Okla-homey
3/10/2007, 08:13 AM
Mar 10, 1864 : Montana vigilantes hang Jack Slade
143 years ago toady, local hell-raiser Jack Slade is hanged in one of the more troubling incidents of frontier vigilantism.
Slade stood out even among the many rabble-rousers who inhabited the wild frontier-mining town of Virginia City, Montana. When he was sober, townspeople liked and respected Slade, though there were unconfirmed rumors he had once been a thief and murderer.
When drunk, however, Slade had a habit of firing his guns in bars and making idle threats. Though Slade's rowdiness did not injure anyone, Virginia City leaders anxious to create a more peaceable community began to lose patience. They began giving more weight to the claims that he was a potentially dangerous man.
The year before, many of Virginia City's leading citizens had formed a semisecret "vigilance committee" to combat the depredations of a road agent named Henry Plummer. Plummer and his gang had robbed and killed in the area, confident that the meager law enforcement in the region could not stop them.
http://aycu01.webshots.com/image/13720/2002982522020460780_rs.jpg (http://allyoucanupload.webshots.com/v/2002982522020460780)
Jack Slade is buried in Salt Lake City under this government supplied marker. As a Mexican War veteran, he rated it.
Determined to reassert order, the Virginia City vigilantes began capturing and hanging the men in Plummer's gang. As a warning to other criminals, the vigilantes left a scrap of paper on the hanged corpses with the cryptic numbers "3-7-77." The meaning of the numbers is unclear, though some claim it referred to the dimensions of a grave: 3 feet wide, 7 feet long, 77 inches deep.
http://aycu31.webshots.com/image/13070/2004620619946851108_rs.jpg (http://allyoucanupload.webshots.com/v/2004620619946851108)
Today the numbers appear on the shoulder patch and car door insignia of the Montana Highway Patrol and are meant to convey a benign message of law and order.
In the first two months of 1864, the Montana vigilantes hanged 24 men, including Plummer. Most historians agree that these hangings, while technically illegal, punished only genuinely guilty men. However, the vigilantes' decision to hang Jack Slade seems less justified.
Finally fed up with his drunken rampages and wild threats, on this day in 1864 a group of vigilantes took Slade into custody and told him he would be hanged. Slade, who had committed no serious crime in Virginia City, pleaded for his life, or at least a chance to say goodbye to his beloved wife. Before Slade's wife arrived, the vigilantes hanged him.
Not long after the questionable execution of Slade, legitimate courts and prisons began to function in Virginia City. Though sporadic vigilante "justice" continued until 1867, it increasingly attracted public concern.
http://aycu24.webshots.com/image/9983/2004951290189988033_rs.jpg (http://allyoucanupload.webshots.com/v/2004951290189988033)
Hezekiah Hosmer, the first federal justice in Montana Territory, praised the Virginia City vigilantes but also urged them to stop carrying out executions. A critic blamed his wavering conduct on the bench for the resumption of vigilante activity
In March 1867, miners in one Montana mining district posted a notice in the local newspaper that they would hang five vigilantes for every one man hanged by vigilantes. Thereafter, vigilante action faded away.
http://aycu21.webshots.com/image/10820/2004613125237249457_rs.jpg (http://allyoucanupload.webshots.com/v/2004613125237249457)
The lynching of James B. Daniels in Helena on March 2, 1866, triggered a public debate about the practice of vigilante justice in Montana. Convicted of manslaughter for a death that occurred in a saloon brawl and sentenced to prison by Justice Lyman Munson. Daniels was pardoned by acting territorial governor Thomas Meagher. Angry vigilantes hung Daniels with the pardon in his pocket.
Despite its general demise, it happened again a few times in Montana in the 20th century.
http://aycu13.webshots.com/image/12612/2004665676047411101_rs.jpg (http://allyoucanupload.webshots.com/v/2004665676047411101)
Labor agitator Frank Little was lynched in Butte in 1917 with this placard pinned to his back that warned "others" of a similar fate.
http://aycu05.webshots.com/image/13004/2004647395497933532_rs.jpg (http://allyoucanupload.webshots.com/v/2004647395497933532)
143 years ago toady, local hell-raiser Jack Slade is hanged in one of the more troubling incidents of frontier vigilantism.
