There are many noteworthy and valuable documents among the over 1,000 petitions currently digitized.  Accomack County alone includes several appeals of freed slaves for permission to remain in the state following their emancipation as required by law.   Similarly, there are petitions of slave owners petitioning the Assembly for leave to bring their slaves into the county from neighboring Maryland.  Accomack County’s close proximity to the Chesapeake Bay produced petitions concerning changes to the oyster laws especially as they relate to dredging.  Several citizens also petitioned the Assembly to establish ferries or packets between Accomack and the ports of Norfolk, Portsmouth, and Hampton.  One of the most interesting petitions within Accomack County consists of a printed address of E. P. Pitts to the “People of Accomac [sic] and Northampton Counties.”  Pitts, a judge and former state senator, voted against the secession candidate in the Convention and writes defending his decision to relocate his family to Howard County, Maryland, for health reasons during the war.

This is the first of an on-going series of Out of the Box posts highlighting the Legislative Petitions collection.  Future posts will announce when new localities become available.

-Craig S. Moore, State Records Appraisal Archivist

The history of the Executive Mansion (also called Governor’s House or Governor’s Mansion) is well represented in the Library’s archival collections.  The Auditor of Public Accounts, Capital Square Data Records, 1779-1971, document the construction, furnishing, and repair of the 1813 Executive Mansion and the various buildings used by the governor prior to the Mansion’s construction.  The Drawing and Plans Collection includes a photographic copy of a page from Alexander Parris’ sketchbook depicting the floor plan for the Virginia Governor’s Mansion.  Parris designed the mansion in 1811-1812.  An Executive Communication to the Speaker of the House of Delegates, dated 17 February 1813, includes photocopy of a report from David Bullock, William McKim, and Robert Greenhow, the commissioners appointed to superintend the building of the dwelling house, and other houses, for the accommodation of the governor.  The commissioner’s report provides the cost of the dwelling house and out houses and a few details on the exterior and interior of the building.  Also included is a plat showing the Governor’s House, kitchens, ravine, gardens, and private property to be purchased.

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Repairs and improvements to the Executive Mansion are a common theme.  Records in the papers of Governors William Smith (1846-1849), Joseph Johnson (1852-1856), Francis Pierpont (1865-1868), Andrew Montague ((1902-1906), and William Mann (1910-1914) describe various repairs and improvements to the Mansion.  The Records of the Secretary of the Commonwealth include a 2 June 1865 inventory of the Executive Mansion.  Contracts and invoices for Mansion services and expenditures can be found in records of the Virginia Land Office and Virginia Department of the Treasury.  The Records of the Executive Mansion Director, 1973-1995, document the work of the Citizens’ Advisory Council for Interpreting and Furnishing the Executive Mansion, events at the Mansion, and the 175th anniversary of the Mansion in 1988.

Under the administration of James S. Gilmore, III (1998–2002), Virginia’s Executive Mansion underwent an extensive renovation in 1999–2000.  This project is well documented in two collections:  Virginia Secretary of Administration, Correspondence and subject files, 1998-2001 and Sadler and Whitehead, Architects, Papers, 1992-2001.  The Secretary of Administration records include episodes of Bob Vila’s Home Again:  Renovation of the Executive Mansion, 1999-2000.  As part of the 1999-2000 restoration, the Commonwealth’s Department of Historic Resources hired the firm of Sadler and Whitehead, Architects, PLC, to document the entire project, especially those previously hidden aspects of construction and ornamentation, using photography and descriptive commentary.  Excavation, demolition, conservation, and new construction were all copiously documented by Mary Harding Sadler and Joseph D. Lahendro.  Their materials include not only written information about their observations, but also hundreds of photographs capturing original interiors, decorative items, and structural elements of the Executive Mansion, Guest House/Cottage, Carriage House, and grounds.   The Library turned this material into the Executive Mansion Rehabilitation Project Database, available on-line.  The database records may contain all or some of the following information: weather conditions, photographs, observational notes, location in the specific building, information source, work type, report author, and date.

These are just some of the records about the Executive Mansion at the Library.  To see what else we have on the Executive Mansion, search the Library’s on-line catalog.

