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(gentle music)

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[Dr. Toole] There are, I think undeniably,

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new winds sweeping across America.

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They are indeed gusty and changeable,

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but they are new and they will alter

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what happens in Montana.

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And whether for better or worse

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does depend on Montanans and how they

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or you read those winds.

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(upbeat music)

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[Narrator] Before we proceed with today's

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lecture about the gold rush,

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we'll hear one of Dr.
Toole's most colorful

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anecdotes about Charles M. Russell.

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You know you can't go
into a saloon or a bar

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in Montana without seeing Russell prints

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all over the damn wall.

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He's got thousands of
imitators bucking horses,

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horses riding into saloons,

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people holding up stagecoaches,

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and so forth and so on.

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And Russell who started it all

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has therefore become a kind of a cliche.

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Let me just run down his
life very briefly for you

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because I submit there has never been

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a good biography written of Russell.

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There oughta be.

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There are all kinds of biographies,

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most of them are real bombs.

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Very few of them are accurate.

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He was born in St. Louis in 1865.

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He came west in 1880.

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His family, hoping ardently,

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that they would get this cowboy business

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out of him by sending him out here

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and letting him find out
how rough it really was,

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they expected him back in St. Louis.

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He didn't go back.

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He moved in with an old, old trapper

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by the name of Jake
Hoover in the Pigeye Basin

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on the South fork of the Judith River.

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Jake Hoover was an authentic mountain man.

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It's often said how could
Russell have painted,

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since everybody admires his accuracy,

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and the fact that he was
painting the contemporary scene,

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how could he have painted the
mountain man with any accuracy

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because he didn't live
in the 1820s and 1830s.

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The answer, I think,
probably is Jake Hoover.

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He lived with Hoover
and trapped with Hoover

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an old time mountain man for years

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and you will see a lot of his paintings

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which are fur trade paintings

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with I think startling fidelity.

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He moved away from Jake Hoover's place

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and went to live with the
Blood Indians in Canada.

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The Bloods are a branch of the Blackfeet.

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He obviously fell in love there

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with a Blood Indian woman
by the name of Kyoma,

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whom he painted over
and over and over again.

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You rarely see those paintings

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because they were not popular
with the calendar companies

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who seized on Russell
at a very early game.

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So, you don't usually see
his paintings of women.

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The paintings of Kyoma,

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three or four of them are my favorites,

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I think they are absolutely magnificent.

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He got married in 1896 to a
young lady in Cascade, Montana.

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He stopped drinking most of the time

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and he started painting rather seriously.

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But it's important for you to remember

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that between 1884 and
1896 he was a cowboy.

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And that's all he was,

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and that's what he wanted to be.

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Now, he was a horse wrangler,

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which is not terribly
high on the totem pole

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in the cowboy priority,

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but nevertheless he was a cowboy.

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He always carried with him
watercolors and beeswax

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in his pocket which he
sculpted all occasions.

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His most famous painting is
really a very bad painting,

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he painted it in 1887.

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He was working for the OH Ranch,

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owned by Jesse Phelps,

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big ranch over in the Judith Gap country.

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Phelps queried the foreman out there,

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"How are the cattle doing
in this god awful winter."

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The foreman turned to Russell and said,

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"What the hell am I gonna tell him?"

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And Russell said, "Nothing.

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"I'll draw him a picture."

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That is the last of the five thousand

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which many, many of you have seen.

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It's in Helena, in the historical society.

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It shows a steer with his rib sticking out

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surrounded by wolves.

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It's a very, very famous painting.

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It's actually owned by the
Montana Stockgrowers Association.

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In any event, by 1896
when he married Nancy,

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he begins to paint seriously,

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or if he doesn't, she makes him.

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She was one tough lady.

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Up until that time he had painted strictly

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and sculpted strictly for fun and drinks.

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That's where the great collection in the

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Mint Saloon in Great Falls came from.

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He traded those paintings for drinks

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for the whole house as
well as for himself.

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All of those paintings are now in Texas,

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which shouldn't surprise you.

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We export most of our excellence
in this country, in Montana.

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He was clearly something of an eccentric.

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He wore a red sash around his waist,

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and even when he began
or Nancy, I should say,

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began to make money,

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he had a terrible time taking
his painting seriously.

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She sold a painting of his
rather early in the game

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for 10 thousand dollars to an oil man.

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This was in the 19 teens
and his remark was,

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"Nancy, them's dead man's prices.

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"Don't be silly."

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There are various attitudes
about Russell's work today.

