Killings, trials and vigilante justice led to Boise, Idaho City newspaper war in 1860s

“The Vigilantes are operating along the Payette, from Horseshoe Bend down; understand they are driving out the ‘gold dust spelterers’ and horse thieves from the community generally …”

Thus reported the Idaho World newspaper of Idaho City on New Year’s Eve, 1864.

The Idaho Tri-Weekly Statesman was outraged when Ferd Patterson was acquitted in the 1865 murder of Sumner Pinkham in Idaho City, and felt general satisfaction when Patterson himself was gunned down in a Walla Walla barber shop a few months later by one Tom Donavan.

“It is the general opinion”, reported the Idaho World, “that he was hired to commit the murder of Patterson by some of the vigilantes in that portion of the country. The jury at Walla Walla in the case of the People vs. Thomas Donavan, for the killing of Ferd Patterson, failed to agree, standing seven for acquittal and five for conviction.”

In October the Statesman reported: “Montana Vigilantes. At Helena, on Monday morning, the beams of the rising sun fell upon the stiffening corpse of Timmy Cooke, a thief, swinging in the morning breeze, with the fatal token of the vengeance of the Vigilantes around his neck, and bearing on a label the simple legend ‘Pickpocket.’ The criminal, Tommy Cooke, was a thief and a rough from ‘the other side,’ whether from Boise or California we know not; but the usual course of education embraces a residence in both of these training grounds of the Road Agents, robbers, and desperadoes of the West. Cooke was probably a graduate of both places.”

On April 14, 1866, the Idaho World of Idaho City described the lynching of John C. Clark in Boise the week before by a mob of 15-25 men. Some of his bones were broken.

In a longer article in the same issue, the World wrote: “The Vigilante Organ. The Statesman assumes a great many colors during the course of a year. The last one is black. It is running with the Vigilantes now — a Vigilante organ. They suit its style. Hang everyone who differs from you, and do it before the moon is up. What is law and order to one who has systematically scoffed at all laws, human and divine, during the past three years? In encouraging a Vigilance Committee to disturb the peace of the community, to go prowling about at midnight, murdering people, and stirring up bad blood in its neighborhood, the Statesman is consistent, and we judge the work agreeable to the editor’s natural inclinations.”

“Intemperate Language” was the World’s headline on April 21, 1866. “The Vigilante organ accuses us of using ‘intemperate’ language about that illustrious body of patriots. Intemperate! INTEMPERATE ! Well Sir, what sort of language would you have us use, when a whole community is put in terror by a band of midnight murderers straggling about the country, waylaying defenseless men, committing deeds outraging the laws of both God and man? What sort of language is fit for men who in times of peace array themselves in open rebellion against the laws of the country, and by brute force pale the faces of a whole community?”

These are the intemperate words of World editor H.C. Street, who stepped down on Sept. 29, 1866, and was succeeded by James O’Meara.