Document 1 transcript:

The state of Alabama and by the authority of the same
Israel Pickens, Governor of said state.
To the sheriff of Shelby County, and all other officers and ma-
gistrates of said State, Greetings:
Whereas, it has been represented to me by petition of many
respectable persons in said county recommending to Executive
clemency, Zachariah Butler, Blassingham Neighbors, Richard
Conser, James Conser, & Abram Nash who were convicted at
the last term of the Circuit Court of said County as
aiders and abettors of one Samuel Nixon, in committing
an assault, and battery, and mayhem in biting off the
left ear of one James A. Moore on the 25th December
last, and who were severally fined and sentenced to
stand on the pillory, to be executed on the first, second,
and third days of June next, that the said persons
(p.38)
were of good peaceable characters; and it being represented
that these persons were accidentally present when the affray hap-
pened between the principal parties without any preconcert;
and at the time of their encouraging the said Nixon as his
friends in the fight, they did not know that he was perform-
ing any such desperate and abominable act as that of mutila-
ing his adversary—No copy, or certificate of the proceedings, or
sentence, being yet laid before me—and it being understood that
the principal perpetrator is not yet surrendered to justice, though
in the vicinity, I am not prepared to act definitively on the case.
	Now therefore, by virtue of the power and authority in me
vested, by the constitution and laws of this state, I do hereby respite
and suspend so much of the sentence as respects corporal pun-
ishment, or pillory, all the third Monday after the fourth Mon-
day of September next, and the collection of the fines is also sus-
pended till that day.  Cash being paid by the defendants; and
their recognizances taken with good security for their several ap-
pearances on that day and for payment of the fines.
Given under my hand and seal of the State this 26th
day of April in the year of our Lord one thousand
eight hundred and twenty-two and of the Independence
of the United States of America the forty sixth.
		By the Governor
	Js. J. Pleasants Secretary of State

Source:

Alabama Secretary of State, Pardon and Parole Certificates, SG8758, Alabama Department of Archives and History, Montgomery, Alabama.

Back to Settlement Unit: Lesson 2