Thomas Worthington (governor)

Template:Short description Template:Other people Template:Redirect Template:Use mdy dates Template:Infobox officeholder Thomas Worthington (July 16, 1773Template:SpndJune 20, 1827) was an American politician who served as the sixth governor of Ohio.

Early life

Worthington was born in Berkeley County near Charles Town in the Colony of Virginia.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> In 1796, he married a Virginia woman, Eleanor Swearingen, who joined him in emigrating to Ross County, Ohio, where they emancipated their slaves. Worthington was of English descent, and his ancestors were loyalists during the reign of King Charles.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> The home they eventually built just outside Chillicothe was called Adena and is the namesake of the Adena culture.Template:Cn The first of their ten children, daughter Mary, married David Macomb, a future leader of the Texas Revolution. A son, also Thomas, graduated from West Point in 1827, held the rank of Brigadier General in the Ohio Militia, and later fought in the Mexican-American War and Civil War.<ref name="Cullum">Template:Cite web</ref>

Career

He served in the Territorial House of Representatives from 1799 to 1803 and served as a Ross county delegate to the State Constitutional Convention in 1802.<ref name=convention>Template:Cite journal</ref> He was a leader of the Chillicothe Junto, a group of Chillicothe Democratic-Republican politicians who brought about the admission of Ohio as a state in 1803 and largely controlled its politics for some years thereafter. Among his colleagues in the faction were Nathaniel Massie and Edward Tiffin.<ref>"Thomas Worthington." Dictionary of American Biography. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1936. Biography in Context. Web. January 13, 2016.</ref>

Worthington was elected one of Ohio's first Senators in 1803, serving until 1807. He was returned to the Senate in December 1810 upon the resignation of Return J. Meigs, Jr. and served until December 1814, when he resigned after winning election to the governorship. On June 17, 1812, he voted "No" on the resolution to declare war on Britain, but the vote in favor of war was 19 to 13. He won re-election as governor two years later, moving the state capital from Chillicothe to Columbus. Worthington did not seek re-election in 1818.

He platted what would become the city of Logan, Ohio in 1816.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

In January 1819, when the election was held to replace the retiring Jeremiah Morrow in the Senate, he held the lead through the first three ballots, only losing when factions aligned behind William A. Trimble on the fourth and final ballot.<ref>The "Old Northwest" Genealogical Quarterly. April 1903. Page 34.</ref> He narrowly lost a bid for a partial term in the Senate in 1821, losing to the incumbent governor, Ethan Allen Brown, and so he instead returned to the Ohio House of Representatives.

After being the runner-up in the 1808<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> and 1810<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> gubernatorial elections, he won the 1814<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> and 1816 elections<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> by landslide margins. Both times he nearly reached three-quarters of the vote. After two terms he stepped down as governor.

Death

Worthington was initially buried at his estate in Adena, and was later interred at Grandview Cemetery, Chillicothe, Ross County, Ohio.Template:Cn

Legacy

Worthington is a member of the Ohio Hall Of Fame. The city of Worthington, Ohio, was named in Worthington's honor, as was Thomas Worthington High School.

Worthington is known as the "Father of the Ohio statehood".<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Sources

• A New Nation Votes: American Election Returns, 1787–1825
• Sears, Alfred Byron, Thomas Worthington, father of Ohio statehood, Ohio State University Press for the Ohio Historical Society, Columbus, OH [1958] Full text here Template:Webarchive

External links

• Template:Ohio History Central
• Ohio Memory
• Adena Mansion & Gardens
• The Public Career of Thomas Worthington, Doctoral Dissertation, Ohio State University, 1932