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As I said, first of all
he is a cliche to you.

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I would suggest that when
you next go to Great Falls,

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or to Helena where the two
good Montana collections are,

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that you take a little
time to take a fresh look

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at what this man did,

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and that you forget his imitators,

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and concentrate on the fact that

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this had never been done before.

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(gentle music)

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[Narrator] The official discovery of gold

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in Montana in 1859

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led to a rapid settlement
of the territory.

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Thousands of young men
arrived from the West coast

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hoping to strike it rich.

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Boom towns popped up
anywhere gold was spotted

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and farmers and ranchers moved to these

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remote areas to feed the towns.

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They practiced placer
mining those first few years

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before it was discovered
that the real wealth

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and minerals lay underground.

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Placer mining was simple.

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One only searched the grounds surface

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for gold dust and nuggets.

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It required very little skill and money.

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For four years this mining method

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brought prosperity to the area.

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The first boom town to form
was Bannack in mid-1862.

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Smaller towns emerged around the area,

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but it wasn't until May of 1863

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that the boom really went into full swing.

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The greatest placer rush in Montana

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took place in Alder Gulch,

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70 miles east of Bannack.

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Over the next year and a half,

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more than 10 thousand
people came to the Gulch,

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settling in Virginia and Nevada cities.

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In it's first five years,

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the Gulch produced between 30 and 40

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million dollars worth of gold.

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Most mining towns came and went

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as quickly as their populations did.

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Helena was one of the exceptions.

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In July of 1864,

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gold was discovered in Last Chance Gulch.

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Within four years it proved to be among

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the leading gold producers
in the territory.

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The government in these volatile towns

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was generally inefficient and corrupt.

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Crime was rampant
especially in the early days

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of the gold rush years,

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vigilantism and lynch laws took over

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when local and federal regulation failed.

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One of the best known examples of this

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was the Plummer gang,

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a group of notorious road
agents led by Henry Plummer,

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who murdered over 100 people.

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In December of 1863,

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a vigilante committee
formed to destroy the gang.

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In a month and a half they had succeeded.

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By 1866, the peak of the placer boom,

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Montana ranked second
in U.S. gold production.

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Dr. Toole discusses the impact

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this boom and bust industry had on the

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development of the Montana Territory.

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I'm going to talk today
about the mining frontier.

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This was a frontier that moved generally

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in the early period, in
the 1860s and early 1870s.

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Moved from west to east,
not from east to west.

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From about 1858 to the 1880s,

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this frontier expands
into many parts of the

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interior of the Rocky Mountain west,

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the southwest, and the central west,

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you might say, from California.

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Because from 1848 to 1858 gold mining,

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placer mining, which I
will describe in a moment,

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was conducted only in California.

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I mention this simply because
the methods of mining,

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not only the methods of mining,

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but government was western in origin,

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which I suspect is the
only reason that it worked.

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In any event,

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this frontier expanded very
rapidly from California

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simply because the placer
mines the gold was gone.

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One finger from California goes
down into the far southwest,

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another into Colorado,

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another third into Nevada,

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and a fourth into the
northwest which included

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British Columbia, Eastern
Oregon, and Washington,

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Idaho, and western Montana.

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I may make a distinction now,

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this is very important.

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I will in the early period be talking

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only about placer mining.

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Most of you know what it is.

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The distinction between placer mining

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and quartz mining was very important.

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Placer mining involves loose gold, nuggets

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or dust in stream beds.

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Quartz gold, quartz mining involves a

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gold which is embedded in rock or quartz.

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The distinction is very
important simply because

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placer mining did not require capital.

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You had to have a pick, a shuffle, a pan

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and some rough lumber for
sluice boxes and that was it.

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But quartz mining was a
very different breed of cat.

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A good number of these camps

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when the placer mining ran out,

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there was quartz gold there,

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but now you had to have capital

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because now you had to crush the ore

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and that required big stamp
nails, huge iron stamps.

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A big boiler, usually fed by wood,

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it's a big, expensive elaborate plan.

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Once you get into the quartz period,

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in other words,

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you're talking about a lot of capital

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and you're talking about
bringing it in from the outside,

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since obviously it isn't here.

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In any event,

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the rushes into Montana,

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which I'm not gonna plague you with

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in terms of chronology and the
dates and so forth and so on.

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I do want you to remember
that it literally

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is into a howling sort of a wilderness.

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There isn't really anything here at all.

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East of the mountains there's Fort Benton,

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a sleepy, little adobe village

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which is not long renamed Sleepy.

