|
Senate Years of Service: 1889-1897; 1897-1901 Party: Republican; Silver Republican
 |
PETTIGREW, Richard Franklin, a Delegate from the Territory of Dakota and a Senator from South Dakota; born in
Ludlow, Windsor County, Vt., July 23, 1848; moved with his parents to Wisconsin in 1854; attended
the public schools and Evansville Academy, Evansville, Wis.; entered Beloit College, Beloit, Wis., in
1864; spent one year teaching school and studying law in Iowa; entered the law department of the
University of Wisconsin at Madison in 1867; went to Dakota in 1869 in the employ of a United States
deputy surveyor; settled in Sioux Falls; admitted to the bar about 1871; practiced law; engaged in
surveying and the real estate business; member, Territorial house of representatives 1872; served in
the Territorial council 1877, 1879; elected as a Republican Delegate to the Forty-seventh Congress
(March 4, 1881-March 3, 1883); unsuccessful candidate for reelection in 1882 to the Forty-eighth
Congress; member, Territorial council 1885; upon the admission of South Dakota as a State into the
Union was elected as a Republican to the United States Senate in 1889; reelected in 1895 and served
from November 2, 1889, to March 3, 1901; left the Republican party on June 17, 1896, to join the
Silver Republicans; unsuccessful candidate for reelection in 1900; chairman, Committee on Indian
Affairs (Fifty-fourth and Fifty-fifth Congresses); engaged in the practice of law in New York City;
returned to Sioux Falls and was active in politics and business until his death in that city October 5,
1926; interment in Woodlawn Cemetery.
BibliographyAmerican National Biography; Dictionary of American Biography; Hendrickson, Kenneth Elton, Jr. The Public Career of
Richard F. Pettigrew of South Dakota, 1848-1926. South Dakota Department of History
Report and Historical Collections 34 (1968): 146-311; Pettigrew, Richard F. Imperial Washington: The Story of American Public Life from 1870 to 1920. 1922.
Reprint. New York: Arno Press, 1970.
|