Vigilante Days & Ways

by Nathaniel P. Langford

foreword by Dave Walter

published by Farcountry Press

  • Riders in the night... impromptu "trials"... corpses dangling from cottonwood trees and makeshift scaffolds...

    First published in 1890, Vigilante Days & Ways breathes life into Montana's early history. Author Nathaniel Langford, paints a vivid and lively image of a wild, lawless frontier during Montana's gold rush.

    A vigilante himself, Langford profiles the rise and fall of outlaw and sheriff Henry Plummer. He reveals early Montana as a prospector's dream flooded with hopefuls seeking gold and vast riches. As ambition and greed spiraled into bloodshed, vigilante citizens banded together to exact their own justice.

    A true account from the Montana Territory, Vigilante Days & Ways plunges readers into the majesty and danger of the pioneer era. Langford lets us ride with vigilantes on the trail of outlaws, hanging on for wild chases and swift justice at the end of a rope.

    This is the Old West as it truly way—where the line between hero and villain may be slimmer than you think.



350 pages, 6 x 9, 1 illustrations, index, 20 softcovers per case

softcover
ISBN 10: 1560370386
ISBN 13: 9781560370383
$14.95

RELEASE DATE
January 1996

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As I Remember, Volume II

An Uncommon Journey

Bedside Book of Bad Girls

 

 

 

 


Vigilante Days & Ways

The final disposition of the three villains in custody was delayed until the next day. A strong guard of well-armed men surrounded their prison. Just after midnight the sleeping inhabitants of the town were roused by several shots fired in the direction of the place of confinement. In a few minutes the streets were filled with citizens. A former friend of Peoples, one Marshall, who kept a hotel in town, had, in attempting his rescue, fired upon the guard. In return he received a shot in his arm, and was prostrated by a blow from a clubbed musket. The cause of the melee being explained, the people withdrew, leaving the sentinels at their posts.

The next morning at an early hour the people gathered around the prison. The guards were gone and the door ajar. Unable to restrain their curiosity, and fearful that the robbers had been rescued, they pushed the door wide open. There, hanging by the neck, stark and cold, they beheld the bodies of the three desperadoes. Justice had been anticipated, and the first Vigilance Committee of the northern mines had commenced its work. No one knew or cared who had done it, but all felt that it was right, and the community breathed freer than at any former period of its history.

Intelligence of the execution, with the usual exaggeration, spread far and wide through the mining camps. It was received with approval by the sober citizens, but filled the robber horde with consternation. Charley Harper, while on his way from Florence to Lewiston to gather full particulars, met a mountaineer.

"Stranger," he inquired, "what's the news?"

"I s'pose you've heard about the hanging of them fellers?"

"Heard something. What's the particulars?"

"Well, Bill Peoples, Dave English, and Nels Scott have gone in. They strung 'em up like dried salmon. Happy Harry got out of the way in time; but if they get Club Foot George, his life won't be worth a cent. They're after a lot more of 'em up in Florence."

"Do you know who all they're after?" asked Harper.

"Yes. Charley Harper's the big chief they're achin' for the most, but the story now is that he's already hung. A fellow went into town day before yesterday, and said he saw him strung up out here on Camas Prairie. Did you hear anything of it back on the road?"

Harper needed no further information. He felt that the country was too hot to hold him, and that the bloodhounds were on his track. As soon as the miner was out of sight, he turned to the right, crossed the Clearwater some miles above Lewiston, and pursued a trail to Colville on the Upper Columbia, where we will take leave of him for the present.

-from Chapter VII, First Vigilance Committee



Nathaniel P. Langford align= Nathaniel Pitt Langford (1832-1911) was an explorer, businessman, bureaucrat, vigilante and historian from Saint Paul, Minnesota who played an important role in the early years of the Montana gold fields, territorial government and the creation of Yellowstone National Park. Langford was born in Upstate New York and moved to Saint Paul in 1854. He worked as a banker and was involved with the investment of the Saint Anthony Park neighborhood.

On June 16, 1862, Langford, as a member and officer of the Northern Overland Expedition, left Saint Paul to establish a wagon road to the Salmon River mine regions of the Rocky Mountains via Fort Benton. The expedition ended up at the Grasshopper Creek gold fields in the area soon to be named Bannack, Montana. There Langford and his fellow businessmen established freight companies, a saw mill and other businesses. In 1864, shortly after the Montana Territory was established, Langford was appointed Collector of Internal Revenue and National Bank Examiner, positions he held for five years in the Montana Territorial government.

Langford was a member of the 1870 Washburn-Langford-Doane Expedition which explored portions of the region that would become the Yellowstone National Park. After his participation in the Washburn expedition, Langford was appointed as the first superintendent of the park. He soon got the nickname National Park Langford because of his initials N.P. There was no money available to offer him a salary for this new position, so he had to make his living elsewhere. This left Langford with little time to run the park, and he entered it only twice during his five years as superintendent.

Langford was also part of the vigilante movement, the infamous Montana Vigilantes, who dealt with lawlessness in Virginia City and Bannack, Montana during 1863-64. In 1890, Langford wrote Vigilante Days and Ways to chronicle the era of pioneer justice in the American Old West.

Biography and photo adapted from Wikipedia, under the Creative Commons License.


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