December 4, 1837

The only recorded violent death on the floor of the Arkansas General Assembly occurred in a knife brawl that left state representative Major Joseph J. Anthony of Randolph County dead at the hands of the speaker of the house, Colonel John Wilson of Clark County, who was subsequently expelled and tried for murder. The jury ultimately returned a verdict of “guilty of excusable homicide,” in other words, not guilty. The Arkansas Gazette cited it as “another example of the barbarity of life in Arkansas,” lamenting how it “stained the history of the state.”