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cemetery. The other two, Laura and Harry, live with their parents in Denver.
In 1891 he opened an office in Denver and moved there; he is now assistant city attorney of the city and is prospering financially.
Moses W. Pettigrew was born on a farm in Brown county, Illinois, April 27, 1855; moved to Iowa in 1867 and to Kansas in 1872; he received a common school and business education, studied law and was admitted to the bar April 8, 1874.
He came to Norton February, 1878 and in November of that year was elected county attorney.
Established the Norton Advance about May of 1878 and published it nearly two years. The principal prosecutions while he was county attorney were Cummings and Gandy, for murder of John Landis, Wyatt for the murder of Chas. Mannus, whom he convicted of murder in the first degree, also prosecuted several cases from Decatur county for murder but failed to convict, the Wheelers were in it.
During his term all of Kansas, west of Norton county was attached for judicial purposes and each term of court saw a wealth of the bone and sinew of the "deestrick" sent up for "hoss stealin."
He says we averaged fully a dozen per year and being on the border of Nebraska and Colorado in nearly each case a requisition was necessary.There was an organized gang in Decatur county which was broken up and driven out by Pettigrew and Jack Conarty during their term of office. He thinks the prosecution of Cummings would have terminated differently it some of their witnesses had not been spirited away. By this he means 0. T. D. LaRue. Pettigrew was active in politics from the time of his arrival here, but the republicans got the impression that he was tricky and were afraid of him. His manipulation of what is known as the Clark convention in 1881, at the time Little and Shoemaker were nominated was the straw that broke the camel's back. Although Pettigrew had no more to do with that than Ed Hoverson and James Lobsitz. It is the opinion of the writer that the nominations in that convention were fairly made but the action of the chairman, Rev. Clark, in refusing to permit a division when called for by Wallace Harmonson and afterward refused to entertain an appeal from the ruling of the chair which was clearly wrong, gave the opposition a pretext for a bolt which they used effectively, defeating all the ticket except Vining for sheriff, and he was only saved by the weakness of his opponent, Mr. George Thompson, who since that time has been known by the name of Tecumpseh's (sic) cousin an appellation he received because of some of his spiritualistic dreams he told during the campaign. Pettigrew left here in the spring of 1882 and was located for some years at Sundance, Wyoming; after leaving here domestic trouble led to a separation: and divorce between him and his wife; he |
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