Vanessa WoodWhat secrets can handwriting reveal about a 215-year-old murder case?
Back in March I was able to view a Tennessee legislative petition while in Nashville. Petitions are fascinating, especially ones signed by numerous citizens. Because there isn’t an 1800 or 1810 U.S. census for Wilson County, Tennessee these documents are a great resource for finding people where they lived.
My latest research article, “Murder, Mercy, and Multiple Scribes: Analysis of the 1809 Wilson County Petition for Zebulon Baird” appears in the Fall 2025 Middle Tennessee Journal of Genealogy and History . The article demonstrates how forensic handwriting analysis can unlock historical mysteries buried for centuries. This document, preserved in the Tennessee State Archives, contains the signatures of 227 citizens who rallied to defend their neighbor after he killed Spencer Mercer in 1808. Beyond solving questions of authorship and identity, the petition offers a window into how frontier communities balanced justice with Christian forgiveness, and how multiple scribes collaborated to craft a document that would ultimately be rejected by the Tennessee legislature on constitutional grounds.
FEATURED IMAGE: Created with CoPilot AI, “Two Angry Men in 1800s Sitting Back to Back,” 15 July 2025.
