KYJacksonPurchase-L Archives

From: Bill Utterback <>
Subject: [KYJP] New Series - McCracken County - Commonwealth Court Cases - 1836 - Part 1
Date: Mon, 23 Feb 2004 18:43:26 -0600

My friends -

Today, we are beginning a new series which will deal with what are termed
"Commonwealth Cases" in McCracken County. These are criminal court cases in
which the Commonwealth of Kentucky acted as prosecutor. The case would be
styled, for example, as "Commonwealth of Kentucky vs. John Smith".

The names in the listing below are the defendants in these cases in
McCracken County, as taken from the docket index. Unfortunately, other than
the year in which the case was brought, there is no other information in
the index as to what the charge may have been, or anything further
concerning the case. As a result, I have *no* further information beyond
what is shown below. Nevertheless, this sort of information is useful in
some situations in placing an individual between census years.

If you see a name in which you have an interest and would like to obtain
the case file connected with that individual, and which will contain the
petition, subpoenas, verdict, and often some depositions, the Kentucky
Department for Libraries & Archives is the repository which holds these
case files for McCracken County in this period. Criminal case files are
somewhat less likely to contain family information than are civil case
files, but one never knows what may appear in one of these files. I once
examined such a file that came out of Fulton County, in which am an was
charged with polygamy. He had three wives - one in Fulton Co., one in
Cairo, IL and another in Massac Co. IL. The file contained the love letters
he had written all three of them, the dates of marriages for each, the
names and dates of birth of all of his children by the three wives, the
maiden names of the wives and who their parents were, as well as other
information on the husband's family. That was an unusual case, of course,
but it does show what can sometimes be found in these criminal case files.
Feel free to contact me off list if there are questions about accessing the
case files.

Tomorrow, we will move to Graves County.

-B
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McCracken County - Commonwealth Court Cases - 1836 - Part 1
[et al. = "and others"]

Commonwealth of Kentucky vs.:

A. Wilson et al.

Gustavus A. Garrett

William Gore

John Gill

Eppes Allen

John Adams

Richard Allen

John Beck (2 cases)

John Beck, Sr.

Martin B. Brin

John Betts (2 cases)

Luke Bryant

Silas F. Barnes

John Beck, Jr.

William Breton et al.

Angeline Clay

William Carvell

A. Crump

James Benson

C. Cook, et al.

Armistead Crump

Samuel Caruthers

E. Capas

John Crice

William & Harriett Creason

Jesse Doyle

W.C.Delahay

John Carrigan, et al.

Joseph Daniel

William Doolen

James Edwards, et al.

Robert Ewing (4 cases)

~to be continued~
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• [KYJP] New Series - McCracken County - Commonwealth Court Cases - 1836 - Part 1 by Bill Utterback <>