Dakota Territory was a decade away from statehood and nearing political upheaval after the death of Governor William A. Howard. In 1878, President Hayes had appointed Howard as Dakota’s sixth governor.
Howard was a mover and shaker in the early Republican Party. He was a Michigan Congressman for six years. After that, he was Detroit’s postmaster and Michigan’s Republican Party chair. His family was reportedly close with the Lincolns, and he cast Michigan’s vote for Ulysses S. Grant in 1872 at the Republican National Convention. Grant offered Howard a diplomatic position to China in 1869, but Howard turned it down because of his health.
Howard was also a railroad attorney and president. Two towns in Michigan were named after him. He ran unsuccessfully for U.S. senator from Michigan in 1871. In 1876, Howard was crucial in nominating Hayes as the Republicans’ presidential candidate. At the national convention in Cincinnati, after six rounds of ballots, Howard stepped into the aisle on crutchesand cast Michigan’s votes for Hayes, who secured the Republican nomination for president and narrowly won the election.
Hayes asked Howard to be governor of Dakota in 1878, and he accepted, though his health remained a concern. As governor, he opened the Dakota Hospital for the Insane in 1879 at Yankton after overcrowding in Minnesota hospitals where Dakota patients had previously been sent.He also sought to improve education in Dakota.Residents respected Howard as an able governor.
On this date in 1880, Governor William A. Howard died from heart and lung troubleswhile on a visit to Washington, DC. He was sixty-seven. New Hampshire state legislator Nehemiah Ordway would succeed him as governor.Ordway’s appointment would bring political drama with charges of corruption, and the friction caused by moving the territorial capital to Bismarck.
Dakota Datebook by Jack Dura
Sources
http://www.history.nd.gov/exhibits/governors/tgovernors6.html
http://www.history.nd.gov/exhibits/governors/tgovernors5.html
http://bioguide.congress.gov/scripts/biodisplay.pl?index=H000847
https://dss.sd.gov/behavioralhealth/hsc/history.aspx
https://www.elmwoodhistoriccemetery.org/biographies/william-a-howard/
Moore, D.L. (1970). William A. Howard and the Nomination of Rutherford B. Hayes For the Presidency: Vermont History, Vol. 38, No. 4. The Proceedings of the Vermont Historical Society. https://vermonthistory.org/journal/misc/NominationRutherfordBHayes.pdf
http://www.cwu.edu/~warren/addenda.html
https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/12704/william-alanson-howard
http://www.history.nd.gov/exhibits/governors/tgovernors7.html