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It's to become a terrific boom town.

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West of the mountains you've got

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Fort Owen up the Bitteroot,

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Fort Connah up the Flathead
and that's about it.

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So, that all of a sudden
starting in 1860 or late 1859,

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tens of thousands of human beings,

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mostly coming from the West,

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pour into all of the gulches,

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literally into a howling wilderness.

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When the Civil War ends in 1864,

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you also get a resumption of the

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placer frontier, moving from East to West.

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And a very heavy
proportion of these people,

263
00:13:43,639 --> 00:13:47,060
relatively, were ex-Confederates.

264
00:13:47,060 --> 00:13:48,610
They didn't have anything to go home to

265
00:13:48,610 --> 00:13:50,980
because the South was pretty well ruined.

266
00:13:50,980 --> 00:13:53,970
So, what you get is a very, very polyglot

267
00:13:53,970 --> 00:13:56,439
kind of a population here,

268
00:13:56,439 --> 00:13:58,887
constantly poised to move onward

269
00:13:58,887 --> 00:14:03,080
and there is a very bad time
for some of these people,

270
00:14:03,080 --> 00:14:04,983
as we will see in a moment.

271
00:14:06,090 --> 00:14:07,470
I wish you'd bear in mind that

272
00:14:07,470 --> 00:14:09,570
this is a floating population.

273
00:14:09,570 --> 00:14:11,663
It's extraordinarily peripatetic.

274
00:14:12,650 --> 00:14:15,480
Placer mining is for the
most part very ephemeral,

275
00:14:15,480 --> 00:14:16,883
it runs out very quickly.

276
00:14:18,180 --> 00:14:22,813
Towns would arise and a
year later be ghost towns.

277
00:14:23,830 --> 00:14:27,560
But the thing that is imperative
that you remember is this,

278
00:14:27,560 --> 00:14:32,290
that it was the miner that
the farmers came to feed.

279
00:14:32,290 --> 00:14:36,210
It was the miner that the
merchants came to sell to

280
00:14:36,210 --> 00:14:38,993
and that the thieves came to steal from.

281
00:14:40,112 --> 00:14:43,098
When you have merchants
and farmers and thieves,

282
00:14:43,098 --> 00:14:44,666
as you well know,

283
00:14:44,666 --> 00:14:48,292
you have what we commonly
call civilization.

284
00:14:48,292 --> 00:14:50,870
(laughing)

285
00:14:50,870 --> 00:14:53,020
I would like you also
to bear this in mind,

286
00:14:54,210 --> 00:14:56,340
TV has done this to us, I guess,

287
00:14:56,340 --> 00:15:00,818
and pulps and movies,

288
00:15:00,818 --> 00:15:04,140
the prospector is always an old, old man

289
00:15:04,140 --> 00:15:06,510
with a long, gray beard,

290
00:15:06,510 --> 00:15:10,960
with a burrow named George to
whom he talks all the time.

291
00:15:10,960 --> 00:15:13,780
Well, George wouldn't have
lasted very long out here

292
00:15:13,780 --> 00:15:15,450
and neither would the old fussbucket.

293
00:15:15,450 --> 00:15:17,680
This was a young man's frontier.

294
00:15:17,680 --> 00:15:20,400
Most of these people were teenagers.

295
00:15:20,400 --> 00:15:24,170
So, that the old movie fussbucket,

296
00:15:24,170 --> 00:15:25,300
please get out of your mind.

297
00:15:25,300 --> 00:15:27,589
He would never have made it.

298
00:15:27,589 --> 00:15:31,220
There were some very
prestigious and important people

299
00:15:31,220 --> 00:15:33,210
and I'll come to them in a moment.

300
00:15:33,210 --> 00:15:35,900
But let's run very quickly
through the discoveries

301
00:15:35,900 --> 00:15:38,040
to dispel certain myths from your mind

302
00:15:38,040 --> 00:15:40,640
depending on what books you're reading.

303
00:15:40,640 --> 00:15:42,370
There are dozens of stories about

304
00:15:42,370 --> 00:15:44,440
the first discovery of gold in Montana,

305
00:15:44,440 --> 00:15:47,380
none of them matter because
there isn't enough to them.

306
00:15:47,380 --> 00:15:48,660
If you're gonna credit someone,

307
00:15:48,660 --> 00:15:50,530
I suppose you would credit a

308
00:15:50,530 --> 00:15:52,210
half-French, half-Indian fellow

309
00:15:52,210 --> 00:15:53,973
by the name of Francois Finley.

