John White Geary (December 30, 1819 – February 8, 1873) was an American lawyer, politician, and a Union general in the American Civil War. He was the final alcalde and first mayor of San Francisco, California, and the governor of the Kansas Territory and Pennsylvania.
Geary was born in near Mount Pleasant, Pennsylvania, in Westmoreland County, the son of Richard Geary, an ironmaster and schoolmaster, and Margaret White, a native of Maryland. Star...
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John White Geary (December 30, 1819 – February 8, 1873) was an American lawyer, politician, and a Union general in the American Civil War. He was the final alcalde and first mayor of San Francisco, California, and the governor of the Kansas Territory and Pennsylvania.
Geary was born in near Mount Pleasant, Pennsylvania, in Westmoreland County, the son of Richard Geary, an ironmaster and schoolmaster, and Margaret White, a native of Maryland. Starting at the age of 14, he attended Jefferson College in Canonsburg, Pennsylvania, studying civil engineering and law, but was forced to leave before graduation due to the death of his father, whose debts he assumed. He worked at a variety of jobs, including as a surveyor and land speculator in Kentucky, earning enough to return to college and graduate in 1841. He worked as a construction engineer for the Allegheny Portage Railroad. In 1843, he married Margaret Ann Logan, with whom he had several sons, but she died in 1853. Geary then married...
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