11/17/1896 - On the third Tuesday of November, the man that does more than any other single individual to bring law and order to the American frontier while serving for 21 years as the first United States district judge for the District Court for the Western District of Arkansas (including the Indian Territory that will one day become the state of Oklahoma), Isaac Charles Parker, dies in Fort Smith, Arkansas from Bright's disease (a kidney problem characterized by swelling of the organ, albumin in the urine, and high blood pressure) and heart degeneration at the age of 58.
Parker
The man who will become known as "The Hanging Judge" of Fort Smith, is born on October 15, 1838 in Barnesville, Ohio into the Methodist family of farmer Joseph Parker and his wife, Jane Shannon Parker, the well-educated niece of Ohio governor, Wilson Shannon (he also has relatives that fought in the American Revolution, served in the United States House of Representatives, and crossed the country with the Lewis & Clark expedition as it's youngest member). He grows up in Belmont County, Ohio the edge of America's western frontier at the time and an agricultural region. Raised on his parent's farm, he finds little fulfillment in toiling on the land. Instead, encouraged by his mother, Parker throws himself into his education when not doing farm chores, first attending the Breeze Hill primary school, before then moving on to the Barnesville Classical Institute. A private school, he pays for his classes at the institute by teaching at one of the county's primary schools. Direction chosen for his adult life, at seventeen Parker decides to become a lawyer. Combining apprenticing with a local Barnesville barrister and studying a myriad of law books, four years after making his decision, Parker passes his bar exam in 1859. Wanting to spread his wings and not compete with other Ohio lawyers for clients, at 21, he takes a steamboat west and begins practicing law in the bustling Missouri River port town of St. Joseph (part of the Ninth Missouri Circuit Court), helped on considerably by joining the law firm of his maternal uncle's (D.E. Shannon) and his uncle's partner (H.B. Banch) the local law firm, Shannon & Banch. Gaining valuable experience and community recognition working in the region's municipal and county criminal courts, in 1861, he opens his own law firm, marries a local lass, Mary O'Toole (they will have three sons, Charles and James, and a third that dies in it's infancy), and as a Democrat, runs for the part-time post of St. Joseph city attorney. Winning the office (a one year term, Parker will also win the post in 1862 and 1863), four days later the American Civil War begins and the young lawyer reevaluates his political beliefs. dropping his Democrat ties and joining a Union home guard unit, the 61st Missouri Emergency Regiment, reaching the rank of corporal by the conclusion of the conflict. Finally officially changing his political affiliation because of his staunch opposition to slavery, he joins the Republican Party in 1864 and is elected to the post of county prosecutor for the Ninth Missouri Judicial District and as a member of the state's Electoral College, votes to reelect Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States. Four years later, in 1868, Parker wins election to a six-year term as a Twelfth Missouri Circuit judge. He will not however complete his term as judge.
St. Joseph
Backed by the Radical faction of the Republic Party, on September 13, 1870, though he already has a job, Parker is nominated to represent Missouri's 7th District in the 42rd U.S. Congress. A position he sees as a springboard into politics, Parker quickly resigns his judgeship and puts all his energy into winning the office, and achieves that goal when two weeks before the election takes place his opponent withdraws.and he then defeats a replacement candidate. In his first term in Congress, Parker helps secure pensions for the veterans of his district, campaigns for a new federal building to go up in St. Joseph, sponsors legislation to create a territorial government for the Indian Territory, and has legislation defeated that would enfranchise women and allow them to hold public offices in United States territories. Running and winning again, during his second stint in Congress, Parker stands up for the fair treatment of the Indians residing in the Indian Territory and makes speeches in support of the Bureau of Indian Affairs. In 1874, Parker is the caucus Republican Party nominee for a Missouri Senate seat, but believing it is unlikely that the state legislature will elect him to the senate, he instead seeks a presidential appointment as judge for the Western District of Arkansas (though he is already in line to replace James Bedell McKean as Chief Justice of the Utah Territory), which President Ulysses S. Grant gladly nominates him for on March 18, 1875 after the previous office holder, federal Judge William Story resigns under threat of being impeached by the Senate for corruption. Parker is confirmed by the Senate the next day. Parker will be responsible for a jurisdiction that includes the thirteen counties that run north and south along the western border of Arkansas, all of the Indian Territory (a swath of more than 70,000 square miles of land), and a 50-mile strip of Kansas on the state's southern border Overseeing the law there for an annual salary of $3,500, it will be Parker's job for the next 21 years.
