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To His Excellency B. Magoffin
Governer of the Commonwealth of Kentucky
Your Petitioners Citizens of Mercer County Kentucky would most respectfully petition your Excellency for the release and pardon of James Shackelford who is and was at the time of his conviction a Citizen of Mercer County Kentucky and who is now confined in the State Penitentiary under the charge of having murdered one George Divine in the county of Mercer and State of Kentucky,.
The said James Shackelford was tried upon said charge in the Mercer Circuit Court at its circumstancial evidence alone he was found gilty of the charge, and sentenced to confinement in the Penitentiary for the Term of Three years.
Your Petitioners would further state that the dificulty in which the said Divine was killed took place at a barbecue on Chaplin in which a large number of persons were engaged and during said fight several persons were wounded by rocks &C and who made the assault in which Divine was killed was not fully proved by any witness, --
Therefore your Petitioners would most humbly pray for the interposition of your clemency in behalf of the said James Shackelford becuase he was convicted upon circumstancial evidence alone. -- and becuase he has a helpless wife and Three Infant children, one at her breast now living in the county of Mercer without any means whatever to live upon except the cold charity of the world and must nesessarily suffer unless there unfortunate Father and Husband can be restored back to them. -- and because the said James Shackelford has already served out in the Penitentiary over one year of
his term of service and otherwise greatly suffered by lying in Jail on account of said charge against him. -- and because of the reasons above your Petitioners would ever pray for the release Pardon and restoration of James Shackelford from confinement to his helpless Family. --
State of Kentucky
Mercer County Sct.
Thomas Lewallin & Mathew Semones says that they believe the statement of the foregoing Petition are true
Sworn to before me by T. Lewallin & M. Semones this
D. J. Jackson J, P, M, C
John
John Leonard
W m Adkerson
S S. McFatridge
Andrew Woods
Richard Huff Sr
B. C.
J. K. Vandarife
Jno. A. Phelps
Samiel Banty
Charls Banty
Philip S. Beswick
T.. J.. Board
J.. W.. Cannan
David Board
Edward Kimball
T. W. Gray
George
John Semones
S. H. Graves