Home County: St. Louis

Term of Service on the Supreme Court of Missouri: May 1823 - July 1825

Judge Rufus Pettibone was born May 26, 1784, in Litchfield, Connecticut.[i] He graduated from William College in Massachusetts in 1805, at the age of 21.[ii] He decided to study law in the office of a large practice located in Onondaga County, New York.[iii] After studying in Albany, New York, Pettibone was admitted to the bar in 1808.[iv] In 1810, Pettibone settled in Vernon, New York, where he was elected to the lower branch of the state legislature in 1812.[v]

Pettibone moved to Missouri in 1817, settling in St. Louis the following year.[vi] By 1818, he had accepted a partnership with one of the preeminent lawyers in the area, Colonel Rufus Easton.[vii]  Governor McNair appointed Pettibone to the position of circuit court judge of the Second Judicial Circuit on November 30, 1820.[viii] He served as judge of that circuit – which included Callaway, Lincoln, Montgomery, Pike, Ralls and St. Charles counties – from February 1821 until his resignation in 1823.[ix]

In May 1823, Pettibone accepted the appointment of Governor Alexander McNair to the Supreme Court of Missouri to fill the vacancy left by Judge John D. Cook’s resignation.[x] Pettibone was the fourth judge of the Supreme Court of Missouri.

He served on the Supreme Court of Missouri from 1823 until his death July 31, 1825, in St. Charles.[xi]