A Smoking Gun: Library of Virginia Documents Shed Light on A Murder

It was a bloody, excruciating ending for the amiable 22-year-old merchant. Walter Henry Pleasants was shot January 30, 1838, in his room at Richmond’s Columbian Hotel, cutting short a promising life and an anticipated wedding. His assailant held the pistol so close to his body that Walter’s shirt caught on fire. The lead ball to the belly left a wound half an inch wide and six inches deep. We know this because witnesses saw the bullet hole poked with a pinky finger, a probe, and a female catheter. He named his killer before he died, they said.

Nearly 200 years later, an unusually large number of scattered documents have survived to tell the tale. I came across the murder in CeCe Bullard’s pictorial book, Goochland: Yesterday and Today. That was three years ago. Countless new discoveries fueled my research; now it’s a book-in-progress.

The fatal affair that ended Walter Pleasants’ life riveted the public at the time. Now, if remembered at all, it’s wrapped in the fog of lore. It’s been said that Walter was killed in a duel in Richmond;¹ that he was buried twice—first in Richmond then Goochland²; and that Walter’s fiancée Charlotte Harris died in an insane asylum.³ All untrue. The real story has drama enough— a whisper of “sensitive” circumstances; a supposed jail break; the fiancée’s grief and struggles; the victim’s distraught father combating rumors; the shooter’s self-promotion letter from a jail cell, and a well-connected diarist’s belief that the murder trial was rigged.

The saga began with a series of letters, written and delivered in the weeks leading up to the murder.⁴ Now in possession of the Library of Virginia, the correspondence displays the character of the two young men, if not the true motive for the killing. Isaac Vaughan, the killer, initiated the correspondence. A newly minted doctor and a cousin of Walter Pleasants, Isaac was also the former beau of the woman Walter was about to marry, though he, Vaughan, had broken off the engagement months before. At some point the letters were numbered, revealing that two are now missing.

Isaac Vaughan, in his first letter, reminded Walter Pleasants of the trouble between them a few weeks before. At a Goochland tavern, a friend was encouraged to sing, and Walter applauded shortly into the piece. This infuriated Isaac, who rebuked Walter. Afterwards, Walter approached Isaac, whose suggestion to ‘take it outside’ Walter took to mean having a fist fight. Walter declined. Isaac contorted Walter’s words to mean Walter did not want a fist fight, but a duel instead and so Isaac challenged Walter’s manhood. In reply, Walter deftly put the onus on Isaac to throw down the gauntlet, adding that he saw Isaac’s communiqué as an insidious attempt for attention, the kind a duel brings. Isaac chastised Walter for replying with an unmanly display of tact and cunning, devoid of courage, for not challenging him to a duel outright. He tells Walter to name the time and place.

The next letter is missing but is followed by Thomas J. Deane’s note of January 4, 1838, negotiating a change of language in a contract to avert a duel. He asks that the word “disagreement” be substituted for the word “correspondence.” Deane was acting on behalf of Walter as his ‘duel second.’ The last letter is Isaac Vaughan’s demand that Walter withdraw the offensive language in his correspondence from weeks before; this is surely the note Walter refused to take from Isaac Vaughan’s messenger on the day Walter was killed.

A newspaper article about the murder mentioned the duel was averted by a Board of Honor.⁵ Thomas J. Deane’s letter touched on a contract, asking for a word change. Maybe the missing document in the letter series was the agreement that prevented the duel, but where to look?

Senior Manuscripts Acquisition and Digital Archivist Trenton Hizer at the Library of Virginia offered helpful information. The correspondence between Isaac Vaughan and Walter Pleasants, he said, was purchased by the Library from a New Jersey ephemera dealer in 2005. One or two items, once part of the series, were sold before the Library bought them. The dealer, when queried (by me), had no recollection of the letter’s provenance and no record of who bought the missing documents.⁶

Fast forward to November 2025. The Library of Virginia’s microfilmed documents from Isaac Vaughan’s Hustings Court records summarized the highlights of the case, like the names of 11 witnesses and a few facts around the killing. Library of Virginia Reference Archivist Courtney Thompson suggested checking fiduciary records, a jackpot of names and details not seen in other court records.⁷ However, I still wanted to find the duel agreement, witness depositions, a coroner’s report, and an image of the Columbian Hotel before it was destroyed by fire in the Civil War. Senior Reference Archivist Kevin Shupe had a hunch about an offsite file and ordered two boxes from the State Records Center.

