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Unidentified photographer/creator
Hardy. hung 1903, Nome Alaska
1903 (ca)
Private collection of Nigel Maister
LL/28563
This refers to the first man hanged in Alaska under judicial authority (as opposed to miner's courts authority). Here's a quote from A History of the Death Penalty in Alaska:
First executions under judicial authority
Spurred by the rapid growth of Alaska's population due to the Klondike Gold Rush, Congress in 1899 enacted the Code of Criminal Procedure for the Territory of Alaska, which made legal jury trials possible, provided for additional territorial judges, marshals, and district attorneys, and defined new crimes. The first two men executed in Alaska in the twentieth century were gold rush participants, but for the first time the courts that convicted them were authorized by law. Miner's courts had become a thing of the past.
Fred Hardy, a white man, was convicted in 1901 of murdering and robbing three men on Unimak Island. He was hanged in the gold rush town of Nome in 1902.
[Kindly provided by Nigel Maister]
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