William Purdue and Joseph Owens to Thomas E. Bramlette
- Place of Creation
- Wayne County, Kentucky
- Document Genre
- Petition
- Repository
- Kentucky Department for Libraries and Archives
- Collection
- Office of the Governor, Thomas E. Bramlette: Governor's official correspondence file, petitions for pardons, remissions, and respites 1863-1867
- Box / Folder
- BR42-137 to BR42-138
- CWGK Accession Number
- KYR-0001-004-3308
- Rights
- This image and its transcription are freely available to the public. Images appear courtesy of Kentucky Department for Libraries and Archives. Transcriptions and annotations were created by Kentucky Historical Society staff, volunteers, and interns. When referencing this document, please use our preferred citation.; The use of transcriptions, images, or annotations from this collection beyond the exceptions provided for in the Fair Use and Educational Use clauses of the U.S. Copyright Law may violate federal law. Permission to publish or reproduce any material on CWGK is required.
- FTP Identifier
- 32206086
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Citation
William Purdue and Joseph Owens to Thomas E. Bramlette, Office of the Governor, Thomas E. Bramlette: Governor's official correspondence file, petitions for pardons, remissions, and respites 1863-1867, Kentucky Department for Libraries and Archives. Accessed via the Civil War Governors of Kentucky Digital Documentary Edition, https://discovery.civilwargovernors.org/document/KYR-0001-004-3308 (November 14, 2026).
To his Excellency
Thos.E. Bramlette, Gov of Kentucky:
Your Petitioners Joseph Owens and William Perdue state that Nancy Ann Denney killed one Martin Kennedy and was arrested and tried before a court of Enquiry; sent to farther trial and admitted to bail in the sum of One thousand Dollars. Said Nancy Denney failed to appear, and the bond was forfeited and judgment rendered in the Wayne Circuit Court for One thousand Dollars and costs. The said Nancy was perfectly justifiable in law and right for said homicide. The killing was in self defence as was abundantly shown by the evidence before the Court of Enquiry -and the Justices of the Peace, contrary to their judgment of right and law sent said Nancy to further trial not because of her guilt but to save her from being mobbed and killed by certain reckless and dissolute men who were at that time returned or discharged soldiers and claimed to be friends of the deceased, and who publicly declared and threatened upon the day of the Examining trial, and afterwards that they would take her life if she was turned loose, and they were prepared to put their threats into execution, the country at that time being in such a condition that the civil law or authorities were entirely inadequate to restrain them. In consequence of these facts, the said Nancy was advised by good, prudent, and law abiding citizens to leave the country to avoid a mob which she did for that purpose, and in pursuance of that advice and not to avoid a trial because her case was and is notoriously justifiable, for the whole
body of the proof showed clearly that the deceased the day he was killed went to the house in which said Nancy then lived with her Grandfather, and with a gun in his hand in the most violent and threatening manner declared that he had come there for the purpose of killing her; - and abused her Grandfather most brutally because he refused to tell him where to find her. _ And further that she is a prudent and reputable woman and had never givin him any cause whatever to wish to take her life
Your petitioners are both very old and poor men and one of them is the Grandfather of said Nancy and they appeal to the justice and honor of your Excellency to pardon said Judgments, and releive and release them from a burthen so grievous and severe.
William Purdue
Joseph Owens
We the undersigned citizens of Wayne county fully endorse the above
John Denney
Charles owens
Wm Bartteson
Thomas Davis
[Garrath] Hinds
J. T. Wilhite
Thomas Franklin
Smith Barrers
James.M. Daugherty
John. M. Suttle
John Hopper
J H Meadows
C W Ard
James Bobbett
W A Buster
F D Frosts
Josiah Dodson
Joseph Baker
R. Burnett
P. Miller
J W Duncan
William Miller
L R Jones
Benjamin Burk
Samuel Walden
John R Dick
Peter Marshall
Joshua Berry
B. F. Fleming
A. M. Saller
E W Lee
H Huffaker
L. F. Tuttle
James a Phillips
James Jones
James Garris J P
E Saylor
W D Ingram
C. H. Buster
H. R. Saufley
R. C McBeath J P before whom Nancy Denney was tried