310
00:15:55,130 --> 00:15:58,050
Spell it anyway you want because he did.

311
00:15:58,050 --> 00:16:01,730
You will also see him
referred to as Benetsee,

312
00:16:01,730 --> 00:16:04,540
again, spell it anyway you want.

313
00:16:04,540 --> 00:16:08,753
He dug a hole up here, just east of town,

314
00:16:10,140 --> 00:16:10,973
Gold Creek,

315
00:16:10,973 --> 00:16:13,600
and got about a teaspoon full of gold

316
00:16:13,600 --> 00:16:15,530
which he took up to Fort Connah

317
00:16:15,530 --> 00:16:17,040
and showed it to Angus McDonald,

318
00:16:17,040 --> 00:16:19,163
a Hudson's Bay Company factor there.

319
00:16:20,020 --> 00:16:22,760
McDonald noted it in his diary

320
00:16:22,760 --> 00:16:24,950
and brushed it off as of no consequence

321
00:16:24,950 --> 00:16:28,240
and you really don't hear
about that discovery again.

322
00:16:28,240 --> 00:16:30,510
But you want to nitpick
I suppose you have to say

323
00:16:30,510 --> 00:16:32,970
that he was the first to discover gold.

324
00:16:32,970 --> 00:16:36,380
In point of fact, however,
it was two brothers

325
00:16:36,380 --> 00:16:38,123
in the identical spot, Gold Creek,

326
00:16:39,700 --> 00:16:43,760
James and Granville Stuart, S-T-U-A-R-T

327
00:16:43,760 --> 00:16:47,740
in 1859 that really found gold.

328
00:16:47,740 --> 00:16:51,180
And, I don't know what's wrong
with our highway department,

329
00:16:51,180 --> 00:16:53,750
they put up these crazy signs.

330
00:16:53,750 --> 00:16:56,160
There's a big sign there, Gold Creek,

331
00:16:56,160 --> 00:16:57,080
but it wasn't Gold Creek,

332
00:16:57,080 --> 00:16:59,530
it was called American Fork.

333
00:16:59,530 --> 00:17:02,120
You know that's like one
of those nice mountains

334
00:17:02,120 --> 00:17:05,450
that you hit in the missions
is called Gray Wolf.

335
00:17:05,450 --> 00:17:06,510
I don't know where they get that,

336
00:17:06,510 --> 00:17:07,710
it isn't Gray Wolf at all.

337
00:17:07,710 --> 00:17:10,660
The mountain is really
called Finnegan's Wart

338
00:17:10,660 --> 00:17:13,610
but I suppose that isn't
pretty enough for them.

339
00:17:13,610 --> 00:17:16,140
I wouldn't trust any
of those signs anyway.

340
00:17:16,140 --> 00:17:16,973
In any event,

341
00:17:18,650 --> 00:17:21,870
this boom is of real consequence because

342
00:17:21,870 --> 00:17:25,823
it is leading to the permanent
settlement of Montana.

343
00:17:27,797 --> 00:17:32,360
Most of the towns perished.

344
00:17:32,360 --> 00:17:34,030
Those that didn't, one

345
00:17:34,030 --> 00:17:35,870
were either strategically located,

346
00:17:35,870 --> 00:17:36,863
such as Missoula.

347
00:17:37,760 --> 00:17:40,430
You don't think of the
gold rush in Missoula,

348
00:17:40,430 --> 00:17:42,280
but you should because Missoula was here

349
00:17:42,280 --> 00:17:44,051
largely because of the Cedar Creek mines

350
00:17:44,051 --> 00:17:47,020
which were up by Superior.

351
00:17:47,020 --> 00:17:50,640
But this was a nice place to locate

352
00:17:50,640 --> 00:17:55,543
and Missoula is really a
ghost of a gold boom town.

353
00:17:56,750 --> 00:17:59,650
So, most of these towns perished,

354
00:17:59,650 --> 00:18:02,360
but Helena, Butte, Missoula,

355
00:18:02,360 --> 00:18:03,870
and a few others did not.

356
00:18:03,870 --> 00:18:06,410
Either because they were
strategically located

357
00:18:06,410 --> 00:18:08,120
by accident or two,

358
00:18:08,120 --> 00:18:12,083
because there was quartz
there or silver or copper.

359
00:18:13,120 --> 00:18:17,400
In any event, I want to
talk about local government.