McKean During The Civil War
Story
A month and a half after being confirmed as the judge for the Western District, without his family yet in tow, the youngest Federal judge in the West at the time, the 36-year-old Parker shows up in Fort Smith, Arkansas (founded in 1817 as a federal military post and incorporated on December 24, 1842, the city is located on the border of the state of Arkansas and the Indian Territory, now the state of Oklahoma, at the confluence of the Arkansas and Poteau Rivers) on May 4, 1875. Six days later, on Monday, May 10, 1875, Parker, with court prosecutor William Henry Harrison Clayton in support (he will be the Federal prosecutor for fourteen of Parker's 21 years on the Western District of Arkansas bench), has his first day in his new position and sentences eight men, found guilty of murder, to hanging by the neck until they are dead, with the sentences set to take place on September 3, 1875 (six will go to their end as sentenced, one will be killed trying to escape the Fort Smith jail, and one, because of his youth, will have his sentence commuted to life in prison by Arkansas Governor Augustus H. Garland), and just for good measure, he also finds time that same day to confirm the hire by U.S. Marshal James Fleming Fagan as one of his Deputy U.S. Marshals, of the legendary black lawman, 37-year-old Bass Reeves (the first black U.S. Deputy Marshal west of the Mississippi River, a former 6'2" Arkansas slave, fluent in Cherokee, Choctaw, Chickasaw, Seminole, and Creek languages, who while make over 3,000 arrests during a career of 35 years of enforcing the law, also sees him kill twenty men in the line of duty without once being wounded, though he does lose a hat and a belt to outlaw slugs fired his way).
Recreated Parker Courtroom In 1966
Prosecutor Clayton
Confederate Fagan During The Civil War
Bass Reeves
From 1875 to 1889, Parker's court is the final jurisdiction over Federal crimes committed in the Indian Territory and his decisions can only be appealed to U.S. President Ulysses S. Grant. Hoping to lighten the judge's workload, 1889 sees Congress make changes to the court system that allow capital case conviction appeals to be decided by the United States Supreme Court in Washington D.C., a decision Parker does not like as the court allows 30 of the 44 death penalty cases he oversees to get overturned and have a retrial ordered. And he also doesn't like that his court also loses the power of concurrent sentencing. Ninety-one defendants will come before the court in its first eight weeks, and in all, there will be 13,490 cases tried in Judge Parker's court during his tenure, and of that total, more than 8,500 will have the defendant in question plead guilty or be convicted during their trial (his duties also sometimes require him to testify before Congress, substitute for other Federal judges in the region, and to oversee important civil cases). In 160 cases, Parker sentences guilty convicted defendants to death, and of that unlucky total of convicts, 79 will actually be hung by the neck until dead (35% will be American Indians, 33% will be white men, and 18% will be African-Americans), while 81 others either died during their incarcerations, were pardoned, or had their sentences commuted. With a worklog and backlog of cases that never seems to grow smaller (though Congress will make several attempts over the years to lighten Parker's workload), the busy judge and husband also somehow finds time to serve as a member of the Fort Smith School Board, become the first president of the local St. John's Hospital, and at Parker's urgings, in 1884, the judge gets the Federal Government to donate almost 300-acres of military reservation to the city to help fund the Fort Smith public school system, and the jurist also somehow also finds time to appear with his wife at local community social events.
