<title type="main">J. D. Surest et al. 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 2 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-0001-020-2201 MG24-326 to MG24-327

Petition English Version 1 of page "2": Changes to page transcript. Version 0 of page "2": Empty transcript -- probably initial upload of page facsimile. Version 1 of page "1": Changes to page transcript. Version 0 of page "1": Empty transcript -- probably initial upload of page facsimile.
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To the Hon Beriah Magoffin Governor of of the commonwealth of Kentucky.

The undersigned citizens of Lewis county show to your Honor, that Melchor Bolinger, a German, was, at the present term of the Lewis circuit court, convicted of the crime of shooting at a citizen of this county with an intent to kill, & the jury fixed his term of punishment at six months imprisonment -- That there was not a single mitigating ^circumstance^ proved upon the trial -- yet they are informed that a petition has been sent to your Hon to interpose the powers vested in the Executive, between the culprit & punishment. This petition, they are informed, has been signed by the jury who tried the prisoners; if this be true, the jury must have done so through a misplaced sympathy for its prisoner, it having been proved upon the trial, that the person whom he attempted to kill, rested the gun from him, & with it, gave the prisoner a sound beating -- The evidence upon the trial conclusively proved that there was not the slightest provacation, or even excuse for the crime -- That it was committed upon the premises of person whose life was attempted to be taken -- The undersigned, your petitioners, firmly believe that the prisoner has not the slightest claim to executive clemency -- & they pray & hope that it will not be extended to him.

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Dr. J. D. Surest R M Hout William Sparks Bur J Harison Wm H. Thompson Hiram Staggs Alfred Harrison John B Pell Socrates Holbrook D D Doyal R, C, Lee Alexander Banton John W. H. Wadsworth R H Stanton

Mitchnor Bolinger Lewis Co --