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Author: Thomas Josiah Dimsdale
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Crime
Languages : en
Pages : 250
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Book Description
Author: Thomas Josiah Dimsdale
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Crime
Languages : en
Pages : 250
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Book Description
Author: Thomas Josiah Dimsdale
Publisher: Library of Alexandria
ISBN:
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 340
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Book Description
The end of all good government is the safety and happiness of the governed. It is not possible that a high state of civilization and progress can be maintained unless the tenure of life and property is secure; and it follows that the first efforts of a people in a new country for the inauguration of the reign of peace, the sure precursor of prosperity and stability, should be directed to the accomplishment of this object. In newly settled mining districts, the necessity for some effective organization of a judicial and protective character is more keenly felt than it is in other places, where the less exciting pursuits of agriculture and commerce mainly attract the attention and occupy the time of the first inhabitants. There are good reasons for this difference. The first is the entirely dissimilar character of the populations; and the second, the possession of vast sums of money by uneducated and unprincipled people, in all places where the precious metals may be obtained at the cost of the labor necessary to exhume them from the strata in which they lie concealed. In an agricultural country, the life of the pioneer settler is always one of hard labor, of considerable privation, and of more or less isolation, while the people who seek to clear a farm in the wild forest, or who break up the virgin soil of the prairies are usually of the steady and hard-working classes, needing little assistance from courts of justice to enable them to maintain rights which are seldom invaded; and whose differences, in the early days of the country, are, for the most part, so slight as to be scarcely worth the cost of a litigation more complicated than a friendly and, usually, gratuitous, arbitration—submitted to the judgment of the most respected among the citizens. In marked contrast to the peaceful life of the tiller of the soil, and to the placid monotony of his pursuits are the turbulent activity, the constant excitement and the perpetual temptations to which the dweller in a mining camp is subject, both during his sojourn in the gulches, or, if he be given to prospecting, in his frequent and unpremeditated change of location, commonly called a “stampede.” There can scarcely be conceived a greater or more apparent difference than exists between the staid and sedate inhabitants of rural districts, and the motley group of miners, professional men and merchants, thickly interspersed with sharpers, refugees, and a full selection from the dangerous classes that swagger, armed to the teeth, through the diggings and infest the roads leading to the newly discovered gulches, where lies the object of their worship—Gold. Fortunately the change to a better state of things is rapid, and none who now walk the streets of Virginia would believe that, within two years of this date, the great question to be decided was, which was the stronger, right or might? And here it must be stated, that the remarks which truth compels us to make, concerning the classes of individuals which furnish the law defying element of mining camps, are in no wise applicable to the majority of the people, who, while exhibiting the characteristic energy of the American race in the pursuit of wealth, yet maintain, under every disadvantage, an essential morality, which is the more creditable since it must be sincere, in order to withstand the temptations to which it is constantly exposed. “Oh, cursed thirst of gold,” said the ancient, and no man has even an inkling of the truth and force of the sentiment, till he has lived where gold and silver are as much the objects of desire, and of daily and laborious exertion, as glory and promotion are to the young soldier. Were it not for the preponderance of this conservative body of citizens, every camp in remote and recently discovered mineral regions would be a field of blood; and where this is not so, the fact is proof irresistible that the good is in sufficient force to control the evil, and eventually to bring order out of chaos.
Author: Francis McGee Thompson
Publisher: Montana Historical Society
ISBN: 9780972152228
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 308
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Book Description
Frank Thompson vividly recalls his experiences in gold-rush era Montana, where sought his fortune, served in the first territorial legislature, and met some of the territory's most notorious road agents.
