EXECUTION OF PLUMMER
Retribution followed rapidly upon the heels of disclosure. The
organization of the Vigilantes of Nevada and Virginia City was effected
as quietly as possible, but it embraced nearly every good citizen in
Alder Gulch. Men who before the execution of Ives were seemingly
indifferent to the bloody acts of the desperadoes, and even questioned
the expediency of that procedure, were now eager for the speedy
destruction of the entire band. Every man whose name appeared on the
list furnished by Yager (“Red”) was marked for early examination, and,
if found guilty, for condign punishment. The miners forsook their work
in the gulch to engage in the pursuit and capture of the ruffians,
regardless alike of their personal interests, the freezing weather of a
severe winter, and the utter desolation of a country but partially
explored, immense in extent, destitute of roads, and unfurnished even by
nature with any protection against exposure.
The crisis demanded speedy action. The delay of a day or even an hour
might enable the leading ruffians to escape, and thus defeat the force
of a great and efficient example. The ruffians themselves had taken the
alarm. Many of them were on their return to Walla Walla, and others were
making preparations for leaving. It was of special importance to the
object in hand, that Plummer, the chief of the robber band, should be
the first to suffer. That individual, ignorant of the disclosures that
had been made by Yager, was at Bannack, quietly preparing for an early
departure from the Territory. Calm and placid in outward seeming, his
conduct bore evidence that he was all terror within. He was too familiar
with the extreme phases of character not to suspect that he had possibly
been betrayed by some of the number that had been captured, though much
too polite and sagacious to manifest by his deportment the presence of
any such suspicion. But he was constantly on the alert. Not a beat in
the pulse of the community escaped his notice. Not a strange face that
he did not closely scan, nor a gathering occur whose details escaped
him. The language of looks and signs and movements was as familiar to
him as that of words, and in it he read plainly and unmistakably that
his reign of deception was at an end. The people had found him out, and
he knew it. His only mistake was that he delayed action until it was too
late.
At a late hour of the same night that Dutch John was examined, four
Vigilantes arrived at Bannack from Virginia City, with intelligence of
the organization at that place, asking the coöperation of the citizens
of Bannack, and ordering the immediate execution of Plummer, Stinson,
and Ray. A hurried meeting was held, and the Sabbath daylight dawned
upon a branch organization at Bannack. The day wore on unmarked by any
noticeable event until late in the afternoon. Three horses were then
brought into town, which were recognized as belonging to the three
murderers.
“Aha!” said one citizen to another, “those rascals scent the game and
are preparing to leave. If they do, that will be the last of them.”
“We can block that game,” was the rejoinder.
Several members of the Vigilance Committee met on the spur of the moment
and adopted measures for the immediate arrest and execution of the three
robbers. Stinson and Ray were arrested without opposition,—one at Mr.
Toland’s cabin, and the other, stretched at the time upon a gaming
table, in a saloon. The party detailed to arrest Plummer found him at
his cabin, in the act of washing his face. When informed that he was
wanted he manifested great unconcern, and proceeded quietly to wipe his
face and hands.
“I’ll be with you in a moment, ready to go wherever you wish,” he said
to the leader of the Vigilantes. Tossing down the towel and smoothing
his shirt-sleeves, he advanced towards a chair on which his coat was
lying, carelessly remarking: “I’ll be ready as soon as I can put on my
coat.”
One of the party, discovering the muzzle of his pistol protruding
beneath the coat, stepped quickly forward, saying as he did so, “I’ll
hand your coat to you.”
At the same moment he secured the pistol, which being observed by
Plummer, he turned deathly pale, but still maintained sufficient
composure to converse in his usual calm, measured tone. The fortunate
discovery of the pistol defeated the desperate measures which a
desperate man would have employed to save his life. With his expertness
in the use of that weapon, he would doubtless have slain some or all of
his captors. He was marched to a point where, as designated before the
capture, he joined Stinson and Ray, and thence the three were conducted
under a formidable escort to the gallows. This structure, roughly framed
of the trunks of three small pines, stood in a dismal spot three hundred
yards from the centre of the town. It had been erected the previous
season by Plummer, who, as sheriff, had hanged thereon one John Horan,
who had been convicted of the murder of Keeley. Terrible must have been
its appearance as it loomed up in the bright starlight, the only object
visible to the gaze of the guilty men, on that long waste of ghastly
snow. A negro boy came up to the gallows with ropes before the arrival
of the cavalcade. All the way, Ray and Stinson filled the air with
curses. Plummer, on the contrary, first begged for his life, and,
finding that unavailing, resorted to argument, and sought to persuade
his captors of his innocence.
“It is useless,” said one of the Vigilantes, “for you to beg for your
life; that affair is settled, and cannot be altered. You are to be
hanged. You cannot feel harder about it than I do; but I cannot help it
if I would.”
“Do not answer me so,” persisted the now humbled and abject suppliant,
“but do with me anything else you please. Cut off my ears, and cut out
my tongue, and strip me naked this freezing night, and let me go. I beg
you to spare my life. I want to live for my wife,—my poor absent wife. I
wish to see my sister-in-law. I want time to settle my business affairs.
