NOTABLE ARKANSANS

He was born in a log cabin in Ohio. As a selftaught lawyer he moved to Missouri to practice law. At the start of the Civil War he enlisted in the 61st Missouri Emergency Regiment, a home guard unit for Union forces.

After the war he served two terms in the U.S. Congress, sponsoring legislation that would have allowed women the right to vote and hold public office in U.S. territories. He also sponsored legislation supporting the Bureau of Indian Affairs and fair treatment of tribes living in the Indian Territory.

In 1875, President Ulysses Grant appointed him as federal judge in Fort Smith, in charge of the Western District of Arkansas. His jurisdiction also included a vast area of Indian Territory, which would later become the state of Oklahoma.

He became involved in the local community, serving as a member of the school board and as the first board president of Saint John’s Hospital, now Sparks Regional Medical Center.

His severe, uncompromising judgments soon attracted the attention of the national press when, during only eight days, 15 men were convicted of murder and eight of them were sentenced to public hanging. During the next 21 years, his court handed down almost 9,000 convictions and sentenced 160 people to death, four of them women; 79 were actually executed. However, he is quoted as saying that the convictions were by a jury, that the hangings were compulsory by law and that he favored the abolition of capital punishment.

Who was this famous “Hanging Judge” from Fort Smith? Answer on Page 6E