Francis Granger
10thUnited States Postmaster General
In office March 6, 1841 – September 18, 1841
President	William Henry Harrison John Tyler
Preceded by	John Milton Niles
Succeeded by	Charles A. Wickliffe
Member of theU.S. House of Representatives fromNew York's26th district
In office March 4, 1835 – March 3, 1837
Preceded by	John Dickson
Succeeded by	Mark H. Sibley
In office March 4, 1839 – March 5, 1841
Preceded by	Mark H. Sibley
Succeeded by	John Greig
In office November 27, 1841 – March 3, 1843
Preceded by	John Greig
Succeeded by	Amasa Dana
Personal details
Born	(1792-12-01)December 1, 1792 Suffield, Connecticut, U.S.
Died	August 31, 1868(1868-08-31) (aged 75) Canandaigua, New York, U.S.
Political party	Democratic-Republican (before 1828) National Republican (1828–1834) Whig (1834–1860) Constitutional Union (1860-1861)
Spouse	Cornelia Rutsen Van Rensselaer
Children	2
Relatives	Gideon Granger (Father) Amos Granger (Cousin) Robert Charles Winthrop (son-in-law)
Residence	Francis Granger House
Education	Yale University (BA)

Francis Granger (December 1, 1792 – August 31, 1868)^[1] was an American politician who representedOntario County, New York, in theUnited States House of Representatives for three non-consecutive terms. He was a leading figure in the state and nationalWhig Party, particularly in its moderate-conservative faction. He served as a Whig vice presidential nominee on the party's multi-candidate 1836 ticket and, in that role, became the only person to ever lose acontingent election for the vice presidency in the U.S. Senate.^[2] He also served briefly in 1841 asUnited States Postmaster General in the cabinet ofWilliam Henry Harrison. In 1856, he became the final Whig Party chairman before the party's collapse, after which he joined theConstitutional Union Party.

Granger was born inSuffield, Connecticut, on December 1, 1792. Granger was born into a prominent political family, with his father,Gideon Granger, serving in theConnecticut House of Representatives before being appointed byThomas Jefferson as the longest serving Postmaster General in United States history. His mother was Mindwell (née Pease) Granger (1770–1860) and his first cousin,Amos Phelps Granger, also served two terms in the United States House of Representatives.^[3]

Granger pursued classical studies at and graduated fromYale College in 1811.^[1] He then moved with his father toCanandaigua, New York, in 1814, where hestudied law, wasadmitted to the bar in 1816 and commencedpractice.^[1]

Granger started his own political career as a member of theNew York State Assembly from 1826 to 1828 and from 1830 to 1832.^[1] He ran unsuccessful campaigns forLieutenant Governor of New York in 1828, and forGovernor of New York in both 1830 and 1832 with the National Republican Party.^[2]

He was then elected as anAnti-Jacksonian to the24th Congress serving from March 4, 1835, to March 3, 1837.^[2]

In1836, theWhig Party was unable to settle on one set of candidates for its presidential ticket. Granger was a regional vice presidential nominee for the northern and border states on the same ticket asWilliam Henry Harrison, though in Massachusetts he was on the Whig ticket headed byDaniel Webster. Though DemocratMartin Van Buren secured enough votes in theElectoral College to win the presidency, Virginia's 23 electors refused to vote for his running mateRichard M. Johnson, who had then lacked only one vote. As a result, votes were split among Johnson, Granger,John Tyler andWilliam Smith with none getting the majority. This triggered acontingent election, the only contingent vice presidential election by the Senate in history, under theTwelfth Amendment with theU.S. Senate deciding between the top two vote-getters Johnson and Granger.^[1] As the25th Congress consisted of 35 Democrats and 17 Whigs, Granger could not hope to be elected and was defeated by Johnson 33–16.

In the general election of the same year, Granger was also running as a Whig candidate for election to the25th Congress, but failed in that bid as well.^[2] He was re-elected to Congress as a Whig to the26th and27th Congresses serving from March 4, 1839, to March 5, 1841.^[2]

Harrison would win the presidency four years later in 1840 but Granger was not again his running mate and was instead replaced by John Tyler.

If Granger had been reselected as Harrison's running mate in 1840, Granger as vice president would have become president when President Harrison died in April 1841 after a month in office.

In 1841, Granger was appointedPostmaster General in theCabinet ofPresidentWilliam Henry Harrison and served from March 6 to September 18, 1841,^[1] the day when almost all Whig Cabinet members left the government of new PresidentJohn Tyler on the instruction of their party leaderHenry Clay. Following that event, he was again elected to the Congress in aspecial election to fill the vacancy caused by the resignation of RepresentativeJohn Greig. He served from November 27, 1841, to March 3, 1843, and was not a candidate for reelection in1842.^[1]

A supporter of theCompromise of 1850, Granger led the pro-Fillmore group which became known as theSilver Gray Whigs after Granger's own silver hair. This faction would remain in conflict with the anti-CompromiseSewardites until the collapse of the Whig Party in the state in 1855.

Chairman of the Whig National Executive Committee from 1856 to 1860, Granger joined in the call for the convention of theConstitutional Union Party that was held in May 1860. He was then a member of the peace convention of 1861 held inWashington, D.C., in an effort to devise means to prevent theimpending war.

He married Cornelia Rutsen Van Rensselaer (1798–1823), the daughter of Jeremiah Van Rensselaer and Sybella Adeline (née Kane) Van Rensselaer.^[3] She was also the granddaughter of Brigadier GeneralRobert Van Rensselaer,^[4][3][5] who was a member of theNew York Provincial Congress from 1775 to 1777 and later a member of the New York State Assembly in the1st,2nd and4th New York State Legislatures.^[6][a] The Grangers' home at Canandaigua from 1817 to 1827, now known as theFrancis Granger House, was listed on theNational Register of Historic Places in 1984.^[7] Together, they had a daughter, son, and an unnamed second daughter who died with her mother in childbirth in 1823.^[8]

• Adele Granger (1819–1892), who married John Eliot Thayer (1803–1857), the son ofNathaniel Thayer. After his death, she remarried in 1865 toRobert Charles Winthrop (1809–1894),^[9] a U.S. Senator and Representative who served asSpeaker of the House.^[10]
• Gideon Granger II (1821–1868), who married Isaphine Pierson (1826–1905), the daughter of U.S. RepresentativeIsaac Pierson.^[3]

Granger died in Canandaigua on August 31, 1868.^[3] He was buried atWoodlawn Cemetery.^[2]

Notes

Sources

Wikimedia Commons has media related toFrancis Granger.

• United States Congress."Francis Granger (id: G000376)".Biographical Directory of the United States Congress.
• Francis Granger atFind a Grave

• 1792 births
• 1868 deaths
• American lawyers admitted to the practice of law by reading law
• Anti-Masonic Party politicians from New York (state)
• Members of the New York State Assembly
• New York (state) lawyers
• People from Suffield, Connecticut
• Politicians from Canandaigua, New York
• National Republican Party members of the United States House of Representatives
• New York (state) National Republicans
• Tyler administration cabinet members
• United States postmasters general
• 1836 United States vice-presidential candidates
• Whig Party (United States) vice presidential nominees
• Whig Party members of the United States House of Representatives from New York (state)
• William Henry Harrison administration cabinet members
• Yale College alumni
• 19th-century members of the New York State Legislature
• 19th-century United States representatives

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