Mining Camp New Year's

Martha Edgerton Plassman wrote in 1926 about early New Year's celebrations in Montana and how they evolved as times changed. On New Year's Day at Bannack in 1863, fourteen-year-old Martha and two other young girls set out to keep the custom of visiting. There were few women in the mining camp, and no proper houses to call upon, and so the three stopped at George Chrisman's cabin, then moved down the street to Thompson and Swift's general store. Inside they found Henry Plummer—later hanged by ...