from Florence to Lewiston to gather full particulars, met a mountaineer.
" Stranger," he inquired, " what's the news ?"
" I s'pose you've heard about the hanging of them fellers?"
" Heard something. What's the particulars ?"
" Well, Bill Peoples, Dave English, and Nels Scott have gone in. They strung 'em up like dried salmon. Happy Harry got out of the way in time; but if they get Club Foot George, his life won't be worth a cent. They're after a lot more of 'em up in Florence."
" Do you know who all they're after ?" asked Harper.
" Yes. Charley Harper's the big chief they're achin' for the most, but the story now is that
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First Vigilance Committee.
he's already hung. A fellow went into town day before yesterday, and said he saw him strung up out here on Camas Prairie. Did you hear anything of it back on the road ?"
Harper needed no further information. He felt that the country was too hot to hold him, and that the bloodhounds were on his track. As soon as the miner was out of sight, he turned to the right, crossed the Clearwater some miles above Lewiston, and pursued a trail to Colville on the Upper Columbia, where we will take leave of him for the present.
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New Gold Discoveries.
CHAPTER XI.
NEW GOLD DISCOVERIES.
IMMIGRATION - DISCOVERIES IN DEER LODGE - AT BOISE - RIDGELY RECOVERS AND GOES TO ELK CITY - PLUMMER AND CLEVELAND GO
TO SUN RIVER - SPEND MOST OF THE WINTER THERE PLUMMER IN LOVE - QUARRELS WITH CLEVELAND.
WHEN the rumored discovery of extensive gold placers on Salmon river was confirmed, the intelligence spread through the Territories and Mississippi States like wildfire. Thousands of young men, thrown out of employment by the war, and other thousands who dreaded the evils which that great conflict would bring upon the nation, and still others actuated by a thirst for gain, utilized their available resources in provid- ing means for an immediate migration to the land of promise. Before midsummer they had started on the long and perilous journey. How little did they know of its exposures! The deserts, destitute of water and grass, the alkaline plains where food and drink were alike affected
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by the poisonous dust, the roving bands of hos- tile Indians, the treacherous quicksands of river fords, the danger and difficulty of the mountain passes, the death of their companions, their cattle, and their horses, breakage of their vehicles, angry and often violent personal altercations, - all these fled in the light of the summer sun, the vernal beauty of the plains, the delightfully pure atmosphere which wooed them day by day far- ther away from the abode of civilization, and the protection of law. The most fortunate of this army of adventurers suffered from some of these fruitful causes of disaster. So certain were they in some form to occur, that a successful comple- tion of the journey was simply an escape from death. The story of the Indian murders and cruelties alone, which befell hundreds of these hapless emigrants, would fill volumes. Every mile of the several routes across the continent was marked by the decaying carcasses of oxen and horses, which had perished during the period of this hegira to the gold mines. Three months with mules and four with oxen were necessary to make the journey, - a journey now completed in six days from ocean to ocean by the railroad.
Some of the earliest of these expeditions, after entering the unexplored region which afterwards
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New Gold Discoveries.
became Montana, were arrested by information that it would be impossible to cross, with teams, the several mountain ranges between them and the mines. This discouragement was followed up by intelligence that the placers were overrun by a crowd of gold hunters from California and Oregon, and that large bands of prospectors were spreading over the adjacent territory. Swift on the heels of this eame the rumor that new placers had been found at Deer Lodge, on the east side of the mountains.
The idea was readily adopted that the country was filled with gold placers, - that it was not necessary to pursue the track of actual discovery, but that each man could discover his own mine. Thus believing, the stream of emigration di- verged, - some crossing the range to Fort Lemhi on the Lower Salmon, and others pursuing a more southerly course, with the hope of striking an old trail leading from Salt Lake to Bitter Root and Deer Lodge valleys. Some of this latter party remained on Grasshopper creek near the large canon, where they made promising dis- coveries. The others went on to Deer Lodge, but being disappointed in the placers there, re- joined their companions and gave to their placer the name of Beaver Head Diggings, - that being
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New Gold Discoveries,
the name given by Lewis and Clarke to the river into which the creek empties.
