Gang Crackdown: When Stuart’s Stranglers Raided the Rustlers

 | Wild West  | 0 comments  |  Print This Post  |  Email This Post

Supplied with this information, Stuart and 14 determined fighting men mounted an expedition against the gangs. Recalling his early days at Bannack and Virginia City two decades before, Granville Stuart called the group a “Vigilante Committee,” but the band would forever be remembered in Western history as “Stuart’s Stranglers.”

Once the decision was made to crack down on the rustlers, Stuart moved fast. Splitting his force into squads, he sent them in search of their quarry.

On the Fourth of July, one party closed in on the hangout of Billy Downs and his pal California Ed on the Musselshell. There they found 26 horses in the corral, all bearing cattle ranchers’ brands. They discovered a large quantity of dried meat that Downs claimed was buffalo, but they all knew buffalo had not been seen in those parts for two years. In the stable were stacks of fresh hides, salted and prepared for shipment down river, all bearing the brand of the Fergus Stock Company. That was good enough for the vigilantes. Ignoring the entreaties of Downs’ wife, they took her husband and California Ed to a grove of trees and strung them up.

On that same Independence Day, folks at Lewistown contributed to the clean-up campaign by eliminating Rattlesnake Jake Fallon and Long-Haired Owen. In a drunken carousal, the two outlaws had disrupted the holiday festivities of the town and capped their rampage with the wanton killing of an innocent bystander. Townsmen went for their guns and riddled both desperados. When the smoke cleared, they counted nine bullet holes in Fallon and 11 in Owen.

Stuart’s party of vigilantes working the country around the mouth of the Musselshell rode to the headquarters of Red Mike and Brocky Gallagher at Rocky Point. The men they sought were gone, having crossed the river with some stolen horses. The vigilantes followed, captured Red Mike and Gallagher and recovered the horses. Stuart simply said that “both men plead guilty,” without further comment, but certainly the two thieves were soon dangling from trees along the river.

At Bates Point, 15 miles below the mouth of the Musselshell, was the home of Old Man James and the favorite hangout of  Stringer Jack. Stuart described the scene and the dramatic fight that took place there after he and his vigilantes arrived:

There was a log cabin and a stable with a large corral built of logs, connecting the two buildings. One hundred yards from the cabin in a wooded bottom was a tent constructed of poles and covered with wagon sheets. At the cabin were old man James, his two sons, Frank Hanson and Bill Williams. Occupying the tent were Jack Stringer, Paddy Rose, Swift Bill, Dixie Burr, Orvil Edwards, and Silas Nickerson.

Dixie Burr, his arm smashed by a rifle bullet, hid in an old dry well until dark and then made his escape. Rose, Nickerson, Edwards and Swift Bill also slipped out of the tent and got away in the dark. Every one of the outlaws in the gun battle at Bates Point was either killed or wounded with the exception of Edwards and Nickerson, who—for the time being—got away unscathed.

Help HistoryNet by bookmarking to

Tags: Wild West

You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a comment, or trackback from your own site.