360
00:18:17,400 --> 00:18:20,420
You'll see it referred
to as Gulch Government

361
00:18:20,420 --> 00:18:24,180
or District Government sometimes.

362
00:18:24,180 --> 00:18:25,090
This is imported.

363
00:18:25,090 --> 00:18:28,000
The concepts are imported from California.

364
00:18:28,000 --> 00:18:30,380
The first thing that happened in a gulch,

365
00:18:30,380 --> 00:18:32,730
which might be a very
small number of people,

366
00:18:32,730 --> 00:18:34,520
four to five hundred people.

367
00:18:34,520 --> 00:18:35,850
Or a lot of people,

368
00:18:35,850 --> 00:18:39,480
for instance in Virginia City,
Central City and Nevada City,

369
00:18:39,480 --> 00:18:42,050
within three months there
were six thousand people

370
00:18:42,050 --> 00:18:43,450
in that narrow little gulch.

371
00:18:44,610 --> 00:18:46,560
The first thing they did was to mark off

372
00:18:46,560 --> 00:18:47,820
the boundaries of the districts

373
00:18:47,820 --> 00:18:49,453
with stone piles of stone.

374
00:18:50,830 --> 00:18:53,070
They then by universal manhood suffrage

375
00:18:53,070 --> 00:18:54,610
elected the following people,

376
00:18:54,610 --> 00:18:55,443
a President,

377
00:18:56,280 --> 00:18:58,763
a Recorder, who was extremely important

378
00:18:58,763 --> 00:19:02,010
because you recorded your claim with him,

379
00:19:02,010 --> 00:19:04,470
and you also got your water allocation

380
00:19:04,470 --> 00:19:05,863
which was critical,

381
00:19:06,760 --> 00:19:08,950
measured in miner's
inches which we still use

382
00:19:08,950 --> 00:19:10,763
for irrigation purposes today.

383
00:19:11,630 --> 00:19:12,883
So the Recorder is very, very important

384
00:19:12,883 --> 00:19:16,530
because if he's dishonest,
you're in trouble.

385
00:19:16,530 --> 00:19:20,260
They also elected a judge and
a Sheriff and that was it.

386
00:19:20,260 --> 00:19:23,580
This is very lean, spare government.

387
00:19:23,580 --> 00:19:25,510
If it's true that that government

388
00:19:25,510 --> 00:19:27,930
which governs least governs best,

389
00:19:27,930 --> 00:19:29,980
then this was good government.

390
00:19:29,980 --> 00:19:32,850
The ordinary term was for six months.

391
00:19:32,850 --> 00:19:34,321
Why bother with anything longer,

392
00:19:34,321 --> 00:19:37,470
the miner might not even be
here six months from now.

393
00:19:37,470 --> 00:19:42,120
The size of each claim
was set by these people

394
00:19:42,120 --> 00:19:43,273
who had been elected.

395
00:19:44,401 --> 00:19:48,090
The number of claims per
man in a big district,

396
00:19:48,090 --> 00:19:50,050
you can have up to three claims,

397
00:19:50,050 --> 00:19:52,370
small district only one.

398
00:19:52,370 --> 00:19:57,370
This was, of course, to
prevent speculation in claims.

399
00:19:57,610 --> 00:19:59,440
The length of time that you had

400
00:19:59,440 --> 00:20:01,880
to spend on the claim working the claim,

401
00:20:01,880 --> 00:20:04,560
per day, number of days per week,

402
00:20:04,560 --> 00:20:08,583
was set again to prevent speculation.

403
00:20:09,440 --> 00:20:12,800
A miner's court was established.

404
00:20:12,800 --> 00:20:14,970
There might in a big
district be several clerks,

405
00:20:14,970 --> 00:20:16,683
in a small district only one.

406
00:20:18,620 --> 00:20:22,540
In civil cases, lawyers
could be had on both sides

407
00:20:22,540 --> 00:20:24,043
if there were lawyers around.

408
00:20:25,040 --> 00:20:27,100
The civil cases were
usually tried on Sunday

409
00:20:27,100 --> 00:20:28,870
because everybody was bored on Sunday

410
00:20:28,870 --> 00:20:32,053
and a lawsuit was fun to go to.

411
00:20:33,000 --> 00:20:36,470
Criminal cases, the accused
could ordinarily ask

412
00:20:36,470 --> 00:20:39,543
for a jury of 12 of his peers,

413
00:20:40,380 --> 00:20:43,720
or he could ask to be tried
by the whole district.

