Riding With Isaac Parker: Deputy Marshall RM Fry

In the 1980’s I made a trip, along with other family members, to Fort Smith Arkansas.  We were in pursuit of stories about our Clarkson and Fry ancestors, who had lived in Fort Smith during the latter 19th and early 20th centuries.  One of our exciting finds was the name of my 2xgreat-grandfather, Reuben Macon Fry, on the list of Deputies that “Rode With Isaac Parker”, the noted “hanging judge” of the US District Court of Western Arkansas.  It was an intriguing find, but it has taken me almost twenty-five years to set about learning more about this interesting grandfather. 

To give a brief biographical account – Reuben Macon Fry was born in 1847 in Orange Court House Virginia.  As a student of the Cadet Corp of Virginia Military Institute he may have participated in some minor skirmishing during the Civil War.  After the war years, as he moved into young adulthood, he removed with his older brother to Lake Village in Chicot county Arkansas.  There he served as county clerk, operated a retail business, and married Eliza Brooks Hutchins, a “refugee” from Natchez Mississippi.  Business losses probably induced him to move on, and in 1880 he settled his family in Fort Smith Arkansas. 

Reuben Macon Fry’s obituary, twenty-five years later, gives an account of his career in Fort Smith:
. . He followed mercantile pursuits for several years and then became connected with the revenue service.  He afterward served as deputy circuit clerk during the incumbency of AA McDonald [circuit court clerk] and was also chief deputy sheriff during the six years' administration of Sheriff William Bugg.  After Captain Bugg retired he was elected justice of the peace, which position he held until he died. 

Reuben M Fry was commissioned as a Deputy Marshal of the Western District Court at Fort Smith in February 1884, and again in November 1887.  These were the years that he served as a Revenue Officer, and one of his occupations was to incapacitate “moonshiners”.  In the summer of 1888 he participated in an operation in Montgomery county Arkansas, during which one of his fellow officer, John Trammell, was killed.  I have come across several accounts of this 1888 event in newspapers and biographies. 

A report in the St Louis Post Dispatch (St Louis Missouri); 28 June 1888, begins:

Hot Springs, Ark., June 28: News of a desperate fight between revenue officers and moonshiners; which took place near Black Springs, Montgomery County, yesterday, has just reached this city. Internal Revenue Collector R. M. FRY, in charge of a posse, was in that vicinity raiding moonshiner's camps and destroying illicit distilleries. They had succeeded in ferreting out and destroying three. Shortly after they had destroyed the last one they were attacked from ambush by a band of moonshiners armed with Winchester rifles when a desperate battle ensued,. . .

Reuben Fry was accompanied by Deputy Marshals, John D Trammell and Otis K Wheeler.  Trammell was killed in the ambush.  An inquest was held which revealed that two of Trammell’s killers were relatives, a brother and cousin, of Bill Cogburn who was being held in custody.  The primary characters in the bootlegging scheme were Carter Markham, Matthew Pervine, Joseph Pepper, J.D. Hollifield and several members of the Cogburn family.  Community fear held back any witnesses, and the murderers were never convicted. 

A detailed account of this incident can be found online in Brett Cogburn’s recently published book, Rooster:
The Life and Times of the Real Rooster Cogburn, the Man Who Inspired True Grit, 2012; beginning on page 52.

 For more details on Reuben Macon Fry, visit his individual page at Family Stories, pamgarrett.com.


To learn more about the Deputy Marshals of Isaac Parker’s court:
Law West of Fort Smith; Glenn Shirley, 1957.
Larry McMurtry's 1997 novel Zeke and Ned tells the story of Zeke Proctor, one of Parker's deputy marshals.
Loren D. Estleman's 2009 novel The Branch and The Scaffold relates to Parker's tenure at Fort Smith.
Charles Portis features Judge Parker in his novel, True Grit, which has twice been adapted as films of the same name.
Movie – Rooster Cogburn, 1975, based on Charles Portis novel; starring John Wayne and Katherine Hepburn.

Those Robinson Girls: Lizzie Jane Robinson Clarkson

Preston M Robinson married Sarah N Edmonston,  1847 in Washington county Missouri.  To them were born five daughters – Elizabeth Jane Robinson, Mary Alice Robinson, Martha Thomas Robinson, Julia Parkhurst Robinson, and Joeannah Robinson.  This Blog Series on “Those Robinson Girls” gives a brief account of each daughter. 

