Lawmen of the Wild West

Terry C. Treadwell

• Publisher: Frontline Books
• Year: 2021
• Print ISBN:
  9781526782335
• eBook ISBN:
  9781526782342
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: 19th Century History
• Index: History

True stories of sheriffs, marshals, rangers, and others in frontier law enforcement who fought to bring order to the lawless West—includes photos.
Faced with ruthless criminals, trigger-happy gunslingers and assorted desperados, the lawmen of the Old West tried, and sometimes died, in their efforts to bring some semblance of order to their towns and communities. This book introduces more than thirty of them, from familiar names like Wyatt Earp and Bat Masterson to lesser-known figures from Dallas Stoudenmire, John Selman, and Bass Reeves.
Some at the time believed that former criminals would make the most effective lawmen. Consequently, notorious gunfighters might be employed as town marshals to bring law and order to some of the most lawless of towns. These lawmen had to deal with the likes of the Dalton Gang, the James Brothers, and the Rufus Buck Gang, who thought nothing of raping and murdering innocent people just for the hell of it. These outlaws would frequently hide in Indian Territory, where there was no law to extradite them. The only law outside of Indian Territory was that of Judge Isaac Parker, who administered the rules with an iron fist; the gallows at Fort Smith laid testament to his work.
The requirements needed to be a peace officer in the Wild West were often determined only by the individual's skill with a gun and their courage. At times judgment was needed with only seconds to spare, and that also meant there was the odd occasion where justice and law never quite meant the same thing. The expression 'justice without law' was never truer than in the formative years of the West—and this book tells that story.

Chapter 1

Robert Forsyth

United States Marshal Robert Forsyth was the first US Marshal in the state of Georgia and had served there for four years. A veteran of the Revolutionary War, he had fought the British throughout the long conflict and was more than capable of taking care of himself. On 11 January 1794, the 40-year-old Robert Forsyth was sent to a house in Augusta, Georgia, to serve some civil court papers on two brothers, Beverley and William Allen.

This was a routine assignment and one that was usually carried out alone, but, unusually, Forsyth took two of his deputies with him and on arriving, entered the house. The Allen brothers were talking with friends and on seeing the marshal and his deputies, for some unknown reason, they fled up the stairs and locked themselves in a room. The federal officers gave chase and, as they approached the room, Beverley Allen fired through the door and hit Robert Forsyth in the head, killing him instantly. The two brothers were arrested after a brief fight and put in the local gaol, but within days they had escaped and were never caught – some think this was due to aid by the local sheriff.

Robert Forsyth was the first US Marshal to be killed in the line of duty.

The first US Marshal, Robert Forsyth, who was the first to die while in service.

Chapter 2

Colonel Charles Lynch

‘Lynch Law’ is said to have been created by Colonel Charles Lynch, a Quaker who served in the American Revolution (1776–1783) under General Nathaniel Greene. Colonel Lynch and a number of other planters in Virginia were becoming increasingly concerned by the lack of law and order and subsequent justice, and so they formed their own justice system. Anyone caught stealing horses or cattle, or indeed committing any crime, was hauled before Colonel Lynch and three of his neighbours and tried in a court in Lynch’s house. If convicted, which they invariably were, punishment was carried out almost immediately. If the punishment meted out by the court was a flogging, the prisoner was taken into the backyard, hung from a branch of a tree by his thumbs, given 39 lashes and ordered to leave the county. If a death sentence was passed he was simply taken out and hanged.

Colonel Charles Lynch.

Despite these actions being totally illegal, crime in the area reduced dramatically and the government turned a blind eye to the proceedings, which became known as ‘Lynch’s Law’. The problem was that once it started, and was given an unofficial ‘blessing’ by the government of the day, it became almost impossible to stop. As people from Virginia migrated to other parts of the United States, they tended to take the use of ‘Lynch’s Law’ with them. This is how the expression ‘Lynch Law’ is said to have been derived.

All the US Marshals, deputy marshals, sheriffs and deputy sheriffs who policed the Indian Territories (Eastern Oklahoma) in the late 1800s took their prisoners for trial and sentence to Fort Smith. There they faced one of the most famous judges in America – Judge Isaac Parker.

Chapter 3

Judge Isaac Parker

Isaac Parker was the youngest son of Joseph Parker and his wife Jane Shannon, and the great-nephew of Ohio Governor Wilson Shannon. He was raised on the family farm near Barnesville, Ohio. He attended Breeze Hill Primary School, followed by the Barnesville Classical Institute, a private school. In order to pay for his secondary education Isaac Parker taught in a county primary school. At the age of 17, he began an apprenticeship in law, and passed the Ohio bar exam in 1859.

On completion of his law degree, Isaac Parker went to work for his maternal uncle’s law firm in St Joseph, Missouri. He married Mary O’Toole on 12 December 1861 and the couple had two sons, Charles and James. A year after starting work for his uncle he opened his own law firm, working mainly in the municipal and country courts. He also ran successfully as the Democrat nomination for the position of St Joseph City Attorney, which was a part-time appointment, and he served three one-year terms in the post from 1861 to 1863. Just four days after taking up the appointment the American Civil War broke out. Isaac Parker immediately enlisted in the 61st Missouri Emergency Regiment, which was a pro-union home guard, and by the end of the war he had reached the rank of corporal.

Portrait shot of Judge Isaac Parker.

