Richard F. Pettigrew

Richard Franklin Pettigrew ( born July 23, 1848 in Ludlow, Windsor County, Vermont; † October 5, 1926 in Sioux Falls, South Dakota ) was an American politician ( Republican Party ), the 1881-1883 Delegate of the Dakota Territory was in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1889 to 1901 and U.S. senator for the state of South Dakota.

Early years

His family moved to Wisconsin in 1854, where he attended the public schools and the Evansville Academy in Evansville. In 1864 he went to Beloit College in Beloit. He taught for one year and then studied law in Iowa. He attended from 1867 the Law Department of the University of Wisconsin- Madison. Then he moved in 1869 after Dakota, where he worked as deputy U.S. surveyor. He settled in Sioux Falls. He was admitted as a solicitor in 1871 and practiced from there. He was also continued to work as a surveyor and real estate dealer.

Political career

Pettigrew was a member of the Territorial House of Representatives in 1872 and in 1877 and 1879 in the Territorial Council acts. Then he was elected as a delegate to the 47th Congress and served from March 4, 1881 to March 3, 1883. He ran unsuccessfully in 1882 for reelection to the 48th U.S. Congress. In 1885 he was again a member of the Territorial Council. With the addition of South Dakota as a State into the Union, he was in 1889 elected to the U.S. Senate in 1895 and re-elected. He worked there from 2 November 1889 to 3 March 1901. He left on 17 June 1896, the Republican Party and the Silver Republicans joined them. Pettigrew ran unsuccessfully in 1900 for re-election. In the time in the U.S. Senate was chairman of the Committee on Indian Affairs ( 54th and 55th U.S. Congress ).

Then he moved to New York City where he worked in a law practice. Later he returned to Sioux Falls, where he was politically and professionally active until his death in 1926. He was buried at Woodlawn Cemetery.