SUGHRUE, PATRICK F   (VETERAN UNION) - Ford County, Kansas | PATRICK F   (VETERAN UNION) SUGHRUE - Kansas Gravestone Photos

Patrick F (VETERAN UNION) SUGHRUE

Maple Grove (AKA Greencrest Memorial Gardens) Cemetery
Ford County,
Kansas

US Army
Company G 95 Illinois Infantry
Civil War Union
1844 - 1906

Born in County Kerry, Ireland and died in Topeka, Kansas

Dodge City , Kansas lawman during the final days of the cattle era, Patrick originally hailed from County Kerry, Ireland. He and twin brother, Michael, were born to Humphrey and Mary Sughrue on February 17, 1844. When the boys were just three years old, their mother died and when they were ten, they immigrated with their father and sister to the United States. After living in Illinois for a time the family moved to Kansas about 1858. Patrick worked as a blacksmith in Leavenworth , Kansas before becoming a policeman in Dodge City , Kansas in March, 1877. The following year, he was elected town constable in November 1878. In 1884, he was elected Ford County sheriff and was in office during the final days of the cattle era. When an epidemic of Splenic fever among the Texas longhorns caused the Kansas borders to be closed to Texas cowboys and their herds, Sughrue was tasked with the difficult job of turning back the trail-hardened drovers.

In July, 1884, Sughrue arrested Mysterious Dave Mather, who the year before, had worked for him as a deputy. Charged with killing Assistant Marshal Thomas Nixon , Mather was later acquitted. The following year, in May, 1885, Mather was arrested for killing another man, but never came to trial as he was soon run out of town by Marshal Bill Tilghman. During his years as a Dodge City lawman , he traveled as far as New York and Fort Worth, Texas to pick up prisoners becoming known as one of the best lawmen in the west. After Dodge City finally settled down, Sughrue served for many years as the postmaster at nearby Fort Dodge . In 1906, he met an untimely death when he fell down an open elevator shaft in the Copeland Hotel in Topeka, Kansas while he was attending a political convention.

His twin brother Mike often worked as his deputy.

Contributed on 7/8/13 by tomtodd
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Record #: 752

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Submitted: 7/8/13 • Approved: 7/12/16 • Last Updated: 9/6/19 • R752-G0-S3

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