On July 17, 1901, two men carried the telegram with the stay of
execution from Minidoka to Albion that saved the life of
Diamondfield Jack. In 1897, Diamondfield Jack was tried and found
guilty of first degree murder of two sheepmen in a camp near Deep
Creek. Sentenced to hang, his case was appealed up through the
courts until the United States Supreme Court finally denied it. The
death sentence was set to be carried out on July 17, 1901.
Newspaper accounts of the day reported "Never has there been such
crowds in Albion". When rumor came that there was a possibility of
a stay of execution there was a fear by Sheriff G Brown that the
sheepmen might take the law into their own hands and lynch
Diamondfield Jack. Although there was a telegaph line running into
Albion at the time, the fear was that the connection would be
severed by enemies of Jack. That prompted the sheriff to dispatch
two men, Willis Sears and Charley Christ, to the town of Minidoka.
There, they were to recieve the final word from the Board of
Pardons which was to meet at ten o'clock the morning of July 17 in
Boise.
Charley and Willis took three horses a piece and left the day
before. They left two horses at the Woods ranch, two at the river
crossing at Starrs ferry and rode the other two onto Minidoka where
they stayed the night. The next morning, Sears came back to Starrs
ferry so as to have the ferry on the north side of the river and
Christ stayed on in Minidoka to wait for the message and bring it
with him. The Board of Pardons met that morning and agreed to give
Diamondfield a stay of execution until they could make a further
study of the case. The message was received at 11:00 that morning
in which Christ took it and rode as fast as possible down the the
ferry. Once there, the two men crossed to the south side of the
river where they swapped their horses for the fresh ones left the
night before. From there they started on the second lap to Woods
ranch again swapping for fresh horses. They then finished the race
up the canyon and into Albion with the reprieve. According to
Willis Sears' memoirs, they arrived there at about 1:15 that
afternoon.
This cache is an attempt to retrace their route from Minidoka to
Albion in a three stage cache. The first two stages are micros with
an ammo can at the end. The total miles covered will be about 36.60
miles as the crow flies. This cache is to commemorate the endurance
of these two riders so the final cache location should test your
endurance. This is my first attempt at a more quality oriented
cache, please let me know what you think.
Click To Rate This Cache