Oh, God!” Falling upon his knees, the tears streaming from his eyes, and
with his utterance choked with sobs, he continued,
“I am too wicked to die. I cannot go blood-stained and unforgiven into
the presence of the Eternal. Only spare me, and I will leave the country
forever.”
To all these, and many more petitions in the same vein, the only answer
was an assurance that his pleadings were all in vain, and that he must
die. Meantime, Stinson and Ray discharged volley after volley of oaths
and epithets at the Vigilantes, employing all the offensive language of
their copious vocabulary. At length the ropes were declared to be in
readiness, and the stern command was given, “Bring up Ned Ray.”
Struggling wildly in the hands of his executioners, the wretched man was
strung up, the rope itself arresting his curse before it was half
uttered. Being loosely pinioned, he thrust his fingers under the noose,
and, by a sudden twist of his head, the knot slipped under his chin.
“There goes poor Ned Ray,” whined Stinson, who a moment later was
dangling in the death-agony by his side. As Stinson was being hoisted,
he exclaimed, “I’ll confess.”
Plummer immediately remarked, “We’ve done enough already, twice over, to
send us to hell.”
Plummer’s time had come. “Bring him up,” was the stern order. No one
stirred. Stinson and Ray were common villains; but Plummer, steeped as
he was in infamy, was a man of intellect, polished, genial, affable.
There was something terrible in the idea of hanging such a man. Plummer
himself had ceased all importunity. The crisis of self-abasement had
passed, hope fled with it, and he was now composedly awaiting his fate.
As one of the Vigilantes approached him, he met with the request,
“Give a man time to pray.”
“Certainly,” replied the Vigilante, “but say your prayers up there,” at
the same time pointing to the cross-beam of the gallows-frame.
The guilty man uttered no more prayers. Standing, erect under the
gallows, he took off his necktie, and, throwing it over his shoulder to
a young man who had boarded with him, he said,
“Keep that to remember me by,” and, turning to the Vigilantes, he said,
“Now, men, as a last favor, let me beg that you will give me a good
drop.”
The fatal noose being adjusted, several of the strongest of the
Vigilantes lifted the frame of the unhappy criminal as high as they
could reach, when, letting it suddenly fall, he died quickly, without a
struggle.
The weather was intensely cold. A large number of persons had followed
the cavalcade, but were stopped by a guard some distance from the
gallows. The Vigilantes surrounded the bodies until satisfied that the
hangman’s noose had completed their work, when they formed and marched
back to the town. The bodies were afterwards buried by the friends of
the criminals.
Buck Stinson was born near Greencastle, Indiana. His parents removed to
Andrew County, Missouri, when he was about fourteen years of age. He was
a bright and very studious boy, was devoted to his books, which he read
almost constantly, and gave promise of genius; and many who knew him
predicted for him a brilliant and honorable future. His family was
highly respectable.
Henry Plummer was born in the State of Connecticut, and was in the
twenty-seventh year of his age at the time of his death. His wife, who
had gone to her former home in the States three months previous to his
execution, was entirely ignorant of the guilty life he was leading, and
for some time after his death believed that he had fallen a victim to a
conspiracy. She was, however, fully undeceived, and the little
retrospect which her married life with him afforded, convinced her of
his infamy.
Many of the citizens of Montana doubted whether the name by which he was
known was his true one; but its genuineness has been established in many
ways, and, among others, by the following incident, which I here relate
as well to illustrate the subtlety of Plummer, as to show the standing
and character of his family relations.
In the Summer of 1869, soon after the completion of the first
transcontinental railway, being in New York City, I was requested by
Edwin R. Purple, who resided in Bannack in 1862, to call with him upon a
sister and brother of Plummer. He learned from them that they had been
misled concerning the cause of their brother’s execution by letters
which he wrote to them in 1863, in which he told them that he was in
constant danger of being hanged because of his attachment to the Union.
They honestly believed that his loyalty and patriotism had cost him his
life, and they mourned his loss not only as a brother, but as a martyr
in the cause of his country. From the moment that they heard of his
death, they had determined, if ever opportunity offered, to pursue and
punish his murderers, and, with that purpose in view, were about to
leave by railroad for Ogden, Utah, and complete the remaining five
hundred miles of the trip to Montana by stage coach. The next day,
accompanied by Mr. Purple, I had an interview with them, and found them
to be well-educated, cultivated people. They were very eager in their
desire to find and punish the murderers of their brother, and repeatedly
avowed their intention to leave, almost immediately, in pursuit of them.
Both Mr. Purple and I used all the plausible arguments we could summon
to dissuade them from the undertaking, without revealing any of the
causes which led to Plummer’s death. All to no purpose. Finding them
resolved, we concluded that, rather than allow them to suffer from the
deception they labored under, we would put in their hands Dimsdale’s
“Vigilantes,” with the assurance that all it contained relative to their
brother was true. We urged them to satisfy themselves, from a perusal of
it, of the utter fruitlessness of their contemplated journey. The
following day we called upon the brother, who, with a voice broken by
sobs and sighs, informed us that his sister was so prostrated with grief
at the revelation of her brother’s career that she could not see us. He
thanked us for making known to them the terrible history, which
otherwise they would have learned under circumstances doubly afflicting,
after a long and tedious journey.