July, 1920 
359 
many crimes committed will illustrate 
the deliberate and rapacious malice that 
prevailed at Virginia City. 
In the summer of 1863, Lloyd Mac- 
gruder, a thrifty merchant of Lewiston, 
Idaho, learning of the great influx of 
miners into Virginia City, decided to take 
a stock of merchandise across the moun- 
tains to the mining town. Pack horse 
transportation was the only means of 
conveyance. As Macgruder’s stock was 
selected with a view to miners’ require- 
ments, it was soon sold. Gold being the 
medium of exchange, Macgruder received 
for his merchandise, gold dust and nug- 
gets worth about fourteen thousand dol- 
lars. The malicious eyes of a bandit, 
by name of Plummer, had watched the 
exchange of goods for gold. He decided 
to rob Macgruder, while the latter was 
returning home through the desolate 
mountains. In order to consummate his 
plan, Plummer boldly suggested to Mac- 
gruder that they travel together. Al- 
though Macgruder suspected that the de- 
sign of Plummer was robbery, perhaps 
murder, necessity forced him to comply. 
Refusal meant pursuit and ambush; ac- 
quiescence meant an encounter in some 
remote mountain fastness. In the dil- 
emma, Macgruder reasoned that he could 
better guard against surprise by per- 
mitting Plummer to accompany him. The 
entire party consisted of only a few men ; 
half the number being friends of Mac- 
gruder, while the remainder were accom- 
plices of Plummer’s. 
On the east side of the Bitter Root 
Mountains the highwaymen succeeded in 
surprising and killing Macgruder and his 
friends. Their bodies were thrown over 
a precipice. As the gold was very heavy 
one of Macgruder’s mules was used to 
carry it. This proved Plummer’s un- 
doing; for, as the robber passed through 
Lewiston, the marshal recognized the 
mule. He furthermore noticed that the 
cantinas, borne by the mule, were heavy, 
as if filled with gold; and though he sus- 
pected foul play he had no proof that 
Masgruder was not alive. He was with- 
out evidence of what lawyers term the 
corpus delicti. But, so strong was his 
suspicion that he arranged for a search- 
ing party to go back over Plummer’s 
trail, while he would follow the suspects. 
The searching party readily discovered 
the scene of the murder, and identified 
the bodies. Plummer meanwhile was 
making his way to the Pacific Coast with 
the marshal in close pursuit. At San 
Francisco, Plummer and his confeder- 
ates secured passage for Australia; but 
shortly before the departure of the 
steamer the marshal received a telegram 
stating that the bodies of the murdered 
men had been found. Thereupon the 
murderers were arrested, and after trial, 
they were convicted and executed. 
The many deliberately planned mur- 
ders made the formation of some organ- 
ization of society for their prevention im- 
perative. The courts seemed powerless 
for punishing and preventing crime; con- 
sequently the Vigilantes came into being. 
This organization was composed of strong 
men who believed in law and order. 
Their purpose was not, as is the case 
with lynchers, to take the law into their 
Looking up the Canyon toward Yellowstone Falls 
own hands; but they did purpose to en- 
force the law which the courts seemed 
powerless to execute. An executive com- 
mittee was elected among the member- 
ship whose duty it was to try those 
charged with crime. 
Virginia City awoke, on the morning 
of January 13, 1864, to find every en- 
trance to the town picketed by armed 
men and sentinels stationed in groups 
throughout the town. There was no 
possible escape for the guilty. The execu- 
tive committee of the Vigilantes went 
quickly into session, heard the evidence 
of murders and robberies committed in 
the vicinity, found Boone Helm, Jack 
Gallagher, Frank Parish, Haze Lyons, 
and Club Foot George guilty and or- 
dered that they be executed forthwith. 
The guards promptly arrested the .con- 
demned men, and they were hanged from 
the rafters of an unfinished building. 
As the rude gallows were not pro- 
vided with a trap one of the pris- 
oners asked the question, just before he 
was hanged, that for years was a byword 
of the West. “I never attended a hang- 
ing before,” said he, “do you jump off or 
slide off?” It was the graves of men 
such as these that I saw on the little knoll 
back of the town. 
W ITH the advent of automobile tour- 
ing in the West, every settlement 
has revived an interest in local 
history. Such history possesses unusual 
attraction for some tourists, and causes 
them to tarry at points that, otherwise, 
they would hasten by. The stories of the 
Vigilantes were mere legends until travel- 
ers in motor cars began to visit Virginia 
City. The inhabitants then decided to 
identify and mark the graves of the con- 
demned in order to renew interest in their 
pioneer history. The greybeards of the 
city constituted themselves a committee 
to identify and mark each grave. As 
was to be expected, they disagreed. They 
all agreed, however, that if the grave of 
Club Foot George was identified, the 
others could be located. And so insistent 
was one of the patriarchs of the correct- 
ness of his recollection of the grave of 
Club Foot George, that the grave was 
opened in quest of the club foot and a 
skeleton, having such a deformity, was 
exhumed from this grave. Consequently 
the tourist is assured that his eyes may 
Staley’s ranch at Henry’s Lake — a noted resort for anglers and duck hunters 
