OUCH: Magruder was murdered (in what is now known as a Magruder Massacre) with an ax while returning from a pack-train trip to the 'northern mines' at Alder Gulch (now in Montana). He was robbed on the road between Alder Gulch and his home in Lewiston, ID while carrying 1500 ounces (93.75 lbs) of gold dust and $2000 in Union greenbacks.Four men (C. Allen, Horace and Robert Chalmers, and a Mr. Phillips) who Magruder had been hired to help guard the money were also killed by the four highwaymen (Chris "Bill" Lowry, David "Doc Howard" Renton, Jim Romaine and Billy Page) who then stole the money and horses. The men were caught in San Francisco and the three who were convicted hanged in Idaho on March 4, 1864.

PLACENAME: Since 1980, the U.S. Forest Service maintains a 101-mile, single-lane, mostly-unimproved road called the Magruder Corridor through Idaho and Montana along the trail that Magruder used at the time of his murder.

PLACENAME: Magruder Creek [Idaho County, ID] is just south of the location of Magruder's murder.

Source: History of Political Conventions in California, 1849-1892 by Winfield J. Davis (1893)Source: Yearbook of the American Clan Gregor Society, edited by J. Bowie Ferneyhough (1932)