On the 18th of July, 1871, “601” hanged George B. Kirk, a man who was considered a very bad character, who had killed a man in California, and who had lately been released from the Nevada State Prison. He had received a note (ticket of leave, as these notes came to be called) from “601,” ordering him to leave the city. He left, but after being gone some time ventured back. Acquaintances told him that to attempt to remain in the town would cost him his life, but he thought otherwise.
The first night he was in the city he was found at the house of a female acquaintance, and, at about 11 o’clock, he was captured by “601,” placed in a buggy, and taken out to the north end of the town, to the Sierra Nevada mining works, and there hanged from the timbers of a flume. Again the cannon in the eastern part of the city boomed, and as the single, heavy shot echoed through the mountains those who heard it said: “Ha! Six Hundred and One! Another man gone!” Had Kirk remained away from the city he would not have been harmed. When he came back in defiance of the order he had received, commanding him to absent himself from the city, the vigilantes found it necessary to make an example of him, as otherwise all who had received “tickets of leave” would have flocked back to the town.
Since the hanging of Kirk, “601” has not found it necessary to “deal with” any others of the desperadoes of the country. A wholesome fear of the organization is felt. All know that a man who behaves himself in even a half-way decent manner is in no danger from the vigilantes.[vigilantes.]
As the reader may desire to know what the regularly constituted authorities do in the case of an execution of the irregular character of those of “601,” I give the verdict of the coroner’s jury in the case of Kirk:
“We find the deceased was named Geo. B. Kirk; was a native of Jackson county, Missouri, aged about 36 years; that he came to his death on the 18th day of July, 1871, by being hanged by parties unknown to us.”
The morning after the hanging, when Kirk’s remains were lying at an undertaking establishment, a man who appeared to be a stranger in the city, observing something of a crowd about the door, approached, and looked in at the body lying in the coffin.
“Man dead?” asked he of a person standing near.
“Yes, sir;” shortly answered the person questioned.
Fidgetting a little the stranger tried it again: “How did he die?”
“Hung.” was the laconic reply.