Free our blacksmith ... he's the only one!
Digitized Pardons records offer glimpse of early Utah
The newly digitized Board of Pardon's Prisoners' Application Case Files from 1892 to 1949 allow quick and easy access to nearly 9,000 files from prisoners and their advocates requesting a pardon. One of the most common crimes was larceny, usually for stealing a horse — sometimes with a buggy in the case of women. A modern equivalent might be grand theft auto, but considering the difficulty of reselling an animal, a better parallel might be stealing a bike out of a yard.
This newest edition to the Utah State Archives and Records Service's Digital Collections includes formal applications for pardons, letters to the governor, petitions and letters of support from the public and public officials connected to the case. During the first 40 years, court transcripts, biographical sketches, prison evaluations and a wide variety of related documentation such as personal data about the prisoner, criminal activity, family background and evaluation of the prisoner's adjustment to incarceration might be included. Cases illustrate the board's review process to determine if prisoners should be released before their regular sentence ended.
The files offer a snapshot into life in Utah during the first 50 years of statehood. A blacksmith in Loa, Wayne County, was apparently imprisoned for six months for fornication, and the people of his town sent the governor nearly 10 pages of double-columned signatures requesting his release since he was the town's only blacksmith.
Names in the files demonstrate the state's diversity and cover the globe: Lee Gim and Ling Lee from China, C.H. Hong from Korea, Max Paul Graeske from East Prussia, Trefle Doutre from France and Gustaf Gustafson from Scandinavia.
"(Digitizing archives) makes primary source documents accessible for research and allows voices that often get forgotten to be available to a much wider audience," said Utah history professor Paul Reeve. "These offer little glimpses or traces. They open up a shot in time of what life was like for people who might otherwise be left behind in history."
The files also reveal a different set of moral values. Other men were imprisoned for fornication besides the blacksmith. But whereas the residents of Loa claimed he had intended no harm, another man's was crime was described as "bastarding." Graeske of East Prussia worked at the Salt Lake City Brewing Co. in 1916 when convicted of "carnal knowledge." His petitioners said they believed he had not adequately been taught "the importance of virtue."
Recent comments
This is a great use of technology. Although some may question the…
Historian | April 29, 2008 at 5:27 a.m.