While these discoveries were in progress on the east side of the mountains, a prospecting party which had been organized at Florence under the leadership of a Californian by the name of Grimes, discovered the mines on the Boise. They were one hundred and fifty miles south of Florence. Grimes and his party sunk their first shaft fifteen miles north-west of the site of Idaho City. While preparing to extend eir explorations, they unfortunately fell into an In- dian ambuscade and their leader was slain.
Intelligence of the Beaver Head and Boise discoveries unsettled all local projects for build- ing up the towns of Florence, Elk City, and Oro Fino. They were immediately deserted by all who could leave without sacrifice. West Bannack, at Boise, and East Bannack, at Beaver Head. sprung into existence as if by enchantment.
Ridgely had now so far recovered from his wound as to be able to travel. Accompanied by him and Reeves, Henry Plummer left the vicinity of Florence and went to Elk City. There he met with several of his old California acquaint- ances who were familiar with his early history. Fearful of remaining lest they should deliver
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New Gold Discoveries.
him up to the authorities and cause him to be returned to California, or that a Vigilance Com- mittee would visit him with heavier punishment, he suddenly departed, and ten days later made his appearance at Deer Lodge. He found the camp full of needy adventurers, the mines un- promising, and the chances few for replenishing his fortune by either gambling or robbery. After spending a few days of constantly increas- ing discouragement he started in company with Jack Cleveland for Fort Benton, intending to go down the Missouri by the first boat. Fortunate would it have been had he carried this design into execution. If it would not have saved him from a felon's death, it would have preserved the lives of those who afterwards became his victims.
Sixty miles from Benton, their horses jaded with travel, the two men stopped at the Govern- ment farm on Sun river for a few days' rest. In this secluded valley they were out of the way of suers. Carpeted with bunch grass, it afforded grazing for their half-starved horses, and in Mr. Vail, the man in charge of the farm, they found a very hospitable host. Divided centrally by the large and peaceful river, the valley stretched away on either side to numberless plateaus, remarkable for the uniform height and tabular
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New Gold Discoveries.
recession with which they rose to the summits of the lofty foot hills, which in their turn swelled gradually into a circumference of heaven-kissing mountains. Nothing but a few forests were wanting to make the scene one of unparalleled grandeur. These were measurably supplied by the parks of cottonwood which stretched along either bank of the river, affording shelter for the herds of elk, antelope, and deer that roamed un- harmed over the boundless solitude.
Here, sheltered by the arms of kind relatives, Henry Plummer first saw the only being which in- spired his bosom with virtuous love. A young, innocent, and beautiful girl, artless and loving as a child, won-by his attention and gentlemanly de- portment, and the tale seductive as that poured by the serpent into the ear of Eve, which he told of his love, against the advice of her sister and friends, crowned his happiness with her heart and hand. No stories of his past career, no terrible picture of the future, no tears and petitions, could stay the sacrifice. She felt the sentiment so beautifully expressed by Moore,
"I know not. I ask not, if guilt's in that heart, I but know that I love thee, whatever thou art," -
and under its influence she linked her fortunes
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New Gold Discoveries.
with those of the robber, murderer, and outlaw, in the holiest of human ties.
A quarrel, of which this young lady was the inno- cent cause, took place between Plummer and Cleve- land before the marriage of the former. Their old friendship was never re-established. Often during their residence at Sun river an exchange of bitter epithets only relieved their pent-up wrath. Afraid of each other, neither would leave the farm alone. Accordingly they went to Bannack in company, early in the winter of 1862-63. There we will leave them while we return to Florence to inquire after the fortunes of Cherokee Bob, whom we left a few chapters ago " settled in business."
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Desertion of Mining Camps.
CHAPTER XII.
DESERTION OF MINING CAMPS.
EFFECT OF DECAY IN MINES - FLORENCE IN DECLINE - NEW YEAR'S BALL -CYNTHIA GOES AND IS EX- PELLED - WRATH OF CHEROKEE BOB AND WIL- LOUGHBY - ATTACK ON JAKEY WILLIAMS - FIERCE STREET FIGHT - BOB AND WILLOUGHBY KILLED CYNTHIA RETURNS TO MAYFIELD.
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