John Pierce St. John (25 February 1833 – 31 August 1916) was the Republican Governor of Kansas from 13 January 1879 to 8 January 1883, succeeding George T. Anthony and preceding George Washington Glick.
Biography[]
John Pierce St. John was born in Brookville, Indiana in 1833, and he led an ox team to California in 1852 before fighting against the Modoc Native Americans in California and Oregon. He served as a Union Army colonel during the American Civil War before settling in Independence, Missouri in 1869; he then moved to Olathe, Kansas and served in the State Senate from 1873 to 1874 and as Governor from 1879 to 1883. He was active in the temperance movement, and he successfully promoted a prohibition amendment to the state's constitution in 1881. He also served as the Prohibition Party's 1884 presidential election, and, in 1896, he advocated for the addition of free silver and women's suffrage to the party platform. Following that election, he was disillusioned with the Prohibition Party and briefly joined the Populist Party before rejoining the Prohibition Party. In 1887, he settled in Newhall, California, and he toured Kansas in 1912 in support of women's suffrage. He died in 1916.