Monday, October 2, 2017

Another one from the Tennessee State Library & Archives

A frequent research subject on the blog has been the facts surrounding the murder of Captain John A. Thornhill, nephew of my 4th-great-grandmother Elizabeth Thornhill Jones. I have posted before about finding cases mentioning family from the Tennessee State Library and Archives. While looking again for references to the Matthews family I decided to check if I may have missed cases for the Thornhill family. I apparently missed a big one. The case of State of Tennessee v Pleasant Riggs (1869) is a whopping 107 pages. This is a companion case to Rankin v State of Tennessee, argued before the Supreme Court of Tennessee in 1867.
Source: TSLA. State v Pleasant Riggs, cover page.
The case includes depositions and statements from several of my extended family, including my 3rd-great-grandfather Joseph Jones, Elizabeth Thornhill Jones' brother, Richard Thornhill, and others.

I have long thought that I had enough background material to turn the stories surrounding Thornhill into a book. Adding another 107 pages of case material from the Tennessee State Library & Archives expands this greatly. I will work through this slowly and try to weave in references from my prior research. There's much more to come on this case.

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