PETITIONS CONCERNING DOCTOR HANSON F. MURPHY-1849
Duplin Co., N.C.

Duplin, 10th May 1849
Gov. MANLY

Dear Sir, I take the liberty to address your excellency in reference to a matter that 
may come under your consideration, some two years since I was attacked by a disguised 
mob composed of some 15 or 20 persons nearly every one connected to it --- of its 
lawless band; either by consanguinity or affinity under entirely false allegations. The 
fact is this, said Captain of the mob, whose name is Hanson MURPHY had injured me 
privately previously to the attack made upon me under the cover of ----, the injury 
done me was larcenous or malicious mischief in its character, in its eye of the law-and 
then, it is my opinion and its opinion of many others its of - is naturally a very 
zealous minded fellow, all did to this infernal -----------, he MURPHY married a wife 
whose Mother and two or three of her sisters had children previous to getting married 
This fellow MURPHEY was tried and convicted at the last term of the Superior court for 
Duplin, and was sentenced to three months imprisonment with the paying of cost of the 
indictment, from which deception he was permitted to take an appeal to the Supreme 
court. I think this step can avail him nothing. MURPHY does not hope (I understand) that 
the Judgment below will be reversed, but intends petitioning your Excellency to grant 
him a reprieve. I trust in Heaven that you will not do that ------, however numerous 
his signers may be notwithstanding, he has a large connection and many concerned with 
him in this mob scrape, there is scarcely none of them your political friends. 1st-I 
stated I am your political friend. 2-Mrs. Henry HAYWOOD of Raleigh your Lady's Mother 
and my Mother are sister's children; my grand Mother being a RUFFIN 3rd-It would be 
doing me great injustice to grant the fellow his petition, it would in my opinion be 
countenancing and encouraging mob law in this land. 4th-There has been 4 cases of 
mobbing, persons in Duplin county within the last 2 or 3 years, and 2 of the persons 
mobbed were defenseless females, one of them being mobbed of all the money she had in 
her house, they were both as respectable Ladies as any in Duplin County in all the 
cases of attack as you and I know its villains composing the mobs were smutted as 
black as Negroes and 5th-Permit me to refer your excellency to the pamphlet enclosed.
Your humble & obedient servant
Jesse? Pridgen JORDAN

His Excellency
Charles? MANLY

P.S. If the appeal comes before the Supreme Court, I hope you will be so kind as to 
speak a word to the Attorney General on the Subject and thereby oblige your injured 
constituent.
J. P. J.

I neglected to state to your Excellency that I have a wife and four children, having 
married into one of the best families in the lower part of the State. This 
circumstance also, I hope your excellency will take into consideration while as I 
remarked in the letter this envious malicious and jealous fellow my arch enemy 
married into a very base family & so far as concerning there previous to their 
married state.
J. P. JORDAN

Gov. C. MANLY
Raleigh, N.C.

