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From: "Diana Boothe" <>
Subject: [ARKANSAS] The Murder of William Riley Seaboalt. Jr.--Pt.2
Date: Wed, 26 Dec 2001 10:13:32 -0600


EVANS TRIED BEFORE JUDGE PARKER


Evans re-trial came off on May 10, 1875, just 10 days after the arrival of
Judge Isaac C. Parker, "The Hanging Judge", in Fort Smith. At the trial,
William Riley Sr. took the witness stand and testified that Evans, sitting
in the defendant's chair, was still wearing the very pair of boots which he
had given his son. He said that at the time he purchased the boots for his
son, he had a similar pair made for himself. Where upon, he raised his
pants leg revealing the boots he was wearing to be identical to those on the
defendant. When challenged by the defense attorney to prove that Evans
boots were indeed the same pair of boots he had given to his son, William
explained that "shortly after receiving his son's boots, a heel had come off
of the left boot and he had used three horseshoe nails to drive it back on".
Col. Clayton asked the bailiff to have Evans remove his left boot and sure
enough, the three horse shoe nails were revealed to the jury. Evans was
found guilty and sentenced to be hanged from the gallows on September 3,
along with seven others of the first eighteen outlaws tried by Judge Parker
during his first session on the Fort Smith bench. Before the hanging, one
of the eight was shot and killed while trying to escape. Another, because
of his youth, had his sentence commuted to life imprisonment.



THE FORT SMITH BIG EVENT..." HANG 'EM HIGH"


The hanging of the remaining six called the attention of the world to the
court and its judge. Newspapermen came from Little Rock, St. Louis, and
Kansas City. Many of the great Eastern and Northern daily newspapers sent
representatives to cover the event. Even strangers from abroad, reading the
announcement of the unusual "attraction", began filtering into the city a
week before the execution. On the morning of September 3, men and their
families living within forty to fifty miles of Fort Smith, began pouring
into the city. More than five thousand packed the jail yard and clung from
the tops of the old fort's stone walls to view the event. The gallows had
been especially built to Judge Parker's specifications. The sturdy platform
was six feet above the ground, constructed of six-inch timbers with two-inch
planking. A twelve-by-twelve inch overhead beam supported the noose ropes.
There was sufficient trapdoor space and beam width to hang twelve men at one
time! To ensure that hangings could come off on schedule, even in bad
weather, a wall protected the north side of the gallows stand from cold
winds and a slanted roof was placed immediately above in case of rain.

After the condemned felons were led to the stand, Judge Parker commented
briefly on each case and then addressed them as a group saying: "Farewell
forever until the court and you and all here today shall meet together in
the general resurrection." When asked if he had any last words to say, the
handsome blue-eyed Daniel Evans stared defiantly at the marshal and shook
his curly brown head. One of the condemned men, William Whittington, had a
long and touching pre-written speech read by a minister in which he
confessed his sins and evil ways, and blamed his
failed life on liquor and an un-religious father. When the preliminaries
were over, there were prayers and the singing of hymns and farewells. Then
the six felons were lined up on the scaffold with their feet across the
crack where the planks forming the death trap came together. Their arms
were bound securely, the black hoods pulled over their faces shut out the
light from their eyes forever, and George Maledon, the hangman, adjusted the
nooses about their necks.

"Jesus save me!" cried William Whittington.

The trap door fell, and the six men met their maker at the end of the
hangman's ropes. This event
was enacted, with some amount of Hollywood freedom, in the Clint Eastwood
movie, "Hang'em
High".

FOOTNOTE: According to John Edgar SEABOLT, his Aunt Evie (1892, niece of W.
R. Jr.)
learned to ride as a young girl on a colt produced by W.R. Jr.'s white mare.


REFERENCES: 1) "Law West of Fort Smith", by Glenn Shirley, University of
Nebraska
Press, 1968, pp 36-40.
2) "Hell on the Border", by S. W. Harmon, original printing in 1898,
reprint 1992 by University of Nebraska Press, pp. 201-212.
3) Personal papers and correspondence of William Riley Seaboalt, Sr.
4) Stories told to me about 1943 by my great-grandfather, Stephen
Roland Seaboalt, one of Riley's younger brothers.

PREPARED BY: William D. Gorman (great-great nephew of William Riley
Seaboalt, Jr.)
2529 Heather Hill Lane
Plano, Texas 75075

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