Our Arklahoma Heritage: Crawford County man killed while at the altar during a church service in 1895

In 1895, the small farming community of Barker in extreme northwest Crawford County was located just a few hundred feet from the Crawford /Washington County line.

The closest thing to a town in the area would have been Evansville, a few miles north of Barker on the Washington County side of the border. Several families had settled into the region decades earlier,  including pioneering white families and remnants of the Cherokee Indians that had passed through the area on the Trail of Tears. 

July 25, 1895 was a sultry Thursday and as the sunlight of the day passed away into the early evening, church services opened up at a revival in a non-denominational gathering of hard-working and like-minded citizens of the area. 

The whitewashed, clapboard building with the shake tiles on the ceiling sat just a few hundred yards on the Crawford County side of the border. While the participants at the gathering sang hymns, listen to scripture, and was involved in a night of fellowship little did they know that a murderer lie right outside one of the windows of the church. 

A call to the altar had been established and several of the attendees had gone up to the altar to pray. A 19-year-old farmer by the name of Henry Bacon knelt at the front of the chapel just moments before gunfire rang out and a bullet fired through one of the open windows on the side of the church struck the young man on the left side of the head. 

By the time the shock of the moment was over and the man attending the church service had gone outside, the only clue to the killer's identity was a galloping horse headed north on the road towards Evansville. Ironically, the nearest doctor in the area was in the Washington County town and Bacon was taken to a physician's office in Evansville where he later died.

Bacon lived with his family on the Crawford County side of the border. The son of Amon and Francis "Queen" Bacon, Henry was the oldest of seven offspring of the couple residing on the family farm. The Bacon's had established themselves in the late 1860s in the wilderness that was then western Arkansas with the generation before having immigrated to the state from Tennessee after the Civil War.

Because the murder happened so near the border and because most of the suspects were thought to live north of the Barker community in and around Evansville there was a momentarily jurisdiction dispute between the sheriffs of the two counties.  The fact that Bacon had died in Washington County clouded the issue. Because the murder had actually occurred inside Crawford County, Sheriff George R, Wood, who was elected to the position in 1894, became the lead investigator.

Wood immediately started canvassing the farms and the dwellings in around the Evansville township. All of the information he was able to gather from the other residents in the area pointed him towards three suspects - a 19-year-old half-breed Cherokee by the name of George Ward and two brothers by the name of Simpson. 

Ward already had a reputation throughout the region. At the age of 17 he had been arrested, tried. and convicted of horse stealing and sentenced to five years in the state penitentiary. After serving just a little more than two years of that sentence, Ward escaped and fled to Texas, where it was said he killed a man at the age of 18. He eventually returned to the intimate hills and rocky outcroppings where he had been born and raised in southern Washington County. 

Essentially, Ward remained in hiding after returning to western Arkansas until the night of the murder. Although initial evidence of the crime implicated Ward and the two Simpson brothers, there was not enough evidence for the arrest of all three.  The evidence in the case against Ward was "exceedingly" strong. 

At first, the motive was thought to be over jealousy about a young girl. The focus then turned to one of the Simpson brothers, who allegedly hired Ward to do the foul deed. After he was found guilty and sentenced to hang by the Circuit Court of Crawford County, a motion was made for a new trial that was overruled. 

There was then an application made to Governor James Clarke for executive clemency but after considering the case he decided not o intervene. He did, however granta reprieve of the execution date until January 24 of 1896, but that hat reprieve was a little value. For the most part, the citizens in and around Evansville and the Barker community were relieved that Ward was no longer a danger to the safety and health of those that resided in the area. 

While in jail awaiting is execution, Ward told one of his sisters that he had committed the deed on an account of an old grudge he had against Bacon from the time they were boys. 

In the final hours leading up to his hanging, Ward made a statement to Sheriff Wood in regard to the killing in Texas. He said that he had killed a man by the name of Allison in Houston because he thought the victim was a lawman that had been sent to arrest him. On the advice of his lawyer he surrendered, was tried, and sentenced to ten years in the pen in early 1895.

While the case was on appeal, Ward broke out of jail on April 1 with five others, overpowering the jailer and his assistant. . He made his escape by scaling a 10-ft wall which surrounded the prison. 

He returned home by jumping to freight train to Beaumont, Texas and from there went to Dallas. He said he caught a stage to Muskogee and walked home from there arriving five days after his court case in Texas has been affirmed by the Court of Appeals. 

Ford was also complimentary to Sheriff Wood and the jail staff saying that" there were better jails in Houston than Dallas and more experienced men than those that served Crawford County" but he had "never been held down before like he has been here". 

Sheriff Wood slept at the jail for eighty-one consecutive days following the arrest of Ward. There were never less than three guards in the county jail the entire time he was interred there.

Ward also admitted to the killing of Bacon, saying his intention first was to walk into the church and shoot him there but he concluded that some of the armed men at the service might kill him before he could get out the door. 

He claimed the grudge he held against Bacon dated back to 1887 when he and his victim both would have been around nine years old. 

Ford slept well the night before his execution and after a light breakfast asked the sheriff for some cigars as he wanted to smoke. 

At 10:05 on the morning of Friday January 24, 1896 sheriff wood entered his cell and the solemn procession was taken up. The hanging was private with only 35 persons being allowed by law to witness the execution. The gallows was situated within a few yards of the jail and Ward walked alone with a firm step up the stairs. 

The Reverend A. H. Williams pastor of a local Methodist church prayed with him and at the conclusion asked if he had anything to say. Ford shook his head and replied "nothing". 

His arms were then pinned behind him, the black cap adjusted over his head and rope tightened around his neck. The trap door sprung at 10:16 and at 10:25 he was pronounced dead. 

Ward was said to appear to have been the "most unconcerned of those present and shook hands with all the witnesses who wish to on his way to the gallows".

His remains were taken by relatives to Evansville for internment. Burial was in a family plot.

After his death, it came to light that Ward had been instrumental in causing the death of his own mother when he was only 10 years old. 

Henry Bacon was buried in an unmarked grsve in the Vineyard Cemetery in Evansville. The Bacon family continue to live and thrive in the Barker community with three more children being born to his parents after his death.