Collection: Books and Periodicals > Nevada County Historical Society Bulletins

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Title: Volume 049-4 - October 1995 Collection Type: Books and Periodicals Collection Name: Nevada County Historical Society Bulletins # of Pages: 10 Download PDF: User Login Required Download OCR Text: User Login Required

Date Scanned: 2014-03-05 07:17:00 OCR Software Version #: tesseract 5.4.1 Item Sourced From: PDF First Created: 2025-03-17 04:06:00 Last Updated: 2025-03-17 04:06:00

Original Held At: Searls Historical Library Location: 161 Nevada City Hwy, Nevada City, CA 95959

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mony was presented about jurors from North San Juan and Red Dog.... Judge Searls denied McConnell’s motion for a new trial and sentenced Plumer to twelve years in prison. The judge had misgivings about the grand jury indictment, but was powerless to interfere. He reasoned that if he granted McConnell’s present motion, a third trial might be granted at a later time. He preferred an immediate review by the supreme court to eliminate future causes for appeal. McConnell promptly appealed. ... The supreme court decided Henry Plumer was entitled to a new trial. The Democrat explained: Judge Searls [had] overruled the [defense] motion for a new trial, intimating at the time that the indictment was defective, and [he wanted] all the objections [to] go at once to the Supreme Court, thus avoiding the possibility of two more trials. The Supreme Court overruled the objections to the indictment, but held that the jurors who had thus expressed opinions [of Plumer’s guilt] ... were incompetent. The high court questioned whether such persons ought to sit in any case “involving the life or liberty of a citizen,” saying: Aman who could so far forget his duty as a citizen, and his allegiance to the Constitution, as to openly advocate taking the life of a citizen without the form of law, and deprive him of the chance of a jury trial, would not be likely to stop at any means to secure, under the forms of a legal trial, a result which he had openly declared ought to be accomplished by an open violation of the law. McConnell and Niles had submitted affidavits and testimony to the supreme court showing several jurors had favored hanging Plumer before hearing testimony. Of J. G. Denny they said: This man appears to have resided in San Francisco during a period of its history which every honest citizen ought to blush to think of—and to have imbibed, in that hot-bed of treason and lawless violence, all the bitter prejudice against a man accused of crime which at that time prevailed there, together with an ardent admiration for their new and summary modes of procedure and punishment. Such men as he and Getchel ought not to live in a free and civilized country—much less to sit in judgment upon the lives and liberties of its citizens. With such men, to accuse is to convict... . Judge Searls approved a change of venue to Marysville for Henry Plumer’s second trial, and in September the ex-marshal again was convicted of second degree murder. Judge Barbour sentenced Plumer to ten years at San Quentin, but a ten-day stay of sentence was granted so McConnell and Niles could file another appeal.’ [The Vedder story was repeated as follows:] 4. Brides, pp. 324-328, 333, 369, 392. 30 One week after the election, Lucinda Vedder left her husband and moved into a room opposite Plumer’s in the Hotel de Paris. A few nights later, while Plumer and Lucinda were Sitting together in the kitchen of her husband’s house, John Vedder tried to enter by the back door and was shot to death by Plumer. The marshal surrendered to the sheriff and was charged with murder. After a hard-fought trial, Plumer was convicted and sentenced to 12 years in San Quentin prison on December 27, 1857. The state supreme court set aside the verdict on a technicality in June 1858 and ordered a new trial in another venue. The second trial resulted in another conviction, and he was sentenced to 10 years in prison. Attorney John R. McConnell appealed again and was turned down. Plumer entered San Quentin on February 22, 1859. Before long, McConnell was endeavoring to get his client released because of poor health. Prison physicians testified that Plumer was dying of consumption and had only a few weeks to live. McConnell circulated petitions in Nevada and Yuba counties for Plumer’s relief, and on August 16, Governor Weller signed the pardon. Plumer was back in Nevada City ten days later, and in September the “dying’”’ man was hired as a policeman by the man who had replaced him as city marshal. As before, Plumer proved himself adept at fingering wanted criminals; a few days after going to work, he arrested “Ten Year” Smith, who had escaped from San Quentin the year before. Like other Plumer detainees, Smith mysteriously vanished from the jail ten days later. When the city marshal was defeated in May 1860, Plumer found himself out of a job, and he became William Sublette’s partner in a Nevada City gold mine. Except for a time when he nearly lost a finger while leaping off the stage of David Ashmore’s Melodeon Theater and Saloon, Plumer’s activities went largely unnoticed by the local press. Then, on February 12, 1861, he had an argument with a man in a brothel near the court house. . . > [Plumer apparently was a regular customer of the bawdy houses. These institutions often were the scene of violence and Plumer did not escape this. After the Vedder affair, there was the encounter in a bawdy house with W. T. Muldoon, who was wounded but not killed by Plumer, who apparently was not prosecuted for this. More serious was the killing of William Riley, also in a bawdy house. Plumer did not risk an enciounter with the judicial system and left Nevada County. This was the beginning of his wanderings in the (present) states of Nevada, Idaho and Montana. The story of this, which follows, is different from what is presented in the various books about Plumer, books which do not agree with each other either. However, this is what the citizens of Nevada County were told:] The Democrat reported: A fracas occurred about eleven o’clock last night, at the 5. Greenbacks, pp. 133-134. ~~