#21 Reuben Wood

Reuben Wood

Born: 1792 or 1793

Died: October 1, 1864

Political Party: Democrat

Term of Office: December 12, 1850- July 13, 1853

Buried: Woodland Cemetery Cleveland, Ohio

No. 36 of 58

    Reuben Wood was born in Vermont in either 1792 or 1793 to a minister father. At age 15 he went to live with his Uncle in Canada after his father's death. When the War of 1812, Wood was forced into the Canadian military. Wood escaped Canada and made it back to the United States, where he enlisted into the American military for awhile. After the war, he moved back to Vermont to be with his mother and got a job teaching school, as he also studied law.

   In 1818, Wood moved to Cleveland with his young family and was admitted to the Ohio bar. At the time, Cleveland was really just a town of about 600 people. As Wood practiced law in Cleveland, he started to make a name for himself. He entered politics in 1825 by becoming a member of the Ohio State Senate. In 1830, Wood left the State Senate to became a judge on the Court of Common Pleas for the Third Judicial District. Then in 1833, he was chosen to be a Justice on the Ohio Supreme Court. He was a member of the state Supreme Court until 1847.
  
    In 1850, Wood's credibility established while serving in the Ohio State Supreme Court made it possible for him to run for Governor as a Democrat. He won the election, but he took office at an awkward time. The Ohio Constitutional Convention of 1850 was already in session. The new States Constitution stated that Governors would be elected in odd numbered years from then on. And so, Wood's 1850 election was only good for 1 year, instead of 2. Even so, in the election of 1851, Wood won reelection.

     Wood resigned the Governorship in July 1853 when he was appointed to become America's consul to Chile. He returned home from Chile in 1855 to retire to his farm near Cleveland. He died in 1864.

   Reuben Wood's gravesite was the 3rd of 6 new Governor grave visits that I made on a day trip to Cleveland in late March 2017. The 2nd in Woodland Cemetery.

The stone is aged and hard to read. But you can make out the words :"Reuben Wood" at the top and "Governor of Ohio" at the bottom. So I knew that I found the right one.

My kids and I and Governor Wood

#6 Thomas Worthington

Thomas Worthington

Born: July 16, 1773

Died: June 20, 1827

Political Party: Democratic Republican

Term of Office: December 8, 1814 - December 14, 1818

Buried: Grandview Cemetery Chillicothe, Ohio

No. 28 of 56

     In early 2017, I have been going through these older post and updating them with more information. But for some reason when I updated this page, it was somehow marked as a new post and is now one of the more recent one's. But for the record this post fits in inbetween Duncan McArthur and Edward Tiffin. All part of my stop to Grandview Cemetery in Chillicothe back in the fall of 2012.

      Worthington was born in what is now West Virginia. As a young man he inherited a large plantation from his uncle. Then in 1796, Worthington helped future Governor Duncan McArthur survey the Virginia Military District. As payment, he received land near Chillicothe, Ohio. He would end up selling his property and freed the 130 slaves that he inherited. His brother in law Edward Tiffin, who would later become Ohio's first Governor, also freed his slaves and followed Worthington to Chillicothe. Many of the now freed, former slaves also followed Worthington to Chillicothe and helped him build his mansion, named "Adena"

   Worthington and Tiffin both grew to become politically prominent in the Northwest Territory. Worthington served in the Territorial legislature from 1799-1803. At the time, Territorial Governor Arthur St. Clair greatly opposed Ohio statehood. And so Worthington greatly opposed him. Worthington personally traveled to Washington DC to talk President Jefferson into making Ohio a State. As a result, Jefferson fired St.Clair from his post as Territorial Governor, and he approved the Enabling Act of 1802, which called for Ohioans to form a constitutional convention and to start the process of statehood. Thanks to the efforts of Thomas Worthington, Ohio became the 17th state in 1803.

