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Introduction
In this letter to Newport attorney George Turner, Thomas Dorr, recently released from prison in Providence, is requesting Turner’s immediate assistance in helping to orchestrate an appeal of his 1844 treason conviction to the United States Supreme Court. Dorr was the first person in U.S. history to be convicted of treason against a state (the murdering abolitionist John Brown would become the second in 1859). Dorr spent over a year in prisons in Newport and Providence before the General Assembly released him. Turner, as well as Walter S. Burges, assisted Dorr in his defense to the charge of treason in 1844.