rive until it was too late to commence mining that year, but a ditch had been dug, and every preparation made for beginning in the following spring. Late in the autumn three other men-W. Graham, A. S. Blake, and P. W. McAdow-arrived at Gold Creek, and prospected in a dry gulch where the village of Pioneer was located, finding good indications, and remaining until spring to work their claims. Anderson having taken a steamer down the Missouri in 1860, there remained only the Stuarts and the new arrivals, five in all, to make the experiment at mining.

The results at first were not flattering, the claims, excepting one in Pioneer gulch, which paid from six to twenty dollars per day, yielding no more than from one and a half to three dollars. While working for this small amount the Stuarts kept their remaining horses picketed on a sloping piece of grass-land, which was afterward discovered to conceal an enormously rich deposit, which took the name of Bratton Bar in 1866. A man named Hurlbut discovered the placers on Big Prickly Pear Creek about midsummer of this year.

In my account of the Idaho mines I have mentioned that in 1862, and later, certain immigrants and gold-hunters made the attempt to reach Salmon River mines from Fort Hall, or the South pass, and failed, some being killed by Indians, and others being scattered among various localities. Such a party arrived in June 1862 at Deer Lodge.38 They discovered a

38 As an episode in the history of settlement, the following is interesting: In April 1862 a party of six men left Colorado 'for Salmon River, or Oregon, or anywhere west, to escape from Colorado, which we all then thought a sort of Siberia, in which a man was likely to end his days in hopeless exile from his home and friends, because of the poorness of its mines. At a ferry on the north Platte they fell in with 14 others, and finding Bridger's pass filled with snow, the winter having been of unusual severity, the joint company resolved to proceed across the country to the Sweetwater, and through the South pass. On arriving at Plant's station, on the Sweetwater, it was found in flames, the Indians having just made a raid on the stations along the whole line of the road between the Platte bridge and Green River. Here they found a notice that another party of 18 men had retreated to Platte bridge to wait for reenforcements. They accordingly sent two expressmen to bring up this party, and by the time they were ready to go on, their force was 45 men, well armed and able to fight Indians. Replenishing their supplies at Salt Lake,

rich placer on a branch of Gold Creek, which they named Pike's Peak gulch. Many others arrived by steamers at Fort Benton, some of whom stopped at Gold Creek.39 Four boats from St Louis reached Fort Benton in 1862.40

In the winter of 1859 a petition had been addressed to the legislature of Washington by the settlers of Bitterroot Valley and the Flathead agency, to have a county set off, to be called Bitterroot county. This petition had seventy-seven names attached, and chiefly those of the Mullan wagon-road company, who could hardly be called settlers, although a few names

they continued their journey, overtaking at Box Elder a small party with 3 wagons loaded with the frame of a ferry-boat for Snake River, above Fort Hall, J. Mix being one of the ferry-owners. From the best information to be obtained at Salt Lake or Snake River, they would find their course to be the old Mormon settlement of Fort Lemhi, and thence 60 miles down the Salmon River to the mines. But on arriving at Lemhi on the 10th of July, they found a company there before them under Samuel McLean, and heard of another, which had arrived still earlier, under Austin, all bound for Salmon River mines, and deceived as to the distance and the practicability of a road, the former being 360 miles, and the latter impassable for wagons. The wagons being abandoned, and the freight packed upon the draught animals, nothing was left for their owners but to walk. Thirty-five men decided to proceed in this manner to the mines, most of McLean's party remaining behind. The 3d night after leaving Lembi the company encamped in Bighole prairie, and on the following morning fell in with a Mr Chatfield and his guide, coming from Fort Owen to Fort Lemhi to settle a difficulty arising from the Lemhi Indians having killed and eaten one of McLean's horses; but learning from the company just from Lemhi that the matter had been ar ranged, Chatfield turned back; and his conversation induced 22 of the company to resign the idea of Salmon River, and turn their faces toward Deer Lodge, the remainder continuing on the trail to Elk City, from the point where it crossed the Bitterroot River, near its head. Among those who stopped on the Montana side of the Bitterroot Mountains were Henry Thrapp, M. Haskins, William Smith, Allen McPhail, John Graham, Warner, Thomas Neild, Joseph Mumby, James Taylor, J. W. Bozeman, Thomas Woods, J. Caruthers, Andrew Murray, Thomas Donelson, N. Davidson, James Patton, William Thompson, Murphy, and Dutch Pete. Ten of the 22 remained at Fort Owen, taking employment there at the Flathead reserva tion, of which John Owen was agent. Twelve went to Gold Creek, where they arrived about the last of July. Rocky Mountain Gazette, Feb. 25, 1869. 39 According to Mullan, of 364 immigrants arriving at Fort Benton in July, a large number were destined to Walla Walla, with saw and grist mills, and many to the mines. Mil. Road Rept, 34-5. This year, also, La Barge, Harkness, & Co. established a trading-house near Fort Benton, and intended to erect mills near the Deer Lodge mines. Among those who arrived by steamer were W. B. Dance and S. S. Hauser. Jerome S. Glick, David Gray, George Gray, George Perkins, William Griffith, Jack Oliver, and Joseph Clark stopped at Deer Lodge mines.

Emilie, June 17th; Shreveport, do.; Key West No. 2, June 20th; Spread Eagle, do.

COUNTIES AND HORSE-THIEVES.

619

of actual pioneers are to be found among them.11 The petition does not appear to have been presented until the session of 1860-1, when two counties, called Shoshone and Missoula, were created out of the region east of the later boundary of Washington, the 117th meridian.

