“Clubfoot” George Lane,  a shoemaker by trade, was accused of being a member of Henry Plummer’s gang of Innocents and hanged by Montana Vigilantes in January 1864.

A small man who was crippled due to a birth defect, Lane was originally from Massachusetts and made his way to the west during the California Gold Rush. He first worked on a farm in Yuba County before going to Calaveras County, where he worked as a store clerk.

Lane once again followed the miners when the 1860 gold rush began in Washington Territory. However, he ran into trouble in 1862 when a Lewiston, Idaho rancher accused him and another man of “running off horses.”

The following year, he and another man were accused of a similar crime: driving a stolen herd of horses toward the Snake River. The alleged horse thieves escaped, and by the fall of 1863, Lane had arrived in Virginia City, Montana. He soon found work at Dance and Stewart’s Store, where he mended harnesses and made and repaired boots.

Quickly earning the respect of his employers, Lane came under suspicion in December 1863 when he rode to Bannack, Montana, to inform Henry Plummer of the George Ives trial in Nevada City. Though Plummer was absent then, Lane told Deputies Ray and Stinson of the growing vigilance movement in Virginia City.

The following month, during the meeting of the Vigilance Committee, Lane’s name was quickly mentioned as a suspected “spy” for an outlaw gang known as the Innocents. On January 14, 1864, he was arrested at Dance and Stuart’s store. When he inquired about the reason for his arrest, the men explained that it was “for being a road agent, thief, and an accessory to numerous robberies and murders on the highway.” Lane replied, “If you hang me, you will hang an innocent man.” Although the men he worked for had come to respect him, they assumed that the vigilantes possessed evidence against Lane and chose not to intervene.

Though residents felt Lane was innocent of any crimes, the Committee tried Lane and found him guilty. Along with Frank Parish, Boone Helm, Haze Lyons, and Jack Gallager, he was sentenced to be hanged. George Lane asked to see a minister before his execution, which was scheduled first. Forced to stand on a box under the noose, Lane spied a friend and yelled, “Goodbye, old fellow; I’m gone.” He then leaped from the box without waiting for it to be removed. He and the others hanged that day were buried in Virginia City’s Boot Hill Cemetery without the benefit of markers.

About 43 years after the burials, many wondered who was in each grave. In 1907, a former vigilante came forward, saying that he knew the order of the graves and which one was Club Foot George’s.

To prove his point, the city soon dug up the grave that was allegedly Clubfoot George Lane’s. Low and behold, the former vigilante was correct, as the grave held George Lane’s deformed foot. The deformed foot bones were then placed in a cabinet in the courthouse. However, they are displayed in a glass jar at the Thompson Hickman Museum in Virginia City, Montana.

©Kathy Alexander/Legends of America, updated January 2025.

Also See:

Boone Helm – Murderer, Cannibal & Thief

Henry Plummer – Sheriff Meets a Noose

Innocents Gang of Montana

Virginia City – A Lively Ghost Town

See Sources.