Hanging the Sheriff: A Biography of Henry Plummer (Paperback)

by Jeffrey J. Smith (Author) "When Idaho became a territory, March 4, 1863, a totally outlandish situation developed immediately..." (more)
Key Phrases: mining frontier, road agents, trial records, Nevada City, Henry Plummer, Montana Historical Society Archives (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Review
Revisionist history has always intrigued me-it is fascinating whenever serious scholars produce a well-documented version of events contradicting a long-accepted myth. Hanging the Sheriff is revisionist history at its best. For over a century, historians have accepted the accounts of Montana's vigilante era presented by writers Thomas Dimsdale and Nathaniel Langford. Writing shortly after the vigilante lynching spree of 1864, Langford and Dimsdale both concluded that the Bannack sheriff Henry Plummer led a secret life. He masterminded a gang of outlaws who were responsible for more than 100 killings and countless robberies throughout the gold camps of Montana Territory. Eventually, according to this version, a group of responsible citizens formed a vigilance committee, which strung up Plummer and his murderous associates and restored peace and order to the mining communities. Subsequent historians have accepted the Dimsdale/Langford version of events virtually without questions. K. Ross Toole concluded: "There is no evidence that these hangings were without justification." Rex Myers and William Long, in a textbook still used in many Montana schools, noted that "conditions seemed to warrant some dramatic action to end a potential reign of terror." Finally, in 1987, Mather and Boswell took a fresh look at Montana's infamous vigilante era. By unearthing eyewitness accounts, contemporary newspapers, diaries, and court records, the pair did what both the vigilantes and their latter-day apologists foiled to do. They gave Henry Plummer a fair trial. What they found was on honest lawman who had been involved in several gunfights both in California and Montana Territory. As a sheriff, Plummer had courageously carried out his duties. He had brought many outlaws to justice single-handedly. But in both California and Montana, Plummer ran into trouble because of his political convictions. In California he lost a close election for the state assembly. Later he shot a husband involved in a domestic dispute and was sentenced to prison. After examining court records, Mother and Boswell concluded that Plummer had acted in self-defense. Plummer's "shady" reputation followed him to Montana, but Bannack miners thought enough of him to elect him sheriff. A staunch Democrat, Plummer soon clashed with the local Republican leaders including Wilbur Fisk Sanders and future territorial governor Sidney Edgerton. They viewed the young sheriff as a formidable obstacle to their own political ambitions. So Mather and Boswell contend that the vigilante leaders had deeper motives than a simple desire to rid the territory of bandits. The authors examined the character and motives of each witness who pointed out Plummer as the leader of Bannack's outlaws. Most were ruffians cornered by the vigilantes, who told them what they thought they wanted to hear, hoping in vain to escape the hangman's noose. The authors argue persuasively that the reign of terror never really existed at all. There were only about a dozen killings in Montana's mining camps, and most of these could be traced to individual outlaws operating alone. Furthermore, such crimes did not diminish once the vigilantes allegedly restored order to the frontier. Since its first appearance in 1987, Hanging the Sheriff has been the topic of debate among historians. Despite its persuasive case, most have chosen to cling to the myth of the "Plummer Gang," their horrible crimes, and the brave vigilantes who brought them to justice. Legends die hard. Perhaps this paperback reprint of Mather and Boswell's out-of-print book will change a few more minds. The new edition contains the entire text of the original plus an interesting new introduction by Idaho historian Merle Wells and an afterward by co-author Ruth Mather, who remains convinced that Plummer was an innocent victim. Unfortunately, the publisher did not include Mather and Boswell's fine introduction to the original edition. Also, photographs reproduced in this edition are not nearly as crisp as those found in the original. But these shortcomings are minor, and the book deserves a wide readership. -- Montana Library Focus, By Don Spritzer; 11 April 1999

It's too bad Montana's famous vigilantes didn't give Sheriff Henry Plummer a trial before hanging him on a freezing January night in 1864. It's even worse that R.E. Mather and F.E. Boswell weren't there to defend him.

Mather and Boswell, authors of "Hanging the Sheriff: A Biography of Henry Plummer," have done as good a job of rehabilitating the reputation of one of the state's most notorious characters as a good defense attorney. Albeit, as every defense attorney does from time to time, the authors occasionally stretch the envelope of credulity.

After all, Plummer did kill people in California and Nevada and later in Montana-although the authors put the best face on the incidents, leaving the reader to conclude that each was a case of self-defense. And well they may have been in the rough and tumble years of the American frontier simmering with gold lust and the heat of the Civil War broiling a few hundred miles to the east.

The Henry Plummer they describe is a decent, courageous, hardworking. honest, honorable and even romantic young man, misunderstood by his contemporaries and the victim of the fact that his enemies survived and wrote the history of early Montana.

In their histories, the apologists for the vigilantes probably went overboard in the opposite direction. defending vigilante actions as a response to a criminal conspiracy that probably never existed-at least not to the degree that would justify their own murder spree.

The real Henry Plummer, all of 27 when he was lynched, probably fell somewhere between the two versions.

Wherever the reader's sentiments fall, the extent of research Mather and Boswell undertook in following Plummer's career is impressive.

Their work was first published in 1987. To prevent it from going out of print, Jeffrey J. Smith, former historic preservation officer at Virginia City, and Mark Weber, president of the Virginia City Preservation Alliance, teamed up to form Historic Montana Publishing.

In a new edition of "Hanging the Sheriff" released last year, they added an introduction by Merle Wells, an Idaho historian, and an afterward by Mather.

The authors' research even extended to Plummer's family tree. They surmise that he was born in Maine in 1832 to Jeremiah and Elizabeth Plumer, the surnames differing by just one "m." Plummer, they believe, was descended from a long line of puritans, and "his values and ways of thinking did not stray as far from these roots as we have been led to believe."

