Melville J. Salter | |
---|---|
Lieutenant Governor of Kansas | |
In office 1875–1877 | |
Preceded by | Elias S. Stover |
Succeeded by | Lyman U. Humphrey |
Melville Judson Salter (born Sardinia,New York,June 20,1834; [1] died Pawnee Station,Kansas,March 12,1896 [2] ) was a politician and civic leader who was twice elected the eighth Lieutenant Governor of Kansas serving under Governor Thomas A. Osborn.
Salter's family left their farm in New York and moved to Battle Creek,Michigan when Salter was one year old. In 1840 the family moved again,to Marshall,Michigan,where he became a Baptist at the age of 16. Salter went west to California in 1852 to seek his fortune in the gold fields. [3] In 1856 he learned of the death of his mother and decided to return home;while in Panama,a chance decision to take a railroad excursion with a friend saved him from the Watermelon Riot. [4] He remained in Michigan until 1871. Salter then bought land near Thayer in Chetopa Township,Neosho County,Kansas,where he served for five years as township trustee. [5] For several years he was the president of the Settlers' Protective Association,which was organized to protect settlers' land claims from competing claims by Native Americans and railroads. The settlers' claims were vindicated by a US Supreme Court decision (Leavenworth Lawrence and Galveston Railroad Company v. United States) delivered in 1876. Salter was elected as a Republican to be lieutenant governor of Kansas in 1874 and again in 1876. He resigned in 1877 to take a post as registrar of the land office in Independence,Kansas,which he held until 1884. By 1890 Salter had moved from Independence to Pawnee Station in Bourbon County,Kansas,where he ran a store with two of his sons. [6]
Salter served on the board of trustees of the Kansas State Agricultural College (now Kansas State University) from 1875 to 1880,and served as the chairman for four years. [7]
Salter was a strict Baptist,and one source tells the story of how,asked to organize a dance for the governor,Lt. Gov. Salter instead read psalms and prayers until all the musicians left. [8]
Salter married Sarah Hinkle in 1856;they had three sons. His son Lewis A. Salter (1858-1916),a lawyer and businessman,married Susanna M. Kinsey,who as Susanna M. Salter became the first elected female mayor in the United States. [9]
Stafford County is a county located in the U.S. state of Kansas. Its county seat is St. John. As of the 2020 census,the county population was 4,072. The county is named in honor of Lewis Stafford,a captain of Company E,First Kansas Infantry,who died at the Battle of Young's Point during the American Civil War.
Republic County is a county located in the state of Kansas,south from the Nebraska state line. Its county seat and largest city is Belleville. As of the 2020 census,the county population was 4,674. The county was named after the Republican River.
Ellsworth County is a county located in the U.S. state of Kansas. Its county seat and most populous city is Ellsworth. As of the 2020 census,the county population was 6,376. The county was named after Fort Ellsworth.
Ellis County is a county located in the U.S. state of Kansas. Its county seat and most populous city is Hays. As of the 2020 census,the county population was 28,934. The county was named for George Ellis,a first lieutenant of the Twelfth Kansas Infantry. Ellis County is the official German Capital of Kansas. German immigrants settled in Hays,Ellis,Victoria,and nearby villages in the 1870s and 1880s.
Edwards County is a county located in the U.S. states of Kansas. Its county seat and most populous city is Kinsley. As of the 2020 census,the county population was 2,907,The county was founded in 1874 and named for W. C. Edwards,of Hutchinson,a pioneer settler who owned much land in the area.
Gaines Township is a civil township of Genesee County in the U.S. state of Michigan. The population was 6,664 at the 2020 census.
Marietta is a city in and the county seat of Washington County,Ohio,United States. It is located in southeastern Ohio at the confluence of the Muskingum and Ohio Rivers,11 miles (18 km) northeast of Parkersburg,West Virginia. As of the 2020 census,Marietta has a population of 13,385 people. It is the principal city of the Marietta micropolitan area,which includes all of Washington County,and is the second-largest city in the Parkersburg–Marietta–Vienna combined statistical area.
Bleeding Kansas,Bloody Kansas,or the Border War was a series of violent civil confrontations in Kansas Territory,and to a lesser extent in western Missouri,between 1854 and 1859. It emerged from a political and ideological debate over the legality of slavery in the proposed state of Kansas.
Susanna Madora Salter was an American politician and activist. She served as mayor of Argonia,Kansas,becoming the first woman elected to serve as mayor in the United States and one of the first women to serve in any political office in the United States.
Thomas Ewing Jr. was an attorney,the first chief justice of Kansas and leading free state advocate,Union Army general during the American Civil War,and two-term United States Congressman from Ohio,1877–1881. He narrowly lost the 1879 campaign for Ohio Governor.
Pawnee is a ghost town in Geary County,Kansas,United States,which briefly served as the first official capital of the Kansas Territory in 1855. Pawnee was the territorial capital for exactly five days –the legislature met there from July 2 to July 6 –before legislators voted to move the capital to Shawnee Mission,which is located in present-day Fairway. It may be the shortest-lived capital of any U.S. state or territory.
Sunbury Township is located in Livingston County,Illinois. As of the 2010 census,its population was 229 and it contained 103 housing units.
William Seelye Linton was an American businessman and politician who served two terms in the U.S. House of Representatives from Michigan from 1893 to 1897.
Owen Brown,father of abolitionist John Brown,was a wealthy cattle breeder and land speculator who operated a successful tannery in Hudson,Ohio. He was also a civil servant and a fervent,outspoken abolitionist. Brown was a founder of multiple institutions including the Western Reserve Anti-Slavery Society,Western Reserve College,and the Free Congressional Church. Brown gave speeches advocating the immediate abolition of slavery,and organized the Underground Railroad in the town of Hudson,Ohio.
The timeline of Kansas details past events that happened in what is present day Kansas. Located on the eastern edge of the Great Plains,the U.S. state of Kansas was the home of sedentary agrarian and hunter-gatherer Native American societies,many of whom hunted American bison. The region first appears in western history in the 16th century at the time of the Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire,when Spanish conquistadors explored the unknown land now known as Kansas. It was later explored by French fur trappers who traded with the Native Americans. It became part of the United States in the Louisiana Purchase of 1803. In the 19th century,the first American explorers designated the area as the "Great American Desert."
William Parker Cutler was an American railroad executive and politician who served as a U.S. Representative from Ohio for one term from 1861 to 1863.
Lyman Underwood Humphrey was the 11th governor of Kansas.
Ephraim Cutler was an early Northwest Territory and Ohio political leader and jurist.
Samuel L. Rose was an American lawyer,judge,and politician. He was a pioneer settler of Beaver Dam,Wisconsin,and represented that part of the state in the Wisconsin State Senate and State Assembly (1855). He later served as an Iowa circuit court judge and is the namesake of Rose Grove Township,Hamilton County,Iowa.