-Roger Christman, Senior State Records Archivist

The portrait was purchased for $1,000 in 1923 through the London-based firm of B.F. Stevens and Brown, “experts in Americana.” The painting subsequently hung in the Governor’s Office, where it remained until the U.S. Ambassador to Argentina, Alexander W. Weddell, studied the painting while editing the book A Memorial Volume of Virginia Historical Portraiture, 1585-1830.  Weddell believed the portrait to be that of “the half-mad son of Lady Mary Wortley Montague, who was known to have walked about London in Oriental garb.” Weddell discussed the portrait with the director of the National Portrait Gallery in London, H. M. Hake, who found the original engraving which the Commonwealth’s portrait was modeled after–and it is of little surprise that it was not of John Smith.

The portrait was actually that of Peter John Potemkin (Pyotr Ivanovich Potyomkin), Ambassador to England for Peter the Great.  Hake was able to definitively identify the painting bought by Virginia as an obviously inferior rendition of the engraving housed in the National Portrait Gallery, which was indisputably described and dated by the engraver.  Hake, too, was able to shed some light upon how such an egregious mistake may have been made—the painter of the original portrait was Sir Godfrey Kneller, and an engraver in his studio was named John Smith.

The Virginia State Librarian, Henry R. McIlwaine, point person for the state in the transaction, communicated with Stevens and Brown and requested a thorough examination and report of the piece before even considering its purchase.  He felt the price was “excessive” and that if the General Assembly were to grant the funds for the painting’s purchase “it would be taken from some other appropriation of the library.” He was also sure that the “picture will probably come to America, and we can at least get a copy of it.”  McIlwaine’s language is less than enthusiastic, and subsequently the seller agreed to a lower price.

It is hard to say if this is simply a case of getting one over on the Yanks, but Stevens and Brown did use rather dubious methods in authenticating the piece.  For one, they relied on a handwritten paper label, less than 100 years old, reading “Portraituer of Captain John Smith, Admiral of New England, 1626,” as grounds for identification, along with the word of the elderly former owner who had been told by his grandfather that the piece was of Captain John Smith.  Brown’s report, though, did state “No one, of course, can guarantee the picture as undoubtedly a portrait of Captain John Smith.” They also explained away the odd dress for an English ship captain by reminding McIlwaine of Smith’s ability to escape from the “Turks” by dressing as one, and suggested that the artist was paying homage to Smith’s career prior to the American colonies.  Also, the fact that the portrait was of an older Smith excused the vast difference between the facial features of the man in the painting they were brokering and the quintessential Simon Van de Passe engraving of Smith from 1616.  The most suspect evidence against Stevens and Brown, perhaps, is their claim that the National Portrait Gallery aided in concluding the portrait was of Smith—the same gallery that 15 years later confirmed the subject to be Potemkin.

The piece, needless to say, was removed from the wall overlooking the Governor’s desk on 25 January 1939.  Governor James H. Price, along with purchaser John Stewart Bryan, found a new home for the portrait at the College of William and Mary, where Bryan was President.  The painting remained property of the Commonwealth of Virginia, and was given the new title of “Muscovite Ambasssador,” until the Muscarelle Museum of Art at the College of William and Mary opened.  It then became a part of their permanent collection as “Portrait of Peter John Potemkin,” attributed to artist Gasper Schmidt.

The Correspondence and Subject Files of the Librarian of Virginia, 1879-1992: Bulk 1975-1990, Accession number 34229, is open to researchers.

-Erin Faison, State Records Archivist

Thirty-five-year-old Pennsylvania native Elmer Raines arrived at the Virginia Penitentiary on 14 July 1909.  Raines was convicted of forgery in the Roanoke Corporation Court and sentenced to four years in prison.  At the time of his incarceration, Raines had two known aliases:  Henry Fairfax and Frank Fairfax.  Penitentiary officials also learned of a new one:  William H. Reynolds.  On 2 February 1911, Penitentiary Superintendent J.B. Wood received a letter from a Mrs. William H. Reynolds of Macon, Georgia, inquiring if her husband, Elmer Raines, would be paroled in July.  “I have tried to be patient,” Mrs. Reynolds wrote, “and sometimes think I can not get along alone and make a living[,] however I have been very successful so far.”  By June 1911, Mrs. Reynolds’ fortunes had changed.  “[K]indly do all you can to get [Raines] pardoned in July,” she wrote Wood, “for I need his protection more than I can tell you.”  The Virginia Penitentiary Board of Directors paroled Raines on 15 July 1911.

