Gold Hill daily news. [volume] (Gold Hill, N.T. [Nev.]) 1863-1882, 1866-11-24
Montana.

In the Montana PoIt, Of a late date. We
find q long and well written article, made
up OF sketches and anecdotes Of that Ter
ritorial wilderness, and from which We
clip the following:
The most rapid and impressive changes
are roiug on. Before advancing eiviliza-
ton, even brutal, stolid, savage faces light
up with surprise and bswildermsnt at the
new sra opening to their vision:
behind the squav's light birch canoe
The steamer rocks and raves,
And city lots are Staked for sale
Above old Indian graves.
hear the tread OF pioneers
or nations yet to be
Tho first low wash Of waves, whore soen
Shall roll a human sea.
The rudiments Of empire here
Are plastic yet and warm;
The chaos Of a mighty world
Is rounding into FORM"
Soon Montana will ask admission to
the Union a. . aovereign State. At pres
emit, nominally. it 10 ruled BY . Territorial
Governor, Legislature and Courts. but ac-
tually by the "Vigilantes," . secret tri-
bunal Of citizens, organized before civil
laws were framed, when robosries and
cold blooded murders were Of daily occur
renee. Tho highwaymen were called
Road Agents." from their assumed au-
thority over the stage roads and stage
companies, transcending that Of the su-
psrintsndsnts themselves. Coaches and
private %conveyances were stopped By
Road Agents. with cooked guns, COM
polling passengers to hold up their hands
lest they should grasp weapons, while
their persons and vehicle were riiisd. He
who resisted was killed on the spot.
An immigrant who had shot a grouse
near the road, ran to pick it up, and found
that it had fallen upon the corpse Of one
Of these victims. lying among the sage
brush. In a Virgins barber shop revol.
vsfs were drawn, one man vas shot dead
and another wounded /; but such AFFAIR."
were so common that the barber did moi
even stop lashering his patrons face, mol
did tho patron leave his chair. After Z
hundred homicides. the Vigilsntes organ
lied, captured, tried and executed twenty.
four Of the leading desperadoes, and ban.
ished many Others. Upon tho great gal
lows, which now overlook Bannack City,
they hung sven the county sheriff who
built it, and one Of his deputies, on well
established charges Of robbery and muir
der. Two or three days before I visited
Helena, the people awoke one morning to
And = notorious r~eprobate hanging dead
from . tree limb, and labeled Murderer"
It was q sharp warning to the surviving
c%ut-throats.
Montana 10 the young daughter Of q
Young mother-the child Of Colorado
| Thence came most Of the pioneer settlers.
| Among the later immigrants, every new
State and Territory 10 represented, fol
frontier life, oncs known. inspires restless.
ness, like tho shirt Of Nessus. A large
majority of the inhabitants are Missouri.
ians, at whose expense the settlers OF east.
ern origin relate many droll stories. In
a street discussion, Q lounger was defend
ing, % correct, the rural Southern phrassi
eve 'uns" and "you 'uns." One oil
the b~ysiandsrs asked him
"Are you a grammarian?'
(which" was his b%swildsred inquiry.
"Are you a grsmmarians"
"Why, no. I'm . Missourian!"
It was q distinction with q difference.
Blu, tho fun is not all on one side. Dur.
ing tho early Ksnsa, troubles, the Mis-.
,ourisns posted a guard at the ferry on
the great river, and whenever an immi-
grant sought to cross into the new, con.
vul..d Territory, asked him to say "cow."
II he pronounced il "keow" he was voted
a Yankee, and like Moors's disconsolste
Peri outside tho gate, he was not permitted
to enter III. desired Paradise"
remember an old Missourian on the
borders Of the Indian Territory, who wal
brough, in contact with many Eastern
men BY the Establishment Of . new stage
line through his neighborhood. Said no
1.-Two lived on the frontier all my life,
know English and the s~in-langu.ge, and
have picked up . smattering OF French
Spanish, Choctaw aud Delaware; but on'
language / can't understand, and that ii
this internal New York language"