Elizabeth Jane Robinson was my gg-grandmother.  She was born on the 11th of January 1848 in Washington county Missouri.  She was the first born child of Preston McGready Robinson and Sarah Nugent Edmonston, and she was the first of a family of five daughters.  In fairly quick succession would arrive her younger sisters, Mary, Martha, Julia and finally Joeannah in 1862. 

I don’t know much of my gg-grandmother’s childhood, but it appears that she grew up on a family farm near the communities of Caledonia and Irondale in Washington county Missouri.  I can only speculate on the schooling of Elizabeth Robinson and her sisters, but it is clear that they received a worthwhile education.  Whether it was at home, in a local schoolroom, or at a boarding school is not known.

“Lizzie” Jane Robinson married Richard Albert “RA” Clarkson on the 3rd of September 1868.  He hailed from Essex county Virginia, had been orphaned as a young boy, and came west with his uncle a year or two after the Civil War.  He must have married Lizzie Jane not long after his arrival.  They appear with their infant daughter Camilla Clarkson in the 1870 Census of Washington county Missouri, in Harmony/Osage township.  RA Clarkson is noted as a Retail Dry Goods Merchant, a business he carried on through most of his life.  The town of Annapolis, in neighboring Iron county Missouri, was established in 1872, and RA Clarkson is listed among the first residents.  Lizzie Robinson and RA Clarkson lived in Annapolis for fifteen years.  Their four children were born there.

Our family is most fortunate to have a large collection of letters exchanged by our Clarkson family.  The largest portion of the letters is written between RA Clarkson and two of his children, Henrietta Clarkson and Samuel Edwin Clarkson, between 1903 and 1913.  But, there are a few earlier letters, and several letters written by Lizzie Jane Robinson Clarkson.   In May of 1886, Henrietta Clarkson writes to her two older sisters, Cammie and Annie, who are likely away at boarding school.  She mentions the chicken and dumplings they had for dinner, and the “train wreck” Papa met up with when he was returning from Ironton.  Also enclosed in the envelope is a letter from Mama (Lizzie Jane) to her daughter Cammie.  It’s an odd and hurried letter, discussing dresses that the girls are in need of.  Lizzie offers to purchase fabric in St Louis to send on to their dressmaker, if the girls will make clear what they need.  She closes the missive:

I do hope you are not just wanting these things to make a show, but if necessary then I will try and get. Now don’t go to crying and fretting over it just write on receipt of this a few lines telling me what you know, what color of silk and fingered or not. I do hope the Good Lord will forgive me for spending my Sabbath evening thinking about dress.

Just after this 1886 letter, the Clarkson family moved to Fort Smith Arkansas.  This would be Lizzie Robinson Clarkson’s home for the next forty-five years.  She became involved in many ministries of the Presbyterian Church.  She worked with a group of women to establish the Rosalie Tilles Orphan’s Home in Fort Smith. 

Elizabeth Jane Robinson was described by her granddaughter Elizabeth Boyd Reynolds in a letter to Charles Ninian Edmonston. She called her a colorful person who for many years supervised, from her home, a Ft. Smith orphanage, much to the dismay of her family.   She always drove a black horse hitched to a phaeton, wore sweeping skirts and a little bonnet on her head long after hats were in vogue.  She would stop her horse anywhere in the middle of the street to visit, much to the despair of the merchants, who finally wrote to the family to please keep her off the street before she was run over.  She was a large, strong woman both physically and mentally . Elizabeth claimed to be "scared to death of her" but said her younger sister Henrietta constantly chided her for not "kidding her along" as she did. 

Elizabeth Jane Robinson Clarkson died in 1930, at the age of eighty-two.  She had faced the death of her husband and two of her daughters, and a young grandson.  She is buried with her family in the Oak Cemetery in Fort Smith Arkansas.   

Children of Elizabeth Jane Robinson and Richard Albert Clarkson:
Camilla Hall Clarkson; married William Henry Vick of Fort Smith in 1898; removed to Oklahoma City.
Annie Preston Clarkson; married Alfred Waller Boyd in 1893; removed to Oklahoma City.
Henrietta  Jeffries Clarkson; unmarried; predeceased her parents in 1910 at age thirty-seven.
Samuel Edwin Clarkson; married Aubin Mildred Fry of Fort Smith in 1899; removed to Oklahoma City.

For more details on Elizabeth Jane Robinson, visit her page at Family Stories, pamgarrett.com.  You will find several of her letters to her son, Samuel Edwin Clarkson, among the Clarkson Family Letters at Family Stories, pamgarrett.com.