Two days after his release, Raines wrote Wood informing him that he found employment in the barber shop of the Guerrant Hotel in Richmond.  “Saturday [15 July 1911] was the happiest day of my life,” he wrote Wood, “[and] I really believe that Mrs. Reynolds is happier today than I ever saw her before.”  The letter was signed William H. Reynolds (Raines).  Wood replied on 21 July 1911.  “It is a source of pleasure to me to know,” Wood wrote, “that those who have ever of necessity had to stop at my hotel, leave with a kindly feeling towards the proprietor.”  Reynolds fortune changed by August.  “I had to give up the shop at the Guerrant Hotel, as it was not paying me,” he wrote Wood on 7 August 1911.  “I got duply [sic] in debt so I decided to give it up before I got in the hole further.”

Raines/Reynolds returned to the Penitentiary on 1 November 1911 under the name of Charles H. Kimball (No. 10455).  Kimball was convicted of forgery in the Norfolk City Corporation Court and sentenced to two years in the Penitentiary.  He also had to serve the remainder of his sentence from his previous conviction under the name of Raines.  There was no parole or second chance in Kimball’s future.  He was transferred to the Penitentiary State Farm in Goochland County where he died on 17 January 1915 from grippe and mitral regurgitation.

-Roger Christman, Senior State Records Archivist

Forty-two-year-old Joe Perry of Buchanan County arrived at the Virginia Penitentiary on 30 August 1906 to begin serving a ten-year sentence for second degree murder.  He was a model prisoner and did not violate any rules during his incarceration.  In May 1909, Perry found a repeating shotgun which one of the guards had left in a common area of the penitentiary and returned it to prison officials.  On 14 December 1910, this incident, along with Perry’s good conduct and clemency petitions submitted by Buchanan County citizens, led Governor William Hodges Mann to commute his sentence to eight years.  This made Perry parole eligible.  Five days later the Virginia Penitentiary Board of Directors granted it without requiring Perry to secure employment.

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Upon his return home to Council, Virginia, Perry wrote Superintendent J.B. Wood on 14 January 1911 to thank him.  “I feel that I owe you so many thanks for the kind treatment I received from you and your officials during my time there,” wrote Perry.  “I can’t find words sufficient to express them.”  Perry stated that he had a good job with the Clinchfield Coal Company.   “[N]o matter where I may be,” Perry concluded, “you have my best wishes and will also ask that you give all the guards my best wishes.”  Wood replied two days later.  “You conducted yourself while here as a true man ought to,” Wood wrote.  You “gave good service and [were] a respectful and obedient servant to those in authority over you” and upon your discharge received “the good will and best wishes of every man who has anything to do with the management of the prison.”  Wood wished Perry the best and added “that you may be guided by the hand of an All Wise Providence who never deserts those who look to [H]im for help when they need it.”

In a 23 March 1911 letter, Perry thanks Wood for his comments on his conduct while at the Penitentiary.  “While there,” he wrote, “I certainly did try to be a true and obedient man, and it gives me much pleasure to show your letters to my many friends.”  Perry added that he “was rewarded by the kindness of those who had the power over me.”  Perry expressed his desire to have his citizenship rights restored.  Perry ended his letter by asking Wood to “give my love to all the officers and best wishes for you.”  In his 31 March 1911 response, Wood updated Perry on the latest news from the Penitentiary, noting how little had changed since Perry’s release.  “Everything is going along as usual,” wrote Wood, with “few changes made where you used to hang out.”  Wood noted “Dr. Sam Smith wants to know how your leg is getting.  He is still giving bread pills and castor oil, salts and hot water at the Hospital.”  In other gossip Wood noted that “Old man Price and [John] Orrel are still well enough to get their regular doses of toddy every day.  Dutch Mullens is still watching the gate, and Hennings is picking grass in the back yard for his chickens.”  Wood also advised Perry to wait at least a year before applying to have his citizen rights restored.  Perry took his advice and his rights were restored on 16 May 1917 by Governor Henry Carter Stuart.

I attempted to learn what became of Perry after his parole.  Federal Census records and a family tree on ancestry.com while not definitive provide some clues.  Perry married Matilda Catherine Combs (1861-1924)  in 1895.  The couple had four children:  William Cecil (Willie) Perry (1897-1976), Fred Perry (1898-1983), Robert E. Perry (1900-1962), and Beecher Perry (1903-1966).  There is a Joe Perry in the 1930 census living as a boarder in Cabell County, West Virginia.  By 1940 Perry still resided in Cabell County but was married to Annie, a woman 30 years younger.  I was unable to learn when or where Perry died.

