Stanley Matthews letter to Reuben Wood, March 23, 1852

Letter written to Governor Reuben Wood by Stanley Matthews in support of the appointment of Donn Piatt to a position in the Hamilton County Court of Common Pleas, March 23, 1852. Stanley Matthews (1824-1889) was at the time a judge in the court. He secured a seat in the Ohio Senate in 1856 before being appointed U.S. District Attorney for Southern Ohio in 1858, and later served as a justice of the U.S. Supreme Court from 1881 to 1889. Reuben Wood was governor of Ohio from 1850 through 1853, and was closely involved with the Peyton Polly case and attempts to secure the Polly family's release. Peyton Polly and his family were freedmen living in Lawrence County, Ohio, when they were kidnapped on June 6, 1850, and sold back into slavery in Kentucky and Virginia