Politics / Business & brands / Military
David Jerome
1829–1896 · merchant, Union colonel, governor of Michigan
Saginaw merchant and Civil War colonel who became Michigan's 18th governor (1881–1883) and the first born in the state – in Detroit, in 1829.
- Born
Detroit, Michigan Territory- Died
Watkins Glen, New York
aged 66- Birth name
- David Howell Jerome
- Also known as
- David H. Jerome
- Detroit years
- 1829–1831
- Field
- Politics, Business & brands, Military
01 / The Detroit story
The Detroit story
David Jerome was born in Detroit in November 1829, the youngest of nine children of Horace Jerome, who had come from Trumansburg, New York, the year before. His father died in March 1831, and his mother took the children back to upstate New York before settling on a farm in St. Clair County in 1834, so his Detroit years were only his earliest childhood. He worked on the farm, studied at St. Clair Academy and rafted logs down the St. Clair River before moving to Saginaw in 1855, where he became a merchant and alderman. In 1862 he helped raise the 23rd Michigan Infantry and served as its colonel, then sat in the state Senate, was military aide to Governor Henry Crapo and chaired the State Military Board. Elected governor as a Republican in 1880, he served from 1881 to 1883, the first Michigan-born holder of the office, overseeing the founding of the Traverse City state hospital and the Michigan School for the Blind. He died in 1896.
Highlights
- 18th governor of Michigan, 1881–1883
- First governor of Michigan born in the state (Detroit, 1829)
- Colonel of the 23rd Michigan Infantry in the Civil War
- President of the State Military Board, 1865–1873