No election was held in Missoula county until the 14th of July, 1862, when James Stuart was elected sheriff. It was not long before he was called to act in his official capacity, and to arrest and bring to trial an aged Frenchman who had stolen some horses and other property. He was tried in a mass-meeting of the miners, who, compassionating his age, his sorrow, and poverty, made up a purse for him, and sent him out of the county to trouble them no more. The next horse-thieves fared worse. They were three men, named William Arnett, C. W. Spillman, and B. F. Jernagin, and arrived on American fork of Hellgate River from the west, about the middle of August, having with them half a dozen good American horses. When they had been there a few days, the owners of the horses also arrived, and entering the settlement at the mouth of Gold Creek, which was now beginning to be called by the urban appellation of American Fork, and where Worden & Co. had opened a store, under the cover of night, requested the aid of the sheriff and miners in capturing the trio. Arnett and

41 The list is as follows: W. W. Johnson, J. A. Mullan, G. C. Taliaferro, J. Sohon, C. R. Howard, James S. Townsend, Theodore Kolecki, W. W. De Lacy, George H. Smith, Cyrus Spengler, A. J. Horton, William Lowery, A. E. D'Course, J. Cashman, William Ping, Charles J. Clark, Daniel F. Smith, Robert P. Booth, David Carroll, James Conlan, Isaac H. Rocap, Frederick Sheridan, W. L. Wheelock, John C. Davis, Thomas Hudson, W. Burch, D. Hays, John Carr, George Ruddock, Patrick Graham, Canhope Larard, John Larard, Joseph Tracy, William O'Neil, Patrick Mihan, James N. Heron, Edward Scully, M. McLaughlin, William Craig, William Hickman, J. C. Sawyer, A. J. Batchelder, A. L. Riddle, James McMahon, William Galigher, L. Neis, Zib. Teberlare, George Young, John Owens, W. D. Perkins, Richard Smith, Loars P. Williams, William Henry, William Proyery, C. E. Juine, D. M. Engely, J. B. Rabin, Thomas W. Harris, Henri M. Clarke, S. H. Martin, Jefferson Morse, James Gotier, Angus MacCloud, John De Placies, James Toland, P. Macdonald, E. Williamson, John Silverthorne, John M. Jacobs, John Pearsalt, Louis Claimont, Louis G. Maison, Narcisse Mesher, A. Gird, Joseph Lompeny, Richard Grant, Michael Ogden. Wash. Jour. House, 1860-1, 35-6.

Jernagin were found engaged in a monte game in a drinking-saloon, the former with a pistol on his knees, ready for emergencies. When ordered to throw up his hands, Arnett seized his pistol instead, and one of the pursuers shot him dead, as he stood up with the weapon in one hand and the cards in the other. So tight was his dying clutch upon the latter, that they could not be removed, and were buried with him. Jernagin surrendered, and on trial was acquitted and sent out of the country. Spillman, who was arrested in Worden's store, and who was a finely built man of twenty-five years, made no defence, and when sentenced to be hanged, preferred no request except to be allowed to write to his father. He met his death firmly, being hanged August 26, 1862, the first of a long list of criminals who expiated their lawlessness in the same manner, and on whom the vigilants of Montana executed justice without any legal circumlocution. Soon after this affair, news of new placers on Willard (called on the maps Grasshopper) Creek, in the Beaverhead Valley, drew away the miners from Gold Creek, the Stuarts among the rest; and as the affairs of the new mining settlements deserve a chapter to themselves, I will proceed to recount them.

CHAPTER II.

TOWN-BUILDING AND SOCIETY.

1862-1864.

EXPLORING EXPEDITIONS-PIONEERS OF MONTANA-PROSPECTING PARTIES -ORGANIZATION OF DISTRICTS-STUART AND BOZEMAN-DE LACYBIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES OF SETTLERS-FREIGHTS AND FREIGHT TRAINS -EARLY SOCIETY IN THE MINES-ROAD-AGENTS AND VIGILANCE COMMITTEES--LEGALLY ORGANIZED BANDITTI-THE SHERIFF HIGHWAYMAN AND HIS DEPUTIES-A TYPICAL TRIAL-WHOLESALE ASSASSINATION AND RETRIBUTION.

AMONG those detained in Beaverhead Valley because wagons could not go through from Lemhi to Salmon River was a party of which John White and John McGavin were members. This company, about the 1st of August, 1862, discovered placers on Willard or Grasshopper Creek, where Bannack City was built in consequence, which yielded from five to fifteen dollars a day to the hand. White, who is usually accredited with the discovery, having done so much for his fame, has left us no other knowledge of him or his antecedents,1 save that he was murdered in December 1863.2

I learned of McGavin from A. K. Stanton of Gallatin City, another of the immigrants of 1862, who mined first on Bighole River. Stanton was born in Pa, Dec. 1832. Was the son of a farmer, and learned the joiner's trade. In 1856 he removed to Minnesota, and like many of the inhabitants of that state was much impressed with the fame of the Idaho mines. He started for Salmon River with a train of which James Reed was captain. He tried mining at Bannack, but not realizing his hopes, resolved to take some land in the Gallatin Valley and turn farmer and stock-raiser. He secured 440 acres of land, and presently had 80 horned cattle, 150 horses, and 17,000 sheep. In 1882 he married Jeanette Evenen.

2 White and Rodolph Dorsett were murdered at the milk rancho on the road from Virginia City to Helena by Charles Kelly. Dimsdale's Montana Vigilantes. There seems to be no good reason for using the Spanish word vigilantes instead of its English equivalent vigilants' in these northern countries.