MARCH 2024 Ghost Towns and History of Montana Newsletter From The Rocky Mountain Husbandman, April 3, 1884 EARLY DAY COURTS AND JUDGES; FIRST GREAT TRIAL WAS THAT OF GEORGE IVES, ROAD AGENT Accessed via: https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/ Here is a rare historical narrative, the story of the first great trial in Montana, that of George Ives, master highwayman, by the pen of a famous Montanan, the late Judge William Y. Pemberton, who served the miners' court as clerk, and afterwards became chief justice of the state. It gives something of the personnel of the officers of that famous court, and narrates the fact that Plummer's men, enraged at the execution of Ives, and the part Colonel Wilbur P. Sanders, the prosecutor of the court, had taken in it, and of their attempt to assassinate him, a circumstance not generally known. Judge Pemberton pays a great tribute to the courage and ability of Sanders, then in his early twenties, in connection with the prosecution of Ives: The late lamented and greatly loved Dr. W. L. Steele was the first miner's judge in Alder Gulch. It was before his court that Hayes Lyon and Buck Stinson were tried and convicted of killing Dillingham and sentenced to be hung. They appealed to the miners in mass meeting and the sentences were reversed. They escaped, only to be afterwards caught and hung by the Vigilance committee. The first great murder trial in the territory was the George Ives trial. And truly it was a great trial. Don L. Byam was the judge; the main street of the town of Nevada, in Alder Gulch, was the court room; George Ives was the noted defendant. Colonel W. F. Sanders and Major Charles S, Baggs prosePhoto by Jolene Ewert-Hintz
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