Giles Dixon (Execution of)

Giles Dixon (sometimes spelled Dickson or Dickerson) was hanged at Rockport (Hot Spring County) on September 7, 1877, for the shooting death of Nathaniel (or Matthew) McCall, a man in Clark County, several years earlier.

The 1870 federal census shows Giles Dixon living in Clark County’s Caddo Township with his wife Mary, six children, and his 102-year-old mother. The thirty-five-year-old African American man was employed in a brick yard.

On the evening of December 30, 1873, McCall, who lived on the Draper farm south of Arkadelphia (Clark County), opened the door to his house to see why his dog was barking and was shot with a double-barreled shotgun, which the Southern Standard newspaper reported was “loaded with buckshot, three taking effect, one in each breast and in the left groin.”

McCall died “in great agony” the next day, but not before saying that Miles Collins, a Black man who lived near him, had shot him. McCall said that several days earlier Collins and other Black men had “a lewd white woman” at their place and that he had confronted them about their “riotous conduct.” A day or so after that, Collins’s house caught fire while he was away, and McCall “went down to try and save what he could of their effects,” but when Collins returned he accused McCall of setting the blaze. The Standard wrote that “a more cold blooded and diabolical murder was never committed in any community. It is time that a terrible example was made of such fiends in human shape.”

Collins, Giles Dixon, and Thomas Reynolds (another Black man who lived near McCall) were arrested, and a coroner’s jury determined that Dixon had fired the fatal shot. He was tried by an all-white jury in March 1874 after getting a change of venue to Hot Spring County, convicted of first-degree murder, and sentenced to hang at Rockport on May 8, 1874. He appealed, and the Arkansas Supreme Court affirmed his conviction in December.

Dixon escaped with several others in January 1875, and Governor Augustus Garland offered a $200 reward for his capture. He was free until June 1877, when a Black man came to Arkadelphia and revealed that Dixon was working at a farm on the Arkansas River near Little Rock (Pulaski County). A pair of men went to the farm and arrested him. The Southern Standard reported that “he was at work in the field at the time of the capture, and was not aware of any effort being made in that direction until a couple of pistols was presented at his breast.” He was taken to the Hot Spring County jail in Rockport, and Governor William Read Miller set his execution for September 7, 1877.

Around 2,000 people gathered at Rockport to watch Dixon’s execution. The condemned man ascended the gallows, which were surrounded by about thirty armed men. A preacher prayed with him, and hymns were sung after which Dixon, “composed and perfectly at ease,” made a confession.

Dixon said that he had been killing hogs at the Draper farm when a boat came up the river and he bought a quart of whiskey from it. Heading home, he ran into Collins, and they drank the whiskey; Dixon then went with him to McCall’s to avenge the burning of Collins’s house. Dixon said that when they got there, Collins would not shoot, and he “wanted to show off ‘big nigger,’” so he took the shotgun and “shot McCall in cold blood.”

He said that “the next morning, when the whisky died in me, I was scared to death and couldn’t stay in my house a minute at a time.” Dixon said that McCall had been a good neighbor, that they had worked and hunted together, and that “we lived like brothers.” An account in the Arkansas Gazette said he proclaimed that “one quart of whisky cost me $130 in attorney fees, and will very soon cost me my life also. Young men, beware of whisky.”

After his confession, four of his children, aged nine to fifteen, ascended the gallows to say goodbye to their father, after which “the condemned [called] on his Maker to receive his soul as it took flight from its mortal coil.” Then “the black cap was drawn over the head and face of Dixon, the rope placed around his neck, the fatal platform on which he stood fell some three feet, and Giles Dixon died almost without a movement of his muscles.”

The Southern Standard reported that when no one claimed the corpse, the sheriff buried Dixon on the banks of the Ouachita River.

For additional information:
“$200 Reward.” Arkansas Gazette, January 29, 1875, p. 1.

“Caught and Caged.” Southern Standard, June 16, 1877, p. 3.

“A Diabolical Murder.” Southern Standard, January 3, 1874, p. 3.

“Hanging of Giles Dickson at Rockport.” Southern Standard, September 15, 1877, p. 3.

“Items in Brief.” Arkansas Gazette, April 5, 1874, p. 4.

“One Quart of Whisky.” Arkansas Gazette, September 12, 1877, p. 2.

Southern Standard, January 10, 1874, p. 3.

Southern Standard, March 28, 1874, p. 3.

Southern Standard, August 18, 1877, p. 3.

“Supreme Court.” Arkansas Gazette, December 31, 1874.

“Warning to Whiskey Drinkers.” Russellville Democrat, September 20, 1877, p. 1.

Mark K. Christ
Central Arkansas Library System