
James Duane Doty (5 November 1799-13 June 1865) was a delegate to the US House of Representatives (D-WI) from 14 January 1839 to 3 March 1841 (succeeding George Wallace Jones and preceding Henry Dodge), Governor of the Wisconsin Territory from 30 September 1841 to 21 June 1844 (succeeding Henry Dodge and preceding Nathaniel P. Tallmadge), a member of the US House of Representatives (D-WI 3) from 4 March 1849 to 3 March 1853 (preceding John B. Macy), and Governor of the Utah Territory from 22 June 1863 to 13 June 1865 (succeeding Stephen S. Harding and preceding Charles Durkee).
Biography[]
James Duane Doty was born in Salem, New York in 1799, and he was raised in Martinsburg. He moved to Detroit, Michigan in 1818 and became a lawyer in Wayne County, and he became a federal judge in Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin in 1823. He moved to Green Bay in 1824, and he served as a district judge until 1832. He went on to serve on the Michigan territorial council from 1834 to 1835, overseeing the creation of the Wisconsin Territory. Doty established a reputation as a conservative political maverick who aligned himself with whichever party was most popular at the time, and, after losing a bid for the US House of Representatives in 1835, he became a landowner and cofounded Madison, Wisconsin. He served as a Democratic delegate to the US Congress from 1839 to 1841, as Governor from 1841 to 1844, and in the US House from 1849 to 1853, becoming an independent in 1851, a Whig in 1853, and a Republican in 1854. He served as President Abraham Lincoln's Governor of Utah from 1863 to 1865, repairing relations with the Mormons and Native Americans before dying in Salt Lake City in 1865.