Correspondence and petitions pertaining principally to the movement for a pardon for William L. Hemingway, who served as state treasurer from 1875 to 1890 and who was sentenced on December 1, 1890, for a term of five years in the state penitentiary as a result of a shortage of $315,612.19 discovered in the treasurer's office in 1890. This movement and the almost universal belief in the innocence of Hemingway resulted in his being pardoned on June 16, 1894, by Governor John M. Stone.

The correspondence contains 9 letters (March 31, 1886–May 26, 1892) from Hall's Safe and Lock Company, Cincinnati, Ohio; and 32 letters and reports (July 2, 1891–December 14, 1892) from Pinkerton's National Detective Agency, Chicago, Ill. In the correspondence are letters to John M. Stone or the Hemingway family from Joseph M. Bynum, World's Columbian Commissioner, Booneville (May 14, 1894); A. A. Kincannon, Meridian (February 23, 1894); Robert Lowry, Jackson (May 3, 1894); Monroe McClurg, Vaiden (February 21 and May 12, 1894); H. J. McLaurin, Rolling Fork (March 24, 1894); Wallace McLaurin, Washington, D. C. (April 9, 1894); Edward Mayes, Oxford (August 25, 1880); H. D. Money, Washington, D. C. (May 5, 1894); Isaiah T. Montgomery, Mound Bayou (April 18, 1894); J. R. Preston, Jackson (May 29, 1894); and E. C. Walthall, Jackson (May 13, 1894).

The petitions are from every section of the state and include one bearing the signatures of twenty-one state senators and forty-four members of the House of Representatives, and one signed by James Z. George, H. D. Money, T. C. Catchings, John S. Williams, J. C. Kyle, T. P. Stockdale, and Charles E. Hooker.

The correspondence is filed alphabetically by the name of the writer, and the petitions are filed alphabetically by the name of the county from which they originated.