To His Excellency Charles MANLY, Governor of the State of North Carolina

The undersigned citizens of the County of Duplin respectfully represent to Your 
Excellency that at the Spring Term 1849 of the Superior Court of Law for the County 
of Duplin. Doctor Hanson F. MURPHY was charged with having committed an assault and 
Battery upon Jesse P. JORDAN of said County and being convicted thereof it was adjudged 
by the Court that he should be imprisoned for three calendar months. We approaching 
Your Excellency to ask for the exercise of Your Execution clemency; Your Petitioners 
have no Complaints to better acquaint the verdict of the Jury or the judgment of the 
Court. The demands of the law have better heard and ----- pro---- responded to be the 
Officers of the laws. Their appeal to you in for judgment in ----- that mercy which it 
is your prerogative above to dispute and they trustfully rely upon the circumstances of 
the case for ---- to them their prayer for pardon from the disclosures made at the time 
of the trial and from statements then unheard because ---the strict rules of law in 
------- but which reading the case of Doctor MURPHY were so reliable as to influence 
his action it appears that during his absence from home his house was visited at night 
by the Prosecutor JORDAN who was aware of his absence and with whom through his 
neighborhood no social intercourse had existed for some months prior thereto scarcely 
had he entered it where he commenced a series of indignities a lot of expressions and 
action toward Mrs. MURPHY the wife of the Doctor who was there without any protection 
and then whose a more exemplary reputable and virtuous lady does not live. A------ and 
increased at his conduct she repelled and rebutted him in the best way she could, but 
he persisted in his outrages until a late hour of the night there leaving a wife from 
without which caused him to fear the approach of her husband he ------ ------ and 
returned to his own house. Upon this arrival of the Doctor the foregoing circumstances 
were communicated to him and he ------- with resentment at his violation of the 
Sanctity of his house sought the counsel of a few friends and soon after inflicted upon 
the Prosecutor which was discerned proper punishment for this improper dishonor which 
had been ---- alike to himself and wife. Your Petitioners will not deny that he was 
wrong in their activity for the law allows no ------ to be his own anger-though they 
cannot but think that his conduct ----- of so much publication as to make ---- a ------- 
violation when his victim was to much of a transgressor against all the protractions 
and -------- of life.
They would also represent to Your Excellency that that the prosecution of this case has
been attended with very great expense to the Doctor against whom a Civil Suit is also 
proceeding for the alleged attack upon the prosecutor and they believe that his 
sufferings this few have been such an act only greatly to punish him for the deed 
which has been done but also to exercise a corrective influence over him for the 
residue of his life. They have known him for years and they but express the universal 
testament of all who know him when they say that he has ever been ---- one of the most 
peaceful reputable and altogether worthy men in the whole ---- of their ----- 
acquaintance. Individually of the highest respectability he has a family relatives and 
friends who would ---- feel it as a personal calamity if the sever mandate of the law 
should be executed toward him. They therefore earnestly entreat Your Excellency to 
rescue him from the shame and ignorance? Which now overhangs him for which the law has 
been vindicated by his convictions. They feel approved? That Society can suffer no 
detriment from Your Executors actions in favor of this their petitions.

Ja. W. BLOUNT                     R. BIRD
D. G. MONSEY                      Thomas WRIGHT
C.O. HURST                        Elis J. FAISON
Wentworth W. PIERCE               A. P. HIGHTOWER
H. SWINSON                        C. D. HILL
R. - HUNTER                       A. R. HICKS
Charles WINDERS                   W. W. FAISON
Jno. C.? WINDERS                  R. K. WILLIAMS
George MORISY                     T. R. FAISON
R.B. MORISEY                      Isaac D. WRIGHT
Jacob BRILL                       Eli W. HINES
Everett G. BORDEN                 James R. HINES
Jno. B. SOUTHERLAND               D. H.? RAMSEY?
Thomas MORISEY                    D. H.? KORNEGAY
Robert BEST                       Jas. F. SHIN
A. MONTGOMERY                     E. BLOOMINGDALE
Winton BOYETTE                    G. - -NELAND?
Geo. W. ASKINS                    Wm. H. TOLAR
Hinton E. CARR                    Readon L. COBB
Henry BEST                        Jos. T. RHODES
Thos. R. HICKS?                   Enoch J. HINES
Wm. H. MORISY                     John W. NANCE
Daniel BOWDEN                     Jonathan P. CHREE?
D. B. BENTON                      J. R. LOFTIN
Henry BOWDEN                      Joel LOFTIN
M. F. BOWDEN?                     Boudin SOUTHERLAND
Chas. BRADLEY                     Willie WILLIAMSON           
H. B. HINES                       Isham R. FAISON
B. C. BOWDEN                      Jas T. OLIVER?
S. R. BOWDEN                      John B. LANE
David WRIGHT                      W. F.? KORNEGAY
A. W.? HURST                      Henry W. FAISON
C. P.? OATES                      Edwd. HINES
D. HARPER                         B. W. WILLIAMS
John F. MEEKS?                    Jas. A. SHINE
John C. BUKLEY                    Wm. CARAWAY?
H. BOWDEN                         Buckner BOURDEN
Jese J. BAKER?                    W. F.? POLLOCK
Jas. B. CARR                      James WINDERS
William WILLIAMS                  Jos. R. HATCH
W. GREGORY                        O. C. MORISEY
Wm. HOLLOWELL                     Jese C. PRIDGEN
David JONES                       Lewis C. OATES
John D. THOMSON                   William H. THOMSON
Samuel LOFTIN                     John E. BECTON
Oates T.? LEWIS                   Allmand A. McKOY
John McGILL





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