Biography
George Pettibone was a Denver storekeeper and former Western Federation of Miners executive board member, blacklisted from the mines after the 1892 Coeur dAlene strike. On February 17, 1906, Pinkerton agents seized Pettibone along with WFM president Charles Moyer and WFM secretary-treasurer Bill Haywood in Denver and rendered them to Idaho without normal extradition proceedings, on charges of conspiring to murder former Idaho Governor Frank Steunenberg. The prosecution case rested entirely on a confession by Harry Orchard, obtained by Pinkerton detective James McParland. Pettibone was tried separately beginning in late 1907 and acquitted by an Ada County jury on January 4, 1908, after nearly two years of pretrial detention without bail. He died of cancer seven months after his acquittal.
Daily Worker, July 22, 1929, page 5: Vern Smith’s historical article recalls the February 1906 Denver arrests and removal to Idaho without extradition, the 1907 proceedings before Judge Woods, William Borah’s prosecution, Clarence Darrow’s defense, Harry Orchard’s testimony and the mass defense movement. Its collective statement that all three were acquitted compresses their distinct procedural outcomes; it does not replace individual case records or provide new exact arrest/release dates. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1929/1929-ny/v06-n116-NY-jul-22-1929-DW-LOC.pdf
