Robert Washington Fyan

Robert Washington Fyan (March 11, 1835 – July 28, 1896) was a U.S. Representative and soldier from Missouri.

Born in Bedford Springs, Pennsylvania, Fyan attended the common schools. He studied law and was admitted to the bar in 1858; commencing practice in Marshfield, Missouri. He became the County attorney in 1859. In June 1861 he entered the Union Army to fight in the American Civil War. He served in Colonel Hampton's regiment, the Webster County Home Guards, the 24th Missouri Infantry and the 46th Missouri Infantry regiments. After the war in 1865 and 1866 he served as Circuit attorney and afterwards as Circuit judge of the 14th judicial circuit of Missouri from April 1866 to January 1883.

In 1870, lived in Lebanon, Missouri.[1] He served as member of the State constitutional convention in 1875. Fyan moved to Webster County, Missouri before 1880.[2] Robert Fyan was married to Elizabeth ‘Lizzie’ P. Hyer of Dent County, Missouri who died in the cyclone/tornado that struck Marshfield, Missouri on 18 Apr 1880.[3]

Robert Fyan was the Judge in Laclede County, Missouri who presided over the first legal hanging in Laclede County. The case was the 'State of Missouri' verses Joseph Core. The trial started August 4, 1879. Robert Fyan sentenced Joseph Core as follows: 'he was to be taken to the place of execution and there be hanged by the neck until he be dead.' Joseph Core was convicted for murdering George E. King.[4]

Fyan was elected as a Democrat to the Forty-eighth Congress (March 4, 1883 – March 3, 1885). He subsequently was elected to the Fifty-second and Fifty-third Congresses (March 4, 1891 – March 3, 1895) and afterwards resumed the practice of law. He died in Marshfield, Missouri, July 28, 1896; and was interred in Lebanon Cemetery, Lebanon, Missouri.

References

  1. Charlene S. Chambers-King, Hanging in Laclede County, Missouri, The Core and King Story, 2013, https://sites.google.com/site/charlenechambersking/home
  2. Charlene S. Chambers-King, Hanging in Laclede County, Missouri, The Core and King Story, 2013, https://sites.google.com/site/charlenechambersking/home
  3. Charlene S. Chambers-King, Hanging in Laclede County, Missouri, The Core and King Story, 2013, https://sites.google.com/site/charlenechambersking/home
  4. Charlene S. Chambers-King, Hanging in Laclede County, Missouri, The Core and King Story, 2013, https://sites.google.com/site/charlenechambersking/home
United States House of Representatives
Preceded by
Aylett H. Buckner
Member of the U.S. House of Representatives
from Missouri's 13th congressional district

1883-1885
Succeeded by
William H. Wade
Preceded by
William H. Wade
Member of the U.S. House of Representatives
from Missouri's 13th congressional district

1891-1895
Succeeded by
John H. Raney
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