When I was a child my father and I were fishing on Crooked Lake near our farm in North Dakota. Hangman’s Point came up in the conversation. With my curiosity piqued I demanded to know how it got that name. He did not know much – he had heard that a posse of cowboys from Minot cornered a horse thief here and hung him from a cottonwood tree. I really wanted to know more but I assumed the story was lost to time.
Some years later I stumbled upon a book written by a historian from Washburn, North Dakota. The book was Pioneer Days of Washburn, North Dakota and Vicinity by Mary Ann Barnes Williams. Here I discovered that a vigilante posse called the Montana Stranglers had actually captured three horse thieves near Minot and then murdered them at this point of land on Crooked Lake. Curiosity led me to follow up on names from this account. I discovered more and more over years and what unfolded was way more exciting than even I had hoped for as a child. Strangely no one had ever put the whole story together. Each county and area where the events unfolded told part of it but no one seemed to know for sure what happened before or after.
I pursued this story as an on-again-off-again interest for over 20 years. One day I thought–someone should write a book about this.
Montana Stranglers in Dakota Territory - by Ron Berget 