414
00:20:43,720 --> 00:20:46,620
Everybody moving if you were guilty,

415
00:20:46,620 --> 00:20:47,840
the whole population would move

416
00:20:47,840 --> 00:20:49,940
from one side of the gulch to the other,

417
00:20:49,940 --> 00:20:52,640
if you were innocent to the other side.

418
00:20:52,640 --> 00:20:57,550
The penalties were rather simple also

419
00:20:57,550 --> 00:21:01,400
because nobody wanted to sit
around maintaining a jail.

420
00:21:01,400 --> 00:21:04,410
There was flogging, which was very rare.

421
00:21:04,410 --> 00:21:08,010
There was banishment,
which was quite common.

422
00:21:08,010 --> 00:21:10,610
And there was death
and nothing in between.

423
00:21:10,610 --> 00:21:15,610
The trials were fast from
accusation to punishment

424
00:21:16,127 --> 00:21:18,313
certainly not longer than a week.

425
00:21:19,330 --> 00:21:23,630
We now have to come to
the vigilantes of Montana

426
00:21:23,630 --> 00:21:24,993
and to the road agents.

427
00:21:25,910 --> 00:21:28,090
I have only two books to recommend to you.

428
00:21:28,090 --> 00:21:29,250
There are a number of books,

429
00:21:29,250 --> 00:21:30,980
I wouldn't bother with them.

430
00:21:30,980 --> 00:21:32,030
There are two good ones,

431
00:21:32,030 --> 00:21:37,030
one is Thomas Dimsdale,
The Vigilantes of Montana.

432
00:21:38,470 --> 00:21:40,760
It's good because Dimsdale was the editor

433
00:21:40,760 --> 00:21:43,230
of the Montana Post in Virginia City,

434
00:21:43,230 --> 00:21:47,670
Montana's first newspaper in 1864.

435
00:21:47,670 --> 00:21:52,670
He was fascinated by the road
agents and by vigilantes.

436
00:21:52,760 --> 00:21:54,580
It's a good book.

437
00:21:54,580 --> 00:21:55,940
There is another one,

438
00:21:55,940 --> 00:21:58,260
it is called Vigilantes Days and Ways.

439
00:21:58,260 --> 00:22:03,260
It's by Nathaniel P.
Langford, L-A-N-G-F-O-R-D.

440
00:22:03,270 --> 00:22:06,200
It's a good book because
Langford was a vigilante

441
00:22:06,200 --> 00:22:10,040
and it's pretty much the horses mouth.

442
00:22:10,040 --> 00:22:13,040
In any event, among
this polyglot population

443
00:22:13,040 --> 00:22:14,340
about which I have been speaking,

444
00:22:14,340 --> 00:22:18,960
there were 32 bad, very bad men.

445
00:22:18,960 --> 00:22:20,900
They grouped together under the leadership

446
00:22:20,900 --> 00:22:22,800
of one Henry Plummer,

447
00:22:22,800 --> 00:22:25,710
who was obviously a psychopath.

448
00:22:25,710 --> 00:22:28,693
They called themselves The Innocents.

449
00:22:30,152 --> 00:22:33,453
To give you an idea just
how voracious they were,

450
00:22:35,655 --> 00:22:40,003
the summer of 1863 to
the early spring of 1864,

451
00:22:40,974 --> 00:22:42,193
a very short time,

452
00:22:43,105 --> 00:22:46,700
these had murdered 102 people,

453
00:22:46,700 --> 00:22:50,710
which is quite a few
people that we know about.

454
00:22:50,710 --> 00:22:52,670
They may have murdered a whole bunch more

455
00:22:52,670 --> 00:22:54,713
but the bodies were never found.

456
00:22:55,610 --> 00:22:58,170
In any event, the vigilantes organized

457
00:22:58,170 --> 00:22:59,840
to do something about this.

458
00:22:59,840 --> 00:23:01,740
These people really had to be handled.

459
00:23:03,110 --> 00:23:05,840
The vigilantes were masonic.

460
00:23:05,840 --> 00:23:08,290
There were some people who were later

461
00:23:08,290 --> 00:23:10,200
in Montana history to become very famous,

462
00:23:10,200 --> 00:23:11,963
people of real substance.

463
00:23:12,800 --> 00:23:17,280
They got together and
between the mid-winter

464
00:23:17,280 --> 00:23:18,690
and early spring,

465
00:23:18,690 --> 00:23:20,573
notice the shortness of time again,

466
00:23:21,500 --> 00:23:24,626
1864 they had hanged all 32 of

467
00:23:24,626 --> 00:23:27,763
the Innocents including Henry Plummer.