Then
Now
But at least there is no record of anyone trying to shot, stab, or choke to death the overworked judge, unlike the men that keep his courtroom constantly filled by murderous miscreants in need of stern medicine from Judge Parker, the United States Marshal and United States Deputy Marshals for the Western District of Arkansas. The job of U.S. Marshal for the Western District of Arkansas in the 1880s and 1890s is only $90 a month for orchestrating the activities of roughly 200 deputy marshals through over 70,000 square miles of lawlessness, and it is even rougher on the men that are sent out to bring in the outlaws of the region and period. There is no fixed salary for the deputy marshals, make arrests, make money, go bust looking for law breakers and you eat jerky from a shoulder bag when you are lucky. For each deliver of a court summons or wanted culprit delivered to the Fort Smith courthouse. a marshal would receive a tally of $2, with an additional bonus of six cents for each mile that is spent for traveling with a killer or the carrying official documents (though not always available, the court is also expected to provide prisoner transportation in the form of an arrest team that includes a cook, chuck wagon, barred prison wagon, and extra horses and mules). Able sometimes to collect railroad and business rewards, the men of the Western District spend massive amounts of time sleeping out under the stars and when there is a shootout with a death involved, they are required to pay the burial costs of the badman croaked. An extremely hard road to walk, during the judge's tenure on the bench, 109 of his men will be killed in the line of duty. Among the famous (and infamous) lawmen that ply their craft for the Western District of Arkansas are the legendary "Three Guardsmen of Oklahoma" comprised of Henry Andrew "Heck" Thomas, Chris Madsen, and Bill Tilghman that will help strike down both the Dalton Gang and the Doolin-Dalton Gang (directed by U.S. Marshal Evett Nix), Frank Dalton (killed at the age of 28 while helping make an arrest of a whiskey runner and horse thief), Grat Dalton (before his fall into outlawry after the death of his brother Frank), Bob Dalton (before his fall into outlawry after the death of his brother Frank), Seldon Lindsey (one of the lawmen that sends Bill Dalton to eternity in 1895, the aforementioned Bass Reeves (believed to be the real-life model for the fictional character, "The Lone Ranger"), quick draw artist Frank Boardman "Pistol Pete" Eaton, Cal Whitson (the real-life one-eyed lawman that will become the model for Rooster Coogburn in the Charles Portis novel, "True Grit") and James Patrick Masterson (Bat's brother, James is the one that gets outlaw Roy "Arkansas Tom Jones" Daugherty to surrender at the Battle of Ingalls in 1893 by threatening to blow the outlaw out of his perch in a window of the O.K. Hotel with a handful of sputtering dynamite sticks). Among the desperadoes the deputies deal with during the Parker years are Blue Duck, Belle Starr, Henry Starr (he will have his death sentenced commuted for helping catch killer Cherokee Bill when the convict tries to escape the jail in Fort Smith), Cherokee Bill (alias Crawford Goldsby), the Bill Cook Gang, Bob, Grat, Emmett, and Bill Dalton, and the Oklahombres of Bill Doolin, William "Tulsa Jack" Blake, Dan "Dynamite Dan" Clifton, Richard "Little Bill" Raidler, George "Red Buck" Waightman, Oliver "Ol" Yantis, outlaw turned politician Al Jennings, The Rufus Buck Gang, Indian lawman turned outlaw Ned Christie, and Nathaniel Ellsworth "Zip" Wyatt.
