Sidney Edgerton

Sidney Edgerton ( born August 17, 1818 in Cazenovia, Madison County, New York, † July 19, 1900 in Akron, Ohio ) was an American politician and from 1864 to 1865, the first governor of the Montana Territory.

Early years

Sidney Edgerton attended the local schools of his home and then the Lima Academy, where he later taught for a time as a teacher. In 1844 he moved to Ohio, where he taught at a school in Tallmadge. He then studied at the Cincinnati Law School Law. After his successful examination and his admission to the bar he practiced in Akron.

Political career

In 1848 he was a delegate to the founding congress of the short-lived Free Soil Party. Later he joined the Republican Party, founded in 1854. Between 1852 and 1856 Edgerton prosecutor in Summit County. In 1856 he was a delegate to the first Republican National Convention in Philadelphia, was nominated on the John C. Frémont as a presidential candidate. Between 1859 and 1863 Edgerton sat as an MP in the U.S. House of Representatives. There he witnessed the outbreak of the Civil War. In this war he took time attend as a colonel in the Union Army.

In 1863 he was appointed federal judge in Idaho Territory. At that time he became one of the advocates for the establishment of a separate Montana Territory. Just a year later he was appointed the first territorial governor of this area. Edgerton exercised this office in the former capital, Bannack for only one year.

After his brief tenure in Montana Edgerton returned to Akron, where he worked as a lawyer again. He is also passed in 1900. Since 1848 he was married to Mary Wright, with whom he had nine children. His wife died already in 1885.

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