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 stone, 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 that met their final justice under the auspices of Parker's court.
April 27, 1887 -
Jackson Crow, Owen Hill and George Moss
Three men were hanged on April 27, 1888.
Jackson Crow killed a prominent merchant named Charles Wilson in the Choctaw Nation in 1884.
Owen Hill was convicted of the beating death of his mother-in-law and his wife. He was arrested after writing to a friend inquiring if his wife had died of her wounds.
George Moss killed a ra