DAVID OPDYKE
This man, on some accounts the most noted among the roughs of Idaho, was
of patrician origin,—the degenerate scion of a family which boasted
among its members some of the leading citizens of New York. He was born
in the vicinity of Cayuga Lake, New York, about 1830, and could not have
been more than thirty-six years of age at the close of his infamous
career. He went to California in 1855, where, for want of more congenial
occupation, he was employed for two years by the California Stage
Company as a stage driver. Thence, in 1858, he sailed to British
Columbia, but finding no business there suited to his tastes, returned
the same year to California, spending two unprofitable years in Yuba
County, and two years succeeding in Virginia City, Nevada. Excited by
the intelligence from the northern mines, in 1862 he went to Florence
and Warren in Idaho, and the Fall of that year found him in Boise
County, where he located and worked a valuable claim on the Ophir. In
1864, with an accredited fortune of fifteen hundred dollars, he removed
to Boise City and bought a livery stable in the centre of the town,
which is still pointed out to visitors as having been the rendezvous of
one of the most reckless and numerous bands of robbers and road agents
in the mountains.
Opdyke’s associations were bad, and he was suspected of aiding in the
circulation of spurious gold dust, at that time an extensive business
with the roughs of the country. His stable soon became the headquarters
of all the suspicious characters of Boise, Owyhee, and Alturas counties.
From these and other circumstances, the public was prepared to believe
that all the thefts and robberies occurring in the country were
committed by persons connected with the “Opdyke gang,” but so careful
were they to cover their tracks, that no positive evidence could be
found against them.
A gentleman by the name of Parks went from Cincinnati, Ohio, to Baker
County, Oregon, in 1862, where he was elected sheriff. He was very much
respected. Early in the Fall of 1864, he went to Idaho, and in Owyhee
County purchased and located claims on several quartz lodes, specimens
of which he selected to exhibit to his Eastern friends, and packed
carefully in a valise. Coming to Boise City, preparatory to his
departure for the States, he passed through the streets with the heavy
valise in his hand, which, being observed by some of the “Opdyke gang,”
was supposed by them to contain a large quantity of gold dust. He
remained in Boise four or five days, and was narrowly watched by the
roughs.
On the morning of his departure, at three o’clock, several of the
robbers left by a trail, and coming up with the coach seven miles east
of the city, caused the driver to stop, fired upon Parks, rifled his
pockets of two or three hundred dollars in money, and departed with the
much-coveted valise. Their chagrin at finding it to contain mere quartz
specimens may be better imagined than described. Parks returned in the
coach to Boise, and died in less than a week of his wounds. He was
buried by the Masons. No clew to his murderers could be found at the
time; but in some of the criminal developments made afterwards, it was
ascertained that Charley Marcus and three others of the “gang” were
directly concerned in the attack.
The next murderous outrage in which the “Opdyke gang” was concerned, was
the murder and robbery, in Port-Neuf Cañon, of five coach passengers
from Montana, in the Summer of 1865. It is now known that Opdyke
furnished arms and ammunition for the party from Idaho, which engaged in
this expedition, and shared in the booty. Seven or eight of his gang
left Boise at the time, and were joined at Snake River by an equal party
of Montana roughs, who participated with them in the robbery. Frank
Johnson, ostensibly the keeper of a public-house eight miles below Boise
City, was one of the confederates in this crime. His house was long a
rendezvous for robbers, and his partner Beech kept a similar
meeting-place at the Overland Ferry on Snake River. Beech was hung by
the Vigilantes in Nevada in 1865. Johnson eluded the pursuit of the
Vigilantes, fled to Powder River, Oregon, where he was arrested by
Captain Bledso, Wells, Fargo and Company’s messenger, on a charge of
stealing horses. Found guilty on his trial, he was sentenced to ten
years’ imprisonment in the Oregon Penitentiary.
Soon after the Port-Neuf robbery, information was given to the Montana
authorities, that one Hank Buckner, an escaped murderer from that
jurisdiction, had turned up in Idaho, and was living in Boise City. In
the Fall of 1863, Buckner, in a dispute with one Brown in the Madison
Valley, drew his pistol and shot him. Buckner was arrested, examined in
Virginia City, and placed in custody of the sheriff, from whom, by means
never made public, he escaped. The sheriff, a very respectable man, was
examined by the Vigilantes, and acquitted of blame in the matter; but
the story he told, which was positively credited by the Vigilantes,
ought to have led to further investigation, as it implicated others.
Governor Green Clay Smith sent Neil Howie to Idaho, with a requisition
upon Governor Lyon for the delivery of Buckner to the Montana
authorities. The “Opdyke gang,” of which Buckner was one, concealed the
fugitive, on Howie’s arrival, in Dry Creek, ten miles distant from Boise
City. Reenan, the sheriff of the county, found and arrested him.
