Was there ever a man who served as governor of several different states?

9 comments

1. Most notably Sam Houston, also legislator in 2 states and president of a country.

2. Sam Houston: Texas and Tennessee. He was also the president of Texas.

   John Dickinson was the governor of Delaware and Pennsylvania simultaneously during the revolutionary war.

   There were also a few states like Maine, West Virginia, and Kentucky that were split off of other states. It wouldn’t surprise me if there were some brief overlaps when the governors of the states that they were broken off from were still provisionally governor in some capacity.

   Edit:

   Thomas McKean, though not governor of several states, does have the interesting distinction of briefly being both governor of Delaware and president of the US (pre constitution, so a very different role compared to the current office). Not exactly what you asked, but worth noting.

   There were also several military governors (George Davis, Arthur MacArthur, and Douglas MacArthur that I‘ve found) who were governors of multiple US territories over their careers, but they may not be what you’re looking for. They held appointed positions in parts of the US that either were relinquished or didn’t go on to become states.

3. Sam Houston

4. Not exactly what your question was, but Mitt Romney was Governor of Massachusetts and later one of the two Senators for Utah.

5. I think the principal reason that exact situation has never happened. Is that within the United States system there is still a bit of state loyalty/identity. politician, who is served as governor of another state could easily be seen, even today, as not having sufficient knowledge or familiarity with the state they were seeking office in.

6. I mean…I think my state has had some governors who were more than likely also in charge of the state of denial….but, none from my state that I am aware of.

7. A lot of the early territorial governors served in multiple states.

8. James Shields was a Senator for 3 different states (IL, MN, MO). He has a very interesting history. He almost fought a duel against Abraham Lincoln because Lincoln was trolling him in the local papers while pretending to be a woman. Also, the only person to defeat Stonewall Jackson in the Civil War, but the resulting promotion was denied by the President at the time.

9. William Tryon was governor of both North Carolina and New York when they were colonies.