George Ward (Execution of)

George Ward was a nineteen-year-old Cherokee man executed at Van Buren (Crawford County) on January 24, 1896, for shooting a young man to death as he prayed in church.

George Ward had a violent history dating to his childhood, when he clubbed his mother to death when he was ten. Shortly after that, the Arkansas Gazette reported, “he helped to murder a boy at church in the Indian Territory, he and his pals cutting the boy’s head and hands off and hiding them where they were never found.” He was convicted of horse theft in Crawford County when he was sixteen years old and sent to the state penitentiary, from which he escaped and fled to Texas. He killed a man there and was sentenced to ten years in prison, but he escaped from the jail in Houston on April 1, 1895, and returned to Arkansas, “coming back to his old haunts,” which, he later told a lawman, “was the only losing game he ever played.”

On the evening of July 28, 1895, he rode to Crawford County’s Barker Township about three miles south of Evansville (Washington County), where Henry Bacon “was in church, singing a hymn, when Ward rode up to a window, pulled a pistol, and shot him.” Governor James Clarke offered a $200 reward for Ward’s arrest and conviction on August 6, 1895, and he was soon in custody.

A few weeks later, John Simpson, a wealthy man, and his sons Walter and Hugh, who lived near the Washington-Crawford county line, were arrested as possible accessories to Bacon’s murder. Ward had confessed to the killing, saying John Simpson offered him $1,000 to murder Bacon, a crime for which he said he used Simpson’s gun. Ward had stayed with the Simpsons after his escape from Texas, and they were charged with harboring a fugitive, though not with anything in connection with Bacon’s death.

There do not appear to be any reports of Ward’s November 1895 trial, but the Gazette later reported that “the evidence which convicted Ward was purely circumstantial, but the chain was perfect.” He was convicted of first-degree murder. Governor Clarke set the date for both Ward and Pruitt Turner, also convicted of murder in Crawford County, to hang as December 31, 1895. After an appeal for clemency was made to the governor, Clarke “declined to interfere in the case of George Ward,” though he later respited his execution date to January 24, 1896; Turner’s execution also was respited, to February 28, 1896. The Van Buren Press reported that “no great efforts were made in Ward’s behalf, as even those who were considered his friends feared him.”

During the week before his execution, Ward’s sister visited him in jail and he told her he had “an old grudge against Bacon from the time they were boys,” which led him to murder Bacon.

On January 24, 1896, Ward woke up at 6:30 a.m. and ate breakfast. At 10:13 a.m., he was taken to the gallows, where he “mounted the scaffold with a firm step, smoking a cigarette.” A preacher offered a prayer, after which Ward stepped onto the trap door, declining to make a last statement. The trap was opened at 10:21 a.m., and the Gazette reported that “Ward displayed wonderful nerve and although he dropped seven and one half feet his neck was not broken, death resulting from strangulation.” At 10:25, he was declared dead, and his body was turned over to relatives for burial in Vineyard Cemetery in Evansville; his victim was buried in the same cemetery. The Gazette wrote that Ward “today expiated his last crime upon the gallows, executed by the order of an outraged law.”

For additional information:
“The Bacon Murder.” Van Buren Press, August 24, 1895, p. 2.

“Circuit Court.” Van Buren Press, November 30, 1895, p. 2.

Fayetteville Weekly Democrat, August 22, 1895, p. 3, col. 2.

“Game to the End.” Arkansas Gazette, January 25, 1896, p. 1.

“Geo. Ward Hangs.” Van Buren Press, January 25, 1896, p. 3.

“Henry Bacon.” Find a Grave.com. https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/160059948/henry-bacon (accessed March 20, 2025).

“Hired to Commit Murder.” Forrest City Times, August 23, 1895, p. 8.

“Respited by Governor.” Arkansas Gazette, January 24, 1896, p. 2.

“Reward Offered.” Southern Standard, August 9, 1895, p. 1.

“Two to Hang at Van Buren.” Fayetteville Weekly Democrat, January 9, 1896, p. 1.

“Ward Gets a Respite.” Arkansas Gazette, December 27, 1895, p. 3.

“Ward Must Die.” Arkansas Gazette, December 24, 1895, p. 2.

Mark K. Christ
Little Rock, Arkansas