He hit pay dirt. As I dug through the first box, he hovered over the second and calmly said, “I think you’re going to want to see these.” My knees almost gave out when he showed me Isaac Vaughan’s name in the Chesterfield County Criminal Causes and Grand Jury Presentments.

Not only did the criminal causes file have full depositions of the 11 witnesses, it had a summary from the Hustings court in February 1838; the Grand Jury and Richmond/Henrico Superior Court trial’s failure to seat a jury in May; two sketches of the murder room with names penciled in; and details about the pistol used. Here we learn of Isaac’s transfer from the Richmond jail to the gaol at Chesterfield County on October 22, 1838.

With this find, we know that the letters between the young men came from the Chesterfield County Court records for Vaughan’s third and final trial. How and when the correspondence left Virginia and ended up in New Jersey is a mystery. According to Local Records Program Manager Vince Brooks at the Library of Virginia, the loose papers were transferred from Chesterfield County to the state library in January 1982. Jim Greve, former Senior Collection Development Archivist, now retired, worked with an ephemera dealer to make the purchase. Once at the Library of Virginia, the letters were placed in a file of their own.⁸

Among the Criminal Causes was a loose page with a penciled “no. 4,” identical to the numbering on the letter series between the young men. Near the document in the file were two copies of the one-page contract to avert the duel, and in the agreement is a reference about the correspondence between the young men. A third copy was found in another folder for 1839. All were written by hand in different handwritings.

The undersigned have had submitted for their consideration, with a view to adjustment of the controversy which has grown out of it—a correspondence between Mr. Isaac Vaughan and Mr. W. H. Pleasants hereunto attached. They have been informed of no previous grounds of offence be-tween these gentlemen other than what may be inferred from the letters of Mr. Vaughan which commences the correspondence. This letter appears to them to suggest no adequate foundation for previous offence on the part of Mr. Vaughan whose letter is of an offensive character to Mr. Pleasants. They are of opinion therefore that the letter of Mr. Vaughan as not authorized by any thing which appears, aught [sic] to be withdrawn, with all matter of offense which it may involve and this can-cellation, carrying with it that of Mr. Pleasants letter in reply. The parties will be properly restored to the footing on which they previously stood.

We subscribe to the above

B.T. Archer
I P Vaughan Wm. S. Archer
W.H. Pleasants

It appears that page no. 4, sold by the ephemera dealer prior to the Library of Virginia’s purchase, was a fourth copy of the agreement. The identity of the second missing document, no. 5, is unknown; it may have been a cover letter for the contract. The person who bought no. 4 likely valued the historically significant signatures. Branch T. Archer was involved in establishing the state of Texas and William S. Archer was remembered for his service in Virginia government. Both men had been in duels themselves.

Three points of interest around this finding:

1. The mention in the contract of “correspondence between Mr. Isaac Vaughan and W.H. Pleasants hereunto attached” confirms that all of the letters were once part of the court records, possibly as early as the Hustings Court.

2. The disagreement in late 1837 happened in the Goochland Courthouse tavern whose new owner, Peter J. Archer (nephew of Thomas Jefferson) was actually part of the gathering along with Isaac and Walter. The connection amongst P.J. Archer and the other two Archers is uncertain, but given his familiarity with those involved, he may have had a hand in calling the Board of Honor to avert the duel.
3. The Library of Virginia’s three copies of the contract do not reflect Thomas J. Deane’s request to change the wording from “correspondence” to “disagreement,” suggesting either his input was disregarded or we are looking at an earlier iteration of the agreement.

Depositions in Criminal Causes offered witness accounts in no discernable order. When organized in chronological order, by the times mentioned in the testimonies, puzzle pieces surrounding the events readily click into place, especially complemented by details found in other sources:

Walter H. Pleasants woke on January 30 in his room at the Columbian Hotel, having left his fiancée, Charlotte Harris, cheerfully planning their wedding in Goochland the day before. He’d come to Richmond to see a tailor about his attire for the event. Walter was approached by Robert Walker with a message from Isaac Vaughan to re-ignite the old dispute. Walter refused it and all further communication from Isaac. Walter’s friend and roommate at the hotel, Francis W. Royster, ran into Isaac Vaughan twice that day. The first time Isaac wanted to establish that Walter was in town. The second time, Isaac showed Francis two loaded pistols and reiterated his desire to see Walter. Francis spent the afternoon trying to locate Walter to warn him.

