Pardon issued by California Governor John B. Weller to Reuben Bessey, convicted of manslaughter in 1855 in Tuolumne County.
Reuben Bessey was born in Massachusets in 1816. Bessey may have gone to California during the gold rush. He served two years in prison for the killing of I. N. Issgrig in a brothel in the town of Columbia. The pardon was issued subsequent to Bessey's release from prison in 1857. It was signed by Governor Weller and attested to by Secretary of State Ferris Forman in 1858.
After his pardon Bessey moved to a gold mining camp in Warrens, Idaho, where he was a member of the party that first discovered gold there. Bessey was a fiddler in a dance band that played at Charles Bemis's saloon in Warrens. He died in 1898.
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Pardon for manslaughter signed by California Governor John B. Weller, MG 5754. Special Collections and Archives, University of Idaho Library, Moscow, Idaho.
Special Collections and Archives of the University of Idaho Library purchased this manuscript from Ian Brabner Bookseller, Wilmington, Delaware, in February 2013.
Processed in March 2013.
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