Page 35 - MFM March 2016

Montana Freemason March 2016 Volume 92 Number 2

He was Worshipful Master in 1882 and served in Ned Ray’s pistol’s lineage stretches from Ned
various other offices in the Lodge throughout the Ray who fought for the South in the Civil War to
years. His life at Bannack was that of a prospector, Bannack where he was relieved of the pistol by
and like many prospectors his luck ran hot and Vigilante and Mason Frank Sears. In the late 1870’s
cold. Charter member of Bannack Lodge No. 16 the pistol was in constant possession of the Graves
and its Worshipful Master sixteen different years, family, all Masons, to this day. The pistol will
Fielding L. Graves, had a general store and used to be given at the appropriate time to Lee’’s son, L.
grub stake many miners and his friend and brother, Scott Graves. Ray’s pistol has seen the ownership
Frank Sears was among them. of five generations of Masons and currently rests
in a safe deposit box in Dillon. Colt firearms has
Brother Sears left Ned Ray’s pistol at the store also been contacted, and they have no information
as collateral which was hung on a pair of deer on the pistol in their archives.
antlers behind the counter. The eye catching pistol If only that pistol could talk…………..
was a great conversation piece. Frank Sears died
May 25, 1896 and was accorded a full Masonic
burial. His body was escorted by his brethren to
the Bannack cemetery on the hill east of where
Plummer, Stinson and Ray were hanged and today
rests in an unmarked and unknown grave.

About 1920 the pistol which was still loaded as
taken from its outlaw owner, was taken down and
soaked in a rain barrel and unloaded. The pistol
was taken to the Graves house in Bannack next
to the store where it was left for many years. The
Graves Store burned in 1926 and thankfully the
pistol was not among the items lost.

The history of Ned Ray’s .44 cap ‘n ball does not
end here. I have heard stories that the assassin of
Martin Luther King, James Earl Ray, was told by
his mother as a little boy, that his great-grandfather
was hanged as an outlaw in Montana. I wrote to
James Earl Ray while he was alive and still in a
federal prison at Nashville, Tennessee, and asked
him if he had any information about that tale.
James Earl Ray graciously wrote back and penned
this statement at the bottom of my typed letter.

“Dear Mr. Graves.
I have no idea where my relatives (Rays),
may have lived. They lived in Quincy, Ill.,
for years & apparently one or more lived in
the west in the 1880’s. This could be checked
on easier outside than in prison.
Sincerely, J E Ray”.

However in the book by Gerald Posner about

Martin Luther King called “Killing the Dream”, the
author confirms that Ray’s great-grandfather was
hanged as outlaw in Montana.

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