They trace his voyage from New York to San Francisco in May 1852 and pick up his trail again in Nevada City, Calif., in l853. He ranched and mined, apparently doing well for himself.

By the next year, Plummer had opened a bakery in the burgeoning mining community and by 1856 had taken up Democratic political causes, winning election as marshal.

It was in Nevada City that Plummer killed for the first time, the victim being a nasty character named John Vedder. According to Mather and Boswell, Plummer was intervening in a child-custody dispute between Vedder and his wife, Lucy.

The authors follow the case through newspaper accounts and court transcripts, riveting reading material. They explore in detail the evidence that supported Plummer's innocence and his defense attorney's claims that his client had been railroaded by a prejudiced jury.

The jury found him guilty of second-degree murder. He appealed and won a new trial, but the verdict was the same. Plummer was sentenced to 10 years and was taken to the new the state prison at San Quentin.

Plummer, apparently near death from tuberculosis, was pardoned about six months later in 1859. He moved back to Nevada City, where, in 1861, he had another fatal encounter, this time in a house of ill fame during a quarrel with a man the authors describe as a "secessionist antagonist."

Newspaper accounts noted that the victim struck the first blow with a knife and Plummer shot him in response. Plummer became an outlaw when he left town before the inquest.

According to the authors, Plummer had made many political enemies and had infuriated some in the community for his vigilance in enforcing the law during his term as marshal. He did not want to risk a third trial in Nevada City, they contend.

In 1862, Plummer had made his way to Bannack, where the history of Montana was being born.

Not long after, he killed Jack Cleveland in a gunfight at the Goodrich Saloon. Apparently. it was generally conceded that Cleveland got what he deserved. Plummer was acquitted and elected sheriff in the spring of 1863.

During Plummer's tenure as sheriff that lasted less than a year, the vigilantes perceived a murderous crime wave and determined that a well-organized gang lead by Plummer was stalking the frontier. But, as Mather and Boswell argue, there wasn't much evidence to support either the fact of a serious crime wave or the theory of a criminal gang.

It was probably just as hard then as now to separate the. fact from the legend, or to tell the good guys from the bad. From start to finish, "Hanging the Sheriff" is fascinating, although it's a good idea to be wary of the conclusions the authors reach from sometimes weak evidence. Plummer's marriage to Electra Bryan is a good example. Less than three months after she married him, Electra decided to go home to Iowa.

Mather and Boswell attribute her departure to the fact that Plummer's duties as sheriff, when combined with his attentions to his mining claims, kept him away from her too much.

"There were enjoyable experiences in Bannack for those with a companion, sitting on the doorstep on a warm evening or walking to a mountain meadow to pick wild flowers or hear meadowlarks; but Electra was always alone, and it was impossible she could continue to survive such loneliness when she had never yet been weaned from her older sister," the book says.

She never spoke of Plummer later in life and did nothing to try to restore his reputation, the authors tell us. They also inform us that neighbors gossiped about angry words and, bitter arguments between the newlyweds. Plummer, no doubt, could he irritable after a difficult day, they concede.

"There may have been some initial disappointments and some serious problems,'' the authors reason. "But not likely any conflicts sufficient to destroy their love so soon."

Other eyes viewing the same evidence could be equally justified in concluding that Plummer was an abusive husband. Adding his reputation as a womanizer and a tendency toward violence to the equation, her sudden disappearance makes more sense in that light than assertions that she was homesick and alone too much.

Anyone who has ever studied Montana history and its tumultuous beginnings in the gold fields of southwestern Montana, would find "Hanging the Sheriff" a good read.

If it's a bit to laudatory of the sheriff's virtues, it all the same provides a perspective that was long overlooked. -- Lorna Thackery of the Billings Gazette

Product Description
This is a ground-breaking look at the sheriff elected in Bannack, Montana in 1863 and hanged by vigilantes in January, 1864. This is also a revisionist history of the Montana Vigilantes. After thirty-five years of research, the authors conclude that the conventional story of the Vigilante activities in Montana's gold camps is erroneous.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 218 pages
• Publisher: Historic Montana Pub; 2 edition (January 25, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0966335503
• ISBN-13: 978-0966335507
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.8 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #736,771 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A truth that is more exciting and intriguing than the myth!, October 11, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: Hanging the Sheriff: A Biography of Henry Plummer (University of Utah Publications in the American West, Vol 21) (Hardcover)

Custer was a great military strategist, WA Clark was an honest man, The buffalo were not killed off by the white man, The Indians were murdering godless savages, Henry Plummer was a ringleader of desperadoes that killed 101 people in a year---------NOT! So much for the Hollywood style myths perpetuated by less than thorough historians. This book brilliantly debunks the Henry Plummer myth through careful reasearch, and demonstrates that the Vigilantes killed numerous innocent people (along with a few crooks) with nothing more than a desire to eliminate whoever got in their way. This is a well documented read that for the first time demonstrates that the truth indeed is more fascinating than the myth covering up the mob mentality of the Vigilantes. I grew up in Montana and looked at these Vigilantes as heroes. But after reading this brilliant delivery of the facts.....I find myself somewhat feeling burned by the history writers who self-servingly smeared everyone they hung (after they hung them).......including a verifiable honest hardworkding hispanic in Bannack that the Vigilantes referred to as the "Greaser". Of course there is author bias contained in the book, but behind the style and content of the authors are hard undeniable facts........facts that tell perhaps one of the most fascinating stories in the history of the west--a story untold until these two authors presented it. Read this book if you can get your hands on it. I did, and I am glad I did!! Was Henry Plummer a victim? Well if Custer was a Brillilant military strategist, then he was not. But only you can answer that question.