Milo Demertus Pettibone (1793 - 1842)

Born 18 Aug 1793 in Granby, Hartford, Connecticut, United States

Ancestors

Husband of Ann Pamela (Ball) Pettibone — married 1824 in Delaware, Ohio, United States

Descendants

Died 12 Sep 1842 at age 49 in Delaware, Ohio, United States

Biography

Milo was born in 1793. He is the son of Chauncey Pettibone and Theodosia Hayes. ^[1]

He was an attorney-at-law and he was the first president of The Delaware County (Ohio) Agricultural Society. (Find-A-Grave)
Burial: Oak Grove Cemetery, Delaware, Delaware County, Ohio,

Milo D. Pettibone arrived in Delaware, Ohio, in 1818 at the age of twenty-five. He was the second lawyer to arrive in town and was believed to be a Yale graduate. An unnamed contemporary of Milo's described him as follows: . .."He was sociable, honest, and possessed of exemplary habits. His most decided convictions led him to advocate the abolition of slavery, which he looked upon as the most wicked and nefarious institution in the world" [J. Wilbur Jacoby, History of Marion County, Ohio and Representative Citizens, p. 181].

Ann Pamela Ball grew up in New York City. In 1817 her father died, and her mother moved to Charlestown, Indiana, with her children. Three years later Ann's mother died, and Ann moved to Delaware, Ohio, in 1820. Ann and Milo were married in 1824 [Baskin & Co., op. loc.].

Practice of the law in Ohio in the 1820s was physically demanding and frequently dangerous. There were no police officers and the only courthouses were in widely separate county seats. The circuit judge and five or six members of the bar traveled on horseback to each county seat on the circuit, handling the cases awaiting them as best they could. They usually carried their legal supplies and all their personal needs with them in saddlebags, packing what they could not carry on a packhorse, as literally nothing was available on the routes they were travelling.

It could take as many as eight to ten days through the wilderness in all kinds of weather to get from once county seat to another. And at all seasons of the year the judge and members of the bar had to swim their horses across any water that crossed the path, for there were no bridges or ferries. The horses were the only means they had to reach their destination. A man buying a horse in Ohio in the 1820s and even much later usually asked if the horse was a good swimmer, as that was considered one of the most valuable qualities of a saddle horse [Memoir of Judge Burnett, in History of Seneca County, Ohio (Warner, Beers & Co.), pp. 297-99]. The trail used by the circuit riders, which later became a stage coach route, was called the old Mud Pike. It started at Columbus, Ohio, and went through Delaware, Marion, Upper Sandusky, Lower Sandusky, and Maumee City. Milo D. Pettibone was a regular circuit rider in his earliest days at law. Ebenezer Lane, the first presiding judge of Seneca County, was a lawyer who lived at Norwalk, Ohio. He was said to have "administered the law honestly from the headwaters of the Sandusky to the mouth of that river when it was a most difficult and dangerous task to make the circuit. He was generally accompanied by the old bar, Purdy Spink, Coffinbury, Tom Backus, C. L Boalt, James Godman, Milo D. Pettibone, J. M. May, the Parish brothers, and others. Members of the bar were lawyers appointed by the State.

In a letter dated Delaware, Ohio, March 1st AD. 1820, Milo wrote to his Uncle Rufus as follows: "I have resided here about two years, but think it probable I shall go to Natchez where my brother Chauncey resides, before many months. The great number of attorneys here, but more particularly the scarcity of money, makes the practice of Law rather dull." Milo never moved his practice to Mississippi, but confirmation of the scarcity of money in the legal field of Ohio is found in a court record dated 24 September 1824 stating that Milo D. Pettibone, appointed by the State to the office of Prosecuting Attorney for one year in 1825, was allowed a salary of $40.00 per year, to be paid in "just proportions" at the close of each term of the court." [Jacoby, op. loc., p. 357].

The nature of crimes coming before the early courts ranged from murder to the most inconsequential petty offense. One example in the latter category was prosecuted by Milo D. Pettibone as reported on the docket of Marion County, Ohio, in the case of State vs. Eber Baker, September 1824. In this case, Eber Baker was convicted of selling spiritous liquor in less quantity than one quart, for which he was fined $1.00.

Milo and Ann (Ball) Pettibone had eight children, four sons and four daughters. As the years went by, Milo became very interested in buying and selling land. Marion County Probate records reveal more than 100 files concerning guardianship of Milo's various properties. In 1831 he laid out a village in Marion County on 900 acres that he owned, and the next year he named the village Waldo, the nickname of his newly born fourth child. He erected there several small houses and a double storied log-hewed tavern that was still standing in 1883, fifty years later. In that year the village was still standing, too, but it comprised only 100 acres. In 1996 the village, still in existence on some of its original acres, can be found on Route 23 two miles east and eight miles south of Marion, Ohio.

Milo D. Pettibone died in 1842 at the untimely age of 49. Ann (Ball) Pettibone married four years later a judge, Honorable Charles Switzer, also spelled Sweetser [Delaware County Marriage Records, 1832-1855, vol. 1]. It is possible that Ann (Ball) (Pettibone) Switzer died in 1852, as her oldest son-in-law, Israel Richardson (husband of Milo and Ann's daughter Estelle), was named guardian on 9 December 1852 of Waldo W. Pettibone, age 20 on November 19, 1852, Grace V. (or N.) Pettibone, age 15 on June 11, 1852, and Frances Isabella Pettibone, age 13 on October 1852.

Ann (Ball) Pettibone's death date is not known, but if she did live a full life span she would have suffered some traumatic events. Linton W. Pettibone, the oldest son of Milo and Ann, committed suicide in 1851, at the age of twenty-five. The fourth son of the family, Waldo, for whom the town had been so exuberantly named, was killed on picket duty in the Civil War at Culpeper, Virginia, on the Rapidan River, in early May 1864, aged thirty-two. Lt. Channing L. Pettibone, youngest son of the family and a member of the 4th Ohio Voluntary Infantry, Company E, was killed in action in the Battle of Spotsylvania at some time between 9 May and 20 May 1864, aged twenty-four.

Sources

1. ↑ Entered by Tom Bredehoft, Jun 8, 2012

• Tom Bredehoft, Pettibone Registry, page 234a, 371-2, see K. Pontius.
• "Find a Grave", database and images (https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/42694261/milo-demetrus-pettibone: accessed 08 October 2022), memorial page for Milo Demetrus Pettibone Sr. (28 Aug 1793–12 Sep 1842), Find A Grave: Memorial #42694261, citing Oak Grove Cemetery, Delaware, Delaware County, Ohio, USA.