Page 34 - MFM March 2016

1851 RAY GUN

F. Lee Graves (16), Past Grand Historian

January 10, 1864…. Just after sundown. The Vigilantes met in the cabin and decided to

Darkness was descending on the deep valley of divide into three groups, each group going after a
Grasshopper Creek and the small mining camp of specific Road Agent. They decided to act quickly,
Bannack. It was so cold that evening that Sunday none of them anxious to do their necessary deed,
School and the church sing-a-long were cancelled- since Plummer and his two cohorts were well

or so they said. known to all of them. Wilbur Fisk Sanders led the
group to capture the sheriff who was nursing a cold
Sheriff Henry Plummer was approaching the at his in-laws’ cabin on Yankee Flat. Wilbur Fisk
small footbridge crossing Grasshopper Creek Sanders was Grand Master in Montana in 1868,
connecting Bannack and Yankee Flat, he noticed a and became the first U.S. Senator for Montana.
woman starting to cross from the other side. Being
Buck Stinson dressed in his Sunday finery was
the gentleman he was, Plummer stepped aside to captured by a group led by William Roe. The third
let her pass. The sheriff saw that it was the wife of Road Agent, Ned Ray was found by Harry King
Wilbur Fisk Sanders, a lawyer and prosecutor for and Frank Sears’ group, drunk and passed out on a
the Vigilantes. pool table at his paramour’s, Madame Hall.

“Good evening Mrs. Sanders” Plummer offered Frank Sears grabbed and secured the Navy Colt .44
cap ‘n ball from Ned Ray before
as he politely tipped his hat. Mrs. Sanders replied he could
in kind not knowing knowing that less than fifty
grab it. The three outlaws
yards away in their small cabin, her husband
Wilbur and a few other men from Bannack as had their
well as Virginia City were planning
the apprehension and hands tied
hanging of the
and were escorted
Road Agent sheriff
and two of his deputies to the predisposed meeting
Buck Stinson and Ned place at the mouth of Hangman’s
Ray.
Gulch. They were marched to the gallows

which ironically enough, Sheriff Plummer had

erected the summer before to hang a horse thief.

Ned Ray was the first one hanged and was full of
epithets until the end. “There goes poor Ned Ray”
The plotters of justice, Stinson whispered as Ray was about to expire and
known as the
Vigilantes he was escorted to the next turn at the gallows.
were men of
good character, Stinson twitched but died much sooner than did
many of them
Masons who could trust Ned Ray.
each other
implicity. They wanted
to rid the Territory of the grip of the
Road Agents, Henry Plummer, the elected sheriff of the territory,
gang led by a loosely organized turned outlaw leader and murderer, begged for his
life. Finally he resigned himself to his fate, and
and about Sheriff Henry Plummer requested one last thing from his captors, “Give
me a good drop boys”. The Vigilantes granted
thirty of his men. Plummer’s last request and did give him a good
drop, breaking his neck instantly.
The Road Agents had an elaborate spy
system to let their ringleaders know of a shipment The Vigilantes succeeded in hanging twenty-
of gold from the gold camps to the “states”or of
miners taking their gold to Salt Lake City or nine of the outlaw gang which is said by Thomas
Dimsdale to have committed 102 documented
to Fort Benton. Sevearl robberies and murders murders during their year and a half of a reign of
had taken place on the road going to Salt Lake or
Virginia City. Three miles north of Bannack on the terror in mainly southwestern Montana.

stage road is Road Agents Rock, the site of many Alvin Frank Sears, the Vigilante, who captured
robberies. Many a stagecoach driver and lone Ned Ray and took his pistol, was active as a Mason
in Bannack Lodge No. 16 and from perusing the
traveler breathed a sigh of relief when they passed minutes of the Lodge missed very few meetings.
the Rock unscathed.

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