Volume 14 , Issue 9

About Moorman "Moman" Pruiett

Moman Pruiett defended many cases in early Indian Territory. In November, 1910, though, Pruiett was on the prosecutions side in the trial of N. L. Miller vs. State of Oklahoma for the alleged murder in the Old Opera House Murder of Alva, Oklahoma>. Pruiett was working with the "Law Enforcement League" back then. It was thought that Moman's wife had relatives in the Alva area at this time (1910).

Moman's father was a Confederate Captain Warren Legrande Pruiett, Kentucky. Warren Legrand Pruiett, while serving in the Confederate Army during the Civil War, was captured and sent to a prisoner of war camp. He was released following the end of the fighting. He returned to find his homeland destroyed by the war and his first wife, Martha Harris Pruiett, dead. He had two sons, Oscar and Albert, and a daughter, Anna, by his first wife. On March 23, 1869, he married Elizabeth Louise Laws Moorman. She was 19 and he was 42. This was Captain Pruiett's second marriage. The Captain tried his hand at raising tobacco in 1880-82 - At some point they moved to Rogers, Arkansas while the captain cut beef for the railroad workers and his wife ran a bordering house, feed the railroad workers.

Moman's mother's folks were the Moormans near Elizabethtown, Hardin County, Kentucky. Moman's mother was Elizabeth Louisa "Betty" Moorman. Moman's mother Elizabeth Louisa Laws Moorman Pruiett, was his most dedicated, loyal, and staunch supporter. She saw him through years of poverty and deprivation and his time in prison, but she never gave upon her dream of him becoming a famous lawyer. She divorced her first husband, Thomas Laws, when he joined the Union Army at the outbreak of the Civil War.

Moman was born Moorman Pruiett (1873 near Louisville) aboard the Gray Eagle, a steamship operated by the Louisville and Evansville Packet Company, on the Ohio River between Louisville, Kentucky and Cincinnati, Ohio.

It was 1900 when Pruiett was 27 years of age -- average height, heavy square shoulders, robust brown neck which lint him the appearance of physical strength and endurance -- also coal black hair, black brows unnaturally shaggy and prominent.

The Texas Governor and later US Senator Charles A. Culberson paroled Moorman Pruiett from the Texas State prison at Rusk, Texas June 18, 1895. Three years previously Pruiett had been convicted of robbery and sentenced to five years in prison. Culberson's belief that Pruiett had reformed was justified in 1900 when he witnessed Moman taking the oath granting him the right to practice before the US Supreme Court. Moman Pruiett of Pauls Valley, I. T. formerly of Paris, Texas was admitted to practice before the Supreme Court in 1900 - that was just incidental to his real business in Washington - to save Chas. S. Bias from the gallows in southern Indian Territory.

Moman Pruiett had no schooling -- he served time in Arkansas before getting in trouble in Texas - he served 3 years of the 5 years in Texas prison when Gov. Culberson turned him over to Pruiett's mother -- a devoted, persistent women.
v Moman was considered a genius -- a little on the crooked side -- shefty -- head full of the damnedest brains with a belly full of guts - No education except for the law books he read in the attorney's office that he cleaned. Moman was tall and learned his lessons the hard say.   |  View or Add Comments (0 Comments)   |   Receive updates ( subscribers)  |   Unsubscribe

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