Around 5 p.m., Isaac Vaughan walked into Walter’s room, uninvited and unwelcome, with a grudge and a loaded pistol in the pocket of his pantaloons, accompanied by his friend Robert Walker. Isaac insulted Walter, refused to leave, then escalated the situation with name-calling and a demand for another duel. Walter struck Isaac, who then pulled out the pistol and shot Walter at close range. The intruders left him to die.

Walter’s screams drew almost a dozen men from nearby rooms and the adjacent tavern. They removed his coats, put out the fire on his shirt, loosened his pantaloons and checked for an exit wound. Several were doctors. Three poked the wound and prodded him with questions. By 5:45 p.m., he went cold, pulseless, and insensible. Those who reached him shortly after the shooting calculated Walter lived 30-45 minutes and heard him name Isaac Vaughan as the shooter. Someone sat vigil overnight with his corpse.⁹

A manhunt for Isaac Vaughan began. The next morning, messengers went out to inform the Pleasants, Harris, and Vaughan families. Isaac turned himself in and was placed in jail.

Plans for a wedding quickly shifted to a funeral, held February 1 at the Columbian Hotel. Walter’s eulogy,¹⁰ written by his fiancée Charlotte Harris, was read at the funeral by Micajah Bates, a Richmond surveyor. Afterwards, people climbed on horses or into carriages and traveled west to Goochland where Walter’s body was taken to the home of Charlotte’s mother. He was buried the next day in the Harris cemetery. A second funeral would be held in September.

Walter had turned 22 years old on January 10. Charlotte, 23, a published writer, went into a steep decline after his murder and followed him to the grave three years later. Walter’s killer, despised by the public, would spend his 22nd and 23rd birthdays in jail as he passed through three trials. In September of 1838, side-by-side columns appeared with Walter’s father discrediting rumors that he wanted a lenient sentence for Isaac, and one from Isaac Vaughan describing his own unimpeachable character and victimization. He said Walter had driven him to the wall and beaten him up to three times with the fireplace poker.¹¹

Thanks to dedicated archivists at the Library of Virginia and elsewhere, the letters are only a small part of a cache of documents found on Walter’s murder, Charlotte’s troubles, and Isaac’s subsequent trials. The Library of Virginia also has a bird’s-eye sketch of the Columbian Hotel at Cary (or D) and 13th Streets in its online Mutual Assurance Insurance forms. Micajah Bates, three years before the murder, produced a plan of Richmond which includes the Columbian Hotel at Cary and 13th.¹² Princeton Seminary Archives has two letters from Charlotte Harris to Presbyterian William Swan Plumer.¹³ The Virginia Museum of History and Culture holds Walter’s eulogy, written by Charlotte and read by Micajah Bates at the funeral. Virginia Chronicle at the Library of Virginia and Chronicling America at the Library of Congress contributed a hefty stack of informative newspaper articles including extracts from Charlotte’s diaries and a long obituary by her pastoral care minister. The depositions in Chesterfield Criminal Causes at the Library of Virginia added so much color and texture.¹⁴

The Library of Virginia has moved the contract from the Private Papers collection to the Chesterfield County Court Records—a big help—while keeping documents in the original order, which in itself is essential to researchers. Color reproductions of the letters are kept in the Private Papers version of the collection.

My book is expected by late summer, though I continue to hunt down many loose ends. Why did no one report the gunshot though 26 witnesses testified to hearing it?  Did the the jail break occur or not? What became of Charlotte Harris’ writing? Are there images of Charlotte and Ann Harris? The final trial and depositions have quirks. The question is: was the trial rigged, as Col. William Bolling suggests in his diaries? We may never know, but there are, shall we say, irregularities.

What’s represented here is just the tip of the…poker? The book will include a wealth of photos that enrich the story. Charlotte Harris has a full chapter—so much has been found on her and her family. Isaac Vaughan, the author of so much misery, has his own chapter, too.

Goochland County Historical Society volunteers have mapped the cemetery where Walter’s ornate table tombstone rests but I continue to search for the graves of Charlotte and Ann Harris, known to be buried with Walter.

-Cheryl Copper