Appleton's Cyclopedia of American Biography, edited by James
Grant Wilson, John Fiske and Stanley L. Klos. Six volumes, New York: D. Appleton
and Company, 1887-1889 and 1999. Virtualology.com warns that these 19th Century
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A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
John
Pollard Gaines
by:
John Calvin Gaines III.
Born September 22,
1795 in Augusta County Virginia to Abner Legrand Gaines and Elizabeth Mathews
Gaines. His grandfathers and great-grandfather served during the Revolutionary
War. He received an education and studied law, he volunteered in the War of
1812. He was a lawyer with his practice in Boone County, Kentucky. He was a
state legislator in Kentucky during the 1820's and 1830's. He volunteered and
was appointed the rank of "Major" for the War with Mexico in 1846. He and
some 80 soldiers were captured at Incarnation in January 1847. They were held
captive in Mexico City until August. While a prisoner his district back in Boone
County Kentucky elected him to the 30th United States Congress. At the end of
his term as congressman he returned to Boone County and in October of 1849 he
accepted the position of Governor of the Territory of Oregon. Abraham Lincoln
refused this position first, how different history may have been if he had gone
to Oregon.
At the end of
Governor Gaines' term in 1853 he settled on his farm just outside Salem, Oregon.
In 1854 he and two of his sons (Archibald & Abner) drove over 200 head of cattle
from Kentucky and Arkansas across the plains to Oregon. 35 of these were pure
bred Durham.
Governor Gaines'
appointment to the governorship cost him the death of several of his family. Two
daughters (Harriet & Florella) in 1850 in Brazil, his wife (Elizabeth) in 1851
in a fall from a horse, at which time his remaining children were sent back to
relatives in the east. His daughter Matilda died in Tennessee in the spring of
1857, it was the last of several blows his poor body and soul could not
overcome. He died December 9, 1857 and is interred in the Old Pioneer Cemetery
at Salem, Oregon.
