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.