James Arcene

Common card · No. 465602

James Arcene (c. 1862 – June 18, 1885) was a Cherokee Nation member and the youngest person sentenced to death in the United States. Arcene was hanged by the U.S. federal government in Fort Smith, Arkansas, for his role in a robbery and murder committed thirteen years earlier, when he was about 10 years old. The state alleged that Arcene and a Cherokee man named William Parchmeal noticed William Feigel, a Swedish national, making a purchase in a store. They followed Feigel when he left, heading for Fort Gibson, and caught up with him about two miles outside of the fort. The state claimed that, with robbery as a motive, one of the two shot Feigel six times before crushing his skull with a rock, and that Arcene and Parchmeal then took a pair of boots and some money off of Feigel's corpse. Arcene was arrested, but escaped and eluded capture until he was apprehended in 1884. During this time, Parchmeal, who was a suspect, but was initially not charged, enlisted as a private in Company C of...

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