Marshal Nix
Whitson
Not all United States deputy marshals created equally, one absolutely must be mentioned in any telling of Parker's tale, so entwined in the story of the judge that he is like a super-hero sidekick of other times, the "Hanging Judge" (despite the name, the judge is actually against capital punishment) will have a helper beside him for 19 years of his 21-year tenure ... the official executioner for the federal court of the Western District of Arkansas (also known by a nickname of its own by this time, "Court of the Damned"), "The Prince of Hangmen," U.S. Deputy Marshal George Maledon (oh, and the Fort Smith jail will be called the "Hell on the Border" jail). Born in Germany on June 10, 1830, Maledon immigrates to the United States when he is a small child, settling with his family in Detroit, Michigan. When he is eighteen, Maledon moves to Fort Smith, Arkansas and begins working there as a police officer (after a brief stint working in a Choctaw Indian lumber mill), a job he will hold until the American Civil War begins in 1861 when the boy enlists in the 1st Battalion of the Arkansas Light Artillery. At the war's conclusion, when Maledon returns to Fort Smith and takes a position as a night guard with the local Federal jail he stands 5'5" in his stocking feet, has dark eyes and hair, a fair complexion, and a long beard, is quiet by nature, rarely smiles, and almost always dresses in all black attire. In 1871, Maledon works as a Fort Smith Deputy Sheriff and also becomes a turnkey at the jail and takes over duties involving condemned men's executions. In Maledon's career, carrying two guns while on-duty, he will hang 79 men using a specially made hemp fiber from St. Louis, Missouri, 1.25 inches to 1 inch in diameter, treated with a special oil to prevent slippage (then the ropes are stretched out using two-hundred pound bags of sand) on a gallow with a single trap door sixteen feet long by three feet wide to accommodate up to eight individuals with a single lever pull (the most Maledon will hang at once will be six), hemp Maledon twists and ties into a knot the condemned wear right behind the ear to induce an instant broken neck, the preferred method of death over having a condemned man slowly choking to death on the gibbet for the entertainment of an audience of thousands (between 5,000 and 7,000 people attend one of the multiple hangings Maledon oversees, later a wall will go up around the gallows and witnesses will be kept to a lower total of around 50 folks). When not a part time jury member or executioner, Maledon is also an excellent jail guard, five times drawing his revolver and putting slugs in five outlaws attempting to escape from the Fort Smith jail, killing two of the men.
Maledon
Maledon's Revolver
Only once will Maledon refuse an execution assignment from Judge Parker that pays $100 per neck stretching, and it is one of the events that contributes to Maledon's retirement from execution duty. A fellow U.S. Deputy Marshal and friend, Barney Conneley, is convicted of killing another deputy marshal, Sheppard Busby, when Busby tries to arrest Conneley for adultery. His friend sentenced to be hung by the neck until he is dead, Maledon refuses the execution assignment and the fee for the duty and the job instead goes to U.S. Deputy Marshal G.S. White. In 1895, Maledon sees up close and personal how dangerous the West can be when news reaches him that his 18-year-old daughter, Annie, has been murdered by Frank Carver, the man she has been dating since meeting him while he is in Fort Smith being tried for whiskey running (Annie is killed when she travels to Muskogee, Oklahoma to be with him and instead discovers he is already married to an Indian woman, the fight that ensues ends with Carver shooting and mortally wounding Annie, returned to Fort Smith for treatment, she dies three weeks later). Devastated by his daughter's death, Maledon rides an emotional roller-coaster as his daughter's killing leads to a guilty verdict and sentence of death before Judge Parker himself, that then is appealed to the Unite States Supreme Court, which in turn leads to Carver's sentence being changed to life in prison ... a decision Maledon finds so repugnant that he retires from the deputy service and begins running a grocery store in Fort Smith when not on the road displaying a tent show he has put together from souvenirs he has kept as the official executioner of Judge Isaac Parker ... photographs of some of the nation's most notorious desperadoes, an assortment of hanging ropes, pieces of the gallows' beam, and other ghoulish relics. In 1905, Maledon's health begins failing and he enters an old soldier's home in Humboldt, Tennessee, where he will remain for the rest of his life. Maledon dies from natural causes at the home at the age of 81, on May 6, 1911. He is buried at the Johnson City Veterans' Memorial Cemetery in Washington County, Tennessee.
