High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! Thomas Stevenson Pettit (December 21, 1843 – November 29, 1931) was a newspaper publisher and politician from the U.S. state of Kentucky. Orphaned at age ten, he found work in a printing house in his hometown of Frankfort. In 1864, he moved to Owensboro, Kentucky, and purchased a newspaper called the Monitor. He incurred the wrath of Union Army General Stephen G. Burbridge because he vigorously criticized the Republicans` policies during the Civil War; Burbridge ordered Pettit arrested and relocated behind Confederate lines for the duration of the war.