Lynching of the Ruggles brothers
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The Lynching of the Ruggles brothers took place on July 24, 1892 in
Redding, California Redding is the economic and cultural capital of the Shasta Cascade region of Northern California and the county seat of Shasta County. Redding lies along the Sacramento River, north of Sacramento, and south of California's northern border wi ...
.


History

Brothers John and Charles Ruggles thought that they could make some easy money by robbing a
stagecoach A stagecoach is a four-wheeled public transport coach used to carry paying passengers and light packages on journeys long enough to need a change of horses. It is strongly sprung and generally drawn by four horses although some versions are draw ...
. John, a sex addict and ex-convict, had lost his wife to illness and had left his young daughter to live with relatives while he went to live off the land in the
Sierra Nevada The Sierra Nevada () is a mountain range in the Western United States, between the Central Valley of California and the Great Basin. The vast majority of the range lies in the state of California, although the Carson Range spur lies primarily ...
mountains. Concerned about his brother's well-being, Charles sought him out in the mountains. John had been robbing stagecoaches throughout California and Nevada with a man called Arizona Pete, and talked Charles into joining him on the outlaw trail. On May 10, 1892, the brothers robbed the Weaverville stage, but the take was small. The men settled on a location on top of a hill five miles north of Redding to pull off their next robbery. The stage would be moving slowly, and the horses would be tired from the uphill journey. The brothers stopped the stage on May 12, 1892, and everything went according to plan, until Charles was hit with buckshot fired by a guard riding inside the coach. More shots rang out, and soon passenger George Suhr, driver Johnny Boyce and guard Amos "Buck" Montgomery were all wounded. John Ruggles ran up to Montgomery and shot the seriously wounded man in the back, killing him. Boyce regained control of his team and drove off as fast as the horses could run. John, thinking that Charles was mortally wounded, said goodbye to his brother, grabbed the money and fled the scene. A posse found Charles where he was shot and took him into custody. His wounds looked worse than they were, and he was soon recovering in the Redding jail. Under questioning by
Wells Fargo Wells Fargo & Company is an American multinational financial services company with corporate headquarters in San Francisco, California; operational headquarters in Manhattan; and managerial offices throughout the United States and intern ...
detective John Thacker, Charles admitted that the other robber was his brother John. A reward of eleven hundred dollars was placed on John's head. John Ruggles was arrested while eating a meal at a restaurant in his hometown of
Woodland, California Woodland is a city in and the county seat of Yolo County, California, located approximately northwest of Sacramento, California, Sacramento, and is a part of the Sacramento metropolitan area. The population was 61,032 at the 2020 United States ...
, by a
Yolo County Yolo County (; Wintun: ''Yo-loy''), officially the County of Yolo, is a county located in the northern portion of the U.S. state of California. As of the 2020 census, the population was 216,403. Its county seat is Woodland. Yolo County is incl ...
deputy sheriff. Taken by train to Redding, John was overcome with joy upon seeing that his brother was not dead.


Support from women

"The recent sentimental attitude of a number of women toward the prisoners as well as the line of defense adopted by their counsel, who has been evidently endeavoring to implicate Messenger mos "Buck"Montgomery he dead victimas a party to the crime, had been denounced by a number of persons in the county and it is believed the lynching was due to those causes." "While in jail, the handsome brothers were fed and pampered by local ladies who brought flower bouquets, cakes, fruits, and even offers of marriage, which supposedly prompted their speedy hanging by local jealous males."


Lynching

A trial was set for July 28, 1892. On July 24, a group of masked men entered the jail and took the brothers out of their cell. They were hanged together from a derrick. No one was ever prosecuted for the lynching.


For further reading

John Boessenecker, Shotguns and Stagecoaches: The Brave Men Who Rode for Wells Fargo in the Wild West (2018)


References

{{reflist Ruggles Redding, California 1892 murders in the United States 1892 in California July 1892 events