Sunday, October 21, 2018

John White Geary - from Pennsylvania to San Francisco

Born in Westmoreland County in 1819, the son of Richard Geary and Margaret White, John White Geary has been described as ‘a giant of his times’. Literally so - he was 6’ 6”, and his life intersected with many of the most pivotal moments in American history. His brother Edward became a Presbyterian minister and was later a pioneer in Oregon.

John became an engineer, joined the Pennsylvania militia, led a regiment in the Mexican War of 1846, became US Postmaster for California, reaching the state via Panama just in time for the Gold Rush of 1849. In 1850 he was elected the first Mayor of San Francisco, but the family returned to Pennsylvania in 1852 for health reasons. After the death of his wife he was offered the governorship of Utah (which he declined) and then Kansas (which he accepted). He found himself embroiled in the early tensions of pro and anti slavery factions, and when Civil War broke out in 1861 he began recruiting troops for the Union Army, becoming a Colonel at the head of the First Brigade of the Eastern Army of the Potomac. When the war was over he became Governor of Pennsylvania.

He died in 1873 aged just 54. He had a state funeral; there are various monuments, streets and counties named after him.

‘… Geary possessed an ego to match his great stature. He shared the traits typical of the hearty Scotch-Irish pioneers of his Western Pennsylvania home. Stubborn to a fault, self-sufficient, of fiery independence, plain spoken, and possessed of a pride that countenanced no affront; these attributes, coupled with his, at times, shameless self-promotion invited envy, bitter rivalries and personality conflicts … As a staunch Presbyterian Christian, he came naturally to his aversion to slavery and had personally witnessed the excesses of the 'peculiar institution’...'

• Wikipedia entry here