Vigilantism Gone Bad

Local hell raiser Jack Slade stood out even among the many rabble-rousers who inhabited the frontier mining towns of Virginia City, Montana.  When he was sober, townspeople like and respected Slade through there were unconfirmed rumors he had once been a thief and a murderer.  When drunk, Slade had a habit of firing his guns in bars and making threats, although not hurting anyone, they began to disturb others and fuel the rumors that he was a dangerous man.

The Montana Vigilantes decided to hang Jack Slade in 1864 and took him into custody.  Slade who had committed no serious crime, pleaded for his life and at least a chance to say goodbye to his wife.  Before she could arrive, the vigilantes hung him. 

Not long after the questionable execution, legitimate courts and prisons began to function in Virginia City.  Though sporadic vigilante justice continued until 1867, it increasingly became the public's concern.  In March 1867, miners in one Montana mining district posted a notice in the local newspaper that they would hang 5 vigilantes for every one man they hung.  Seems they weren't so intent on serving justice in lieu of that notice and vigilantism faded out quickly.

Cyrus Skinner

Cyrus Skinner was typical of the thieves and murderers who terrorized the gold fields of Montana in the early 1860s.  Skinner was born in Ohio in 1829 and began his robbing as a teenager.  Immigrating to California in 1850 was arrested for burglary soon after, and served 2 years in San Quentin.  Six months after his release, he was again arrested for burglary in Yuba County, California, being sentenced to 3 years in San Quentin again but escaped and committed 5 more robberies before his recapture and sentencing to San Quentin for 15 years this time.

In early 1859, Henry Plummer, an old friend of Skinner, joined him in San Quentin, and together they escaped for the final time in 1860 and fled to gold camps in northern Idaho where he became of a part of Plummer's gang of criminals.

Skinner moved east over the mountains to Montana gold fields, establishing saloons at Bannock and Virginia City.  Skinner was one of the most brutal of Plummer's gang and occasionally killed his victims just for the fun of it.  By early 1864, he and the gang had taken over 100 lives.

After Plummer was caught and hanged by the Vigilante's, Skinner left town but was tracked down to Hellgate, Montana in January of 1864. He had a morbid fear of being hanged, so he ran, thinking the Vigilantes would shoot him instead.  Then denied him that privilege and recaptured him and hung him, the last of the 24 bandits that were executed by the Montana Vigilantes.

Mr. X

Mr James Beidler, who preferred to be called simply "X" had little formal education and tried his hand at a variety of trades.  He was first a shoemaker, then briefly a brick maker and finally a Kansas farmer.  Beidler was also a supporter of John Brown, a radical abolitionist.  After Brown was captured and executed for his raid on Harper's Ferry, Beidler left Kansas for Texas where he wandered northward and joined the Montana Gold Rush in 1863.

Not long after coming to Montana, Beidler joining the Montana Vigilantes and became one of the organization's most active members.  Unlike most of the members, Beidler didn't care about concealing his identity, but rather welcomed the attention.  Many legends arose about the "Vigilante X" and Beidler did little to discourage them.  He was the principal hangman for most of the victims and survived several narrow escapes in his pursuit of the criminal element.

After helping rid Montana of crime, Beidler became a stagecoach guard and deputy US Marshall.  Although he was successful in both of these jobs, he was often criticized for misuse of his authority.  Maybe he liked the Vigilante in him a bit too much?

Beidler feel on hard times and became dependent on charity from those who remembered his prior service to the communities.  He died in Helena, Montana in 1890 and his certificate is listed as "Public Benefactor".

Next time...the Vigilante's Victims.

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More Trivia on the Montana Vigilantes

During the Vigilantes reign, each morning would be found bodies hanging from any improvised gallows.  Trees, Signposts, wood posts, clotheslines...In 6 weeks, 24 outlaws were hung and countless others just hightailed it out of town before dawn.

Legend has it that the hanging's man wife and children would gather at the hanging, weeping for the man's life.  This would, of course, cause those attending the hanging to feel pity for the man and his family, often asking the law to reconsider...until it was discovered that the women were local prostitutes and the children were orphans playing a role for profit.  There were thereafter banned from the hanging festivities

For Henry Plummer, his execution was more planned. Story goes that the Vigilantes invited him to dinner - with a $60 ham they had confiscated from a stagecoach robbery of his.  The group dined, drank and enjoyed themselves for 3 days, after which they hung Plummer and two of his men in the front yard on January 10, 1864.

Justice for Montana

In the 1860s the leading citizens of Virginia City had formed a semi-secret "vigilance committee" to combat the depredations of a organizations like Henry Plummer's.  Determined to reassert order, this vigilante committee began their work of turning Montana into a law-abiding territory and became known as the Montana Vigilantes.

The Montana Vigilantes had a better interstate/inter-territory operation for criminal punishment than the FBI.  Pledged to secrecy and loyalty, they had their own reign of terror in the region throughout the 1860s.  They would send photographs and descriptions of wanted desperadoes known to other areas such as Colorado.  In Colorado, they would quietly and quickly lynch the criminals without the bother or expense of extraditing them back to Montana.  And, of course, Montana would do the same for them.

The legend goes that if you were known to be in the area, the Montana Vigilantes would pay you a visit at midnight and post a cryptic code on your door: 3-7-77.  You had one of two choices - get out of town before dawn, or hang from the nearest tree.

What did the 3-7-77 mean?  Some historians claim it was the perfect measurements of a grave: 3 feet wide, 7 feet long, 77 inches deep. 


Next time we'll look at a couple members of this so-called law-enforcement group...