D. Stevenson to James F. Robinson

KYR-0001-029-0405.xml

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Accession Number

KYR-0001-029-0405

Document Genre

Correspondence

Repository

Kentucky Department for Libraries and Archives

Collection

Office of the Governor, James F. Robinson: Governor's Official Correspondence File, Petitions for Pardons, Remissions, and Respites, 1862-1863

Item Location

R4-154 to R4-155

Place of Creation

Frankfort, Franklin County, Kentucky

Date of Creation

3 June 1863

Dates Mentioned

1863-06-03

1853

1855

D. Stevenson to James F. Robinson, 3 June 1863, Office of the Governor, James F. Robinson: Governor's Official Correspondence File, Petitions for Pardons, Remissions, and Respites, 1862-1863, R4-154 to R4-155, Kentucky Department for Libraries and Archives, Frankfort, KY. Accessed via the Civil War Governors of Kentucky Digital Documentary Edition, discovery.civilwargovernors.org/document/KYR-0001-029-0405, (accessed May 19, 2025).

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Frankfort Kentucky
June 3^rd 1863
To his Excellency Ja^s F. Robinson,
Governor of Kentucky,
Sir:

I have been informed that you would be pleased to receive, in writing, the statement which I made to you about three months ago, in reference to the man Philips, now confined in the penitentiary. It was in substance as follows:

From the fall of 1853 to the fall of 1855 I had pastoral charge of the Methodist Church at Danville in this State. While sustaining this relation to the church in that place, Philips came to Danville, and became a member of my congregation and of the church. He was working, I think, at the saddling or harness business. So far as my recollection serves me at this time, he sustained an irreproachable character during his stay there.

I do not remember to have met with him, after leaving Danville, till five or six months ago, when I recognized him one Sunday afternoon, while preaching to the convicts in the chapel of the penitentiary, as one of the prisoners.

In consequence of my former relation to him as pastor, and of the impression which, somehow,
I had received, that he was a member of a highly respectable and pious family with several members of which I was very well acquainted I at once felt for him a profound sympathy, and, at my earliest convenience, sought an opportunity to have a conversation with him.

I found that, while he was the same man whom I had known in Danville, he was not a member of the family with which I had associated him.

He very candidly confessed his guilt to me; but stated ^that^ the crime for which he had been sentenced was his first offence, and that he had been led to commit it, in an unguarded moment, when he was in a state of mental distress, and under the influence of liquor, by another, who was an adept in acts of the kind, and who escaped at the time, and, so far as he knows, was never brought to punishment.

He seemed to be deeply penitent, and earnestly desirous of making an effort, whenver released, to redeem his character from the stain which now rests upon it.

His statements to me correspond substantially with those made by others, who are better acquainted with his past life and with the material facts
brought out on his trial than I; and, as I have been informed that these persons either have made, or will make, all sufficient representations to your Excellency in reference to these points, I respectfully submit this as containing all that I feel able to say from personal knowledge.

I am with very great respect
Your ob^t sev^t
D. Stevenson,
Pastor of the Meth. Ch.
Frankfort Ky.

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