Ohio Governor Gravesites: #18 Mordecai Bartley

Mordecai Bartley

Born: December 16, 1783
Died: October 10, 1870
Political Party: Whig
Term of Office: December 3, 1844 - December 12, 1846
Buried: Mansfield Cemetery Mansfield, Ohio
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   Mordecai Bartley was born in Fayette County, Pennsylvania in 1783 to a farming family. He married in 1804 and in 1809 moved his young family to Jefferson County, Ohio.

    When the War of 1812 broke out, Bartley served as a Captain on an infantry company that he, himself started. Eventually General William Henry Harrison appointed him adjutant of one of his regiments. After the war, Bartley moved his family to a new farm near Mansfield, Ohio. Due to the families involvement in merchant activities, on top of farming, the family moved into the town of Mansfield to be closer to the action in 1834.

    While Bartley was doing well with his farm and other business ventures, he got involved in politics. He served as a state senator in 1817 and 1818. Then in 1822, he was first elected to the U.S. House of Representatives. He served 4-2 year terms in Congress and then decided to retire from politics and not seek reelection in 1830. He went home to Mansfield and tended to his business ventures.

   In 1844, Mordecai Bartley's son, Thomas, was serving as Speaker of the Ohio Senate. When Governor Wilson Shannon resigned to become President John Tyler's minister to Mexico, Thomas Bartley became the 17th Governor of Ohio, place holding the office for the rest of Shannon's term. 1844 was an election year, and the Whig party approached Mordecai Bartley to be their candidate for Governor of Ohio. He accepted, beating his Democratic challenger and future Governor David Tod. And so, on December 3, 1844, Mordecai Bartley was sworn in as Ohio's 18th Governor, succeeding his son Thomas as Governor. This is one of the very few times that a father succeeded his son to such a high political office.

    Mordecai Bartley's single 2 year term as Governor was busy. With Whig's controlling the state legislature they were able to accomplish a lot. They passed the Kelly Key Bank Bill of 1845, which stabilized the state banking system. He was also well known for his opposition to the fugitive slave laws and Ohio's laws limiting basic rights to African American's. He also opposed the Mexican War, but did his part to round up troops for the war effort. Bartley did not seek reelection and retired from politics for good, once again attending to his business ventures in Mansfield. He died in 1870.

    I visited the gravesite of Governor Mordecai Bartley on March 4, 2012, a Sunday afternoon. We had just done our northern KY / Cincinatti trip the Sunday before. In that week we had gotten our new camera in the mail. We had been very disappointed with the picture quality of our old camera for awhile now. And I was very disappointed with how some of the pictures turned out from the previous week. I really wanted to go somewhere to try out the new camera. Mansfield is only about an hour or so away and I knew that there was a Governor buried there. So after church we headed for Mansfield for a little site seeing. Mansfield is also the area where most of the movie 'Shawshank Redemption' was filmed. I didn't look to much into it. But I did map out the Ohio State Reformatory ( aka Shawshank prison) to see while we were in the area. As it turns out the prison was closed til May. But I found a website that gives more filming locations for the movie in the area. So sometime I will make it over there and see all that. Mordecai Bartley's grave wasn't to hard to find, since I knew from findagrave that he just across from the large John Sherman gravesite.