Charles Robinson
Whig
| Website: | en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_L._Robinson |
Candidate Biography:
Born: July 21, 1818 in Hardwick (or Fitchburg), Massachusetts
Married: Sarah Adams (m. 18??, d. 1846), Sara Tappan Doolittle Lawrence (m. 1851)
Died: August 17, 1894 in Lawrence, Kansas
1850: Chairman of various meetings of the Sacramento Squatters (see note below)
1855: Founder, [Kansas] Free State Party
1855-1856: Governor of Kansas Territory
1856: Organizer, [Kansas] Republican Party
1856: Arrested on treason charges (and held in prison for four months)
1861-1863: Governor of Kansas (first Governor of Kansas following statehood)
1870s: Member, Colored Normal School (Quindaro) Board of Directors
1873-1881: Senator, Kansas State Legislature
1884: [Democratic] Candidate for Kansas State Senate (Lost)
1886: Candidate for Congress [Kansas] (Lost)
1887-18??: Superintendent, Haskell Institute (now Haskell Indian Nations University) in Lawrence
1890: Candidate for Governor of Kansas (Lost)
- LEGISLATION: As Governor, Robinson signed the legislation making Topeka the capital of Kansas.
- Legal Troubles: Robinson was seen as a leader of the 1850 Squatters Riot in Sacramento that killed eight (including Sacramento Mayor Hardin Bigelow) and wounded six. Several witnesses testified under oath that they had seen him "aim deliberately at Mayor Bigelow (who was shot four times during the fight)." Robinson was in a Sacramento prison brig on these murder charges (the case was never brought to trial) when he was elected to the Assembly.
- Legal Troubles: Robinson was indicted for treason in Kansas in 1856.
Source: History of Sacramento County, California by Thompson & West (1880)