July 1998
July 1998
JUDGE ISAAC PARKER 1838-1896
The Hanging Judge was born in Ohio, reared on a farm, and instilled with the stern moral principles of the Methodist Church. As a young man he was a schoolteacher, studied the bar, was elected city attorney of St. Joseph, Missouri, prosecuting attorney for the Twelfth Judicial Circuit in 1864, then elected judge of this court in 1868. He served two congressional terms as a Republican representative.
Parker decided he would be more useful as the ruling jurist of the lawless Indian Territory. Rustlers, murderers, thieves, and fugitives rendered the region unsafe for honest settlers and travelers.
At age 36, Parker was the youngest federal judge in the nation, arriving at Fort Smith, Arkansas. A tall, imposing 200-pound man, he spent the rest of his life there ruling his court with a total commitment to crushing outlawry.
He had 200 deputy U.S. marshals, far more than in any juridsiction. So dangerous was Indian Territory that these officers often traveled in groups of four or five. Still, 65 of Parker's deputies were slain over the years.
In the first session of his court, lasting eight weeks, he tried 91 defendants. He sentenced eight murderers to hang simultaneously, although one, because of his youth, had his sentence commuted to life in prison and another was killed attempting to escape. On the morning of September 3, 1875, a crowd estimated at 5,000 viewed the massive gallows Parker had constructed. Six black hoods were set in place, and six murderers plunged to their fate.
Parker opened court at eight o'clock in the morning six days a week and sessions often lasted into the night. Outside the region there was criticism of the Hanging Judge and in 1889 murderers he had sentenced to death wee permitted to appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court. An exasperated Parker complained in 1895, "These reversals have contributed to the number of murders in Indian territory."
Suffering from overwork and diabetes, Parker died at age 57 on November 17, 1896. The advance of civilization had made his swift, harsh style of justice obsolete, but the West had lost the most effective judge in frontier history.
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Last Modified 8-10-98