Connelley & Busby's Tombstone
Maledon
According to the court policies of the United States Congress, Judge Parker's court is to meet four times a year, in February, May, August, and November but once the Western District of Arkansas proceedings begin, they basically don't stop (with Parker usually working six days a week for ten hours or more) and in 1883, Congress reduces the jurisdiction and the territory of the Western District, giving southern and northern Indian Territory borderlands to Federal courts in the adjacent states of Texas and Kansas, but with increased numbers of white settlers moving into the region, the judge's caseload does not decrease, but actually gets larger. In 1889, trying to help again, Congress make changes that allow capital cases to go to the United States Supreme Court on appeal ... a decision that causes even more work for the judge as now he must sometimes try cases more than a single and time and has to answer to someone other than the President for his decisions (of the cases that go to the Supreme Court, two-thirds of Parker's decisions will be upheld). And finally, in 1891, Congress passes the Judiciary Act of 1891, which sets the Indian Territory up with it's own court system outside of Parker's rule (effective as of September 1, 1896). Too little, too late, the judge's workload literally destroys his health and as the court session for August of 1896 begins, Parker is bedridden with Bright's disease and too ill to preside over his court (it is the first time in his career that he misses a day of work) when newspapermen show up at his home to interview him about his feelings about the removal of the Indian Territory from his jurisdiction and discuss his overall career, they have to interview the famous jurist while Parker lays in bed. Looking like a man several decades older than he actually is, Parker dies on 2:45 in the morning of Tuesday, November 17, 1896 at his Fort Smith home of Bright's disease and heart degeneration at the age of only 58. His massive contributions to Western jurisprudence and well being of the Fort Smith community noted, the flag at the Federal courthouse is lowered to half staff after the judge's death and Parker is buried at the Fort Smith National Cemetery after his funeral is attended by the biggest crowd to that time in Arkansas (Parker's grave will be covered by chrysanthemums, roses, and other blossoms found on the region's prairies ... with General Pleasant Parker of the Creek Nation placing a cross of yellow chrysanthemums with a circle of a variety of pure white flowers at its center, while another flowered cross that is placed at the foot of the grave comes from a friend of the jurist in St. Louis, meanwhile, a choir featuring several women sing a number of beautiful hymns), literally thousands of citizens of the state show up for the event (his obituary will run in the Fort Smith Elevator under the banner: THE END OF AN ABLE, BRILLIANT, PURE AND USEFUL LIFE).
Parker's Grave
Statue Of Judge Parker In Fort Smith's
Gateway Park
Thousands of cases tried over the years, perhaps the Hanging Judge's most infamous customer can be found in the person of Crawford Goldsby, better known as the murderous Indian Territory killer "Cherokee Bill." A mixed blood of African, Indian (Sioux and Cherokee), Mexican, and white ancestry, and the product of growing up on America's western frontier in a broken family, by the time Goldsby is a teen he is associating with unsavory characters, drinking liquor, and revolting against authority while living with his mother and an elderly black lady known as "Aunty" Amanda Foster, at the Indian School of Cherokee, Kansas, before moving in with a Fort Gibson man named Bud Buffington, and then camping out with his sister Maud and her husband in Noweta, Oklahoma. Thinking he'd killed a man in Fort Gibson over trouble at a local dance, Goldsby flees retribution and heads into the Indian Territory where he joins the outlaw gang of mixed-blood Cherokee brothers, Jim and Bill Cook. Small potatoes at first selling whiskey and stealing horses, his criminal rampage through the region begins in earnest on May 26, 1894 when he robs the T.H. Scales Store of Wetumka, Oklahoma of a grand total of 35 cents, before quickly escalating when he and the Cook brothers shoot their way out of posse ambush, killing Tahlequah, Oklahoma Deputy Sequoyah Houston. On July 4, 1894, trying to steal a ride on a Kansas and Arkansas train near Fort Gibson, Goldsby kills brakeman Samuel Collins and a tramp also trying to score a free ride that unfortunately gets in the way. Two days later, he kills Mississippi Railway station agent A. L. "Dick" Richards while robbing the man. Still in July, Goldsby then joins up with the Cook Gang in robbing a San Francisco bound train near the town of Red Fork. He kills again on July 30, 1894, when illegally withdrawing $500 from the Lincoln County Bank of Chandler, Oklahoma, gunning down J. B. Mitchell for not following his orders quickly enough. Hiding out with his sister and brother-in law, Joseph "Mose" Brown, he gets in an argument with Brown over some hogs on the farm and in the blink of an eye makes his sister into a widow by putting a bullet into the back of Brown's head. August sees Goldsby and other members of the gang escape a posse fourteen miles west of Sapulpa in a shootout that severely wounds one lawman and kills two gang members (outlaw Ad Berryhill is also captured) In September, the gang takes $600 out of the J.A. Parkinson & Company store of Okmulgee, a crime they follow up on by holding up the train depot for the Missouri Pacific Railroad of Claremore on October 10, 1894 ... and two hours later, the gang robs the railroad agent of the town of Chouteau. Ten days later, on the 20th of the month, the group hits the Kansas City and Missouri Pacific express five miles south of Wagoner. Goldsby follows up that railroad job two days later by robbing, along with three other members of the gang, the post office and general store of Watova, Oklahoma, a town fifteen miles south of Coffeyville, Kansas. During the robbery Goldsby kills again, placing a rifle bullet just under the eye of a painter named Ernest Melton who is observing the heist from across the street while eating a meal in one of the town's restaurants.