Governor Lyon being at Lewiston, Buckner was examined, and despite the
efforts of his friends, who flocked in hundreds to his defence, was
ordered by the magistrate to be confined in jail in Idaho City, until an
order for his surrender could be obtained. Before this could be
received, a writ of _habeas corpus_ was issued by the probate judge of
the county, and Buckner was released on straw bail. Howie, seldom
thwarted, as we have seen in earlier portions of this history, returned
to Montana, greatly crestfallen, without his prisoner. Buckner, who was
believed to have been a leader in the Port-Neuf robbery, is still at
large.
At its session of 1864–65, the Legislature of Idaho set off and provided
for the organization of Ada County, appointing the election of officers
in March, 1865. The “Opdyke gang” was a strong powder in the Democratic
party. At its request Opdyke was nominated for sheriff, and by a party
vote largely in the ascendant, elected by a small majority. Soon after
his election, under a pretence of official duty, he avowed the intention
of breaking up a Vigilante organization of about thirty persons, which
had been formed in the Payette River settlement, thirty miles from Boise
City, for the purpose of freeing their neighborhood from two or three
horse-thieves and manufacturers of spurious gold dust. The Vigilantes
were a great terror to the roughs, and interfered with all their
unlawful and bloody plans for money-making. In pursuance of this design,
Opdyke and his coadjutors had in some mysterious manner obtained the
names of all the Vigilantes, and procured a warrant for their arrest.
The proceedings, to all outward seeming, were to be conducted in legal
form; but in making the arrest, Opdyke and his _posse_ proposed to shoot
the leaders of the Vigilantes, and screen themselves under the plea that
they had resisted. It was arranged that fifteen or twenty of the “Opdyke
gang” would leave Boise City, armed with double-barrelled shotguns and
revolvers, and unite at Horse-shoe Bend road with as many more from the
country, similarly equipped. They would then proceed with their warrant
to the settlement, and, by stealing a march upon the citizens, easily
effect their diabolical purpose.
Intelligence of their plan came to the ears of the citizens of Boise
City. They secretly despatched a messenger to the Payette Vigilantes
with the information. The thirty members of that order armed and
assembled at once in self-protection. Opdyke, at the head of fifteen of
the worst men in the Territory, whom he had summoned as a _posse
comitatus_, left Boise City at four o’clock P.M. to make the arrest. The
party from the country failed to connect with him, and his party marched
down alone. The Vigilantes, numbering two to one of his band, met him.
They were quite as determined as their opponents. Surprised at the
preparation they had made to resist him, Opdyke held a parley, and was
obliged to comply with all the terms prescribed by the Vigilantes. These
were, that they would march to Boise City and answer the warrant, but
they would not allow Opdyke to disarm them or “get the drop” on them. By
the aid of counsel, the complaint against them was dismissed, and they
were discharged, thus bringing to a humiliating conclusion a deep-laid
conspiracy against the lives of some of the best citizens of the
Territory. Nearly all the Vigilantes had been partisans of Opdyke, and
of course, after this manifestation of his hostility, were very bitter
in their opposition to him. Soon after this the county commissioners
ordered the district attorney, A. G. Cook, to institute criminal
proceedings against Opdyke for permitting a criminal to escape, and also
for embezzlement, they having discovered that he was a defaulter to the
county in the sum of eleven hundred dollars. Cook, however, resigned his
office. A. Hurd, who was appointed to succeed him, prepared indictments
which were sustained by the grand jury on both charges. Opdyke paid the
amount for which he was a defaulter, and resigned his office, and the
prosecutions were withdrawn. He, however, swore that he would be
bitterly revenged upon the grand jury, which, being composed chiefly of
men of his political faith, ought, he said, to have saved him, right or
wrong, out of party consideration. The grand jury held a meeting, and
sent to him to ascertain his intentions. He was glad to escape further
molestation by disclaiming all hostile designs against them.
Early in March, 1865, the citizens of Southern Idaho fitted out an
expedition against the marauding bands of Indians which, for some months
previous, had been engaged in predatory warfare in that part of the
Territory. Opdyke, as leader, with thirty of his gang, volunteered.
Money, provisions, horses, and other equipment were furnished by the
people. A man by the name of Joseph Aden was employed to pack the
stores, for which purpose eleven ponies were provided and placed in his
charge, with the understanding that he should receive them in part
payment for his services. In pursuance of that agreement, he immediately
branded and ranched them.
