Governor Myron H. McCord
(1897-1898)
The military must have been something he felt he missed out on early in life because joining it cost him the governorship. Myron H. McCord trained as a soldier during the Civil War, but was too young to see action. He later enlisted in the Spanish American War in 1898, but later found out he could not serve as governor and be enlisted at the same time. This mistake cost him the governorship.
Myron H. McCord was born on November 26, 1840 in Ceres, Pennsylvania to Anna Eliza Ackerman and Myron Hawley McCord Sr. He was educated at public schools and then at Richburg Academy in Bolivar, New York when the family moved there in the mid-1840s. In 1854 he moved to Oshkosh, Wisconsin and then to Shawano to work as a lumberman while attending school there. He lived in Shawano until 1875. He was admitted to practice law at age 21. He was a trained soldier during the Civil War, but was too young to be sent to the front. In 1864 he was elected as Shawano County Treasurer from 1869-1873. He served on the Wisconsin State from 1873-1874 and then in the House of Representatives for Wisconsin in 1881. He married Anna Mariah Murphy in December of 1861, separated in 1876. He remarried Sarah Etta Space on August 27, 1877.
He published both the Shawano County Journal and the Lincoln County Advocate, while in Wisconsin. In 1876 he was a delegate from Wisconsin for the Republican National Convention. He was again elected a member of the House of Representatives from Wisconsin from 1889-1893. He eventually settled in Arizona after his last term in office in 1893. He was Republican Chairman of Maricopa County in 1896 and was appointed to the governorship of Arizona on July 29, 1897 by President McKinley, who was a close friend of his.
He never had a meeting with the Arizona Legislature during his tenure in office, and only was able to submit one Annual Report before resigning his post. His appointments never had the opportunity to be confirmed by the legislature. Irrigation was always at the forefront of his concern and he examined the territory for Dam sites. Blunders would also mar is governoship.
The Yuma Irrigation project failed and cost the government a large sum of money, on top of which, 11 prisoners had escaped while working on the irrigation project. Only 7 would be recaptured. Land was also being sold at less than value and government contracts were being misused.
At the outbreak of the Spanish-American War, the Governor rounded up Cowboys in Arizona to form the Arizona Rough Riders. He joined as a Colonel in the First Territorial Infantry and was forced to resign his post. President McKinley refused to give him a leave of absence to fight in the war and the Governor resigned on July 9, 1898. He never saw action in the war and was mustered out of the Army on February 15, 1899 and returned to Phoenix. He was given the post of US Marshall for Arizona by McKinley to recompense him for giving up the governorship. He lived in Nogales until a few months before his death when he returned to Phoenix. He died on August 27, 1908 and is buried in Merill Cemetery, Wisconsin.
Information from two sources:
Wagoner, Jay J. Arizona Territory, 1863-1912; a political history. University of Arizona Press, Tucson, 1970
Goff, John S. Arizona
Territorial Officials Volume 2. Arizona Black Mountain
Press, Cave Creek, 1975
Chapter 14
Websites
US Biographical Dictionary--Myron Hawley McCord
http://bioguide.congress.gov/scripts/biodisplay.pl?index=M000361
Political Graveyard
http://politicalgraveyard.com/bio/mccooey-mccormack.html#R9M0J5R6X
Books/Manuscripts
Public addresses of Governor Myron H. McCord
of Arizona : delivered since his inauguration, July 29, 1897 to February
22, 1898.
J87
.A617 1897
