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 stories of men who met justice under the gavel of Issac C. Parker:
Boudinot “Blood Burris” Crumpton - June 30, 1891
A number of those facing hanging by the court went to the gallows silently and defiantly while other had to be dragged to meet their maker.
But all of the condemned were allowed to address the assembled crowd with “final last words” before the hood was slipped over their heads.
Boudinot Crumpton, also known as “Blood Burris” was an outlaw that “liked to pull the plug” on a whisky bottle and in a drunken rage one-night shot and killed his traveling companion., Sam Morgan.
There were no juries for capital murder cases in Parker's court, --and the only effective appeals were to the White House --and when the white-haired judge slammed the gavel down, Crumpton's fate had been sealed.
Crumpton proclaimed his innocence right up until the moment he addressed the assembled spectators on June 30, 1891 in the midst of what was still a citywide public spectacle.
