P a g e 6 G h o s t T o w n s a n d H i s t o r y o f M o n t a n a N e w s l e t t e r Typhoid Fever Outbreak: The Deaths of William and Clara Dalton During the exact same time as the January 1864 hangings, Matilda at the age of 19, contracted typhoid fever as did many of the residents of the Virginia City gold camp. Many people died, but Matilda survived. William and Clara cared for Matilda during her illness, where they both contracted typhoid fever and died within 2 weeks of each other in January of 1864. They were buried beside each other in the Virginia City cemetery that was located on a hill directly above the town. As earlier stated, according to Matilda Dalton, William Dalton’s funeral was the second Masonic funeral in the Territory of Montana. The first Masonic funeral was that of William H. Bell, who died in the fall of 1862 in Bannack Montana of “mountain fever”, which was actually typhoid fever. Road Agents and Boot Hill Henry Plummer, the sheriff of Virginia City, and the secret leader of the road agent gang known as "The Innocents". The Boot Hill grave markers of the 5 road agents who were hanged on January 13,1864 on the main street of Virginia City. Their names are Frank Parish, Boone Helm, Jack Gallagher, Haze Lyons and George Lane, a.k.a. Clubfoot George. The Daltons' graves are located just to the left of these road agents' graves. Days after William and Clara’s death, following the hanging of Helm, Lane, Gallagher, Parrish and Lyon in that unfinished building on the main street of Virginia City on January 13, 1864, the Vigilantes buried these road agents in unmarked graves in the Virginia City Cemetery with their boots on, right next to Clara and William Dalton’s graves. Several years later, the residents of Virginia City felt that they did not want their relatives buried next to notorious Road Agents, so they moved their relatives’ graves to another location above Virginia City. The only residents left behind were William and Clara Dalton, because there were no family members present to move their grave site. So for over 110+ years, William and Clara Dalton laid next to the Road Agents graves on what became known as “Boot Hill”. For many years, most visitors to Boot Hill did not know why the Daltons were buried along side murderers. Most visitors simply assumed that the Daltons were road agents just like the others buried there. This bothered my Mother, Doris Jeanne Thibadeau Biegel and her sister Noreen Thibadeau Swanz
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