THE FORMATION OF THE VIGILANCE COMMITTEE.
The land wants such
As dare with vigor execute the laws,
Her festered members must be lanced and tented;
He’s a bad surgeon that for pity spares
The part corrupted till the gangrene spread,
And all the body perish; he that is merciful
Unto the bad is cruel to the good.
Those who have merely read the account given in these pages of the
execution of Ives, can never fully appreciate the intense popular
excitement that prevailed throughout the Territory during the stormy
and critical period, or the imminent peril to which the principal
actors in the drama were exposed. As an instance of the desire for
murder and revenge that animated the roughs, it may be stated that
Col. Sanders was quietly reading in John Creighton’s store, on
the night of the execution of Ives, when a desperado named Harvey
Meade--the individual who planned the seizure of a Federal vessel at
San Francisco--walked into the room, with his revolver stuck into the
band of his pants, in front, and walking up to the Colonel, commenced
abusing him and called him a ----, etc. Col. Sanders not having
been constituted with a view to the exhibition of fear, continued
his reading, quietly slipping his hand out of his pocket in which
lay a Derringer, and dropping it into his coat pocket, cocked his
revolver as a preparative for a little shooting. Raising his eyes to
the intruder, he observed, “Harvey, I should feel hurt if some men
said this; but from such a dog as you, it is not worth noticing.” A
Doctor who was present laid his hand on a pick handle, and an “affair”
seemed imminent; but John Creighton quietly walked up to the man and
said, “You have to get out of here--quick!” All men fond of shooting,
otherwise than in self-defense, unless they take their victim at an
advantage, never care to push matters to extremities, and Meade quietly
walked off--foiled. He admitted, afterwards, to Sanders, that he had
intended to kill him; but he professed a recent and not unaccountable
change of sentiment.
All the prominent friends of justice were dogged, threatened and
watched by the roughs; but their day was passing away, and the dawn
of a better state of things was even then enlivening the gloom which
overspread society like a funeral pall.
Two sister towns--Virginia and Nevada--claim the honor of taking
the first steps towards the formation of a Vigilance Committee. The
truth is, that five men in Virginia and one in Nevada commenced
simultaneously to take the initiative in the matter. Two days had not
elapsed before their efforts were united, and when once a beginning
had been made, the ramifications of the league of safety and order
extended, in a week or two, all over the Territory, and, on the 14th
day of January, 1864, the COUP DE GRACE was given to the power of the
band by the execution of five of the chief villains, in Virginia City.
The details of the rapid and masterly operations which occupied the few
weeks immediately succeeding the execution of Ives, will appear in the
following chapters.
The reasons why the organizations was so generally approved and so
numerously and powerfully supported, were such as appealed to the
sympathies of all men, who had anything to lose, or who thought their
lives safer under the dominion of a body which, upon the whole, it must
be admitted, has from the first acted with a wisdom, a justice and a
vigor never surpassed on this continent, and rarely, if ever, equalled.
Merchants, miners, mechanics and professional men, alike, joined in
the movement, until, within an incredibly short space of time, the
Road Agents and their friends were in a state of constant and well
grounded fear, lest any remarks they might make confidentially to an
acquaintance might be addressed to one who was a member of the much
dreaded Committee.
The inhabitants of Virginia had especial cause to seek for vengeance
upon the head of the blood-thirsty marauders who had, in addition to
the atrocities previously recounted, planned and arranged the murder
and robbery of as popular a man as ever struck the Territory--one whose
praise was in all men’s mouths, and who had left them, in the previous
Fall, with the intention of returning to solicit their suffrages, as
well as those of the people of Lewiston and Western Idaho, as their
Delegate to Congress. His address, in the form of a circular, is still
to be seen in the possession of a citizen of Nevada.
Lloyd Magruder, to whom the above remarks have special reference, was
a merchant of Lewiston, Idaho. He combined in his character so many
good and even noble qualities, that he was one of the most generally
esteemed and beloved men in the Territory, and no single act of
villainy ever committed in the far West was more deeply felt, or
provoked a stronger desire for retaliation upon the heads of the guilty
perpetrators, than the murder and robbery of himself and party, on
their journey homeward.
In the summer of 1863, this unfortunate gentleman came to Virginia,
with a large pack-train, laden with merchandise, selected with great
judgment for the use of miners, and on his arrival, he opened a store
on Wallace street, still pointed out as his place of business by “old
inhabitants.”
