1885 Mississippi Sheriff Document Harrison Gregory Arrest & Bond West Point For Sale

1885 Mississippi Sheriff Document Harrison Gregory Arrest & Bond West Point

Approximate size: 8.5 inches x 7 inches

This item is an original antique court document dated 1885. It is addressed to the Sheriff Monroe County Mississippi. It is dated from West Point.

This is an original 1883–1885 Mississippi sheriff’s document group relating to the arrest, bonding, and court processing of Harrison Gregory, a defendant pursued across county lines during the early post‑Reconstruction era. The paperwork originates in Clay County, Mississippi, with execution carried out by the Sheriff of Monroe County, and includes multiple handwritten entries by sheriffs, deputies, and clerks. Together, the pieces form a coherent legal narrative rather than the isolated scraps that often survive from this period.

The principal document is a formal Circuit Court writ issued in March 1883 at West Point, Mississippi, commanding the Sheriff of Monroe County to “take the body of Harrison Gregory” and bring him before the judge to answer charges brought by James McLemore. It is signed by Joel L. Lucas, Clerk of the Circuit Court, and retains its original period handwriting, docketing, and official language. This is a classic 19th‑century arrest writ, complete with the formulaic phrasing used in Mississippi legal practice of the era.

Accompanying the writ is the 1885 sheriff’s return, written two years later, documenting that Gregory was in fact arrested and released on a $100 bond for appearance at the Circuit Court. The return is signed by Sheriff E. D. Boyles and Deputy J. M. Marshall, and includes the notation that the bond is attached as part of the return. Additional slips record the document’s movement through official hands, including entries by Sheriff E. L. Sykes, deputy signatures, process docket numbers, and the sheriff’s statutory fee of $2.50 for executing the arrest. These smaller pieces are not random fragments but part of the administrative chain that accompanied the writ as it moved through the county system.

Taken together, the documents provide a rare, multi‑year snapshot of Mississippi’s legal and law‑enforcement procedures in the 1880s, complete with period handwriting, clerical annotations, and the layered jurisdictional structure of Clay and Monroe Counties. Surviving examples of Southern sheriff’s returns from this era are not common, and complete narrative groupings such as this are especially desirable to collectors of 19th‑century legal ephemera, Mississippi county history, and early criminal justice documentation.

Those most interested in this document:
-Southern legal ephemera collectors

-Mississippi county‑history collectors (Clay, Monroe, West Point)

-Sheriff and law‑enforcement ephemera criminal justice historians

-Genealogists researching Gregory, McLemore, Boyles, Sykes, or Marshall

-Collectors of Reconstruction‑to‑Jim‑Crow era documents

-Ephemera dealers who build “crime packets”

-Archivists seeking regional legal material

The document has some wear and yellowing in areas, and there is edge wear on the left.

(D45 inventory number)