Slade stood out even among the many rabble-rousers who inhabited the wild frontier-mining town of Virginia City, Montana. When he was sober, townspeople liked and respected Slade, though there were unconfirmed rumors he had once been a thief and murderer.
When drunk, however, Slade had a habit of firing his guns in bars and making idle threats. Though Slade's rowdiness did not injure anyone, Virginia City leaders anxious to create a more peaceable community began to lose patience. They began giving more weight to the claims that he was a potentially dangerous man.
The year before, many of Virginia City's leading citizens had formed a semisecret "vigilance committee" to combat the depredations of a road agent named Henry Plummer. Plummer and his gang had robbed and killed in the area, confident that the meager law enforcement in the region could not stop them.
http://aycu01.webshots.com/image/13720/2002982522020460780_rs.jpg (http://allyoucanupload.webshots.com/v/2002982522020460780)
Jack Slade is buried in Salt Lake City under this government supplied marker. As a Mexican War veteran, he rated it.
Determined to reassert order, the Virginia City vigilantes began capturing and hanging the men in Plummer's gang. As a warning to other criminals, the vigilantes left a scrap of paper on the hanged corpses with the cryptic numbers "3-7-77." The meaning of the numbers is unclear, though some claim it referred to the dimensions of a grave: 3 feet wide, 7 feet long, 77 inches deep.
http://aycu31.webshots.com/image/13070/2004620619946851108_rs.jpg (http://allyoucanupload.webshots.com/v/2004620619946851108)
Today the numbers appear on the shoulder patch and car door insignia of the Montana Highway Patrol and are meant to convey a benign message of law and order.
In the first two months of 1864, the Montana vigilantes hanged 24 men, including Plummer. Most historians agree that these hangings, while technically illegal, punished only genuinely guilty men. However, the vigilantes' decision to hang Jack Slade seems less justified.
Finally fed up with his drunken rampages and wild threats, on this day in 1864 a group of vigilantes took Slade into custody and told him he would be hanged. Slade, who had committed no serious crime in Virginia City, pleaded for his life, or at least a chance to say goodbye to his beloved wife. Before Slade's wife arrived, the vigilantes hanged him.
Not long after the questionable execution of Slade, legitimate courts and prisons began to function in Virginia City. Though sporadic vigilante "justice" continued until 1867, it increasingly attracted public concern.
http://aycu24.webshots.com/image/9983/2004951290189988033_rs.jpg (http://allyoucanupload.webshots.com/v/2004951290189988033)
Hezekiah Hosmer, the first federal justice in Montana Territory, praised the Virginia City vigilantes but also urged them to stop carrying out executions. A critic blamed his wavering conduct on the bench for the resumption of vigilante activity
In March 1867, miners in one Montana mining district posted a notice in the local newspaper that they would hang five vigilantes for every one man hanged by vigilantes. Thereafter, vigilante action faded away.
http://aycu21.webshots.com/image/10820/2004613125237249457_rs.jpg (http://allyoucanupload.webshots.com/v/2004613125237249457)
The lynching of James B. Daniels in Helena on March 2, 1866, triggered a public debate about the practice of vigilante justice in Montana. Convicted of manslaughter for a death that occurred in a saloon brawl and sentenced to prison by Justice Lyman Munson. Daniels was pardoned by acting territorial governor Thomas Meagher. Angry vigilantes hung Daniels with the pardon in his pocket.
Despite its general demise, it happened again a few times in Montana in the 20th century.
http://aycu13.webshots.com/image/12612/2004665676047411101_rs.jpg (http://allyoucanupload.webshots.com/v/2004665676047411101)
Labor agitator Frank Little was lynched in Butte in 1917 with this placard pinned to his back that warned "others" of a similar fate.
http://aycu05.webshots.com/image/13004/2004647395497933532_rs.jpg (http://allyoucanupload.webshots.com/v/2004647395497933532)