To His Excellency Thos E Bramlett
Governor of the Commonwealth of Ky

The undersigned citizens of Harrison County State that Garrett Whitson was tried and found guilty of the murder of John Spikard and has been sentenced to be hanged on the 9^th Day of February 1864 The Killed man was but recently before his death out of the Penitentiary and mantained the worst possible character before he went & while there — The crime for which the deceased was sent to the penitentiary was, that he went into a melon patch of one of his neighbors and was stealing the melons and when the owners of the melons (being a man and his wife) came on him & asked him to desist he instantly shot them both- but fortunately, the shot did not prove fatal to either. Showing him to be a man of the most vicious and blood-thirsty character.

The proof developed the following facts That Whitson went to the house of Mr Albright in company with some other person and told Albrights wife and daughter both of whom are

notorious prostitutes, that Mr Albright was out some distance from the house very drunk and started with them to assist in bringing him home. When they had proceeded some distance until they came up to a main road, they met with Andrew Whitson with a Shot Gun & John Spikard with a rifle. Spikard said, "why have you brought my cousin Liz and her dughter out here this time of night (it was then about dusk) She remarked that she was hunting for Mr Albright her husband, that Garrett Whitson had said that her husband was lying near a log on the road side. Spikard said that Whitson was a liar. Whitson said that he must not repeat what he had said Spikard with his loaded rifle in his hand did repeat it. whereupon Whitson snatched the Shot Gun from his brother Andrew Whitson and instantly fired and killed Spikard. The only witnesses to prove any-thing about the matter were the two cousins of Spikard, Elizabeth Albright & Mary Francis Albright & James Ashbrook, the two women

are notorious harlots and Ashbrook is a man whose character for veracity is utterly worthless. Whitson has a large family of small children is entirely destitute of pecuniary means and is without relations who take an interest in him sufficient to make them exert themselves for his pardon or otherwise aid him in his perilous situation and we who are strangers to him but acquainted with the general character of the witnesses upon whose testimony he was found guilty do not believe that any human being ought to suffer the death penalty upon the sole and exclusive ^testimony^ of such persons as the witnesses for the prosecution against this poor man.

We therefore ask Your Excellency to Pardon him. He is a consumptive and is now a mere shadow from the effect of his disease and protracted confinement in our County Jail before and since his trial and if appearances are true to themselves he cannot last if pardoned more than six or eight

months

Cynthiana Kentucky January 8^th 1864

Harrison Cir Ct
vs

Issue Pardon
Tho E Bramlette

Garrett Whitson
Sentenced to be hung
murder
Pardoned
30^th Jany 1864