Montana's First Vigilante Hanging, and no it wasn't George Ives

It is that time of year again when the cold winds and the short days cause me to ponder the events of  the winter of 1863-64 when Montana’s famous vigilantes dispensed with twenty-one of the territory’s allegedly most despicable road agents.  For a long time I thought that those hangings were the first vigilante activity in what is now Montana, but I recently discovered that there was an incident that predated those hangings by  sixteen months.

Admittedly this first vigilante justice differed from the latter hangings. It was a single event, spontaneously carried out, rather than a group of hangings carefully orchestrated by a large organized committee.  I came across this historical information while reading the book Shallow Diggin’s, Tales from Montana’s Ghost Towns, compiled by Jean Davis and published in 1962 by Caxton Printers Ltd., Caldwell Idaho.  I read this book back when I was in high school, (a historical fact in itself, considering how long it has been since I was in high school) but for some reason I had forgotten about the event in question.

In the first chapter, "Gold Creek", James Stuart’s diary contained an account of  two men coming into Gold Creek seeking some men that had stolen horses.  The men approached Stuart and asked for help from the citizens in apprehending the men in question. Stuart assured the two that they would have all the help they needed.  The three alleged horse thieves were apprehended,  but not without  incident.  One of the men pulled out his gun and was shot dead.  The other two men were kept under guard until the following morning when their fate was decided.  During the proceedings, one of the men testified that he had  no knowledge of the theft, he had only been traveling with the other two for a short time.  Evidently his story rang true and he was given six hours to leave the territory (which would have been Idaho Territory at that time.)  A man named Spillman, who had come to Gold Creek to run a gambling game, was found guilty of horse theft and was hanged at 2:22 p.m. on August 26, 1862.

The book, Shallow Diggin’s  is a wonderful book full of first hand accounts of events that took place in the gold camps during Montana’s early years.  It may not be readily available for purchase,  but  it should be available at most  Montana  public libraries.