Next week:  Elmer Raines, 8824

-Roger Christman, Senior State Records Archivist

On the afternoon of 31 August 1907, David C. Peebles and his 11-year-old daughter Mary Sue arrived at their home in Bedford County, having spent several days in Lynchburg.  His wife, Edmonia, was working in their detached kitchen.  David was drunk and argumentative.  David cursed her and accused her of neglecting her responsibilities.  Edmonia responded that “if I were a man I’d give you a good thrashing, but I can’t beat you.”  Enraged, David attempted to choke her; Edmonia grabbed a stove-lifter and stuck him several times on the head.  Peebles grabbed an axe handle and beat her with it.  Edmonia got away from him, ran into the house, grabbed a shotgun and returned to the kitchen.  Peebles was washing the blood off his face. “You see that don’t you?” he shouted.  “You made me do it,” Edmonia replied, “but I want to know if you are going to beat me anymore.”  Peebles grabbed the axe and started towards her.  “I am not going to let you beat me with that,” Edmonia cried, “I’ll shoot if you don’t” stop. David continued toward her and replied, “I am not afraid of your damn bluff.”  Edmonia fired.  The shotgun blast shattered David’s lower jaw cutting off part of his tongue.  He fell but got up and chased her outside.  They struggled over the gun.  Edmonia grabbed a rock and struck him in the head repeatedly.  These fatal blows fractured David’s skull driving a portion of it into his brain.

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Edmonia Peebles trial for the murder of her husband began on 10 December 1907.  Two of her children, Mary Sue and Clinton, age 16, both testified for the prosecution.  Edmonia pleaded self-defense.  Testifying on her own behalf, Edmonia described a brutal 16-year marriage to David.  He was often drunk, beat and kicked her, once cut her with a hatchet, and even attacked her with a razor while pregnant.  The child was born dead.  Other witnesses described David’s drunkenness and ill-temper.  The trial ended with a hung jury.  One juror voted for acquittal, seven for murder in the second degree and four for voluntary manslaughter.  Peebles was not out of legal jeopardy.  Her second trial began on 4 May 1908.  This time Peebles was found guilty of voluntary manslaughter and sentenced to two years in the penitentiary.

In his plea to Governor Claude Swanson for clemency, Clarence Campbell, Edmonia’s attorney, stated that the jury at her second trial initially stood at three for acquittal and nine for conviction.  The jury compromised on the verdict and gave Peebles a short sentence.  Judge W.R. Barksdale, who presided over Edmonia’s second trial, opposed clemency.  “The murder was one of the most horrible and brutal that I ever heard or knew of,” Barksdale wrote to Governor Swanson on 25 February 1909.  He added that “Mrs. Peebles ought to congratulate herself that she was not sent for at least ten instead of the two years at the Pen.”  Swanson denied the pardon request.  However, the Penitentiary Board of Directors paroled Peebles on 23 June 1909.  Penitentiary Superintendent E.F. Morgan opposed her release.  “At the time this woman was paroled,” Morgan wrote to S.M. Bolling, Circuit Court Clerk of Bedford County, on 31 August 1909, “I considered it a very unwise move on the part of my Board, as I have always considered the crime for which she was convicted a very atrocious crime.”

Edmonia Peebles did not leave the Penitentiary quietly.  Just one day after her parole, she wrote Superintendent Morgan a scathing letter accusing Penitentiary employees of stealing a gold neck chain and various articles of clothing.  After an investigation by Morgan rebutting the charges, Peebles responded that she was mistaken and had found all of the missing articles.  In August 1909, Bedford County officials threatened to send Peebles back to the Penitentiary for violating her parole.  She was charged with using abusive language to the wife of a tenant on her farm and with unmercifully whipping her own child.  The outcome of this case is unknown.  In 1912, Peebles wrote Governor William Mann asking to be released from the costs of an unnamed prosecution against her as a reward.  While in the Bedford County jail for this unnamed crime, Peebles informed the officers that another prisoner had a key to unlock the cells.  Henry Humphreys, Commonwealth’s Attorney for Bedford County, suggested to Governor Mann in a letter dated 3 August 1912 that “instead of entering an Order for the remission of the cost, that you can simply advise me to hold up any proceedings looking to the collections” and “this will answer the same purpose.”  Humphreys added that “this would be better than releasing the costs altogether, as it would be a good plan to hold it over her somewhat in the nature of a suspended sentence.”  Governor Mann concurred.  There is no record of Peebles ever being returned to the Penitentiary.

