Manuscripts Celebrated Kentucky Archives Week

Members of the Bowling Green Community Greeters Newcomers Club are assisting the Manuscripts unit of the Kentucky Library & Museum to celebrate Kentucky Archives Week by working with some of the Warren County court records housed in the Kentucky Building. The group is foldering, identifying and describing Commonwealth court cases, which involve crimes such as larceny, disruption of the peace, road maintenance negligence, swearing, assault and battery, contempt of court, and disorderly conduct. Manuscripts has approximately 3000 of these cases. The Commonwealth cases also contain information about early Grand Juries; this court also issued bail bonds (or recognizance bonds) and peace warrants. An example of the later is found in December 1817 when Abram Lawrence came before John Keel, a justice of the peace, stating that he was “afraid that William Hammett, James Hammett, and Daniel Welch will wound, beat, abuse or kill him or injure and destroy his property” and thus came and “prayed surety of the peace against them.” Each of the feared men appeared before Keel and promised to not injure the said Lawrence or his property and each proffered a bond acknowledging the same. The cases date from 1799 to the 1920s.