Joseph Poindexter (14 April 1869-3 December 1951) was the Democratic Territorial Governor of Hawaii from 2 March 1934 to 24 August 1942, succeeding Lawrence M. Judd and preceding Ingram Stainback.
Biography[]
Joseph Poindexter was born in Canyon City, Oregon in 1869, and he became a lawyer in Montana in 1892, serving as county attorney of Beaverhead County from 1897 to 1903 and later as a district judge from 1909 to 1915 and as Attorney General of Montana from 1915 to 1917. In 1917, President Woodrow Wilson appointed Poindexter as a federal district court judge in Hawaii, serving from 1917 to 1924. In 1934, President Franklin D. Roosevelt appointed Poindexter Governor of Hawaii, and he placed the territory under martial law after the attack on Pearl Harbor and appointed himself captain general of the Hawaii Territorial Guard. He also created a balanced budget, improved civil service, child labor regulations, and public health and welfare improvements. He left the governorship in 1942 and served as a trustee of the Bernice Pauahi Bishop Estate until his death in 1951.