Isaac C Parker

Isaac C. Parker

Quick Facts

Significance:

Congressman and Federal Judge

Place of Birth:

Barnesville, in Belmont County, Ohio

Date of Birth:

October 15,1838

Place of Death:

Fort Smith, Arkansas

Date of Death:

November 17, 1896

Place of Burial:

Fort Smith, Arkansas

Cemetery Name:

Fort Smith National Cemetery

Remembered today simply as 'the Hanging Judge,' Isaac Parker grew up on an Ohio farm. He became a frontier attorney and had a thirty-five-year career in public service. He served as a city attorney, state judge, two-term representative to Congress. For twenty-one years, he was a federal district judge in Fort Smith.

Childhood and Education

Born October 15, 1838, Isaac Charles Parker was the youngest son of Jane and Joseph Parker. He was born and raised outside Barnesville, in Belmont County, Ohio. Still, on the edge of the frontier in the early 1840s, southeastern Ohio was primarily an agricultural area.While raised on a farm, Isaac cared little for working out of doors. His mother, Jane Shannon Parker, was the governor's niece and figured prominently in raising her son. When not required on the farm, he attended the Breeze Hill primary school. He then attended the Barnesville Classical Institute, a private school. It was said that he was "always a hand to get an education," and to pay for his higher education, he taught in a country primary school.At the age of seventeen, Isaac Parker decided to study law. His legal training consisted of a combination of apprenticeship and self-directed study. Isaac read law with a Barnesville attorney, passing his bar exam in 1859.

Parker's Missouri Years

Once he passed the bar, Isaac, at age twenty-one, traveled west by steamboat to Saint Joseph, Missouri. 'St. Joe' was a bustling Missouri River port town and offered many possibilities for a young lawyer. The Ninth Missouri Circuit Court was held there. Isaac Parker's uncle D.E. Shannon operated a legal firm in Saint Joseph with his partner H.B. Banch. In the firm of Shannon and Branch, Isaac began his legal career in earnest.

By 1861, he was operating on his own, working in the municipal and country criminal courts. The local courts afforded Parker not only experience but community recognition. In April 1861, he won the election to the post of city attorney as a Democrat. Just four days after Parker took office as city attorney, the Civil War began. The war caused Parker to reevaluate his political beliefs - breaking with the Democrats. He enlisted in a home guard unit, the 61st Missouri Emergency Regiment.

Parker married a Saint Joseph girl, Mary O'Toole, on December 12, 1861. He was re-elected as city attorney in 1862 and 1863.

In 1864, Isaac Parker formally split from the Democratic party. He ran for county prosecutor of the Ninth Missouri Judicial District as a Republican. In the fall of 1864, he served as a member of the Electoral College, casting his vote for Abraham Lincoln.

In 1868, Parker sought and won a six-year term as judge of the Twelfth Missouri Circuit. The new judge gained experience and habits in this position that he would put to good use in the years to come.

Political ambition would catapult Parker from a Missouri judgeship to Congress in 1870.

U.S. Congressman from Missouri

On September 13, 1870, Parker was nominated for the Seventh Congressional District. Backed by the Radical faction of the Republican party, Parker resigned his judgeship and devoted his energy to the campaign.

The heated campaign ended with Parker's opponent withdrawing from the race two weeks before the election. Parker easily defeated the replacement candidate in the November 8, 1870 election.

The first session of the Forty-second Congress convened on Saturday, March 4, 1871. His congressional career was a balance of resolving constituent needs and sponsoring legislation. Representative Parker assisted veterans of his district in securing pensions. He lobbied for the construction of a new federal building in Saint Joseph. He sponsored legislation that would have allowed women the right to vote and hold public office in United States territories. On several occasions, Parker sponsored legislation that would have organized the Indian Territory under a formal territorial government.

Representative Parker handily won a second term in November 1872, one local paper saying of him, "Missouri had no more trusted or influential representative in ... Congress during the past two years..." In his second term, Parker gained national attention for supporting the Bureau of Indian Affairs. His second term concentrated on Indian policy and fair treatment of the Tribes residing in the Indian Territory.

By the fall of 1874, the political tide had shifted in Missouri. As a Republican, Isaac Parker had no chance of reelection to Congress. Like many others, he sought a presidential appointment to public office.