Next week:  Joe Perry, 6733

-Roger Christman, Senior State Records Archivist

A celebrated physician and psychiatrist during the early decades of the 20^th century, Dr. DeJarnette is most famous for his support and involvement in the eugenics movement, which included support for sterilization of the “feeble minded,” alcoholics, drug addicts, and those suffering from other mental illnesses.  He penned the pro-eugenics poem “Mendel’s Law” and lobbied prominently in favor of Virginia’s 1924 compulsory sterilization law.  Dr. DeJarnette also served as an expert witness in the Supreme Court case Buck v. Bell (1927), which upheld the constitutionality of Virginia’s sterilization legislation.  Though his deeds were revered during his lifetime, Dr. DeJarnette’s legacy is something most find rather repugnant today.  Due to DeJarnette’s eugenics advocacy, the Virginia Department of Mental Health, Mental Retardation and Substance Abuse Services in 2001 changed the name of the DeJarnette Center for Human Development (formerly DeJarnette State Sanatorium) to the Commonwealth Center for Children and Adolescents.  In 2002 Governor Mark Warner issued a formal apology for the commonwealth’s involuntary sterilization program.

Dr. DeJarnette began his nearly 60-year career as an assistant physician at what was then known as Western Lunatic Asylum in 1889.  He went on to serve as superintendent of the institution from 1906 to 1943.  He founded DeJarnette State Sanatorium in 1932 and served jointly as its superintendent until 1947.  For an unknown reason, these personal records were stored at WSH long after Dr. DeJarnette’s resignation (some of the material is even dated after he left his position).  Since Dr. DeJarnette’s professional and personal lives were so intertwined during his tenure at the hospital, I decided that the personal records would remain as part of the larger Western State Hospital collection.

The DeJarnette Personal Files include many files of correspondence from friends, family and former patients, scrapbooks, birthday and holiday cards, newspaper clippings, journal articles, financial records, and poetry written by Dr. DeJarnette himself.  Also included are several folders of correspondence belonging to his wife, Dr. Chertsey Hopkins DeJarnette, and records related to her sisters Nannette Hopkins, dean at Agnes Scott College in Decatur, Georgia, and Orra Hopkins, who lived with the DeJarnettes in Staunton.  Other files of note document Dr. DeJarnette’s service as a local Food Administrator in Augusta County during World War I, his involvement with the temperance movement in Virginia, and newspaper clippings about a DeJarnette family reunion.  Also included are three scrapbooks, one of poetry, one of miscellaneous cards and other items, and one devoted entirely to Dr. DeJarnette’s 50th anniversary celebration at Western State Hospital in 1939.

The records also shed some light on the life of Dr. Chertsey Hopkins DeJarnette, who is said to have been one of the first licensed female psychiatrists in Virginia.  She served as a physician at Western State Hospital from 1894 to 1906 when she married Dr. DeJarnette.  It is believed that Dr. DeJarnette was told that in order to attain the position of superintendent he needed to be a stable, married man.  Upon hearing this, he immediately proposed to fellow assistant physician, Chertsey Hopkins.  However, their marriage meant that the new Mrs. DeJarnette would no longer practice medicine.  She resigned her position on 1 February 1906, two weeks before their 14 February wedding.

Nothing can undo the damage caused by Dr. Joseph DeJarnette and Virginia’s compulsory sterilization law.  However, as part of the larger Western State Hospital collection, the DeJarnette Personal Files provide a private lens through which to view a man whose deeds have become so publicly reviled.

The vast majority of the Western State Hospital records is open for research, though privacy restrictions in accordance with the Virginia Public Records Act do apply to some.  Please refer questions about restricted records to the Library of Virginia’s Archives Reference staff at (804) 692-3888.

-Jessie Graham, Senior State Records Archivist

*Update – 15 October 2012*

Our friends from the Dictionary of Virginia Biography/Encyclopedia Virginia have provided Out of the Box with an unpublished biographical sketch of Dr. Joseph Spencer DeJarnette, 1866-1957 written by Gregory Michael Dorr.

I was reminded of this when I began processing the e-mail records of Governor Tim Kaine’s administration.  The Kaine administration transferred to the Library of Virginia approximately 1.3 million e-mail messages from 215 staff members.  Included are numerous Virginia Tech-related records including but not limited to the creation, work, and report of the Virginia Tech Review Panel, meetings between Kaine Administration officials and family members both pre- and post-settlement, settlement discussions and agreements, and implementation of the settlement.  The e-mail from family members to Larry Roberts, Counselor to the Governor, and Governor Kaine reflect their anger, grief, and search for answers.

