Judge Jacob Piatt
At a time now somewhat remote there was supported, throughout the State of Kentucky, what some thought a most excellent institution—the whipping post. This medium of humiliating punishment was a natural outgrowth of the slave-owner's right to punish his Negroes; but its general use among the blacks by no means meant immunity for lawless whites, many of whom were publicly whipped, the chastisement, in most instances, having a salutary effect. Why the custom was abandoned I am at loss to say--for good and sufficient reasons, no doubt; but while its reign lasted it exercised a decidedly reformatory influence over the communities wherein it was utilized.
Judge Jacob Piatt,* who had the distinction of having served as Circuit Judge for more than
thirty years, owned a Negro who was possessed of that inordinate family pride so common to the
blacks of the ante-bellum days, especially if they were the property of so-called aristocratic
families. However, his pride did not prevent him from indulging in an occasional raid on a neighboring
hen-roost, where he was caught one night with a large amount of feathered property in his possession.
The following morning he was conveyed to Burlington, the county-seat of Boone County, to be
whipped for the first time in public. Judge Piatt made it a point to see that Prince was not whipped
more than was allowable by law, which sometimes occurred; but the crestfallen prisoner was unaware
of his presence until after he had received his lashing and was released, a much-relieved but
shamefaced Negro. Espying the well-known face of his master in the crowd that had assembled to
witness his humiliation, he sobbed, "Good Lawd, Marse Jedge, dis am a disgrace on de hull fambly!"
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* Of Federal Hall. He had been, previously, a Revolutionary officer. [original footnote]
"Kenneth Lake" [Daniel Piatt], "Broken Bits of Old Kentucky: In a Riverside Neighborhood of Boone County," The Hesperian Tree: A Souvenir of the Ohio Valley, edited by John James Piatt. North Bend, Ohio: John Scott & Co., 1900. p. 345-346. See also Robert M. Ireland, "The Debate over Whipping Criminals in Kentucky," Register of the Kentucky Historical Society, 100 (Winter 2002): 5–27.