Wilson Shannon (24 February 1802-30 August 1877) was the Democratic Governor of Ohio from 13 December 1838 to 16 December 1840 (succeeding Joseph Vance and preceding Thomas Corwin) and from 14 December 1842 to 15 April 1844 (succeeding Corwin and preceding Thomas W. Bartley), a member of the US House of Representatives (D-OH 17) from 4 March 1853 to 3 March 1855 (succeeding Joseph Cable and preceding Charles J. Albright), and Governor of the Kansas Territory from 7 September 1855 to 18 August 1856 (succeeding Andrew Horatio Reeder and preceding John W. Geary).
Biography[]
Wilson Shannon was born in Belmont County, Ohio, the son of an Irish immigrant and the brother of George Shannon and Thomas Shannon. He became a lawyer in 1830 and served as Belmont County prosecuting attorney from 1833 to 1835 before serving as Governor from 1838 to 1840 and from 1842 to 1844. He resigned in 1844 to serve as President John Tyler's Ambassador to Mexico until 1845, and he failed to find gold in California during the Gold Rush before serving in the US House of Representatives from 1853 to 1855 and as territorial governor of Kansas from 1855 to 1856. He lost control over the territory amid the violence of "Bleeding Kansas" and resigned in 1856, before becoming a lawyer in Lawrence, Lecompton, and Topeka. He died in Lawrence in 1877.