Edward Selig Solomon (25 December 1836-18 July 1913) was the Republican Governor of the Washington Territory from 4 March 1870 to 26 April 1872, succeeding Alvan Flanders and preceding Elisha P. Ferry.
Biography[]
Edward Selig Solomon was born in Schleswig in 1836 to a German-Jewish family, and he emigrated to Illinois in 1856 and became an alderman in 1861, serving until 1863; his cousin Edward Salomon later became Governor of Wisconsin. Salomon served in the 24th Illinois Infantry Regiment and the 82nd Illinois Infantry Regiment during the American Civil War, and he distinguished himself at the Battle of Gettysburg and succeeded Friedrich Hecker as colonel of the 82nd. Salomon ended the war as a Brigadier-General, and he returned to Chicago and served as Cook County Clerk from 1865 to 1869. In 1870, President Ulysses S. Grant appointed Salomon Governor of the Washington Territory, but he resigned due to his disagreements with the corruption of the Grant administration. He became a lawyer in San Francisco and served in the State Assembly in 1890 and as assistant district attorney from 1898. He died in 1913.