How Judge Isaac C. Parker Was Remembered: His 1896 Obituaries

Judge Parker's headstone at Fort Smith National Cemetery. Credit: National Park Service.

Judge Isaac C. Parker died on November 17, 1896, of Bright's disease, now called nephritis — only two months after the jurisdiction of the federal court for the Western District of Arkansas was cut back to exclude any part of Indian Territory. Obituaries appeared locally and nationally, and they show how his community and his fellow lawyers saw him. Fort Smith National Historic Site, which preserves his courtroom, cautions that the figures they give for cases, convictions and executions contain a number of errors, so those numbers are not repeated here.

"One of the most remarkable and unique figures"

The American Law Review, a national legal journal, wrote in early 1897 that Parker's death removed "one of the most remarkable and unique figures that ever sat upon the Federal bench." For nearly a quarter of a century he had been the sole judge of a frontier court with an unusual criminal jurisdiction: crimes in the neighbouring Indian Territory by Indians against white people, by white people against Indians, and by white people against each other — but not crimes by Indians among themselves. Over a territory it described as marked by great lawlessness, the job demanded, in its words, "a strong mind, a courageous breast, and a firm hand."

The journal defended him against his critics, mostly, it said, the lawyers who defended criminals in his court. One story had him boasting that he would reach a hundred executions before he retired; the journal called it a malicious invention. It noted that in his later years his decisions could be reviewed by the Supreme Court and that many were reversed on technical grounds — which it took as proof of how appeals courts hampered criminal justice.

His life, as the obituaries told it

The obituaries traced his path from an Ohio farm to the federal bench:

• Early years. Born in Belmont County, Ohio, on October 15, 1838, to Joseph Parker and Jane Shannon, he worked on the family farm, went to school when he could, and taught school to pay his way toward the law. The Law Review credited his mother's influence for his success; the local paper noted that her uncle, Wilson Shannon, was twice governor of Ohio and later governor of Kansas.
• Missouri. In 1859 he began practising law in St. Joseph, Missouri, where he served as city attorney and, during the Civil War, in the Missouri militia, seeing little action. A Democrat before the war, he became a Republican as a Union man, and in 1864 he was a presidential elector for Lincoln.
• Judge and congressman. He was elected a circuit judge in 1868, resigned in 1870 to run for Congress, and was elected in 1870 and again in 1872. In Congress he sat on the committees on Territories and, later, Appropriations, and was known as an advocate of a peace policy toward American Indians.
• Fort Smith. In 1875 President Grant named him chief justice of Utah, but he went instead to the federal court for the Western District of Arkansas, a life appointment; his first term opened on May 10, 1875. The local paper said he was then the youngest federal judge in the country. His court's reach ran more than 300 miles west and from Kansas to Texas.

"To the criminal, and to him alone, was he terrible"

The Fort Smith Elevator of November 20, 1896, headlined its obituary "The End of an Able, Brilliant, Pure and Useful Life." It reported that he died at home at 2:45 on the morning of November 17 after months of illness — it described heart disease worsened by Bright's disease — and that his last public act was riding to the polls on November 3 to vote for McKinley.

The paper portrayed a man of long hours and huge workload: sessions from early morning to evening and often into the night, followed by hours with his law books, a strain it blamed for his death. It printed a tribute from Judge E. E. Bryant, who wrote that Parker had found the court "disorganized, incapable, corrupt" and made it respected, and that "to the criminal, and to him alone, was he terrible." It recalled his stand when he refused a Supreme Court bail order in the case of Lafayette Hudson, and his public dispute with Attorney General Harmon over the Supreme Court's reversals.

It also described a warm, sociable man: a friend to reporters, who often sat beside him in court listening to his stories; a long-serving member of the school board who, it said, secured a federal grant of the old Military Reserve for the district's schools; and a leader in the town's fairs, charities and hospitals. It wrote that the people of Indian Territory had been among the strongest opponents of removing his court's jurisdiction there.

The funeral

Parker was buried in Fort Smith National Cemetery, in a spot he had chosen years before, after brief services led by the Reverend Lawrence Smyth. The lawyers of his court attended in a body, with members of the Dawes Commission and delegations of the Five Civilized Tribes then visiting the city; the paper called it the largest funeral ever held in Fort Smith. Among the last offerings on the grave was a bouquet of wild flowers placed by Gen. Pleasant Porter of the Creek Nation, as a tribute, the paper wrote, from the Indians of the Territory to the man they considered their best friend.

He was survived by his wife, Mary O'Toole Parker, whom he had married in St. Joseph in 1861, and two sons, Charley and James Joseph; a third child had died in infancy.

Sources

Based on "Obituaries of Judge Parker," published by the National Park Service, Fort Smith National Historic Site, which reprints obituaries from The American Law Review, vol. XXXI (January–February 1897), and the Fort Smith Elevator (November 20, 1896); rewritten in hubnx's own words.

• The obituaries' counts of cases, convictions and executions, which the Park Service warns contain errors and which differ between the two, are left out.
• The two obituaries also disagree on some details — the number of the Missouri judicial circuit Parker served, and whether Grant withdrew the Utah appointment or Parker declined it at Grant's request — so those details are not given.
• The Law Review attributed his death to heart disease and the Elevator to heart disease worsened by Bright's disease; the cause of death above is the Park Service's.