<title type="main">John W. Stevenson to Beriah Magoffin Edition created from new transcripts of this manuscript. Initial upload of this work's facsimile images and metadata to FromThePage for editing Kentucky Historical Society Digital Collections Administrator of the CWGK Migration transcription project on FromThePage Kentucky Historical Society Digital Collections Kentucky Historical Society Digital Collections made 3 edits between June 22, 2025 and June 22, 2025. Dynamic TEI export from FromThePage (version 22.10)

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 November 12, 2025 Kentucky Department for Libraries and Archives Office of the Governor, Beriah Magoffin: Governor's Official Correspondence File, Petitions for Pardons and Remissions, 1859-1862 KYR-0001-020-1605 MG22-251 to MG22-252

Covington, Kenton County, Kentucky Covington, Kenton County, Kentucky 1862-01-08 Correspondence English Version 1 of page "3": Changes to page transcript. Version 1 of page "2": Changes to page transcript. Version 0 of page "3": Empty transcript -- probably initial upload of page facsimile. Version 1 of page "1": Changes to page transcript. Version 0 of page "2": Empty transcript -- probably initial upload of page facsimile. Version 0 of page "1": Empty transcript -- probably initial upload of page facsimile.
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Covington 8 January 1862 My dear Govr

An afflicted father begs a line from me to you on behalf of an erring & it may be a guilty son -- !

I know nothing of the facts, save that a young boy of respectable connections in his 17th year has been convicted of appropriating the proceeds of a church, with which he was entrusted, to his own account --

Will an incarceration

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in the penetentiary for eighteen months, or for a day benefit this youthful offender? Will it not rather harden him, & take away the last hope of reformation? If this be his first crime, if bad associations & heedless dissipation has hurried him to the brink of the precipice, & brought him to see the felons cell as his abode for eighteen months, may not a pardon, before he

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enters it save him?

I submit these views to your consideration, in the view of public policy, not less than a humane regard for the feeling's of this unfortunate boy, whose guilt I presume is beyond question.

If his youth & respectable connections afford a ground for your interposition, I hope you will pardon him --

Very truly your &c J W Stevenson