Among the volunteers was a young man of nineteen, by the name of Reuben
Raymond. He had performed faithful service in the Union army, and was
just discharged at Fort Boise. He was quite a favorite with the people,
and, though necessarily intimate at this time with the “Opdyke gang,”
was perfectly honest and trustworthy. The expedition ran its course,
and, like all expeditions of the kind, was barren of any marked results.
Opdyke _cached_ a large portion of the stores on Snake River for the
future use of his road agent band; and the roughs, all the more daring
and impudent for the confidence the people had reposed in them, became a
greater burden to the community than ever.
Aden turned his ponies out on the commons on the south side of Boise
River, claimed as a ranche by Opdyke and one Drake,—the latter assuming
to exercise a sort of constructive ownership to the land. Designing to
swindle Aden out of his property in the ponies, Opdyke told Drake not to
surrender them to Aden except on his written order. Aden employed
attorneys and got possession of the ponies. Opdyke caused his arrest for
stealing; and Aden, leading his ponies, which he hitched in front of the
justice’s office, appeared for trial. He was discharged, and the crowd
dispersed; but Opdyke’s attorney remained, and persuaded the magistrate
to issue an order for the surrender of the ponies to his client. Opdyke
and his friends took them away, and they were never seen in Boise City
afterwards.
Aden commenced a suit against Cline, the justice, for damages, and
recovered a judgment of eight hundred dollars, which Cline was obliged
to pay. Cline resigned his office. At Aden’s examination, Reuben Raymond
had sworn to the identity of the ponies, which was disputed by nearly
all the roughs in the expedition, and it was almost solely on his
testimony that Aden was discharged. The “Opdyke gang” were very angry
with him; and on the morning of April 3, 1865, a few days after the
examination, while Raymond was employed in a stall in Opdyke’s stable,
John C. Clark, a noted rough, stepped before the stall with his revolver
in his hand, and commenced cursing Raymond. Opdyke and several of his
associates, together with a number of good citizens, were standing near.
Clark finally threatened to shoot Raymond.
“I am entirely unarmed,” said Raymond, at the same time pulling open his
shirt bosom, “but if you wish to shoot me down like a dog, there is
nothing to hinder you. Give me a chance, and I will fight you in any way
you choose, though I have nothing against you.”
Clark covered Raymond for a moment or more, with his pistol, and then
with an opprobrious epithet, said, “I will shoot you, anyway,” and,
taking deliberate aim, fired, and killed Raymond on the spot. This
murder produced the wildest excitement, and Clark, who had been
immediately arrested, was taken out of the guard-house the second night
afterwards, and hanged upon an impromptu gibbet between the town and the
garrison. Threats of vengeance were publicly proclaimed by the “Opdyke
gang,” Opdyke himself improving the occasion to tell several of the
grand jury men, who had found the indictment already mentioned against
him, that they would not live to walk the streets of Boise City many
days more. It was also reported that the roughs intended to burn the
city, and not leave a house standing.
The citizens, fully aroused to the dangers of the crisis, organized a
night patrol. Every inhabitant of the city was armed, and all coöperated
for the purpose of clearing the country of every suspected person in it.
While plans were maturing for this purpose, the roughs became uneasy,
and one after another began to disappear until but few remained. Opdyke
took the alarm for his own safety, and on the twelfth of April,
accompanied by John Dixon, a notorious confederate in crime, departed by
the Rocky Bar road, and brought up at a cabin thirty miles distant. A
party of Vigilantes followed in close pursuit. They captured him during
the night, and conducting him ten miles farther on the road to Syrup
Creek, hanged him under a shed between two vacant cabins, on the
following morning. His companion Dixon, who was caught on the march, was
hanged at the same time.
When this intelligence became known in Boise City, every suspicious
character disappeared, and the vilest gang of ruffians in Idaho was
effectually broken up. Opdyke had many friends, and was naturally a man
of genial qualities, but he had become corrupted by the evil
associations contracted in Idaho Territory.
It was believed by many, at the time of Opdyke’s execution, that he was
hanged for his money by some of the employees of the Overland Stage
Company. This, however, was a mistake in his case. The Vigilantes of
Boise City had determined upon his death before he left the city, a
measure they deemed necessary to rid the country of his associates, and
establish peace in the community.
It was true, however, that some of the Overland Stage Company’s
employees were justly suspected of robbery and murder. On one occasion,
two miners from Boise City, returning to the States, indiscreetly
exhibited a large quantity of gold dust at Gibson’s Ferry on Snake
River, which excited the curiosity of some of the observers. They were
arrested on a pretence of having spurious gold dust, and hanged by some
half dozen of the stage company’s employees. Their bodies were burned,
but no account was ever given of the gold dust. No one was deceived as
to the character of this act. It was the cold-blooded, heartless murder
for their money, of two honest miners who were returning to their homes
with their hard-earned savings. This was the popular judgment.