Moses Wisner

Moses Wisner
12th Governor of Michigan
In office January 5, 1859 – January 2, 1861
Lieutenant	Edmund B. Fairfield
Preceded by	Kinsley Bingham
Succeeded by	Austin Blair
Personal details
Born	June 3, 1815 Springport, New York
Died	January 5, 1863 (aged 47) Lexington, Kentucky
Political party	Republican
Spouse(s)	Angeolina Hascall

Moses Wisner (June 3, 1815 – January 5, 1863) was a politician and soldier from the U.S. state of Michigan.

Wisner was born in Springport, New York, descendant from a family from Switzerland which emigrated to America in the early 1700s and settled in Orange County, New York. One of Wisner's distant relatives is Henry Wisner, delegate from New York to the Continental Congress and major participant against the British in the American Revolution.

He received an education in the common schools while working on his parent's farm. In 1837, he moved to Michigan and settled on a farm in Lapeer County. Two years later, he gave up on farming and moved to Pontiac, Michigan.

He studied law while working at the law firm of his brother, George W. Wisner, and Rufus Hosmer. In 1841, he was admitted to the bar at Pontiac and then moved to the village of Lapeer, Michigan to begin to a practice. He was appointed prosecuting attorney for Lapeer County in 1843 by Governor William Woodbridge. He moved back to Pontiac to join a law firm there.

Wisner was not especially active in politics until after the election of U.S. President Franklin Pierce in 1852, when he became active in the anti-slavery movement. He was one of the foremost critics in Michigan of the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854 which repealed the Missouri Compromise and opened the territories to slavery. He participated in the first convention of the U.S. Republican Party in Jackson, Michigan in July, 1854 where he declined nomination as Michigan Attorney General. That same year he was an unsuccessful candidate from Michigan's 4th congressional district to the U.S. House against Democrat George Washington Peck.

...
Wikipedia