Goldsby And His Mother
Wanted Poster
The hunt for Goldsby ends as so many criminal chases do ... with a woman involved and the betrayal coming from individuals thought to be friends. Reward for his capture increased by the authorities fto $1,300 (worth $47,496.58 in 2024 dollars) following his murder of Melton, it is a total that can no longer be ignored for some of the killer's friends. Wanting to see his girlfriend Maggie Glass for her seventeenth birthday, Goldsby accepts an invitation to her birthday party where he runs afoul of a former U.S. Deputy Ike Rogers, Glass' cousin, unaware that Rogers has been offered his job back (lost by the "lawman" for harboring the outlaws he is suppose to be chasing in his own home) if he helps bring in the notorious badman. On guard during the party at Rogers' home, Goldsby grows suspicious when his girlfriend advises him to leave as soon as he can, but stays instead and avoids letting Rogers get the drop on him and not falling victim to the whiskey he is repeatedly offered that is laced morphine. It is all a game to Goldsby until the next morning. On January 30, 1895 (in January also, Bill Cook will be arrested and brought before Judge Parker, found guilty of bank robbery, he will be sentenced to 45 years at the Federal prison in Albany, New York, where he dies of consumption on February 15, 1900 at the age of 27), Goldsby allows his attention to wander briefly as he lights a cigarette from the fireplace in the home and is rewarded by being hit over the back of his head by Rogers with an iron poker and subsequently loses a knockdown brawl lasting over fifteen minutes with Rogers and a friend of his, Clint Scales (Goldsby almost gets away on the wagon ride to Nowata when he breaks out of his handcuffs, but has Rogers able to keep him in check compliments of a double-barrel shotgun he keeps trained on the outlaw ... and another attempt takes place when the train Goldsby is placed on stops in Wagoner and a local photographer asks to get a few pictures of the captive and his captors, and the killer uses the opportunity of posing for the camera to try and grab the pistol of the man he has been turned over to, U.S. Deputy Marshal Dick Crittendon). Finally reaching Fort Smith, Goldsby is indicted for the murder of Melton on February 8, 1895 and goes on trial before Judge Parker on the 26th of the month. Two weeks later, on April 13, 1895, Goldsby is found guilty of murder and Judge Parker sentences him to death by hanging ... Goldsby's only victory comes when his lawyer manages to postpone the date of his execution, giving the outlaw time to set up a new escape attempt, and sure enough, authorities discover a pistol hidden in a bucket that prison trustee, Ben Howell, has placed there for Goldsby. Happy with themselves for thwarting the escape, the guards are unaware that a "Plan B" exists and another trustee at the jail, Sherman Vann (a black man serving 90 days for larceny), has gotten another gun into the jail, a Colt revolver, that he successfully manages to get to Goldsby (it is hidden behind a loose stone in Goldsby's cell).
