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John E

John Ezra Rickards (23 July 1848-26 December 1927) was the Republican Governor of Montana from 2 January 1893 to 3 January 1897, succeeding Joseph Toole and preceding Robert Burns Smith.

Biography[]

John Ezra Rickards was born in Delaware City, Delaware in 1848, and he worked as a clerk in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania before moving to Pueblo, Colorado in 1870 and working as a clerk and bookkeeper until 1873. He then moved to Oakland, California, and, after his wife's death, he moved to Butte, Montana in 1882, becoming a real estate, oil, and insurance businessman. Rickards served as Lieutenant Governor of Montana from 1889 to 1893 and as Governor of Montana from 1893 to 1897 as a Republican, after which he and his family moved to Berkeley, California. There, he, his wife, and their son became registered Progressives, but, by 1916, they once again registered as Republicans. He worked at the census bureau in San Francisco for 18 years, and he died in 1927.

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