468
00:23:28,886 --> 00:23:31,160
This vigilance movement,

469
00:23:31,160 --> 00:23:33,220
there's another one in
the 1880's in Montana

470
00:23:33,220 --> 00:23:34,290
which is pretty disgraceful.

471
00:23:34,290 --> 00:23:36,657
This one I think is not.

472
00:23:36,657 --> 00:23:40,860
One of the reasons is the
caliber of the men involved.

473
00:23:40,860 --> 00:23:44,253
I leave it up to you to read on your own.

474
00:23:45,540 --> 00:23:47,183
The caliber of the men involved

475
00:23:47,183 --> 00:23:48,300
plus the fact that early in the game

476
00:23:48,300 --> 00:23:50,289
they caught one of The Innocents,

477
00:23:50,289 --> 00:23:52,720
a young fellow by the name of Red Yager.

478
00:23:52,720 --> 00:23:54,540
Yager was a blabbermouth.

479
00:23:54,540 --> 00:23:57,840
So, he not only named The Innocents,

480
00:23:57,840 --> 00:24:00,240
but named whom they had murdered when

481
00:24:00,240 --> 00:24:01,230
and so forth and so on.

482
00:24:01,230 --> 00:24:03,370
As a consequence of which,

483
00:24:03,370 --> 00:24:06,560
The Vigilantes didn't make any mistakes.

484
00:24:06,560 --> 00:24:10,000
There was one near miss that
I'd like to tell you about.

485
00:24:10,000 --> 00:24:11,770
One of the road agents was a fellow

486
00:24:11,770 --> 00:24:13,910
by the name of Bob Zachary,

487
00:24:13,910 --> 00:24:15,550
and when he heard that the Vigilantes

488
00:24:15,550 --> 00:24:17,880
had organized in Virginia City,

489
00:24:17,880 --> 00:24:22,880
he took off on his horse on
a brittle, cold winter night

490
00:24:22,910 --> 00:24:26,810
and rode north and west
as fast as he could.

491
00:24:26,810 --> 00:24:30,330
He ended up out here at
the mouth of Evaro Canyon,

492
00:24:30,330 --> 00:24:33,540
which is not Evaro Canyon,
it's O'Keefe Canyon.

493
00:24:33,540 --> 00:24:37,290
But in any event, there was a cabin,

494
00:24:37,290 --> 00:24:41,140
and in the cabin was a fellow
by the name of C.C. O'Keefe.

495
00:24:41,140 --> 00:24:43,150
He was obviously an Irishman,

496
00:24:43,150 --> 00:24:47,113
he was irascible, he
drank a lot, he was mean.

497
00:24:48,010 --> 00:24:51,240
At any event, Zachary got off
his horse late in the evening

498
00:24:51,240 --> 00:24:52,860
and asked for food and shelter

499
00:24:52,860 --> 00:24:54,770
and O'Keefe invited him in.

500
00:24:54,770 --> 00:24:57,760
About an hour later there was the

501
00:24:57,760 --> 00:25:00,340
squeaking of hooves in the brittle snow

502
00:25:00,340 --> 00:25:02,010
and the Vigilantes had arrived.

503
00:25:02,010 --> 00:25:06,400
They had pursued him all
the way right on his tail.

504
00:25:06,400 --> 00:25:09,350
They knocked down the door, pounded on it,

505
00:25:09,350 --> 00:25:10,183
opened it and said,

506
00:25:10,183 --> 00:25:12,243
"We want Zachary" to O'Keefe.

507
00:25:12,243 --> 00:25:15,130
O'Keefe didn't care much.

508
00:25:15,130 --> 00:25:17,380
Zachary's taken away,

509
00:25:17,380 --> 00:25:19,760
O'Keefe closes the door,

510
00:25:19,760 --> 00:25:21,630
but he can hear the conversation outside

511
00:25:21,630 --> 00:25:24,620
which is, why don't we, since we're here,

512
00:25:24,620 --> 00:25:25,813
hang O'Keefe too.

513
00:25:26,781 --> 00:25:28,367
Somebody said,

514
00:25:28,367 --> 00:25:30,837
"Well, we can't do that, he
hadn't killed anybody yet."

515
00:25:30,837 --> 00:25:32,723
"No, he hasn't but he's certainly going to

516
00:25:32,723 --> 00:25:35,136
"and we can save a lot of time."

