Whereas, information has been received by the Executive that a certain Nancy Vandike and a certain Nancy Beams, citizens of the county of Rusk, were, at the last term of the district court, held in and for the County of Nacogdoches convicted of murder, and sentence of death pronounced against them by the Judge of the said court to be carried into? execution on the fourth Friday in December of this present year.
And whereas, from representations of a satisfactory character, in behalf of the said Nancy Vandike and Nancy Beams, it appears that this is a case proper for the interposition of Executive Clemency:
Therefore, be it known that I Sam Houston, President of the Republic of Texas, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution and laws of said Republic, do, by the presents, grant to the said Nancy Vandike and Nancy Beams a full pardon for the crime of which they have been convicted, and do, hereby, direct the sheriff, or other officer, having in custody the said Nancy Vandike and Nancy Beams, forthwith to release them from all imprisonment or withstraint, consequent upon their said conviction; And the Clerk or Deputy Clerk, having in charge the records of said court to make there on such proper entry as to render wholly inoperative the sentence of the said Court, in the case aforesaid, and prevent the same from being carried into execution.
In testimony whereof I have hereunto set my hand and caused the Great Seal of the Republic to be affixed.
Done at Washington the seventh day of December in the year of our Lord, one thousand eight hundred and fourty four, and of the Independence of the Republic, the ninth.
Sam Houston
By the President
Anson Jones
Secretary of State