DOI: 10.7910/dvn/kefiy
title: House Unpassed Legislation 1847, Docket 1890, SC1/series 230, Petition of Robert Rantoul Jr.

description: &lt;p&gt;Petition subject: Abolition of capital punishment &lt;/p&gt; &lt;p&gt;Original: &lt;a href="http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:FHCL:13481421"&gt;http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:FHCL:13481421&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/p&gt; &lt;p&gt;Date of creation: (unknown) &lt;/p&gt; &lt;p&gt;Petition location: Massachusetts &lt;/p&gt; &lt;p&gt;Legislator, committee, or address that the petition was sent to: Edgar K. Whitaker, Needham; committee on the judiciary &lt;/p&gt; &lt;p&gt;Selected signatures:&lt;ol&gt;&lt;li&gt;Robert Rantoul Jr.&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;Charles Mayo&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;Charles P. Bosson&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;Joseph Chandler&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;Adin Partridge&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;Henry Beal&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;Charles Churchill&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;John Spear&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;Ebenezer Seaver&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;Milton Hall&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;Martin R. Herrick&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;Aaron P. Kline&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;Frances H. Drake&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;C. Morley&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;George B. Proctor&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;Louisa R. Beal&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;Jonathan Arnold Jr.&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;Warren Burton&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;Wendell Phillips&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;James Wheeler Jr.&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;Henry Parkhurst&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;Cornelius Jordon&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;Charles Foster&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;Frederick Robinson&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;Eliphalet Thayer&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;Joel P. Bishop&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;Augustine C. Taft&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;George Knapp&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;Charles A. French&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;William C. Nell&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;William P. Stone&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;Robert F. Wallcut&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;Augustine C. Taft&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;Joseph C. Loring&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;D.B. Morey&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;Samuel Gilmore&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;Reuben H. Ober&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;Christopher Robinson&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;Daniel Ricketson&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;Richard Clap&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;John Orvis&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;Robert R. Crosby&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;Frederick S. Cabot&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;William Sears&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;James N. Buffum&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;Adeline J. Fuller&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;Amasa Walker&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;Charles Spear&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;Loring Moody&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;Lucy Ann Leonard&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;Sophia L. Soule&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;Varanes Wentworth&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;Edgar K. Whitaker&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;William Ashley Jr.&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;Jonathan Walker&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;John M. Spear&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;Charles Canfield&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;Lucinda Lyford&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;Samuel May&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;George W. Easton&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;George M. Rice&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;Hiram Blanchard&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;Lucretia A. Cowing&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;Rebecca Pool&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;Helen E. Garrison&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;Mary Knowlton&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;John Noyes Jr.&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;Martha M. Cutler&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;Elisha L. Hammond&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;Hannah Briggs&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;Jonas Holt&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;Lucy Ives&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;Eliza J. Kenney&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;Anne Warren Weston&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;Emma Forbes Weston&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;Silas Leonard&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;Edward Phelps&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;Deborah Kimball&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;George H. Holbrook&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;Wait Bement&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;Howard Richardson&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;Timothy Gay&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;Ira Gray&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;David B. Bill&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;Joseph Macfarland&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;Ezra J. Rockwood&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;Martha Harrington&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;Sarah F. Ruggles&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;Julia Ruggles&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;Leona M. Lesure&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;Adelia A. Peck&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;Mary Barnes&lt;/li&gt;&lt;/ol&gt; &lt;/p&gt; &lt;p&gt;Actions taken on dates: 1847-02-06 &lt;/p&gt; &lt;p&gt;Legislative action: Received in the House on February 6, 1847 and referred to the committee on the judiciary &lt;/p&gt; &lt;p&gt;Total signatures: 543 &lt;/p&gt; &lt;p&gt;Legislative action summary: Received, referred &lt;/p&gt; &lt;p&gt;Legal voter signatures (males not identified as non-legal): 352 &lt;/p&gt; &lt;p&gt;Female signatures: 127 &lt;/p&gt; &lt;p&gt;Unidentified signatures: 64 &lt;/p&gt; &lt;p&gt;Female only signatures: No &lt;/p&gt; &lt;p&gt;Identifications of signatories: citizens, [females], [males of color], ["others"] &lt;/p&gt; &lt;p&gt;Prayer format was &lt;a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Printing"&gt;printed&lt;/a&gt; vs. &lt;a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manuscript"&gt;manuscript&lt;/a&gt;: Printed &lt;/p&gt; &lt;p&gt;Signatory column format: not column separated &lt;/p&gt; &lt;p&gt;Additional non-petition or unrelated documents available at archive: no additional documents &lt;/p&gt; &lt;p&gt;Additional archivist notes: "Am I Not a Woman and a Sister" image, engraving; Towns next to names including Boston, Malden, Plymouth, Duxbury, Leominster, East Walpole, Holliston, New York, Hingham, Abington, Hanson, Lynn, Andover, Yarmouthport, Weymouth, Charlestown, Ashburnham, Salisbury, Sterling, Dorchester, Nantucket, East Boston, West Cambridge, Danvers, Lowell, Marblehead, East Stoughton, Ipswich, Braintree, Reading, Haverhill, Uxbridge, Raynham, North Bridgewater, South Reading, New Bedford, Brook Farm, Cambridge, Chelsea, Blackstone, Milton, Quincy, Stoughton, Needham, Newburyport, Worcester, Leicester, Mendon, Princeton, Norton, Weymouth, North Abington, East Abington, Stoneham, Rockport, South Abington, Newburyport, Watertown, Danvers, Northampton, Milford, Scituate, Dedham, North Marshfield, Salem, Walpole, Plympton, Concord, Medway; [Boston crossed out at top of petition, town change; parts of the petition were still sealed by wax, unopened, wax seal; repetition of names, such as Daniel Ricketson?] &lt;/p&gt; &lt;p&gt;Location of the petition at the Massachusetts Archives of the Commonwealth: House Unpassed 1847, Docket 1890 &lt;/p&gt; &lt;p&gt;Acknowledgements: Supported by the National Endowment for the Humanities (PW-5105612), Massachusetts Archives of the Commonwealth, Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University, Center for American Political Studies at Harvard University, Institutional Development Initiative at Harvard University, and Harvard University Library.&lt;/p&gt;