Few men in the annals of the American Old West represent the phrase “frontier justice” as well as Judge Isaac C. Parker, the infamous “Hanging Judge” of Fort Smith, who ruled over the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Arkansas with an iron hand from 1874-1895.
During his 21-year tenure on the bench, Parker presided over 160 cases that resulted in the sentence of death and 79 of those men met their final fate at the end of a hemp rope attached to the wooden and mortar gallows that defined and justified the nickname “Hell on the Border” on the Arkansas-Indian Territory border.
In later life, Parker was quoted as saying, “I never hanged a man, the law did,” and it was the keen sense of adherence to the law that allowed the court to operate and clean up what had become a lawless civilization in the years after the Civil War.
These are the tales of the men who died under the auspices of Judge Issac C. Parker.
George Wilson (James Casharego) - July 30, 1896
The last execution conducted by the federal court at Fort Smith took place on July 30, 1896.
George Wilson, alias James Casharego, was the last man hanged in Fort Smith.
On May 15, 1895, he killed his traveling companion, Zachariah W. Thatch, with an axe. Wilson became a suspect when he was seen with blood on his trousers and with Thatch's team and wagon.
Deputy marshals located the crime scene and, although Wilson had burned a fire over the spot where his victim had bled on the ground, dry weather at the time of the crime caused the earth to crack and blood from the murdered man had run deep into one of the fissures.
The officers dug deep into the crack and collected several chunks of blood-saturated earth which were produced at the trial.