Having disposed of his goods, from the sale of which he had realized
about $14,000, he made arrangements for his return to Lewiston, by way
of Elk City. This becoming known, Plummer and his band held a council
in Alder Gulch, and determined on the robbery and murder of Magruder,
C. Allen, Horace and Robert Chalmers, and a Mr. Phillips, from the
neighborhood of Marysville. During the debate, it was proposed that
Steve Marshland should go on the expedition, along with Jem Romaine,
Doc Howard, Billy Page and a man called indifferently Bob or Bill
Lowry. The programme included the murder of the five victims, and
Marshland said he did not wish to go, as he could make money without
murder. He was, he said, “On the rob, but not on the kill.” Cyrus
Skinner, laughed at his notion, and observed that “Dead men tell no
tales.” It was accordingly decided that the four miscreants above named
should join the party and kill them all at some convenient place on
the road. Accordingly they offered their services to Magruder, who
gave them a free passage and a fat mule each to ride, telling them that
they could turn their lean horses along with the band.
Charley Allen, it seems had strong misgivings about the character
of the ruffians, and told Magruder that the men would not harm him,
(Allen,) as they were under obligations to him; but they would, likely
enough try to rob Magruder. His caution was ineffectual, and Mr.
McK Dennee, we believe, fixed up for the trip the gold belonging to
Magruder.
It is a melancholy fact that information of the intention of the
murderers had reached the ears of more than one citizen; but such was
the terror of the Road Agents that they dared not tell any of the party.
Having reached the mountain beyond Clearwater River, on their homeward
journey, the stock was let out to graze on the slope, and Magruder, in
company with Bill Lowry, went up to watch it. Seizing his opportunity,
the ruffian murdered Magruder, and his confederates assassinated the
four remaining in camp, while asleep. Romaine said to Phillips, when
shooting him down, “You ----, I told you not to come.” The villains
having possessed themselves of the treasure, rolled up the bodies,
baggage and arms, and threw them over a precipice. They then went on to
Lewiston, avoiding Elk City on their route, where the first intimation
of foul play was given by the sight of Magruder’s mule, saddle,
leggings, etc., in the possession of the robbers. Hill Beechey, the
Deputy Marshal at Lewiston, and owner of the Luna House, noticed the
cantinas filled with gold, and suspected something wrong, when they
left by the coach for San Francisco. A man named Goodrich recognized
Page, when he came to ranch the animals with him.
The murderers were closely muffled and tried to avoid notice. Beechey
followed them right through to California, and there arrested them on
the charge of murdering and robbing Magruder and his party. He found
that they had changed their names at many places. Every possible
obstacle was interposed that the forms of law allowed; but the gallant
man fought through it all, and brought them back, on requisition of
the Governor of Idaho, to Lewiston. Page turned State’s evidence, and
the men, who were closely guarded by Beechy all the time, in his own
house, were convicted after a fair trial, and hanged. Romaine, who had
been a barber, and afterwards a bar-keeper, was a desperate villain.
At the gallows, he said that there was a note in his pocket, which he
did not wish to be read until he was dead. On opening it, it was found
to contain a most beastly and insolent defiance of the citizens of
Lewiston. Before he was swung off, he bade them “Launch their ---- old
boat,” for it was “only a mud-scow, any way.”
A reconnoisance of the ground, in Spring, discovered a few bones, some
buttons from Magruder’s coat, some fire-arms, etc. The coyotes had been
too busy to leave much.
Page, at the last advices, was still living at the Luna House. Even
a short walk from home produces, it is said, a feeling of tightness
about the throat, only to be relieved by going back in a hurry. He was
not one of the original plotters, but not being troubled with too much
sense, he was frightened into being a tool.
The perpetration of this horrible outrage excited immense indignation,
and helped effectually to pave the way for the advent of the
Vigilantes. Reviewing the long and bloody lists of crimes against
person and property, which last included several wholesale attempts at
plunder of the stores in Virginia and Bannack, it was felt that the
question was narrowed down to “Kill or be killed.” “Self preservation
is the first law of nature,” and the mountaineers took the right side.
We have to thank them for the peace and order which exist to-day in
what are, by the concurrent testimony of all travellers, the best
regulated new mining camps in the West.
The record of every villain who comes to Montana arrives with him,
or before him; but no notice is taken of his previous conduct. If,
however, he tries his hand at his trade in this region, he is sure of
the reward of his crimes, and that on short notice; at least such is
the popular belief.