WI BIO - Dane Co - PETTENGILL, Asa E.
Biographical Review of Dane County, WI. Chicago: Biographical Review Pub. Co. 
1893, Vol I, pp 129-130

Asa E. PETTENGILL, one of the citizens of Madison [Dane County, WI], hold the 
important office of Clerk of the Municipal Court of the city, having been in 
that position since January 1875, and has been continually in office since, 
having served nearly all of his third term of six years. He was appointed by 
Judge A. B. BRALEY and was under him for fourteen years, and when this Judge 
died in 1879, he has served since under Judge KEYS. Mr. PETTENGILL has been 
a very prominent clerk and has many friends in the city. Coming to the city 
of Madison in 1868, he engaged in business for two years, later going to 
Sioux City [Woodbury County], Iowa, and for sixteen months engaged in the 
hotel business, opening a new hotel, which he called the Madison House.

Asa E. PETTENGILL now [next] went to Independence [Buchanan County], Iowa, 
and conducted the St. James Hotel there until 1873, when he sold out there on 
account of the ill health of his wife, returning to the city of Madison [Dane 
County, WI], where he spent about a year in retirement, then being appointed 
to the position he now holds. He has been active in local affairs in any way 
that he has thought looking toward the bettering of the city of his 
residence. He is a Democrat and a local worker for his party. Our subject 
is a Master Mason and has been so for nearly forty years, and a social being 
and has a natural love for good company, having many jolly friends on his 
list of acquaintances.

The birth of Asa E. PETTENGILL took place in Sheldon [Franklin County], 
Vermont, 21 March 1816, and came of New England parentage, his father, John 
[PETTENGILL], was a native of Salisbury [now in Merrimack County, but at that 
time in either Rockingham or Hillsboro County], New Hampshire, and he was the 
son of Samuel [PETTENGILL], who was either born in Scotland or of Scotch 
parentage, and lived and died in New Hampshire in the old town of Salisbury 
[Merrimack County, NH], being then in middle life. He [Samuel] was a farmer 
by occupation and was a soldier through the Revolutionary War, and was in 
many engagements.

John PETTENGILL was yet a young man when he lost his father, and he was yet 
single when he went up to Vermont and began life as a young farmer and was 
there married to Miss Sarah STONE, a Vermont lady [p 130] by birth and 
rearing, coming of New England stock. After marriage [they] lived on a farm 
in the town of Sheldon [Franklin County, VT] for some years. For a short 
time Mr. John PETTENGILL was a soldier in the War of 1812, but he took sick 
and his brother went as his substitute. In 1819 Mr. [John] PETTENGILL sold 
out and moved into the township of Milo, Yates County, New York, and began 
life there as an agriculturalist, where he resided for a number of years. 
Later he retired to Torrey [Yates County, NY] and spent his last years with 
his son, George W., and his life went out, like a lamp without oil, the day 
he was eighty years of age, 19 January 1870. John PETTENGILL had hardly 
known what is was to be sick, and was a quiet and very temperate man, with 
many friends. He was a strong Whig and [later] Republican in politics, and 
was active in school matters, having been a member of the School Board for 
years. He was a moralist in his belief, and in later life joined the 
Methodist Church, dying in that faith. His [John PETTENGILL's] wife [Sarah 
nee STONE] had died about 1850 of an attack of pleurisy, aged sixty-six 
years. She was, from early girlhood days, a strict Presbyterian and was the 
mother of ten children, six sons and four daughters, and all but one lived to 
be grown until past sixty years. The eldest of the family is now 
eighty-three years of age.

Asa E. PETTENGILL is the third son and sixth child and was reared and 
educated while at home upon his father's farm, and later attended an academy 
at Penn Yan, Yates County, New York. He had learned the trade of saddler and 
harnessmaker and worked at it for twelve years. Later he was a general 
merchant in Branchport [Yates County], New York, where he remained for a 
period of twelve years, and then went into the drug and grocery business, 
remaining in it for five years in Naples, Ontario County [NY]. Later he came 
west in 1867 and spent part of one year in Vernon County, Wisconsin, and then 
came to Madison [Dane County, WI] in 1868. His first presidential bot was 
cast for Martin VAN BUREN.

Asa E. PETTENGILL was married 17 December 1842 to Miss Mary A. GAMBY in 
Branchport [Yates County], New York, who was born in Yates County, New York, 
a few months after her father had died and she later went with her mother to 
Massachusetts, which was the latter's [the mother's] former home and there 
the widowed mother [Mrs. GAMBY, the mother of Mary A.] was a second time 
married and came to Branchport [NY], settling on a farm, but later went back 
to Massachusetts, where the husband and stepfather died. His name was Immer 
HUBBARD. Mrs. HUBBARD afterward came to Vernon County, Wisconsin, and died 
at the home of her son when sixty-six years of age. Mr. and Mrs. PETTENGILL 
are good and consistent people, but no creed followers. They [Asa E. and 
Mary A. (GAMBY) PETTENGILL] have no children.

Submitted by Cathy Kubly