Misplaced Pages

William Waldo (California politician)

Article snapshot taken from Wikipedia with creative commons attribution-sharealike license. Give it a read and then ask your questions in the chat. We can research this topic together.
American politician For other people with the same name, see William Waldo (disambiguation).
This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed.
Find sources: "William Waldo" California politician – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR (March 2015) (Learn how and when to remove this message)
William Waldo
BornJanuary 16, 1812
Harrison County, Virginia
DiedNovember 2, 1881
Sutherland Springs, Texas
OccupationSea captain
Political partyWhig

William Waldo (January 16, 1812 – November 2, 1881) was a candidate for Governor of California in 1853. He was born in Harrison County, Virginia (now part of West Virginia) but spent most of his life in Missouri, where he was a merchant and steamboat captain. In 1849 he joined the gold rush to California at the head of a wagon train. In California the next year, reports arrived of impending starvation among numerous immigrants on the Nevada side of the Sierra Nevada mountains. Waldo put great effort into recruiting and delivering supplies for them, and became well known for his relief attempts. In 1853 the Whig party nominated Waldo as their candidate for Governor, but he narrowly lost to the incumbent John Bigler. Following his defeat, he returned east, first to Minnesota and then back to Missouri where his wife and children had remained. In his later years he moved to Texas, where he died.

William Waldo is said to be the namesake of Waldo, Oregon where he accidentally campaigned, believing the settlement was in California, and of Waldo Point near Sausalito, California. He was the brother of Oregon politician Daniel Waldo.

See also

Further reading

  • Goodrich, James W. "Profit, Philanthropy and Politics: William Waldo's California Years, 1850-1853." Southern California Quarterly 58(Fall 1976): 359–379.
  • Biography of William Waldo, St. Clair County (Missouri) Democrat, June 27, 1940, quoted in .
  • Eldredge, Zoeth Skinner, The Beginnings of San Francisco (1912: San Francisco) quoted in .
  • Waldo, William (1880). Recollections of a Septuagenarian: A Paper Read Before the Missouri Historical Society of St. Louis. St. Louis: Missouri Historical Society.

References

  1. History of southern Oregon : comprising Jackson, Josephine, Douglas, Curry and Coos Counties (Portland, OR: A.G. Walling, 1883), p. 446, 456-7.
  2. Grants Pass history page Archived 2007-10-07 at the Wayback Machine on Grants Pass, Oregon web site.
  3. Johnson, Brian W. "America Waldo Bogle and the Question of her Ancestry". The Oregon Territory and Its Pioneers. Retrieved November 8, 2015.

External links

Party political offices
Preceded byPierson B. Reading Whig nominee for Governor of California
1853 		Succeeded byNone


Stub icon

This article about a California politician is a stub. You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it.

Categories: