Fort Worth daily gazette. (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1882-1891, 1888-04-28
SIX MEN HANGED.
One An Indian Negro, Four Straight
Out Mulattoes and One a White
Man.. History Of the Crimes.
jackson Crow, Owens D. Hill and Geo.
Moss Pay the Penalty for Murder
in the Territory.
The Murders OF Two Choctaw CiHz ,ps, Two
Wtvse, One Negro Man and Ose
white Man Avenged.
Three Victims at Fort Smith.

Three Victims ut Fort Smith,
Special TO the Gazette.
FORT SMITH, ARK. April 27.-Three
men were hanged here this morning for
crimes committed in the Choctaw and
Caickasaw nations. The men, George
Moss, Jackson Crow and Owens Hill,
were all colored, with part Indian blood.
The condemned men spent the night In
crying, praying and shouting. Neither Of
them slept but few moments here and
there, and ate nothing at breakfast. At
z O'Clock crowd Of morbid sight seers
put In their appearance, and an
hour later the j.il ysru was filled
with . miscellaneous group of men
and women and children. The jsil COR
ridors were filed with friends and
relatives OF the condemned men who
shook hands with them and made the
walls re-echo. with gospel hylns
and prayers led BY group Of
colored clergymen. Each OF the men
leaned against the bars, picture Of utter
despair. Hill acted Hike a half rszed
man. He babe his relatives goodbye one
oy one, uttering
HIS FAREWELL WORDS
IN dreary monotone, shaking their hands
ard jumping about from one place to an,
other. The parting with his sis
ter was very sad. she 10
3 tall, very neat looking
colored girl and wore heavy crepe veil
through which her face could be seen dis
torted with grief. Hill kept repeating
continually that his faith WAS with the
Lord and he knew he
would be saved, toa which the
crowd would fervently shoui "Amen."
The other men had butlittle to say and
leaned against the bars. as though too
weak to stand. Occasionally the crowd
would sob aloud and Moss would move
nervously about with wide open eyes that
Eshowed the abjsct terror he felt at his
Impending fate. Capssin Maledon, the
haugnan, had made foal preparations
before dawn and everything WAS
in readiness long before the march to the
scaffold began. When Deputy Marshal
John Carroll came in to read the death
warrant Moss WAS engaged in lis,enipg al
tentiyely .te& psritusi adVies- { # 4red him
by the fellow prisoners. His brown face
seemed blanched with Lerrcr,
and he glanced ne1vously :about him
IS though he
ExPECTKD THE DROP TO FALL
any minute. Hill did his best to be
cheerful and composed, and, although he
was extremely Dervous, he answered all
Questions put to him and s.i / he was very
happy. Ga his breast he wore q white
card with the letters as B" made
OF hair of his mother, isis
ter ahd brother, which, he said,
no lac fIf % he fhax,
would never forget. Crow st the LAST
momen. showed that he could talk En-
glisa q1ite we'll and convarsed with re-
porter os well IS any OF them. He said
ood-bye, and asked that nothing else be
published, in the papers. During the
resdipg of the warrant the three
men sat side by side listening attentively.
H!ll kent tapping en- the ground with his
feet, singing In his dreary monotone,
"GJd have mercy" "Let not
your hearts be troubled, 1t is Gods
will" He smiled continually.
Moss aid Crow loo ked stolid and indiffer-
ent. On the scsffold Hill seated himself
and began shouting eve are on cur jour.
ney home" He could lot stand or sit
Sill, but drummed with his feet, clasped
mis- hands and rolled his eyes wildly about
IS though hsf dead with fear.
His spiritual advisor shook
nsnds and wished him goodbye while the
hsDgmsp, M,lsdon, arranged the black
c'ps and nooses. Moss and Crow looked
strsight CUT into the space below the
gsll0ws and did not move their lips.
They seemed quite composed at
the last moment, but Hill kept
shouting necessarily When led
to the trap Hill kept up the same crszsd
harapgue. Moss and Crow trembled
violently but said not word. Then the
nooses were adjusted, the last prayer
was said, the black caps we're slipped on,
THE DROP YELL
with crash, and three wretched victims
we're suspended in mid-air. At 1:17,
thirteen minutes after the drop
fell, the attending physicians
pronounced them all dead. Moss
pulse stopped first, and then
Crows and lastly Hill's. In thirty min.
utes the bodies were cut down and sub
sequently buried In the Potter's field.
JACKSON CROW,
is classed as An Indian negro, his father
having been full blood Creek Indian and
his mother negress. He was born and
raised in the Choctaw country, and sp
peared to enjoy the reputation of being q
hard citizen before getting into the trou-
BILE that to day cost him his life. Ga Au-
gust Z, 1884, the dead body of Charles B
Wilson, prominent Cnoctsw citizen,
was found in the road a few miles from
Kulla Chsha. Visor Was a wellknown
merchant and stood well In
commercial circles here. He had
been assassinated while returning
from an election, and the muir
der was charged up TO Robert Benton,
Jack Crow, Peter CoinsiD, Ned McCsslin,
John Allen, Dixon Perry, Charles Fisher,
Jim Franklin, Cornelius McCurtain, Joe
Jackson and John Slaughter, all of whom
were Indians, and could only be tried in
the Choctow courts, except Crow, who
up to this time had failed to take adEau-
tsgs Of the Choctaw Freedmen's regis
tration law, which declared them bona
ade citizens after having property regis
tered under the law. Crow took to the
woods after the murder Of Wilson, and
his companions were arrested by the In
diaa authorities. Beiog prominent men
nothing was done with them, the grand
jury failing to even .ndict them for the