This man, on some accounts the most noted among the roughs of Idaho, was of patrician origin,—the degenerate scion of a family which boasted among its members some of the leading citizens of New York. He was born in the vicinity of Cayuga Lake, New York, about 1830, and could not have been more than thirty-six years of age at the close of his infamous career. He went to California in 1855, where, for want of more congenial occupation, he was employed for two years by the California Stage Company as a stage driver. Thence, in 1858, he sailed to British Columbia, but finding no business there suited to his tastes, returned the same year to California, spending two unprofitable years in Yuba County, and two years succeeding in Virginia City, Nevada. Excited by the intelligence from the northern mines, in 1862 he went to Florence and Warren in Idaho, and the Fall of that year found him in Boise County, where he located and worked a valuable claim on the Ophir. In 1864, with an accredited fortune of fifteen hundred dollars, he removed to Boise City and bought a livery stable in the centre of the town, which is still pointed out to visitors as having been the rendezvous of one of the most reckless and numerous bands of robbers and road agents in the mountains. Opdyke’s associations were bad, and he was suspected of aiding in the circulation of spurious gold dust, at that time an extensive business with the roughs of the country. His stable soon became the headquarters of all the suspicious characters of Boise, Owyhee, and Alturas counties. From these and other circumstances, the public was prepared to believe that all the thefts and robberies occurring in the country were committed by persons connected with the “Opdyke gang,” but so careful were they to cover their tracks, that no positive evidence could be found against them. A gentleman by the name of Parks went from Cincinnati, Ohio, to Baker County, Oregon, in 1862, where he was elected sheriff. He was very much respected. Early in the Fall of 1864, he went to Idaho, and in Owyhee County purchased and located claims on several quartz lodes, specimens of which he selected to exhibit to his Eastern friends, and packed carefully in a valise. Coming to Boise City, preparatory to his departure for the States, he passed through the streets with the heavy valise in his hand, which, being observed by some of the “Opdyke gang,” was supposed by them to contain a large quantity of gold dust. He remained in Boise four or five days, and was narrowly watched by the roughs.