Representative Coles Bashford

Coles Bashford (January 24, 1816 – April 25, 1878) was an American lawyer and politician who became the fifth governor of Wisconsin, one of the founders of the U.S. Republican Party, and later a key figure in the early civil government of the Arizona Territory. He was born near Cold Spring in Putnam County, New York, and came of age in a period of rapid national expansion and intensifying political conflict over slavery. Little is recorded about his early family life, but his subsequent education and legal training positioned him for a prominent public career in several emerging states and territories.

Bashford attended the Genesee Wesleyan Seminary in Lima, New York, where he studied law. He was admitted to the bar in 1842 and soon entered public service in his home state. From 1847 until his resignation in 1850, he served as district attorney of Wayne County, New York. Seeking new opportunities in the developing Midwest, he moved in 1850 to Oshkosh, in Winnebago County, Wisconsin, which had only recently been admitted to the Union. In Wisconsin he quickly became active in public affairs and, as a member of the Whig Party, was elected to the Wisconsin State Senate, serving in 1853 and 1854 and representing Winnebago County.

As the Whig Party fractured over the issue of slavery and abolition, Bashford aligned himself with the emerging anti-slavery coalition. He became one of the founding candidates of the Republican Party, which took shape in Wisconsin and other northern states during the mid-1850s. In the closely contested Wisconsin gubernatorial election of 1855, he ran as the Republican candidate against the Democratic incumbent, William A. Barstow. Initial returns declared Bashford the loser by a margin of 157 votes, but he charged that the result was fraudulent. Subsequent investigation revealed that Barstow’s apparent victory rested on forged election returns from non-existent precincts in sparsely populated northern counties and on other irregularities, including competing canvassing boards in Waupaca County. Amid rising tensions and the mobilization of rival militia units converging on Madison, Bashford was quietly sworn in as governor on January 7, 1856, in the chambers of the Wisconsin Supreme Court by Chief Justice Edward Whiton, even as Barstow was publicly inaugurated with full ceremony the same day.

The contested election led the Wisconsin Attorney General to initiate quo warranto proceedings in the Wisconsin Supreme Court to remove Barstow. Barstow initially challenged the court’s jurisdiction and declared that he would not “give up his office alive,” but as public opinion turned against him and the evidence of fraud mounted, he chose not to contest the allegations. He resigned on March 21, 1856, leaving Lieutenant Governor Arthur MacArthur as acting governor. On March 24, 1856, the court unanimously awarded the governorship to Bashford by a judicially determined margin of 1,009 votes. Represented in the case by attorney Edward G. Ryan—who would later become chief justice of the Wisconsin Supreme Court—Bashford secured legal recognition of his claim. The next day, with Madison crowded by onlookers, he entered the Capitol accompanied by a sheriff and supporters, presented the court’s judgment to MacArthur, and demanded possession of the office, threatening the use of force if necessary. MacArthur and his adherents withdrew, and despite initial resistance from Democrats in the State Assembly, both houses of the Wisconsin Legislature soon recognized Bashford as the lawful governor.

During his gubernatorial term, Bashford supported the consolidation of Republican power in Wisconsin and took actions that reflected the party’s emerging commitment to civil rights. In 1857 he appointed William Noland, a barber and entrepreneur, as a notary public, making Noland the first Black officeholder in Wisconsin state government. Bashford declined renomination by the Republican Party and left office at the end of his term on January 4, 1858. Within weeks of his departure, however, an investigation was launched into allegations that he and members of his administration had accepted substantial bribes from the La Crosse & Milwaukee Railroad Company in exchange for approval of a major land grant. Bashford was found to have received the largest single payoff—$50,000 in railroad stock and $15,000 in cash—while legislators and even a justice of the Wisconsin Supreme Court were implicated in total payoffs exceeding $400,000. Although nearly all copies of the final investigative report were seized and burned by those involved, public outrage spread throughout the state. Bashford managed to liquidate his railroad stock before the company collapsed under the weight of the scandal and soon fled Wisconsin.

After leaving Wisconsin, Bashford traveled to Washington, D.C., in 1862 and then moved on in 1863 to the newly created Arizona Territory. He journeyed west with his brother, Levi Bashford, who had been appointed surveyor general of the territory, as part of the “Governor’s party” of territorial officials led by Governor John Noble Goodwin. They completed the arduous cross-continental trip and arrived in Arizona in December 1863. Although he entered the territory as a private citizen, Bashford’s legal experience and political background quickly brought him back into public life. Governor Goodwin appointed him the first attorney general of the Arizona Territory in 1864, a position he held until 1866. In this role, Bashford traveled extensively across the territory, often through areas regarded by contemporary authorities as “hostile Indian country,” and he executed his duties without reported incident. He became the first lawyer admitted to practice in the Arizona territorial courts and, with Associate Justice William T. Howell, compiled the session laws of the territory into a single 400-page volume, providing a crucial legal framework for the new jurisdiction.

Bashford also played a central role in the territory’s nascent legislature. He was elected president of the first Territorial Council, the upper house of the territorial legislature, in 1864, helping to shape the early statutory and institutional development of Arizona. As a member of the Independent Party representing Arizona, he contributed to the legislative process during one term in office as a territorial delegate to the 40th United States Congress. His service in Congress, from 1867 to 1869, occurred during the Reconstruction era, a significant period in American history, and he participated in the democratic process in Washington while representing the interests of his far‑western constituents. He served as an independent rather than aligning formally with his former Republican Party, reflecting both the fluidity of territorial politics and his own complex political trajectory.

Following his congressional service, Bashford continued in territorial administration. His last political office was that of secretary of the Arizona Territory, to which he was appointed by President Ulysses S. Grant in 1869 and reappointed in 1873. During this period, he and his brother Levi also operated the Bashford Mercantile Store in Prescott, then the territorial capital, which became a prominent commercial establishment and remained in operation until the 1940s. When the territorial capital was moved away from Prescott, Bashford chose to resign as secretary in 1876 in order to remain near and attend to his business interests. He spent his final years in Prescott, where he remained a notable figure in local civic and commercial life.

Coles Bashford died in Prescott, Arizona Territory, on April 25, 1878. He was later buried in Mountain View Cemetery in Oakland, California. He and his wife, Frances Adams, had seven children: Belle, who died at age eleven, and Edward, Elizabeth, Helen, Lillian, Margaret, and William Coles. His career, marked by early prominence in Wisconsin, a dramatic gubernatorial contest and subsequent scandal, and later influential service in the Arizona Territory and in Congress, reflected both the opportunities and the controversies that accompanied American expansion and political realignment in the mid-nineteenth century.