As I am sure you are aware, the document was printed three times—once in England (with a reprinting of this in N.Y.) once by Tuttle in the Schaff-Herzog Encyc., and once by the Methodists. The first and last of these printings give the court costs. This summer I spent a few days at Norwich and among the county records I found some bills from the town of Bainbridge. Bills for the years 1826 and 1827 were missing, presumably among the water-damaged items the court house threw out some while back. However, the bills from 1825 and 1827 were there and give n example of what the J.P. charges were at that time. A subpoena was 6¢ each, so that a charge of 18¢ in the document must represent 3 subpoenas; Recognisance charge was 25¢ is in perfect agreement and the charge of 75¢ for “recognisance of witness” must represent three such witnesses. . . . To my mind there is enough agreement here to make the possibility of the document being a forgery out of the realm of possibility.

Finally, the other surrounding circumstances all are in proper place. . . . Miss F. L. Stewart in Exploding the Myth cases doubt on the court record because there was no evidence that Albert Neeley was a J.P. in 1826. Well, I found his official appointment papers signed by the 3 circuit judges and the 15 county supervisors and the date of his appointment was November 16, 1825. If the bills for 1826 has been available still, I am sure there would have been an itemized account of all the warrants he issued, and costs involved for the town and county, as there are in the other justices bills for 1825 and 1828. In fact, the itemized bills were totaled and at the annual meeting of the board of Supervisors the total amounts were “audited and allowed.” In their Supervisor’s record book for 1826 Albert Neely’s name appears under the town of Bainbridge as being paid $6.34 by the town and $15.44 by the county. So as far as I am concerned, there is no question in my mind that Albert Neely was a J.P. in 1826 and that Smith was tried before him, and that the published record is really a genuine account of what happened.

There are other little details that fit into place as well. . . . from every angle the whole matter has the ring of genuineness about it.