The Almost Escape Photo - Left To Right - Deputy Zeke
Crittenden With Badge Showing, His Brother, Deputy Dick
Crittenden, Goldsby, Clint Scales, Ike Rogers, And
U.S. Deputy Marshal Bill Smith
At around 7:00 in the evening of July 26, 1895, just after a fresh compliment of jail guards go on duty, Goldsby goes into action when 49-year-old Lawrence Keating (married with four children and a ten year veteran of law enforcement in Fort Smith) and Campbell Eoff attempt to lock him in his cell for the evening. Pulling his revolver, the prisoner yells for Keating to drop his gun, but instead, the guard draws his weapon and is shot first in the stomach and then in the back as he staggers away. Before Goldsby can exit the cellblock though, other guards arrive, along with Marshal George Lawson, and open up on the prisoner, their fire driving him back into his cell and allowing Eoff to escape. Pouring bullets into the area keeps Goldsby at bay, but does not allow the officers to gain control of the armed prisoner. Bullets ricocheting (in the tradition of Cherokee warriors, Goldsby gobbles like a wild turkey after each shot he takes) about from the fire coming from both sides, after fellow captive, outlaw Henry Starr (a former confederate of Goldsby's, Starr is a distant relative of Sam Starr, the husband of infamous female outlaw, Belle Starr, and is incarcerated awaiting his execution after twice being sentenced to death by Judge Parker for the 1893 murder of U.S. Deputy Marshal Floyd Wilson ... after successfully getting Goldsby to give up his weapon, Starr will be rewarded by having his conviction changed to his being guilty of manslaughter with that sentence being washed away after 8 years when he receives a presidential pardon from Theodore Roosevelt ... eventually released instead of doing his scheduled air dance with Maledon, Starr will marry and have a son he names Theodore Roosevelt Starr, works in his mother's restaurant for awhile, starts up a new gang, gets arrested and spends five years at the Colorado state prison in Canon City, is paroled again in 1913, forms another gang which pulls off 14 daylight bank raids between 1914 and 1915, is wounded and captured trying to rob two banks at the same time with his gang in Stroud, Oklahoma when he is hit by shotgun blast from the gun of 20-year-old Paul Curry, is sentenced to 25 years behind the bars but with good behavior is out again by 1919, writes an autobiography about his life called "Thrilling Events, Life of Henry Starr," has the book made into a 1919 silent movie called "A Debtor to the Law" in which he plays a dramatized version of himself and gives roles in the film to the actual bank teller he robbed, Paul Curry, and other citizens of Stroud, but goes back to being a bandit in 1921 and is mortally wounded on February 18th trying to rob the People's Bank of Harrison, Arkansas by the bank's president, W. J. Myers, perishing on February 22nd at the age of 47) is almost hit by a round, and volunteers to see if he can get Goldsby to surrender if the guards promise not to shoot him dead once they have him in captivity again. And it works.
Keating
Lawson
Henry Starr
Finally realizing the dangerousness of the desperado they have in custody, Goldsby will be kept in his cell in shackles for the rest of his captivity in Fort Smith, watched constantly by at least one guard. Three days after his escape attempt, Goldsby is in front of Judge Parker again, and found guilty (the jury takes only 15 minutes to decide the killer's fate for sending Keating to his doom), he is once more sentenced to be hung by the neck. This verdict is appealed too (Goldsby's lawyer claims Judge Parker is prejudiced after the jurist says of the gunman that he is a "... bloodthirsty mad dog who killed for a love of killing ..." and describes the killer as " ... the most vicious ... " of all the outlaws in Oklahoma. On December 2, 1895, the Supreme Court affirms Goldsby's sentencing and Judge Parker again sets an execution date, scheduling Goldsby's goodbye to take place on March 17, 1896. Up until five days before his execution, Goldsby seems unconcerned about his sentence, but then begins accepting the religious advice of Father Pius of Fort Smith's German Catholic Church, whom he meets with daily, a friendship that results in Goldsby also reading the Bible each of his last days. On Goldsby's last day on earth, St. Patrick's Day of 1896, he is up by 6:00 in the morning for his 11:00 hanging, has a light breakfast at 8:00 (compliments of a local hotel his mother is staying at), and sings and whistles as if he doesn't have a care in the world. Later that morning, he is joined by his mother, brother, stepsister, Father Pius, and "Aunty" Amanda as his mother convinces the