517
00:25:35,136 --> 00:25:36,040
(laughing)

518
00:25:36,040 --> 00:25:37,750
The debated this momentarily

519
00:25:37,750 --> 00:25:40,880
and then decided that
let's just go hang Zachary

520
00:25:40,880 --> 00:25:42,220
and be done with it.

521
00:25:42,220 --> 00:25:44,278
I tell you that story
because I personally am

522
00:25:44,278 --> 00:25:47,010
indebted to the Vigilantes.

523
00:25:47,010 --> 00:25:49,350
C.C. O'Keefe was my great-grandfather

524
00:25:51,460 --> 00:25:54,562
and think of a loss to
posterity that they hanged him.

525
00:25:54,562 --> 00:25:56,812
(laughing)

526
00:25:58,131 --> 00:26:02,175
Almost all things you
read about this period,

527
00:26:02,175 --> 00:26:06,740
the early placer period
in territorial Montana,

528
00:26:06,740 --> 00:26:09,550
you get a picture of total and complete

529
00:26:09,550 --> 00:26:14,550
violence, crime, etc. which
is misleading as all hell.

530
00:26:17,640 --> 00:26:20,970
It is true that there was
this serious crime problem

531
00:26:20,970 --> 00:26:23,523
which was taken care of
with considerable dispatch.

532
00:26:24,593 --> 00:26:27,000
When you go to the sources however,

533
00:26:27,000 --> 00:26:30,346
diaries written by people
who were there at the time

534
00:26:30,346 --> 00:26:32,070
in Bannack and Virginia City,

535
00:26:32,070 --> 00:26:34,440
when you read the
correspondence of the people,

536
00:26:34,440 --> 00:26:37,020
the letters and we have a lot of them,

537
00:26:37,020 --> 00:26:38,330
back to the States,

538
00:26:38,330 --> 00:26:41,423
the strange thing is that you
don't get this picture at all.

539
00:26:42,660 --> 00:26:44,020
Let me give you an example.

540
00:26:44,020 --> 00:26:48,583
J.H. Morley who wrote a very
thick diary, very detailed.

541
00:26:49,610 --> 00:26:50,443
(coughing)

542
00:26:50,443 --> 00:26:51,750
Highly intelligent fellow,

543
00:26:51,750 --> 00:26:55,010
very well educated, an engineer.

544
00:26:55,010 --> 00:26:56,290
He goes through the whole period

545
00:26:56,290 --> 00:26:57,840
in Virginia City and Bannack,

546
00:26:57,840 --> 00:27:01,140
mentions one hanging and nothing else

547
00:27:01,140 --> 00:27:05,187
except let me quote just
to give you an example.

548
00:27:05,187 --> 00:27:07,277
"I shouldn't have the
patience to count the places

549
00:27:07,277 --> 00:27:10,616
"of business, but can say that
the market is so well stocked

550
00:27:10,616 --> 00:27:13,500
"that all necessaries and many luxuries

551
00:27:13,500 --> 00:27:16,510
can be obtained in the stores." Et cetera.

552
00:27:16,510 --> 00:27:18,410
One of the other diaries is by a teenager.

553
00:27:18,410 --> 00:27:19,960
He was 17 years old.

554
00:27:19,960 --> 00:27:22,180
His name was J.K. Miller.

555
00:27:22,180 --> 00:27:25,230
He, again, goes through
this entire period,

556
00:27:25,230 --> 00:27:27,010
there's not a mention of a single hanging,

557
00:27:27,010 --> 00:27:31,000
a single road agent or a single crime.

558
00:27:31,000 --> 00:27:34,090
He talks about being one of the organizers

559
00:27:34,090 --> 00:27:36,870
of the Virginia City Social Club.

560
00:27:36,870 --> 00:27:40,040
He goes sleigh riding with one of

561
00:27:40,040 --> 00:27:42,740
the only girls in the camp.

562
00:27:42,740 --> 00:27:44,650
He sponsored the literary association,

563
00:27:44,650 --> 00:27:45,780
he's taking French lessons,

564
00:27:45,780 --> 00:27:50,460
but not a word about violence or crime.

565
00:27:50,460 --> 00:27:53,740
I think therefore you should not be misled

566
00:27:53,740 --> 00:27:57,490
by an ex post facto view which has

567
00:27:57,490 --> 00:28:00,160
crept into our history
books that all it was

568
00:28:00,160 --> 00:28:03,520
was riders living and murder and hanging.

569
00:28:03,520 --> 00:28:04,593
It just wasn't true.

570
00:28:07,322 --> 00:28:09,905
(gentle music)