     Thomas Worthington was a delegate at Ohio's Constitutional convention. Then after a brief time in the Ohio General Assembly, Worthington was chosen as one of two of Ohio's first US Senators. While his brother-in-law Edward Tiffin became Ohio's first Governor. He served in the US Senate until 1807. In 1808, he returned to the Ohio General Assembly for a 2 year term. Then in 1810, he returned to the US Senate. As a US Senator, he called for military relief for Ohioans who were having problems with Shawnee Indian Chief Tecumseh and his brother the Prophet.

  In 1814, Worthington left the Senate and was elected Ohio's 6th Governor. As Governor he advocated for a canal system, worked on prison reform and supported free public education, among many other things. He won reelection in 1816 and moved the capital from Chillicothe to Columbus. 

    Later in life he served in the Ohio House of Representatives. He died in 1827 in New York City.

   Worthington was the 3rd of 4 Governor gravesites that I visited in Grandview Cemetery in Chillicothe in the fall of 2012. 



Worthington's "Adena" home

   Worthington was the third governor I found in Grandview Cemetery back in October 2012

    Governor Worthington and I

#26 John Brough

John Brough

Born: September 17, 1811

Died: August 29, 1865

Political Party: Union & Democrat

Term of Office: January 11, 1864-August 29, 1865

Buried: Woodland Cemetery Cleveland, Ohio

No. 35 of 58

     John Brough was born in Marietta, Ohio in 1811. He was orphaned at the age of 11 and became an apprentice to a local newspaper shortly after. He studied at Ohio University in Athens while working at the Athens Mirror newspaper. At the age of 20, he bought his first newspaper-  the Marietta based Democratic newspaper the "Washington County Republican". This was more then 20 years before the words Democrat and Republican would come to be opposites of each other.

    Brough would eventually sell Washington County Republican to buy the Lancaster Eagle-another Democrat newspaper with whom his brother was a partner. As the Eagle gained state wide recognition, Brough starter to get more and more involved in politics. In 1835, Brough became clerk of the Ohio State Senate. Then in 1838, he was elected to the Ohio House of Representatives. From 1839-1845 he served as state auditor. In 1844, Whigs had a good election year in the state and drove most Democrats out of office, including Brough.

    Brough left politics in 1845 and bought another newspaper with his brother, the Cincinnati Advertiser. They renamed it the Cincinnati Enquirer. This newspaper became very successful. In the years leading up to the Civil War, the Cincinnati Enquirer was a very popular Democratic newspaper out west. Around this time he also served as the president of the Madison and Indianapolis railroad. Brough was known as such a large, hard working man, that the railroad company named one of their train's the "John Brough".

    As the Civil War hit, the Union party arose in Ohio. The Union party consisted of both Democrats and Republicans who found common ground on their opposition to the South seceding from the Union. And although Brough was a life long Democrat, who ran many Democrat newspapers, he joined the Union party and became their candidate for Governor in 1863. He won by such a large margin that it was the most decisive victory of any state's Governor elections up to that point.

As Governor, Brough assembled troops for the war effort, as well as offering the state militia to the federal government for whatever service they deemed necessary. He improved conditions in military hospitals and pushed for a tax that would aid military families. In the Presidential election of 1864, Brough supported the reelection of Republican President Abraham Lincoln instead of his Democratic challenger General George McCellan. When the war ended, the alliance of Republicans and war Democrats that made up the Union party in Ohio had dissolved. With the party platform that swept him into office in 1863 now gone, Brough decided to not seek reelection in 1865.

    During a walk on the Statehouse grounds one day, Governor Brough fell and bruised his hand and badly sprained his ankle. Gangrene eventually set into his ankle injury and killed Governor Brough about 4 months before the end of his term. 

   John Brough's gravesite was the 2nd of 6 new Governor grave visits that I made on a day trip to Cleveland in late March 2017. After visiting the gravesite of Governor Frank Lausche in Clevelands Calvary cemetery we went to Clevelands Woodland cemetery. In Woodland cemetery there are 2 Governors buried. John Brough was the first one that we came to. The next one was Reuben Wood. 

Governor Brough, my kids and I