Henry Plummer

Plummer was born William Henry Handy Plumer in about 1832 in Addison, Maine, the last of six children in a family whose ancestors had first settled in Maine in 1634, when it was still a part of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. His father died while Henry was in his teens. In 1852, at age 19, Plummer headed west to the gold fields of California. He changed the spelling of his surname to Plummer after moving west. His mining venture went well: within two years he owned a mine, a ranch, and a bakery in Nevada City. In 1856, Plummer was elected sheriff and city manager. Supporters suggested that he should run for state representative as a Democrat. However, the party was divided, and without its full support, he lost. == Becoming an outlaw ==

On September 26, 1857, Plummer shot and killed John Vedder. As city marshal of Nevada City, California, Plummer had been providing protection of Lucy Vedder, John's wife, who was seeking to escape from her abusive husband. Plummer claimed he was acting in self-defense in the incident, but was convicted of second degree murder. He won an appeal for a retrial and was convicted again and sentenced to ten years in San Quentin. But in August 1859, supporters wrote to the governor seeking a pardon based on his alleged good character and civic performance. The governor granted the pardon because of Plummer's poor health as a result of tuberculosis, which was incurable at the time. In 1861, Plummer tried to carry out a citizen's arrest of William Riley, who had escaped from San Quentin; in the attempt, Riley was killed. Plummer turned himself in to the police, who accepted that the killing was justified. Fearing that his prison record would prevent a fair trial, they allowed Plummer to leave the state. == Life of a criminal ==

Plummer headed to Washington Territory where gold had been discovered. There he became involved in a dispute that ended in a gunfight won by Plummer. He decided to leave the West and return to Maine. On the way back east, waiting for a steamboat to reach Fort Benton, Montana, on the Missouri River, Plummer was approached by James Vail. He was recruiting volunteers to help protect his family from Indian attacks at the mission station he was attempting to start in Sun River, Montana. No passage home being available, Plummer accepted, along with Jack Cleveland, a horse dealer who had known Plummer in California. While at the mission, both Plummer and Cleveland fell in love with Vail's attractive sister-in-law, Electa Bryan; Plummer asked her to marry him and she agreed. As gold had recently been discovered in nearby Bannack, Montana, Plummer decided to go there to try to earn enough money to support them both. Cleveland followed him. In January 1863, Cleveland, nursing his jealousy, forced Plummer into a fight and was killed. The altercation took place in a crowded saloon, and observers agreed that Plummer had killed his foe in self-defense. Plummer was viewed very favorably by most town residents, and in May he was elected sheriff of Bannack. ==The Vigilantes==

Between October and December 1863, the rate of robberies and murders in and around Alder Gulch increased significantly, and the citizens of Virginia City grew increasingly suspicious of Plummer and his associates. Notable criminal acts by alleged members of the Plummer gang included: • On October 13, 1863, Lloyd Magruder was killed by road agent Chris Lowrie. Magruder was an Idaho merchant leaving Virginia City with $12,000 in gold dust from goods he had sold there. Several of the men he hired to accompany him back to Lewiston, Idaho, were criminals. Four other men in his party were also murdered in camp—Charlie Allen, Robert Chalmers, Horace Chalmers and William Phillips—by Lowrie, Doc Howard, Jem Romaine and William Page. • On October 26, 1863, the Peabody and Caldwell's stage was robbed between the Rattlesnake Ranch and Bannack by two road agents believed to be Frank Parish and George Ives. Bill Bunton, the owner of the Rattlesnake Ranch who joined the stage at the ranch, was also complicit in the robbery. The road agents netted $2,800 in gold from the passengers and threatened them all with death if they talked about the robbery. On December 23, 1863, two days after the Ives trial, leading citizens of Virginia City and Bannack formed the Vigilance Committee of Alder Gulch in Virginia City. They included five Virginia City residents, led by Sanders. Between January 4 and February 3, 1864, the vigilantes arrested and summarily executed at least 20 alleged members of Plummer's gang. Shortly after its formation, the Vigilance Committee dispatched a posse of men to search for Carter, Graves, and Bunton, known associates of Ives. The posse was led by Captain James Williams, the man who had investigated the Tiebolt murder. Near the Rattlesnake Ranch on the Ruby River, the posse located Erastus "Red" Yeager and George Brown, both suspected road agents. While traveling under guard back to Virginia City, Yeager made a complete confession, naming the majority of the road agents in Plummer's gang, and Henry Plummer. The posse found Yeager and Brown guilty and hanged them from a tree on the Lorrain's Ranch on the Ruby River. On January 6, 1864, vigilante Captain Nick Wall and Ben Peabody captured Wagner on the Salt Lake City trail. The vigilantes transported Wagner to Bannack, where he was hanged on January 11, 1864. By this time, Yeager's confession had mobilized vigilantes against Plummer and his key associates, deputies Buck Stinson and Ned Ray. Plummer, Stinson, and Ray were arrested on the morning of January 10, 1864, and summarily hanged. The two youngest members of the gang were said to be spared. One was sent back to Bannack to tell the rest to get out of the area, and the other was sent ahead to Lewiston to warn gang members to leave that town. (Lewiston was the connection from the territory to the world, as it had river steamboats that traveled to the coast at Astoria, Oregon, via the Snake and Columbia rivers.) Plummer was known to have traveled to Lewiston during the time when he was an elected official in Bannack. The hotel registry records with his signature during this period have been preserved. The large-scale robberies of gold shipments by gangs ended with Plummer's and the alleged gang members' deaths. Gang member Clubfoot George was hanged at about the same time with Plummer. ==Posthumous trial==

Plummer was given a posthumous trial in 1993 which led to a mistrial. The jury was split 6–6. ==In popular culture==

• Francis M. Thompson's 1914 article in The Massachusetts Magazine (Vol. VI, No. 4 - pages 159-190) describes his relationship with Plummer and presents some of the details of the case, from a personal view of being a mercantile owner in Bannack during that period. In 2004, the Montana Historical Society gathered Thompson's memoirs into a book, A Tenderfoot in Montana. • Ernest Haycox's 1942 historical novel Alder Gulch depicts Plummer as handsome and well-spoken, but a cold and calculating murderer and thief without conscience. He portrays the vigilantes as justified but equally remorseless, as they conducted their lynching executions by slow strangulation hangings. • Il passato di Carson [The Past of Carson], a storyline in the Italian comics series "Tex" (nos. 407 to 409, September to November, 1994), is loosely based upon the real story of the "Innocents" and features a character, Raymond Clemmons, inspired by Plummer. • Henry Plummer appears in a fictional portrayal in the 2013 video game, Call of Juarez: Gunslinger. The game depicts him radically different to his real-life counterpart, as still being alive sometime after 1881, according to the protagonist, and is appropriately depicted as an older man. Though unlike other historical discrepancies mentioned by characters in the game, this is never touched upon. ==References==