JAMES STUART
Who set the first sluices in Montana
“On the twenty-fifth of June, 1862, news reached us that four steamboats had arrived at Fort Benton loaded with emigrants, provisions, and mining tools, and on the twenty-ninth Samuel T. Hauser, Frank Louthen, Jake Monthe, and a man named Ault, who were the advance guard of the pilgrims to report upon the country from personal observation, came into our camp. After prospecting on Gold Creek for a few days, Hauser, Louthen, and Ault started for the Salmon River mines by way of the Bitter Root Valley. Jake Monthe, that harum-scarum Dutchman who wore the hat that General Lyon had on when he was killed in the battle of Wilson’s Creek, continued prospecting along Gold Creek.
“Walter B. Dance and Colonel Hunkins arrived on the tenth of July, and on the fourteenth we had the first election ever held in the country. It was marked by great excitement, but nobody was hurt—except by whiskey.
“On the fifteenth, Jack Mendenhall, with several companions, arrived at Gold Creek from Salt Lake City. They set out for the Salmon River mines, but having reached Lemhi, the site of a Mormon fort and the most northern settlement of the ‘Saints,’ they could proceed no farther in the direction of Florence owing to the impassable condition of the roads, so they cached their wagons, packed their goods on the best conditioned of their oxen, and turned off for Gold Creek. They lost their way and wandered about until nearly starved, when they fortunately found an Indian guide, who piloted them through to the diggings. On the twenty-fifth Hauser and his party, having failed to reach Florence, also returned nearly starved to death.”
The leading men among this little band of pioneers were admirably qualified to grapple with the varied difficulties and dangers incident to their exposed situation. The brothers Stuart, Samuel T. Hauser, and Walter B. Dance were among the most enterprising and intelligent citizens of Montana, and to the direction which they, by their prudence and counsel, gave to public sentiment, when with twenty or thirty others, they organized the first mining camp in what is now Montana, was the Territory afterwards indebted for the predominance of those principles which saved the people from the bloody rule of assassins, robbers, and wholesale murderers. They were men bred in the hard school of labor. They brought their business habits and maxims with them, and put them rigidly into practice. Having heard of the lawlessness which characterized the Salmon River camps, and of the expulsions which had taken place there, they were on the alert for every suspicious arrival from that direction.
On the twenty-fifth of August, William Arnett, C. W. Spillman, and B. F. Jernigan arrived at Gold Creek from Elk City. They opened the first gambling establishment in Montana and satisfied the good people of Gold Creek before the close of their first day’s residence that they were the advance guard of the outcasts of Salmon River. Victims flocked around them in encouraging numbers. The highway of villainy seemed to stretch out before them with flattering promise. Four days had elapsed since their arrival. The little society was fearfully demoralized, and whiskey and dice ruled the hour, when the Nemesis appeared. Two men, Fox and Bull, came in pursuit of the gamblers for horse-stealing. Creeping upon them while busy at play, the first notice the poor wretches had of their approach was to find themselves covered with double-barrelled guns which were instantly discharged. Arnett fell, riddled with bullets. Fox’s gun missed fire. Jernigan threw up his hands, and he and Spillman were arrested without resistance. Arnett died with a death clutch of his cards in one hand and revolver in the other, and was so buried.
The next day Jernigan and Spillman were fairly tried by a jury of twenty-four miners. The former was acquitted, the latter sentenced to be hung, which sentence was executed in the afternoon of the following day. This was the first expression of Vigilante justice in that portion of the Northwest which afterwards became Montana. Mr. Stuart says, “Spillman was either a man of a lion heart or a hardened villain, for he died absolutely fearless. After receiving his sentence, he wrote a letter to his father with a firm, bold hand that never trembled, and walked to his death as unto a bridal.”
The news of the discovery of the Oro Fino and Florence mines was received at Denver in the Winter of 1861–62, and caused a perfect fever of excitement. Colonel McLean, Washington Stapleton, Dr. Glick, Dr. Leavitt, Major Brookie, H. P. A. Smith, Judge Clancy, Edward Bissell, Columbus Post, Mark Post, and others, all left early in the Spring, taking the route by the overland road, from which they intended to diverge into the northern wilderness at some point near Fort Bridger. Another party under the leadership of Captain Jack Russell left soon after, going by the way of the Sweetwater trail, South Pass, and the Bridger cut-off.
My readers who have never seen the plains, rivers, cañons, rocks, and mountains of the portion of our country travelled by these companies, can form but a faint idea from any description given by them of the innumerable and formidable difficulties with which every mile of this weary march was encumbered. History has assigned a foremost place among its glorified deeds to the passage of the Alps by Napoleon, and to the long and discouraging march of the French army under the same great conqueror to Russia. If it be not invidious to compare small things with great, we may assuredly claim for these early pioneers greater conquests over nature on their journey through the northwestern wilderness than were made by either of the great military expeditions of Napoleon. In addition to natural obstacles equally formidable and of continual occurrence for more than a thousand miles, their route lay through an unexplored region, beset by hostile Indians, bristling with mountain peaks, pierced with large streams, and unmarked with a single line of civilization. Their cattle and horses were obliged to subsist upon the scanty herbage which put forth in early spring. Swollen by the melting snows of the mountains, the streams, fordable in midsummer, could now be crossed only by boats, and frequently the passage of a single creek consumed a week of time. Seeking for passes around and through the ranges, ascending them when no such conveniences could be found, passing through cañons, and clambering rocks, filled the path of empire through western America with discouragement and disaster.
