Although not the first exhibition of Vigilante justice, the one I here record was the most thorough and severe, and stands as an example for all new settlements that in the future may be similarly afflicted, for it was not until driven to it both by the frequent and unremitting villainies of the ruffians, and by the necessities of a condition for which there was no law in existence, that the people resorted to measures of their own, and made and enforced laws suited to the exigency. But enough! If the history fails to remove the prejudices of my readers, nothing I can say will do so. It speaks for itself, and though there are a few of its later occurrences I would gladly blot, there is nothing in its early transactions, nothing in the design it unfolds, nothing in the results which have followed, that on a similar occasion I would not wish to see reproduced.
VIGILANTE DAYS AND WAYS
CHAPTER I
HENRY PLUMMER
The Snake River or Lewis fork of the Columbia takes its rise in a small lake which is separated by the main range of the Rocky Mountains from the large lakes of the Yellowstone, that being less than twenty miles distant from it. The Yellowstone, the Madison, Jefferson and Gallatin, forming the head waters of the Missouri, and the Snake, the largest tributary fork of the Columbia, all rise within or near the limits of the territory recently dedicated by the Government to the purpose of a National Park.
As contrasted with the large rivers of regions other than the one it traverses, the Snake River would be a very remarkable stream, but there, where everything in nature is wonderful, it is simply one of the marked features in its physical geography. From its source to its junction with the Clarke fork of the Columbia, a distance of nine hundred miles, it flows through a region which, at some remote period, has been the scene of greater volcanic action than any other portion of North America. Unlike other streams, which are formed by rivulets and springs, this river is scarcely less formidable in its appearance at its commencement than at its termination. It leaps into rapids from the moment of its exit, and its waters, blackened by the basaltic bed through which it flows, roar and fret, and lash the sides of the gloomy cañon which it enters, presenting a scene of tumult and fury, that extends far beyond the limits of vision. This initiatory character it maintains, alternated with occasional reaches of quiet large expansions, and narrow contractions, fearful and tremendous cataracts, to its debouchure into the Columbia. Its channel and its course, alike sinuous, have obtained for it its name. Navigation is impeded by reason of fearful rapids, every few miles of the first five hundred after leaving the lake. The shores for most of the distance are barren rock, always precipitous, often inaccessible from the river, and frequently engorged by lofty mountains and rocky cañons which shut its inky surface from the light of day. The scenery, though on the most tremendous scale, is savage, unattractive, and frightful. Its waters lash the base of the three Tetons, so celebrated as the great landmarks of this portion of the continent. As they approach the Columbia they break into frequent cataracts, the largest of which, the great Shoshone Fall, with a perpendicular descent of two hundred and fifty feet, presents many points of singular interest.
On the river, twelve miles above its mouth, at a point accessible from the Columbia by small steamboats, stands the little village of Lewiston, which, at the time of which I write, was the capital of all the vast Territory that had been just organized under the euphonic name of Idaho. This Territory then included Montana and Wyoming, which had not been organized. Lewiston, being the nearest accessible point by water to the recently discovered gold placers of Elk City, Oro Fino, Florence, and Warner Creek, grew with the rapidity known only to mining towns into an emporium. In less than three months from the time the first immigrants commenced to establish a settlement there, several streets of more than a mile in length were laid out, thickly covered on either side with dwellings, stores, hotels, and saloons, chiefly constructed of common factory cotton. A tenement of this kind could be extemporized in a few hours. The frame was of light scantling or poles, and the cloth in most cases fastened to it with tacks. Seen from a distance, the town had the appearance of being built of white marble, but truly
“’T is distance lends enchantment to the view,”
for upon entering it the fragility of the material soon disabused the vision and the admiration of the beholder. At night, when lights were burning in these frail tenements, a stranger would think the town illuminated. The number of drinking and gambling saloons was greatly in excess of stores and private dwellings, and to nearly all of these was attached that most important attraction of a mining town, the hurdy-gurdy. The sound of the violin which struck the ear on entering the street, was never lost while passing through it, and at many of the saloons the evidence of the bacchanal orgies which were in progress inside was often apparent in the eagerness exhibited by the crowd which surrounded the building without. The voices of auctioneers on the street corners, the shouts of frequent horsemen as they rode up and down the streets, the rattle of vehicles arriving and departing for the miners’ camps, troops of miners, Indians, gamblers, the unmeaning babble of numerous drunken men, the tawdrily apparelled dancing women of the hurdy-gurdys, altogether presented a scene of life in an entirely new aspect to the person who for the first time entered a mining town. It is a feature of modern civilization which cannot elsewhere be found, search the whole world over. The thirst for gold is shared by all classes. Those who are unwilling to labor, in their efforts to obtain it by less honorable means, flock to the mines to ply their guilty vocations. Hence there is no vice unrepresented in a mining camp, and no type or shade of character in civilized society that is not there publicly developed. The misfortune is, as a general thing, that the worst elements, being most popular, generally preponderate.
Our Civil War was raging at the time that Lewiston became a mining emporium. Sympathizers with each party fled to the mines, to escape the possible responsibilities they might incur by remaining in the States. They carried their political views with them, and identified themselves with those portions of society which reflected their respective attachments. Loyalty and Secession each flourished by turn, and were the prolific causes of frequent bloody dissensions. There was no law to restrain human passion, so that each man was a law unto himself, according as he was swayed by the evil or good of his own nature. The temptations to evil, not so numerous, were much more powerful than were ever before presented to a great majority of the immigrants. Gambling and drinking were made attractive by the presence of debased women, who lured to their ruin all who, fortunate in the possession of gold, could not withstand their varied devices.
In the Spring of 1861, among the daily arrivals at Lewiston, was a man of gentlemanly bearing and dignified deportment, accompanied by a woman, to all appearance his wife. He took quarters at the best hotel in town. Before the close of the second day after his arrival his character as a gambler was fully understood, and in less than a fortnight his abandonment of his female companion betrayed the illicit connection which had existed between them. Alone, among strangers, destitute, the poor woman told how she had been beguiled, by the promises of this man, from home and family, and induced to link herself with his fortunes. A fond husband and three helpless children mourned her loss by a visitation worse than death. Lacking moral courage to return to her heart-broken husband and ask forgiveness, she sought to drown her sorrow by plunging still deeper into the abyss of shame and ruin. Soon, alas! she became one of the lowest inmates of a frontier brothel. This latest crime of Henry Plummer was soon forgotten, or remembered only as one of many similar events which occur in mining camps.