Records pertaining to the aftermath of the Virginia Tech shooting will not be opened until final resolution of all litigation relating to the incident.  Some of these records may be kept confidential for longer in order to comply with the terms of the settlement agreements the Commonwealth accepted.  What the Library can release are the 16 April 2007 e-mail messages from the boxes of William H. Leighty, Governor Kaine’s Chief of Staff, and John Marshall, Kaine’s Secretary of Public Safety.  These records tell the story of that day in real-time through the e-mail they sent and received.  This is not a comprehensive history; it does not include telephone calls, etc.  It is just an outline.  [Note: a few images can only be read by clicking on "view full size"  and then using the "zoom" feature.]

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The Library expects to release e-mail from the Kaine administration in several phases by office or secretariat as soon as the Library’s archival staff has finished processing the material per Code of Virginia § 2.2-126 and § 42.1-78. Some records may still remain closed based on other provisions of the Code, such as the Virginia Government Data Collection and Dissemination Practices Act and the Virginia Health Records Privacy Act

-Roger Christman, Senior State Records Archivist

Author’s Note: This post would not be possible without the efforts of my colleague and friend Kathy Jordan.  Kathy, the Library’s Digital Initiatives and Web Services Manager, developed the workflows and procedures the Library will use to make the Kaine administration e-mail (and attachments) publicly accessible through Digitool, the Library of Virginia’s digital asset manager.  Once in Digitool, the Kaine administration e-mail will be keyword searchable.

In March 1913, Floyd Allen and his son Claude were executed for the 14 March 1912  murder of Commonwealth’s Attorney William Foster.  The Allens’ case had gone through many twists and turns since the shootout in the Carroll County courthouse the previous March.  The trials of Floyd Allen, Claude Allen, Friel Allen, Sidna Allen, Wesley Edwards, and Sidna Edwards took place in Wytheville from April to December 1912.  The prosecution’s strategy was to prove the courthouse shooting was a premeditated conspiracy in order to make each defendant equally liable for the murders.  On 18 May 1912, Floyd Allen was found guilty of the first degree murder of Commonwealth’s Attorney Foster.  The prosecution’s strategy failed in the trial of Claude Allen.  He was convicted of the second degree murder of Judge Thornton Massie because the prosecution failed to prove a conspiracy.  Claude Allen then was tried twice for the murder of Foster.  The first trial resulted in a hung jury.  In the second trial, Allen was convicted of first degree murder.  Floyd and Claude Allen were sentenced to die in the electric chair at the Virginia Penitentiary on 22 November 1912.

The execution did not happen in November.  In order to allow the Allens time to appeal their sentences, Governor William Hodges Mann stayed the executions four times between November 1912 and March 1913.  Their appeals were twice rejected by the Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals.  The United States Supreme Court declined to intervene.  With their appeals exhausted, Governor Mann set the executions for 28 March 1913.  During the four months of appeals, Mann received letters and petitions urging the governor to grant clemency to the Allens.  Mann refused.  That didn’t stop the Allens lawyers.  On 27 March 1913, with Governor Mann out of state, they suggested to Lt. Governor J. Taylor Ellyson that he had the authority to grant clemency in Mann’s absence.  Virginia Attorney General Samuel Williams, questioned by Ellyson on the constitutionality of this issue, ruled that the Lt. Governor had no power to act during a temporary absence of the governor.  Mann learned of Ellyson’s query to the Attorney General and quickly returned to Virginia to ensure the executions were carried out.

Floyd Allen died in the electric chair at 1:31 pm on 28 March 1913.  Claude was executed eleven minutes later.  The events of 14 March 1912 have been the subject of numerous books and articles with many of the facts of the case disputed (for example, who shot first).  Often lost in the details of the case are those who died as a result of the shootout.  Last night, the Carroll County Historical Society, as part of a Centennial Symposium, held a memorial service to remember the victims:  Judge Thornton Massie, Commonwealth’s Attorney William Foster, Sheriff Lewis Webb, juror Augustus Fowler and trial witness Elizabeth (Bettie) Ayers.  Today, the Society is conducting grave site wreath-laying ceremonies for the five.

