He Hung 'em High: Dr. Henri Stewart, William Eliot Wiley - August 28, 1879

Dr. Henri Stewart, educated at Harvard and Yale, was an unlikely figure on the western frontier. A respected physician, he abandoned his family in Illinois in 1877 for reasons unknown and turned to a life of crime.

Joining a gang of outlaws, Stewart participated in a failed train robbery in the Choctaw Nation in May 1879, during which he killed another doctor, J.B. Jones. Convicted of murder, Stewart was sentenced to death by Parker and executed at Fort Smith.

His fall from a prominent medical career to the gallows underscores the unpredictable paths that led some to Indian Territory’s criminal underworld.

William Elliot Wiley, known as "The Colorado Kid," was a hardened criminal suspected of multiple murders across four states. Possibly inked to the Dalton Gang--a notorious group of train and bank robbers active in the early 1890s--Wiley’s reputation as a dangerous outlaw preceded him.

He was convicted for the February 1879 murder of David J. Brown in Muskogee, Indian Territory, one of at least three killings attributed to him in the region. Local newspapers remarked on his notoriety, noting he was "hardly wanted" after his execution. Wiley’s crimes and execution reflect the violent lawlessness Parker sought to curb.

The joint execution of Stewart and Wiley on that August day in 1879 drew attention due to their contrasting backgrounds: a once-respectable doctor and a feared outlaw, both meeting the same fate under Parker’s strict enforcement of federal law.