Frontier & Pioneer Life - Western United States, Montana - State & Local History, Criminals - Historical Outlaws - Biography, Vigilante Justice, Outlaws & Lawmen of the Old West

Vigilantes of Montana

Name: Vigilantes of Montana
Author: Thomas Dimsdale
ISBN: 9780762725687

by Thomas Dimsdale, Mather, Ruth, R. E. Mather

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Overview

Gold, land, jealousy, and murder -- all play a role in this classic tale of the Montana Territory. From dance hall women of "easy virtue" to masked highway desperadoes, The Vigilantes of Montana vividly portrays the rough beginnings of Montana's mining-camp society, when the will of the people could lead without warning to speedy public trials and hastily arranged executions. Originally written in 1864 as a vindication of the Vigilantes who hanged the notorious Sheriff William Henry Handy Plummer and his band of road agents, this new edition features a foreword by prominent Western historian R. E. Mather. Was Sheriff Plummer a corrupt lawman, or a victim of overzealous crusaders? Was Thomas Dimsdale an objective observer, or a secret member of the Vigilantes with a one-sided story to tell? Mather addresses these issues and offers new insights into the controversy behind the legend.

Synopsis

A reprint of the classic 1864 title by Professor Thomas J. Dimsdale of Bannack, Montana. Foreword by R. E. Mather, a prominent Western historian.

About the Author, Thomas Dimsdale

Professor Thomas J. Dimsdale was an Englishman who came to Virginia City, Montana, at the height of the 1860s gold rush in search of a better climate for his health. He ended up embroiled in one of the great controversies in Montana history as the author of The Vigilantes of Montana, a work protesting his own innocence as well as that of the vigilantes in the death of Henry Plummer.

Western historian R. E. Mather is co-author of Hanging the Sheriff: A Biography of Henry Plummer.

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From Barnes & Noble

The cornerstone of any Montana library is The Vigilantes of Montana, Thomas J. Dimsdale's 19th-century defense of frontier vigilantism. First published in 1866, this classic has been so influential that more than one historian has claimed that more recent studies have been little more than reworkings of Dimsdale's gripping narrative. This new edition presents this essential western text in a new setting.