Allen-Oden Duel

An Arkansas territorial legislator was mortally wounded on March 10, 1820, in the first recorded duel fought in Arkansas.

Virginia-born William O. Allen, a veteran of the War of 1812, established a law practice at Arkansas Post and, in 1819, was elected to represent Arkansas County in the territorial legislature. Allen, who was in his mid-forties, and another lawyer, Robert C. Oden, who was in his twenties, were dining together when an incident occurred that led the older man to challenge Oden to a duel.

One story, attributed to Andrew Scott (who himself would later kill Joseph Selden in a duel), said that Oden was toying with Allen’s cane and refused to give it back to him, leading an angry Allen to storm off to his room and issue the challenge. Josiah H. Shinn, in Pioneers and Makers of Arkansas, wrote that he met an old man in 1885 who said that Allen and Oden got into a heated argument about a speech Allen had made to the legislature, writing that, “as the argument grew warmer, Oden accused Allen of disputing his word, seized Allen’s cane and struck Allen a smart blow,” leading to the challenge. Dallas T. Herndon, in his Centennial History of Arkansas, wrote that “the ill-feeling engendered during the short but tempestuous session of the Legislature in February” was the cause of the duel.

Regardless the trigger, on March 10, 1820, the two men met on an island in the Arkansas River, with George W. Scott serving as Allen’s second and Elijah Morton standing with Oden. Allen fired first and his bullet bounced off a button on Oden’s coat. As the younger man fell, he fired a shot that struck Allen in the forehead. Allen died on May 21, 1820, and the Arkansas Gazette wrote of the incident that “we sincerely regret to see a practice still continued which has been universally condemned by every philanthropic mind.”

A grand jury indicted Oden on a charge of accepting a challenge to a duel, but after the trial judge refused to let prosecutors put Scott and Morton on the stand, he was acquitted. The two men were tried for serving as seconds in the duel and were found “not guilty under the indictment.” Reporting on the cases, the National Intelligencer in Washington DC wrote that “laws are of little validity in Arkansas.”

Shinn wrote that Allen’s sister was married to the Captain Byrne who piloted the Comet to Arkansas Post in the first steamboat ascent of the Arkansas River on March 31, 1820, and that she was on board “to investigate his death and settle his estate.”

For additional information:
Herndon, Dallas T. Centennial History of Arkansas, Vol. 1. Chicago: S. J. Clarke Publishing Company, 1922.

Moore, Waddy M. “Some Aspects of Crime and Punishment on the Arkansas Frontier.” Arkansas Historical Quarterly 23 (Spring 1964): 50–64.

Sherwood, Diana. “The Code Duello in Arkansas.” Arkansas Historical Quarterly 6 (Summer 1947): 186–197.

Shinn, Josiah H. Pioneers and Makers of Arkansas. Little Rock: Democrat Printing and Lithographing Company, 1908.

Mark K. Christ
Little Rock, Arkansas