authorities to delay the execution until 2:00 so that his sister Gladys, due into town on an eastbound train at 1:00 in the afternoon can see her brother one last time. Surprisingly, Fort Smith U.S. Marshal George James Crump, in charge of the execution with Maledon's absence, agrees while outside the jail, a crowd of 3,000 awaits the show (such a large gathering that a flimsy shed used by some of the crowd as an observation platform collapses and several people are injured), and shortly before Goldsby's now scheduled for 2:00 execution, in handcuffs and shackles, the killer, accompanied by his mother, Father Pius, and "Aunty" Amanda, and four guards of course, is brought up to the gallows. At exactly 2:00, Goldsby's death warrant is read by Marshal Crump, and Father Pius recites a short prayer. Stepping forward to the edge of the gallows, the outlaw known as Cherokee Bill tells the crowd, "Goodbye all you chums down that way," before allowing Crump to adjust his bindings, put a black hood over the killer's head, and then place a knotted rope around the neck of the condemned man. Asked by Crump if Goldsby has any last words to say, the gunman snarls "I came here to die, not make a speech." At 2:13, Crump springs the trap on the gallows and Goldsby drops six feet downward, snapping his neck and killing the outlaw instantly. Goldsby is only twenty years old at his passing. After the corpse dangles for 12 minutes, Goldsby is brought down, officially pronounced dead, has his bindings removed, and is then placed in a wooden gasket that is then placed in a larger box for train transportation by his mother and sister back to Fort Gibson, Oklahoma for burial at the town's Citizens Cemetery. He is still interred there (interestingly, on April 20, 1897, his brother Clarence Goldsby will shoot to death in Fort Gibson the man responsible for Cherokee Bill's capture, the mendacious 47-year-old Ike Rogers).
Bill Cook
Goldsby's Hanging
Ike Rogers
Goldsby death just another day meting out justice in the federal court district of Western Arkansas. Though Judge Parker leaves in 1896, he is still well remember about Fort Smith and certainly within historian discussions of the closing of the American West. In Fort Smith, Parker's grave can be found at the city's Fort Smith National Cemetery, the courthouse, jail, and gallows of the judge's times have been faithfully recreated near their original locations and now constitute a major tourist destination in the region that entertains over 120,000 visitors a year, and in nearby Gateway Park since October of 2019, a statue of the judge pondering a legal tome and papers before making one of his decisions looks out over the town ... and opened for business in 1937 and still operating, on South 6th Street and Rogers Avenue stands the Judge Isaac C. Parker Federal Building and Courthouse. There are also a host of books and magazine articles dealing with Judge Parker, the folks that worked for the Judge's district, and the outlaws reeking havoc in the region during his tenure. In the world of music, poetry, and literature (among titles about the judge are "Let No Guilty Man Escape" by Dr. Roger H. Tuller Ph.D, "Isaac C. Parker: Federal Justice on the Frontier" by Michael J. Brodhead, "Hanging Judge" by Fred Harvey Harrington, "Court of the Damned" by J. Gladstone Emery, and "He Hanged Them High" by Homer Croy), Judge Parker is mentioned giving out a death sentence in the Steve Earle song, "Tom Ames' Prayer" (Judge Parker said guilty and the gavel came down ...), and in the 1968 best selling novel of Charles Portis about a fictional boozy one-eyed U.S. Deputy Marshal named Rooster Cogburn (the role that wins John Wayne the sole Best Acting Oscar of his 179-long film career), Parker is a featured character. On television, Judge Parker has been played by actor Carlyle Mitchell in a 1961 episode of "Death Valley Days," by Bill Rogers in the 2020 Arkansas PBS presentation, "Indians, Outlaws, Marshals and the Hangin' Judge," and by Donald Sutherland on the 2023 cable series, "Lawmen: Bass Reeves." In the movies, he has been portrayed thus far by screen actors James Westerfield (in the 1969 version of "True Grit"), John McIntire (the 1975 sequel to "True Grit," "Rooster Cogburn"), Jake Walker (in the 2010 remake of "True Grit"), and by Manu Intiraymi (in the 2019 film, "Hell on the Border") ... and playing Judge Adam Felton, a character based on Judge Parker, is the respected character actor Pat Hingle in the 1968 Clint Eastwood oater, "Hang 'Em High."
Federal Building And Courthouse
One of the larger than life characters in American History, Judge Isaac Charles Parker, passes away in Fort Smith, Arkansas at the age of 58 on this day in 1896. Rest in peace, Sir!
Parker
