July 2, 1922—Fort Smith, Arkansas—Within a stone’s throw of the final resting place of men whom he sent to eternity at the end of a hangman’s rope the remains of George Maledon, who for years served as official executioner of the United States court at Fort Smith, was interred this week.

            Maledon, despite reports that he was haunted by the spirits of men whom he had hanged, and that he was afraid to sleep in an unlighted room, lived to the ripe old age of 87 years, dying in the Solders’ home at Johnson City, Tennessee.

            More than the usual amount of trouble allotted to man fell to the lot of the man who legally executed more than sixty men, but he was always jolly.  In his declining years he performed the duties of hangman as able as in days when he established the reputation which made him, next to Judge I. C. parker, the most dreaded man in the western country.          Maledon attained his record of sixty hangings in the twenty-two years he was a turnkey at one of the most notorious jails in the world and would have hanged many more, but for the election for a democratic president of the United States, which let out all federal employees in Fort Smith.

            In addition to the number he legally executed Maledon shot two men to death.  Twenty-two men were legally executed at Fort Smith after Maledon left the government service.  Deputy Marshal George Lawson later performed the gruesome function.

            With Maledon the hanging of men was a business and an art.  Few men who fell through the trap of the Fort Smith gallows died of strangulation—it was nearly always a case of a broken neck.  His willingness to perform a duty shirked by most federal employees kept Maledon his position with each change of marshals, until he finally retired to make room for a democrat.

            With the passing of Maledon there remains in Fort Smith but one reminder of the death dealing machine which from 1874 to 1890 snuffed out the lives of eighty-eight men.  This is the trap of the old gallows.  This trap is now the front porch of a cabin which stands near the site of the old gallows and the feet of children patter upon it daily. Now the site of the old gallows is a part of a business center.

            Maledon came to American when an infant from Bavaria in 1830 and was a resident of Detroit until he was grown, then going to the Indian Territory, where he soon became a deputy marshal.  During the term of Marshal Logan H. Roots he was made turnkey and hangman, the position he held for twenty-two years.

            While he served as hangman Maledon twice hanged six men at one time, the trap of the gallows being of sufficient size to accommodate twelve without crowding.  Three times he executed sets of five and as many times executed four at once.  Four times three men were legally by Maledon and double executions wee too numerous for his attention in after years.

“I have never hanged a man who came back in after years to have the job done over again, for the ghosts of men executed at Fort Smith never hang around the old gibbet,” Maledon at one time stated when questions as to the ports of his mental disturbances.

            After he was relieved as federal hangman Maledon toured the Indian Territory and other parts of the southwest exhibiting his ropes and parts of gallows, being greeted by large crowds everywhere.  He finally gave up the venture and went into the grocery business in Fort Smith, later retiring to farm in Washington County, where he remained until too aged to work.  He was admitted to the Soldiers’ home in Tennessee, a reward for his service in the Union Army.

            This is a news item of more than ordinary significance.  Throughout Arkansas and Indian territory Fort Smith is famed as "the gallows city," in the hangman is an important public functionary.

            It is an extremely peaceful day when the Fort Smith Jail is not crowded with murderers and outlaws.  There are 10 condemned men in there now awaiting death with the cheerful bravado so much affected by the border ruffian and during the administration of George Maledon, the retiring executioner, he hanged 88 men.

            Maledon says he believes his record of 88 hanged is safe anyway from being broken by any other man, so he will have the consolation in his retirement of knowing that he is championed of the world in his line.  He loves to talk about his work and took us much pride in and as a carpenter would in a neat job he had done.  He followed a regular system and seldom had a mishap.

            A hanging by Maledon was worth going miles to see.  It was a thing of scientific beauty.  From the moment the subject began to prepare for the march to the scaffold the little Dutch hangman was at his heels.  He had been up before daylight, greasing his ropes, oiling the hinges of the gallows trap and adjusting and readjusting his noose.  He follows the subject to the gallows and when the foot of the steps leading up to it was reached the little hangman would trot around and trip jauntily up the stairway ahead of all the rest.  From that moment Maledon's face was a study for a physiognomist.  He heeded not  the spectators nor anyone on the scaffold except the subject and he moved around him with an air of ownership.  Sometimes, if the subject was slow and backward, Maledon would encourage him with the a few well-chosen words of inpatient hurry, as:

            "Oh, come on now; it's nothing at all.  You will not feel it and I'll have it all over in a jiffy."

            Maledon would stand the victim on the trap and then generally would take a chew of tobacco and stand with the noose ready in his hands while the clergyman prayed.  After that it was not a minute until George had the news fairly adjusted the black cap over the head  and the trap or sprung.  As the body hung limp and swayed gently back and forth the little hangman would walk around the square hole of the  trap with his hands on his hips, looking down at the swinging body and surveying it critically from every point of view, while he chewed tobacco anxiously and vigorously and spat down through, the hole past the body.  When Maledon  had from two to 10 to hang at one time, he attended to it all alone, adjusting the noose with his own hands.

            Maledon gained his proficiency at us a hangman by experience.  He was not so successful with his first two or three jobs as he was with later subjects.

            Maledon's noose has fallen to George Lawson, who tried his apprentice hand on the notorious Cherokee Bill the other day.  He made a good job of it, for Bill's neck was broken without an abrasion of the skin.  For sometime Lawson had been employed as a guard in the jail.  As an executioner he works slower than Maledon and lacks the easy movement on the gallows that the old hangman had.  He is a man about 45 years of age, 5'9" in height and will weigh 180 lbs..  He is married and lives in a little college beside the old fort almost under the caves in the jail.  His son Will, who has taken his place as a jail guard, tied the knot for Cherokee Bill and assisted in the preliminaries.

The gallows on which so many men have met their death is a massive affair.  It stands just south of the United States jail and about 100 yd. away.  There is a well-worn path running from the jail to the gallows, along which the men are led to execution.  The drop on this monstrous gallows is 20 ft. long, giving ample room for hanging 10 men at a one time.  Seven men have been hanged at once by Maledon, a feat which broke all previous records and has never been equaled since.  Six men were hanged at another time and there have been several quadruple and triple hangings.  Surrounding the gallows and at a distance of about 50 ft. from and is a border fence 25 ft. high, which completely hides the gallows from public view.  Nearly all the men who have been hanged here were desperadoes from the Indian him from Territory.