Andrew Gregg Curtin (22 April 1815-7 October 1894) was the Republican Governor of Pennsylvania from 15 January 1861 to 15 January 1867 (succeeding William F. Packer and preceding John W. Geary) and a member of the US House of Representatives (D-PA 20) from 4 March 1881 to 3 March 1887 (succeeding Seth Yocum and preceding John Patton).
Biography[]
Andrew Gregg Curtin was born in Bellefonte, Pennsylvania in 1815, the son of an Irish iron manufacturer and the daughter of Andrew Gregg; he was the great-grandson of James Potter, the uncle of John Irvin Gregg, and the cousin of David McMurtrie Gregg. He practiced law before campaigning for Whig presidential candidate William Henry Harrison in 1840, Superintendent of Public Schools under Governor James Pollock, and served as the Republican Governor of Pennsylvania from 1861 to 1867, strongly supporting President Abraham Lincoln's policies during the American Civil War and organizing the Pennsylvania Reserves into combat units. Curtin played a major role in establishing a national cemetery in Gettysburg before founding a state-funded school for the orphans of slain Union Army soldiers. He went on to serve as President Ulysses S. Grant's Ambassador to Russia, and he later joined the Democratic Party and served in the US House of Representatives from 1881 to 1887. He died in 1894.