Frank Thompson's
lively
memoir details
his experiences in the upper Missouri country at the beginning of the
Montana
gold rush. A young man at the outset of the Civil War, Thompson
supported
the Union cause but realized that military life was not for him.
Turning
to the frontier, he headed west aboard a steamboat from St. Louis in
1862,
arriving at Fort Benton, in what would later become Montana Territory.
Thompson's sojourn
was
relatively
brief - he returned east after only two and a half years. But in that
time
he hunted for gold, ran a Bannack mercantile business, traveled to the
Pacific Coast and back, served in Montana's first territorial
legislature,
and became a speculator in mining properties.
Thompson also formed
a
relationship
with controversial sheriff Henry Plummer. Thompson knew the sheriff
well,
but he early stated his dark suspicions about the gold camp lawman.
Drawing
from his intimate knowledge of the circumstances and players involved,
Thompson vividly describes one of the deadliest incident's of vigilante
justice in U.S. history.
A self-styled
tenderfoot, Frank Thompson
recalls his days on the mining frontier with clarity and insight,
making
him an unmatched eyewitness for Montana's formative era..
|
A
Tenderfoot in
Montana
Reminiscences
of the
Gold Rush, the Vigilantes, and the Birth of Montana Territory
by
Francis M. Thompson
Montana
Historical
Society Press, 2004.
Order
a copy.
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