James Casherego (Execution of)

James C. Casherego was hanged at Fort Smith (Sebastian County) on July 30, 1896, for murder—the last execution to be conducted from a conviction in Judge Isaac Parker’s U.S. District Court for the Western District of Arkansas.

James Calvin Casherego may have been born in Obion County, Tennessee, probably in 1869. By 1870, he was in Springfield (Conway County) with his parents Lewis Casherego, who was a farmer from Italy, and Jane Casharego. At some point, he began going by the name George W. Wilson, “because…of some trouble he once got into in or near Plummerville [sic],” he would later say. He worked as a salesman and collector for a sewing machine company, and in the early 1890s he reportedly “was a respectable citizen of Faulkner county.”

On April 12, 1895, Casherego left the Springdale (Washington and Benton counties) area with Zacharia Thatch, his uncle. Thatch had six horses and a wagon loaded with his belongings as they set out for Indian Territory, where Thatch intended to purchase some land.

They were in the Creek Nation by early May when they set up camp on Rock Creek near Keokuk Falls to tend to a sick horse. At some point, Casherego moved to another place with the wagon and five horses, claiming that Thatch had left on May 13 to look at land in the Kickapoo Nation and that he had bought Thatch’s belongings from him.

On May 26, 1895, a man saw buzzards circling over Rock Creek and soon found a decaying corpse lying in the creek bed, which was believed to be Thatch’s. Casherego was arrested and taken to Fort Smith for trial.

The trial began on December 15, 1895, and lasted four days. Members of Thatch’s family identified several items that belonged to him, including bloody bedding that was found in the wagon. Casherego was found guilty of first-degree murder, and Judge Parker told the defendant that “the wickedness of the act shows that you are a moral pervert….You robbed an unoffending man of his life and you must answer to the laws of your God….The jury in convicting you have done exactly right.” He set July 30, 1896, as the date for Casherego’s execution. The conviction was appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, which affirmed it in late April 1896.

Casherego maintained his innocence to the end and, on the gallows on July 30, 1896, said, “I am not guilty, and if I could state it at the end of the rope after I fell through I would do so.” The trap door opened at 11:53 a.m., and the Arkansas Gazette reported “there was not a movement. His neck was not broken by the fall, but he suffered none.” His body was taken down sixteen minutes later and transported to Faulkner County for burial.

Casherego was the last man hanged at Fort Smith after being convicted in Parker’s courtroom. He and the five members of the Rufus Buck Gang were all executed in July 1896, which was only the second time during Parker’s twenty-three years on the bench that two or more executions were conducted in the same month, the other time being in 1890 when six men were hanged on January 14 and murderer George Tobler was hanged on January 30.

For additional information:
Akins, Jerry. Hangin’ Times in Fort Smith: A History of Executions in Judge Parker’s Court. Little Rock: Butler Center Books, 2012.

“Decisions Announced.” Helena Weekly World, April 29, 1896, p. 2.

“George Wilson’s Sentence.” Fayetteville Weekly Democrat, January 2, 1896, p. 1.

“Hanged at Fort Smith.” Pine Bluff Daily Graphic, July 31, 1896, p. 2.

Harman, S. W. Hell on the Border: He Hanged Eighty-Eight Men. Fort Smith, AR: Phoenix Publishing Company, 1898.

“One Will Hang.” Arkansas Gazette, June 14, 1896, p. 9.

Riley, Michael Owen. “Capital Punishment in Oklahoma, 1835–1966.” PhD diss., University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, 2012.

“To the Very Last.” Daily Arkansas Gazette, July 31, 1896, p. 3.

Mark K. Christ
Little Rock, Arkansas