Author: Michael A. Leeson
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Montana
Languages : en
Pages : 1394
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Book Description
Author: Mark C. Dillon
Publisher: University Press of Colorado
ISBN: 0874219205
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 489
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Book Description
A history and legal analysis of vigilantism in Montana in the 1860s, from a state Supreme Court justice and legal historian. Historians and novelists alike have described the vigilantism that took root in the gold-mining communities of Montana in the mid-1860s, but Mark C. Dillon is the first to examine the subject through the prism of American legal history, considering the state of criminal justice and law enforcement in the western territories and also trial procedures, gubernatorial politics, legislative enactments, and constitutional rights. Using newspaper articles, diaries, letters, biographies, invoices, and books that speak to the compelling history of Montana’s vigilantism in the 1860s, Dillon examines the conduct of the vigilantes in the context of the due process norms of the time. He implicates the influence of lawyers and judges who, like their non-lawyer counterparts, shaped history during the rush to earn fortunes in gold. Dillon’s perspective as a state Supreme Court justice and legal historian uniquely illuminates the intersection of territorial politics, constitutional issues, corrupt law enforcement, and the basic need of citizenry for social order. This readable and well-directed analysis of the social and legal context that contributed to the rise of Montana vigilante groups will be of interest to scholars and general readers interested in Western history, law, and criminal justice for years to come. “[Justice Dillon’s] book reads like a Western. Dillon masterfully sets the stage for the rise of the Montana vigilantes by bringing alive the people who created and lived in [mining] towns. There are heroes, villains, shady characters, and more than a few politicians, businessmen, lawyers and judges. What sets Dillon’s book apart from historical texts and fictional tales is that he provides legal analyses and explanations of the trials, sentences, due process and procedures of the day . . . And shed[s] grisly light on the details of the hangings. Dillon’s unique background as an attorney and judge and his downright dogged research are what makes this complex story so engaging. The prose is clear, crisp and gets to the point. . . . The book is satisfying because it answers contemporary nagging questions about the law regarding the vigilantes and the hangings.” —Gregory Zenon, Brooklyn Barrister “Dillon’s analysis of the vigilantes of Bannack, Alder Gulch, and Helena in Montana Territory is the most detailed, insightful, and legally nuanced yet produced. . . . This book is a model for historians to follow when dealing with 19th-century criminal proceedings. Establishing historical context includes examining the laws in books as well as the law in action.” —Gordon Morris Bakken, Great Plains Research
Author: Ruth E. Mather
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 248
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Book Description
Author: Paul R. Wylie
Publisher: University of Oklahoma Press
ISBN: 0806182636
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 415
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Book Description
Irish patriot, Civil War general, frontier governor—Thomas Francis Meagher played key roles in three major historical arenas. Today he is hailed as a hero by some, condemned as a drunkard by others. Paul R. Wylie now offers a definitive biography of this nineteenth-century figure who has long remained an enigma. The Irish General first recalls Meagher’s life from his boyhood and leadership of Young Ireland in the revolution of 1848, to his exile in Tasmania and escape to New York, where he found fame as an orator and as editor of the Irish News. He served in the Civil War—viewing the Union Army as training for a future Irish revolutionary force—and rose to the rank of brigadier general leading the famous Irish Brigade. Wylie traces Meagher’s military career in detail through the Seven Days battles, Antietam, Fredericksburg, and Chancellorsville. Wylie then recounts Meagher’s final years as acting governor of Montana Territory, sorting historical truth from false claims made against him regarding the militia he formed to combat attacking American Indians, and plumbing the mystery surrounding his death. Even as Meagher is lauded in most Irish histories, his statue in front of Montana’s capitol is viewed by some with contempt. The Irish General brings this multi-talented but seriously flawed individual to life, offering a balanced picture of the man and a captivating reading experience.
Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 686
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Book Description
Author: George Black
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
ISBN: 1429989742
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 561
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Book Description
"George Black rediscovers the history and lore of one of the planet's most magnificent landscapes. Read Empire of Shadows, and you'll never think of our first—in many ways our greatest—national park in the same way again." —Hampton Sides, author of Blood and Thunder Empire of Shadows is the epic story of the conquest of Yellowstone, a landscape uninhabited, inaccessible and shrouded in myth in the aftermath of the Civil War. In a radical reinterpretation of the nineteenth century West, George Black casts Yellowstone's creation as the culmination of three interwoven strands of history - the passion for exploration, the violence of the Indian Wars and the "civilizing" of the frontier - and charts its course through the lives of those who sought to lay bare its mysteries: Lt. Gustavus Cheyney Doane, a gifted but tormented cavalryman known as "the man who invented Wonderland"; the ambitious former vigilante leader Nathaniel Langford; scientist Ferdinand Hayden, who brought photographer William Henry Jackson and painter Thomas Moran to Yellowstone; and Gen. Phil Sheridan, Civil War hero and architect of the Indian Wars, who finally succeeded in having the new National Park placed under the protection of the US Cavalry. George Black1s Empire of Shadows is a groundbreaking historical account of the origins of America1s majestic national landmark.
Author: Carol Buchanan
Publisher: Wheeler Publishing, Incorporated
ISBN: 9781410465924
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 0
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Book Description
Winner of the 2009 Spur Award for Best First Novel by the Western Writers of America, as a "work whose inspirations, image and literary excellence best represent the reality and spirit of the American West." December 1863. Daniel Stark, New York lawyer and radical abolitionist, has come to the gold fields of Alder Gulch, in what will become Montana, to get enough gold to make restitution to the clients whose assets his father gambled away before killing himself. But where ruffians rule and murder is tolerated, Dan realizes that he will likely not survive to take his gold home unless he joins with others, Union and Confederate sympathizers alike, who form a Vigilante group to establish law and order. With Dan as Vigilante prosecutor, they hunt down suspected members of a criminal conspiracy operating in the area. As the Vigilantes identify and try the conspirators in secret tribunals, Dan faces the horrible prospect of hanging both a friend and the husband of the woman he loves.
