PoliticalGraveyard.com
The Political Graveyard: A Database of American History
Pennsylvania: Secretaries of the Commonwealth

Pennsylvania Secretaries of the Commonwealth, 1777-1991 (May be incomplete!)
Timothy Matlack 1777-83 John Armstrong, Jr. 1783-87 Charles Biddle 1787-91 Alexander J. Dallas 1791-1801 Thomas McKean Thompson 1801-08 Nathaniel B. Boileau 1808-17 Thomas Sergeant 1817-19 Samuel D. Ingham 1819-20 Andrew Gregg 1820-23 Molton C. Rogers 1823-26 Isaac D. Barnard 1826-27 Calvin Blythe 1827-29 Samuel McKean 1829-33 James Findley 1833-35 Thomas H. Burrowes 1835-39 Francis R. Shunk 1839-42 Anson V. Parsons 1842-43 Charles McClure 1843-45 Jesse Miller 1845-48 Townsend Haines 1848-50 Alexander L. Russel 1850-52 Francis W. Hughes 1852-53 Charles A. Black 1853-55 Andrew G. Curtin 1855-58 William M. Heister 1858-61 Eli Slifer 1861-67 Francis Jordan 1867-73 Matthew S. Quay 1873-78 John Blair Linn 1878-79 Matthew S. Quay 1879-82 Francis Jordan 1882-83 William S. Stenger 1883-87 Charles W. Stone 1887-90 Jacob H. Longnecker 1890-91 William F. Harrity 1891-95 Frank Reeder 1895-97 David Martin 1897-99 William W. Griest 1899-1903 Frank M. Fuller 1903-05 Robert McAfee 1905-15 Cyrus E. Woods 1915-21 Bernard J. Myers 1921-23 Clyde L. King 1923-26 E. H. Conarroe 1926-27 Charles Johnson 1927-29 Robert R. Lewis 1929-30 James Walker 1930-31 Richard J. Beamish 1931-34 John J. Owen 1934-35 David L. Lawrence 1935-39 Sophia M. R. O'Hara 1939-43 Charles M. Morrison 1943-49 Gene D. Smith 1949-55 James A. Finnegan 1955 Henry E. Harner 1956 James A. Finnegan 1956-58 John S. Rice 1958-61 E. James Trimarchi, Jr. 1961-63 George I. Bloom 1963-65 Jerry Rich 1965 W. Stuart Helm 1965-67 Craig Truax 1967 Joseph J. Kelley, Jr. 1968-71 C. DeLores Tucker 1971-77 James D. Golden 1977 Barton A. Fields 1977-79 Ethel D. Allen 1979 William R. Davis 1979-85 Richard E. Anderson 1985 Robert A. Gleason, Jr. 1985-87 James J. Haggerty 1987-89 Christopher A. Lewis 1989-91 Robert N. Grant 1991

Events and Candidates (may be incomplete!)

  • 1801 Apr 27: Alexander J. Dallas, resigned.
  • 1826 Jan 2: Molton C. Rogers, resigned.
  • 1843 Feb 16: Anson V. Parsons, resigned.
  • 1897 Sep 8: Frank Reeder, resigned.
  • 1905 Jul 10: Frank M. Fuller, died in office.
  • 1921 Jul 20: Cyrus E. Woods, resigned; Bernard J. Myers, appointed.
  • 1923 Jan 16: Bernard J. Myers, resigned.
  • 1926 Oct 16: Clyde L. King, resigned.
  • 1929 May 5: Charles Johnson, resigned.
  • 1930 May 23: Robert R. Lewis, resigned.
  • 1949 Oct 26: Charles M. Morrison, resigned.
  • 1955 Dec 15: James A. Finnegan, resigned.
  • 1958 Mar 26: James A. Finnegan, died in office.
    • "Enjoy the hospitable entertainment of a political graveyard."
    Henry L. Clinton, Apollo Hall, New York City, February 3, 1872    		 The Political Graveyard

    The Political Graveyard is a web site about U.S. political history and cemeteries. Founded in 1996, it is the Internet's most comprehensive free source for American political biography, listing 320,919 politicians, living and dead.
     
      The coverage of this site includes (1) the President, Vice President, members of Congress, elected state and territorial officeholders in all fifty states, the District of Columbia, and U.S. territories; and the chief elected official, typically the mayor, of qualifying municipalities; (2) candidates at election, including primaries, for any of the above; (3) all federal judges and all state appellate judges; (4) certain federal officials, including the federal cabinet, diplomatic chiefs of mission, consuls, U.S. district attorneys, collectors of customs and internal revenue, members of major federal commissions; and political appointee (pre-1969) postmasters of qualifying communities; (5) state and national political party officials, including delegates, alternate delegates, and other participants in national party nominating conventions; (6) Americans who served as "honorary" consuls for other nations before 1950. Note: municipalities or communities "qualify", for Political Graveyard purposes, if they have at least half a million person-years of history, inclusive of predecessor, successor, and merged entities.  
      The listings are incomplete; development of the database is a continually ongoing project.  
      Information on this page — and on all other pages of this site — is believed to be accurate, but is not guaranteed. Users are advised to check with other sources before relying on any information here.  
      The official URL for this page is: https://politicalgraveyard.com/geo/PA/ofc/soc.html.  
      Links to this or any other Political Graveyard page are welcome, but specific page addresses may sometimes change as the site develops.  
      If you are searching for a specific named individual, try the alphabetical index of politicians.  
    Copyright notices: (1) Facts are not subject to copyright; see Feist v. Rural Telephone. (2) Politician portraits displayed on this site are 70-pixel-wide monochrome thumbnail images, which I believe to constitute fair use under applicable copyright law. Where possible, each image is linked to its online source. However, requests from owners of copyrighted images to delete them from this site are honored. (3) Original material, programming, selection and arrangement are © 1996-2023 Lawrence Kestenbaum. (4) This work is also licensed for free non-commercial re-use, with attribution, under a Creative Commons License.
    Site information: The Political Graveyard is created and maintained by Lawrence Kestenbaum, who is solely responsible for its structure and content. — The mailing address is The Political Graveyard, P.O. Box 2563, Ann Arbor MI 48106. — This site is hosted by HDL. — The Political Graveyard opened on July 1, 1996; the last full revision was done on March 8, 2023.
    Creative Commons License Follow polgraveyard on Twitter [Amazon.com]