Governor John Floyd Sr.

JOHN FLOYD was born in Jefferson County, Virginia (now Jefferson County, Kentucky). He attended Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania and studied medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, graduating in 1806. He entered the Virginia Militia as a Major and was promoted to Brigadier General in 1812, serving as a surgeon in the Virginia line. After serving briefly in the Virginia House of Delegates, he was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives, serving from 1817 to 1829. He went on to win election by the state legislature to two terms as governor and was the first governor elected under the Virginia Constitution of 1830. During his administration, a bill to abolish slavery in Virginia was defeated in the House of Delegates, and Virginia’s first railway opened in Petersburg. Floyd left office under the rule of the new Virginia Constitution prohibiting the reelection of a governor within three years of the expiration of his current term of office.