-Roger Christman, Senior State Records Archivist

List of Records at the Library of Virginia related to the Carroll County courthouse shooting

• Virginia Secretary of the Commonwealth, Papers relevant to the Floyd Allen case, 1912-1922, accession 21690 and 39265, State Records Collection.
• Records of the Virginia Penitentiary, 1796-1991 (bulk 1906-1970), accession 41558, State Records Collection.
• Wythe County (Va.), Circuit Court, Commonwealth of Virginia v. Floyd Allen, April-May 1912 (trial transcript), accession 28311, Local Records Collection.
• The Virginia Newspaper Project has partnered with the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Library of Congress, and other newspaper projects, to digitize select Virginia newspapers published from 1860 to 1922 via Chronicling America.  The newspapers are full text searchable.  Researchers can read contemporary media coverage of the shootout and subsequent trials.

Entries in the Dictionary of Virginia Biography related to the Carroll County courthouse shooting

• Floyd Allen (1856-1913)
• William Gibboney Baldwin (1860-1936), Co-founder of Baldwin-Felts Detectives
• David Winton Bolen (1850-1932), Floyd Allen’s attorney on 14 March 1912
• Stuart Bland Campbell (1888-1973), Wythe County Commonwealth’s Attorney, prosecuted Floyd Allen
• Robert Walter Childress (1889-1956), member of posse that chased Floyd Allen et all after the shooting
• Charles Francis Cocke (1886-1971), Sidna Allen’s attorney during his appeals

*Update – 21 March 2012*

The Library of Virginia is pleased to announce a new blog, Fit to Print:  Dispatches from the Virginia Newspaper Project @ The Library of Virginia.  The first post, 100 Years Ago – Law and Disorder, is about the Allen’s and the Carroll County Courthouse shooting.

In December 1912 in the Wythe County Circuit Court, Wesley Edwards, nephew of Floyd Allen, was sentenced to 27 years in the Virginia Penitentiary for two counts of first degree murder and one count of second degree murder for his involvement in the Carroll County shootout.  Edwards was admitted to the penitentiary on 14 December 1912.  An anonymous fellow prisoner, writing in the 27 April 1922 issue of the inmate-run penitentiary newspaper, The Beacon, shared his observations of Wesley Edwards:

“The first day I was in prison I ran into Wesley Edwards on the steps of the Industrial Department and started a conversation with him.  As soon as I told him where I was from, he at once extended his hand, with a smile, and said he was glad to see someone from near his old home, though he was sorry to see me in trouble.  I in turn extended my sympathy to him.  My thoughts of him were many, the chief one being how strange it seemed that this tall, blue-eyed, young fellow could be so jovial and so interested in his work.  He was even then in a hurry, had saw-dust in his hair and on his clothing and carried a rule in his hand.  I had pictured him, before I met him, as being a rather rough looking man with a sad countenance, with hope crushed by the unduly long enforcement of prison life.  Our first conversation was short, but impressive.”

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Edwards’ petition for a conditional pardon was denied on 6 October 1922 by Governor E. Lee Trinkle on grounds that he had only served a small portion of his 27-year sentence.  In 1926, Edwards applied again for a pardon.  Governor Harry F. Byrd granted the pardon on 29 April 1926.  “Upon the petition of thousands of citizens,” Byrd wrote, “this man [Wesley Edwards] having served about half his time and made an excellent prisoner, and feeling that the ends of justice have been met sufficiently to warrant giving him a chance at this time, granted conditional pardon.”

In May 1934, Wesley Edwards applied for the removal of political disabilities (restoration of his voting rights) and an absolute pardon. “[S]ince the granting of the conditional pardon,” Edwards attorneys wrote Governor George C. Peery, “Mr. Edwards has been actively engaged in business, and at the present time operates a filling station on the Richmond-Washington Highway in Henrico County.”  Edwards “is in no way a charge on the community, and so far as we have been able to learn he has lived as a law abiding citizen and has not in any way breached the conditions of the pardon granted him.”  Governor Peery granted both requests on 11 June 1934.

Wesley Edwards died from influenza on 16 November 1939.

Tomorrow: Floyd and Claude Allen

-Roger Christman, Senior State Records Archivist

*Update – 21 March 2012*

The Library of Virginia is pleased to announce a new blog, Fit to Print:  Dispatches from the Virginia Newspaper Project @ The Library of Virginia.  The first post, 100 Years Ago – Law and Disorder, is about the Allen’s and the Carroll County Courthouse shooting.