The Execution of Cherokee Bill (Site Bulletin)

Fort Smith Site Bulletins

This article is part of a series of printed site bulletins at Fort Smith National Historic Site.

To print this page, right click with your mouse and select "print".

The execution of Crawford Goldsby, alias Cherokee Bill, on March 17, 1896. Cameras weren’t allowed at hangings, but a young man captured the scene with a Kodak and quickly hid it under his coat. This sketch was later taken from that photograph.

Fort Smith National Historic Site

Leading Up to Execution

Up until the days immediately preceding his hanging, Cherokee Bill seemed little concerned with the affair. In fact, he spent most of his time playing poker with the other prisoners, manipulating the cards through the gratings of his cell door. Five days before the execution, he accepted religious advice from Father Pius of the German Catholic Church in Fort Smith. Cherokee Bill saw the priest every day thereafter.

Morning of the Execution

The outlaw awoke at 6:00 a.m. on St. Patrick's Day, 1896, singing and whistling according to reports from other prisoners. Later that morning and in the early afternoon, his mother, brother, stepsister, the priest, and Amanda Foster, his childhood nurse, came to pay their last visits.

Some 2,000 to 3,000 sightseers surrounded the gallows enclosure that day. Newspaper reports said the scene "though not disorderly, was one of indescribable excitement." People were perched on stone walls and the roofs of nearby buildings, houses, and sheds. One rickety shed near the gallows collapsed under the weight of its crowd.

Like Clockwork

As the scheduled time of execution, 2:00 p.m., approached, Bill announced that he was ready to go at any time. Four guards, Bill's mother, Father Pius, and Amanda Foster accompanied him, handcuffed and shackled, from the jail to the gallows. At one point, the outlaw reportedly remarked that "This is about as good a day to die as any." Once Bill was on the scaffold, he eyed the crowd, saw his mother, and said "Mother, you ought not to have come up here." She replied, "I can go wherever you go."

At that time, the death warrant was read and Father Pius recited a short prayer. Bill stepped forward, his feet on the trap door, and spoke to the crowd, saying, "Good-bye, all you chums down that way." His arms and legs were tied and a black hood placed over his head. At 2:13 p.m., he dropped in a fall of six feet. Cherokee Bill's neck was broken and death came quickly. Twelve minutes later, the ropes that bound his limbs were removed, as were the handcuffs and shackles. His body was placed in a coffin and taken later that day to Fort Gibson for burial. Crawford Goldsby, alias Cherokee Bill, remains interred there today.

Unlucky Number 13

After his death, many people noted the significance of the unlucky number 13 in Bill's life. A $1300 reward was offered for his capture after killing Ernest Melton; his first death sentence was pronounced on April 13; he killed Larry Keating on July 26, two times thirteen; Judge Parker took 13 minutes to charge the jury in the Keating case; the actual hours used in the trial numbered 13; there were 13 witnesses for the prosecution; the jury took 13 minutes to find him guilty; and he fell though the trap of the gallows at 2:13 p.m.

Crawford Goldsby alias Cherokee Bill Find the full story of Cherokee Bill