I.C. Parker, U.S. District Judge

As a result of his four years in Congress, Isaac Parker stood a good chance of receiving an appointment to a government office. In early March 1875, President Grant forwarded Parker's nomination as chief justice of the Supreme Court of the Utah Territory. However, Parker had submitted a request for an appointment as the federal district court judge in Fort Smith. On March 18, 1875, the President nominated Parker as a judge for the Western District of Arkansas.

The federal court for the Western District of Arkansas was initially established in 1851. Presiding over the western counties in Arkansas and all of Indian Territory (present-day Oklahoma). Until 1871, the court was based in Van Buren, Arkansas. In 1871, Judge Parker's predecessor, William Story, was appointed to the bench. The tenure of Judge Story was marred by serious corruption, and in 1874, Judge Story resigned.

The new judge arrived in Fort Smith on May 4, 1875, traveling aboard the steamboat Ella Hughes. His family stayed behind in Missouri and joined him later. Judge Parker held court for the first time on May 10, 1875. In the first term of court, eight men were found guilty of murder with a mandatory death sentence according to federal law. On September 3, 1875, six men were executed on the Fort Smith gallows. This indicated that the once corrupt court was functioning once again.

Judge Parker: An Able Jurist

The federal court for the Western District of Arkansas was to meet in four separate terms each year: February, May, August, and November. In reality, the court had such a large caseload that the four terms ran together. To ensure that the court tried as many cases as possible each term, Judge Parker held court six days a week and often up to ten hours each day. In 1883, Congress changed the court's jurisdiction. Moving portions of the Indian Territory jurisdiction to federal courts in Texas and Kansas in an attempt to ease the caseload.

The decreased size of the jurisdiction provided some relief. However, the continued influx of settlers into the Indian Territory contributed to an increased crime rate. During these years, the judge began to play an active role in the community of Fort Smith. In 1884, the government gave most of the 300-acre military reservation to the city to fund the public school system, mainly at the judge's urging. Parker served on the school board. He served as the first board president of the Saint John's hospital (now the Baptist Health Medical Center). The Parker family was involved in the community as well. His wife Mary participated in many social activities. Their two sons Charles and James went to the public schools their father helped to establish.

As a federal judge, his duties occasionally called him to testify in front of Congress. He also substituted for other federal judges in the area. Besides the capital offenses, several important civil cases were tried by the court in the 1880s. The most famous of these was against David Payne, an Oklahoma Boomer illegally settling on lands in the Indian Territory.

On February 6, 1889, Congress made a sweeping change to the federal court in Fort Smith. It stripped the court of its concurrent circuit court authority. It also allowed the United States Supreme Court to review all capital crimes. This law went into effect on May 1, 1889 and would drastically impact Judge Parker's final years.

1890 – 1896

In 1889 and 1890, Judge Parker had the opportunity to take different positions within the federal judiciary. Either job would have provided the judge with a reduced caseload. However, Parker had established himself in Fort Smith and removed his name from consideration for the two positions.

The Courts Act of 1889 established a federal court system in the Indian Territory. This further decreasing the Fort Smith court's jurisdiction.

The restrictions of the court's once vast jurisdiction were a source of frustration. What bothered Judge Parker the most were the Supreme Court reversals of capital crimes tried in Fort Smith. Two-thirds of the cases appealed to the higher court were reversed. The accused were given new trials. In 1894 Judge Parker gained national attention in a dispute with the Supreme court over the case of Lafayette Hudson.

In 1895 a new Courts Act was passed. Effective September 1, 1896, this act removed the last remaining Indian Territory jurisdiction of the court. Following the escape attempt of Cherokee Bill in the summer of 1895, which resulted in the death of a jail guard. Judge Parker again came into conflict with his superior when he blamed the Justice Department and the Supreme court for the incident. In 1896, a very public argument was carried on between Judge Parker and the Assistant Attorney General.

When the August term 1896 began, Judge Parker was at home, too sick to preside over the court. Twenty years of overwork had contributed to a variety of ailments, including Bright's Disease. Judge Parker's final interview was from his bedside. Two months after the jurisdictional change took effect, Judge Isaac C. Parker died on November 17, 1896. With his death, an era came to an end at Fort Smith.

“The Nation's Distinguished Jurist and Fort Smith's Beloved Citizen is no More."
- Fort Smith News-Record, November 17, 1896