Returning to his law practice full time, he decided to split his time between law and politics after leaving the Democratic Party over their views on slavery and joining the Republican Party. He became the county prosecutor for the Ninth Missouri Judicial District and then in 1868 won a six-year term as a judge on the Twelfth Missouri Circuit. However, politics was still his main interest and at the end of 1870 he resigned his position as a judge. Backed by the Republican Party he was voted into the United States House of Representatives, where he served for five years. At the end of his term of office he became the party’s nominee for the Missouri Senate seat, but the political tide had shifted away from the Republicans so he made representation to the President for the appointment as a judge for the Western District of Arkansas.

On 26 May 1874, President Ulysses S. Grant appointed him to serve on the United States District Court for the Western District of Arkansas to replace Judge William Story, who had resigned under the threat of impeachment because of allegations of corruption. The United States Senate confirmed the appointment in November 1874.

Judge Isaac Parker arrived in Fort Smith on 4 May 1875, initially without his family, who joined him some weeks later. It took just one week for him to settle down and have his first session as the district judge. During the month of May Judge Parker tried 18 men, all of whom had been charged with murder: 15 were convicted by a jury, and of those 15, eight were given the death penalty and six of them were hanged at the same time. One of the eight was shot trying to escape, while the other had his sentence commuted to life in prison. The remaining seven were given long prison sentences. In an interview, Judge Parker was asked how he felt about sending someone to the gallows: he replied that he didn’t, the law did that because of the mandatory death sentence set down for certain cases. He himself was in favour of the abolition of capital punishment, but he was obliged by law to pass sentence as laid down.

Judge Isaac Parker sitting in his famous chair.

Judge Isaac Parker spent 21 years on the bench as a federal judge (1875–1896) in Arkansas, during which time he tried almost 13,500 cases, almost all of which had been committed in the Indian Territories. Out of the 9,500 criminals found guilty or who had pleaded guilty, 160 had committed crimes that carried the death sentence, and of these only 79 were actually hanged. It was this large number of hangings that gave Isaac Parker the unfair title of the ‘Hanging Judge’, but all were said to have been justified, as he was known to be a very fair man who kept rigidly to the letter of the law. He was the only judge for hundreds of miles, so any sentence he passed would have no comparison to anything else in a wide area.

On arriving at Fort Smith to take up his appointment, Isaac Parker set about building a legal team to support him, starting with the chief prosecutor William H. Clayton who was to remain as the United States Attorney for the Western District of Arkansas for the next 14 years. Clayton had fought in the Civil War with the 124th Pennsylvania Infantry with distinction, and together with his assistant James Brizzolara they made a formidable team. Isaac Parker took up residence just 300 metres from the courthouse in a large stone building formerly used to store gunpowder. The main window of the house had an uninterrupted view of the large, sturdily built gallows from which Judge Parker could see justice being done. The gallows structure allowed a maximum of 12 persons, standing side by side, to be hanged together. Later a roof was built over the top so that the gallows could be used even in inclement weather.

The courtroom in Fort Smith.

William H. Clayton, chief prosecutor in Isaac Parker’s court at Fort Smith.

The Fort Smith commissary building used by Judge Isaac Parker as his living quarters.

When Judge Isaac Parker stepped onto the bench he had to try and maintain law and order over 74,000 square miles with just 200 Deputy US Marshals. His instructions to his deputies were to ‘bring them in alive or dead’, the latter not being the best option financially, as is explained later. The deputies were chasing criminals and outlaws who knew every trail and hideout and their only weapons were their bravery, dedication and their skill with a gun. Furthermore, these deputies sometimes had to transport prisoners back to Fort Smith over several hundred miles. They also suffered setbacks when ordinary citizens would refuse to allow a deputy and his prisoners shelter, for fear of reprisals from friends of the arrested man.

The faithfully reconstructed gallows at Fort Smith.

Hangings in earlier years had taken on an almost carnival atmosphere and this was seen when the first of Judge Parker’s hangings took place. Six men, three white, two Indians and a black man, were sentenced to be hanged at Fort Smith. Six men being hanged at the same time was so unusual that it was covered by almost all the newspapers, and over 5,000 people travelled hundreds of miles to witness the executions. After this debacle, a concerned Judge Parker ord...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Introduction
• Chapter 1 Robert Forsyth
• Chapter 2 Colonel Charles Lynch
• Chapter 3 Judge Isaac Parker
• Chapter 4 Burton Mossman
• Chapter 5 James Butler Hickok
• Chapter 6 Henry Andrew ‘Heck’ Thomas
• Chapter 7 Bill Tilghman
• Chapter 8 Chris Madsen
• Chapter 9 Ben Thompson
• Chapter 10 John King Fisher
• Chapter 11 Frank Dalton
• Chapter 12 Commodore Perry Owens
• Chapter 13 John Behan
• Chapter 14 William Milton Breakenridge
• Chapter 15 Wyatt Earp
• Chapter 16 Bartholomew (Bat) Masterson
• Chapter 17 Tom Smith
• Chapter 18 Pat Garrett
• Chapter 19 Bass Reeves
• Chapter 20 Grant Johnson
• Chapter 21 Paden Tolbert
• Chapter 22 Ben Daniels
• Chapter 23 Dallas Stoudenmire
• Chapter 24 ‘Mysterious’ Dave Mather
• Chapter 25 Frank Canton
• Chapter 26 Floyd Wilson
• Chapter 27 Jeff Davis Milton
• Chapter 28 Captain Harry Love
• Chapter 29 Dan Tucker
• Chapter 30 Timothy Isaiah Courtright
• Chapter 31 Deputy Sheriff John Selman
• Chapter 32 Charles Bassett
• Chapter 33 John Slaughter
• Chapter 34 David Fannin
• Chapter 35 Seth Bullock
• Chapter 36 Texas Rangers
• Conclusion
• Bibliography