Allen Trimble

Summary

Allen Trimble (November 24, 1783 – February 3, 1870) was a Federalist and National Republican politician from Ohio. He served as the eighth and tenth governor of Ohio, first concurrently as Senate Speaker, later elected twice in his own right.

Allen Trimble
8th & 10th Governor of Ohio
In office
December 19, 1826 – December 18, 1830
Preceded byJeremiah Morrow
Succeeded byDuncan McArthur
In office
January 4, 1822 – December 28, 1822
Preceded byEthan Allen Brown
Succeeded byJeremiah Morrow
12th Speaker of the Ohio Senate
In office
December 6, 1819 – December 3, 1826
Preceded byRobert Lucas
Succeeded byAbraham Shepherd
Member of the Ohio Senate from Highland and Fayette counties
In office
1817–1826
Preceded bySamuel Evans
Succeeded byJohn Jones
Member of the Ohio House of Representatives from Highland County
In office
1816–1817
Preceded byJames Johnston
Succeeded byJoseph Swearingen
Personal details
Born(1783-11-24)November 24, 1783
Augusta County, Virginia
DiedFebruary 3, 1870(1870-02-03) (aged 86)
Hillsboro, Ohio
Political party
Relations
  • James Trimble (father)
  • Jane Allen Trimble (mother)
ChildrenEliza Thompson (daughter)
Signature

Biography edit

Governor Trimble was born Hugh Allen Trimble in Augusta County, Virginia to James Trimble, Revolutionary War veteran, and Jane Allen Trimble.[1] He was of Ulster Scots ancestry.[2] In October 1784, his father moved his family to a veterans land grant in then Fayette County, Kentucky. In October 1804, James Trimble died leaving Allen head of the family. Allen Trimble moved them to a homestead he and his father had established outside of Hillsboro, Ohio.[1]

Career edit

Trimble was a clerk of the Common Pleas Court in 1808. He also served as recorder of deeds in 1808.[3]

After briefly serving during the War of 1812, Trimble served in the Ohio House of Representatives from 1816 to 1817 and then in the Ohio State Senate from 1818 to 1826. Trimble became Speaker of the Senate, and it was in this capacity that he became governor from January to December 1822 when Governor Ethan Allen Brown resigned to take a seat in the United States Senate.

Trimble ran an election for a full term in 1822, but narrowly lost. He challenged Jeremiah Morrow again in 1824, narrowing the distance between the two, but still losing. He won a landslide election in 1826, however, as a National Republican and then won a second full term in 1828. Trimble did not seek re-election in 1830.

He then retired to farming, taking little part in politics for the next quarter-century, but did consent to accepting the nomination of the Know-Nothings for governor in 1855. Trimble came in third, losing to Republican US Senator Salmon Chase and incumbent Democrat William Medill. In 1860 he was a delegate to the Constitutional Union Party convention in Baltimore.

Death edit

Trimble died at his family farm in Ohio, and was buried in Hillsboro Cemetery in Hillsboro, Ohio.

Legacy edit

Trimble, Ohio, a village in Athens County, Ohio, is named in Trimble's honor. Court Street, a street in Hillsboro, Ohio, on the north side of the Highland County Courthouse, was renamed "Governor Trimble Place" in 1974.[4]

Trimble's daughter, Eliza, helped to initiate the temperance movement in the United States.

Trimble is an ancestor of astronomer Virginia Louise Trimble[5]

References edit

  1. ^ a b "Allen Trimble". Ohio Historical Society. Archived from the original on May 16, 2012. Retrieved July 11, 2012.
  2. ^ Scotland's mark on America By George Fraser Black page 57
  3. ^ "Ohio Governor Allen Trimble". National Governors Association. Retrieved July 11, 2012.
  4. ^ "Streets Get New Names And Signs". The (Hillsboro) Press Gazette. September 11, 1974.
  5. ^ Virginia Trimble (2013). 2013 Bullitt Lecture in Astronomy at the University of Louisville with speaker Virginia Trimble, "Blurring the Boundaries Among Physics, Chemistry and Astronomy: The Moseley and Bohr Centeneries". Retrieved October 27, 2016.

External links edit

  • National Governors Association
  • Ohio Memory
  • Allen Trimble at Find a Grave

"Trimble, Allen" . Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography. 1900.