CAPTURE AND EXECUTION OF R. C. RAWLEY.
“Justice is blind; but she has a long memory and a strong arm.”
PROVERB.
Since the execution of Plummer, Ray, Stinson, Pizanthia and Wagner,
there had been no execution in Bannack. The example had been
sufficient, and, though it could not be said that there was no crime
in Bannack, yet the change from the wild lawlessness of the roughs,
and the reign of terror caused by the presence of Plummer and his
satellites, was most encouraging. Scores of men silently and quickly
left Bannack for other regions. The dread of the “Vigilantes” was
strongly impressed on every person, and though it is not easy to
suppose that the nature of the desperadoes can be materially changed,
yet it is tolerably certain, to those who have witnessed the effect of
what the heralds would call “a noose pendant from a beam proper,”--that
men of the worst morals and most unquestioned bravery--men whom nothing
else could daunt--still maintain a quietness of demeanor that, under
any other circumstances than the fear of retribution by the halter,
would surely be foreign to their very nature.
Among those who dreaded the arrival of the day of vengeance was a man
passing by the assumed name of R. C. Rawley. He was no common loafer,
originally; but was under another name and with a fairer character, a
merchant in a large Western city, from which, owing to what precise
discreditable cause we are uninformed, authentically he emigrated to
Colorado, and there gradually sank down to the character and standard
of a “bummer.” It was evident to all who knew him that he was a man
of education and of some refinement; occasionally remarks made in his
sober moments attested this, but a long course of brutal dissipation
had rendered his acquirements worthless, and had so debased his morals,
that he associated only with the thieves and marauders whose guilty
career terminated as these pages have shown, upon the gallows. Robbed
of all self-respect, and even ambition, R. C. Rawley, on his arrival in
this country, attached himself as a hanger-on to the Road Agents and
was the constant tool and companion of Stinson, Forbes Lyons and their
associates. He sometimes seemed to become ashamed of his conduct, and
worked for short periods, honestly earning his living; but such spells
of good conduct were only occasional. He returned, uniformly, to his
old habits, “like the sow that is washed to her wallowing in the mire.”
Rawley was a good looking man, and, but for his habit of intoxication,
he must have been handsome.
In the winter of 1863-4, Rawley, though not closely identified with
the band, yet bore a suspicious character, owing to his connection
and association with them. He was seldom, indeed, on the road; but he
acted as an inside spy. As soon as the first blow was struck at the
Road Agents, he became nervous and excited in his demeanor, and warned
by the promptings of a guilty conscience, he suddenly left Bannack, on
a winter’s morning of such severity that nothing but the belief that
detection and punishment awaited him, could have justified a sane man
in undertaking a journey of any considerable length. He was popularly
supposed to have gone south or to Boise.
In an ill-starred hour, in the month of September, 1864, unexpectedly
to most people, but with the knowledge of the Vigilantes, who had kept
track of his movements, he suddenly returned to Bannack, thinking,
doubtless, that all danger was past. He came back in rags, to find all
his old friends gone, and looked like a lone chicken on a wet day.
For some time after his return he kept quiet, and went to work for a
man who lived down the canyon, in the neighborhood of New Jerusalem.
Those who knew him, state that when he was sober, although he was not a
first-class workman, yet he labored steadily and well; but, as may be
conjectured, his frequent visits to Bannack, which always involved a
spree of drunkenness, greatly impaired his usefulness.
During the time when he was under the influence of strong drink, his
old predilections were brought prominently forward, and he did not
hesitate to utter threats of an unmistakable kind, against the members
of the Committee; and also to express his sympathy and identification
of interest with the men who had been hanged, stating that they were
good men, and that the Committee were ---- strangling ----, etc.
This kind of conduct was allowed to remain unpunished for some six
weeks or two months; but as Rawley began to get bolder and to defy
the Committee, it was resolved that an end should be put to such
proceedings.
A meeting of the Vigilantes was called, and it was determined that his
case should be thoroughly investigated. This was done, and, during the
trial, evidence of the most convincing kind was adduced, of his actual
complicity in the outrages perpetrated by the band; of his being a
spy for them, and of his pointing out favorable opportunities for the
commission of robbery. As his present line of action and speech left
no doubt that he would 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.
A party was detailed for the work, and going down unobserved and
unsuspected to New Jerusalem, they arrested him at night, and brought
him up to Bannack, without the knowledge of a single soul, except his
actual captors. As it was deemed necessary for the safety of society,
that a sudden punishment should be meted out to him, in such a manner
that the news should fall upon the ears of his associates in crime,
like a thunderbolt from a clear sky, he was taken to Hangman’s Gulch,
and, maintaining the most dogged silence and the most imperturbable
coolness, to the last moment, he was hanged on the same gallows which
Plummer himself had built for the execution of his own accomplice,
Horan, and on which he himself had suffered.
The first intelligence concerning his fate was obtained from the sight
of his dead body, swinging in the wind on the following morning. Before
his corpse was taken down for burial, a photographic artist took a
picture of the scene, preserving the only optical demonstration extant
of the reward of crime in Montana.
Thus died R. C. Rawley. A “passenger” or two attended his final march
to the grave, and, shrouded in the rayless gloom of a night as dark
as despair, thus perished, unshrieved and unknelled, the last of the
tribe of spies, cut-throats and desperadoes, who, in the early days of
Bannack, had wrought such horrors in the community.
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.