David Settle Reid (April 19, 1813 – June 19, 1891) was the 32nd governor of the U.S. state of

North Carolina North Carolina ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern region of the United States. It is bordered by Virginia to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the east, South Carolina to the south, Georgia (U.S. stat ...

from 1851 to 1854 and a

U.S. Senator The United States Senate is a chamber of the bicameral United States Congress; it is the upper house, with the U.S. House of Representatives being the lower house. Together, the Senate and House have the authority under Article One of the ...

from December 1854 to March 1859. His uncle and eventual father-in-law was Congressman Thomas Settle. He was born in what would later be

Reidsville, North Carolina Reidsville is a city in Rockingham County in the U.S. state of North Carolina. At the 2020 census, the city had a total population of 14,583. Reidsville is included in the Greensboro–High Point Metropolitan Statistical Area of the Piedmont Tr ...

, an unincorporated town named for his father, Reuben Reid. He had a brother, Hugh Kearns Reid. At age 16, David Reid became the first postmaster for the town. He studied law and was admitted to the bar in 1833. From 1835 to 1842, Reid served in the

North Carolina Senate The North Carolina Senate is the Upper house, upper chamber of the North Carolina General Assembly, which along with the North Carolina House of Representatives—the lower chamber—comprises the state legislature of North Carolina. The Senate ...

. He was a

U.S. Representative The United States House of Representatives is a chamber of the bicameral United States Congress; it is the lower house, with the U.S. Senate being the upper house. Together, the House and Senate have the authority under Article One of th ...

from 1843 to 1847. Reid ran for governor in 1848 as a long-shot candidate. In his campaign, Reid promoted the now-obscure cause of "free suffrage," i.e. that there should not be different standards for who could vote for members of the

North Carolina House of Commons The North Carolina House of Representatives is one of the two houses of the North Carolina General Assembly. The House is a 120-member body led by a Speaker of the North Carolina House of Representatives, Speaker of the House, who holds powers si ...

and of the

. It was assumed that more voters would only increase the Whig domination of the state, but the Whigs denounced suffrage reform as "a system of communism unjust and Jacobinical." To everyone's surprise, Reid lost to

Charles Manly Charles Manly (May 13, 1795May 1, 1871) was a lawyer who served as the 31st governor of the U.S. state of North Carolina from 1849 to 1851. He was the last member of the Whig Party to hold the office. After one two-year term, Manly was defea ...

by only 854 votes. In 1850, Reid defeated Manly by 2,853 votes, becoming the first elected Democratic governor of North Carolina. He was reelected Governor in 1852. In the United States Senate, Reid was chairman of the Committee on Patents and the Patent Office. He sought but was denied a full term in the Senate when he lost a three-way internal party fight with Thomas Bragg and

William W. Holden William Woods Holden (November 24, 1818 – March 1, 1892) was an American politician who served as the 38th and 40th governor of North Carolina. He was appointed by President Andrew Johnson in 1865 for a brief term and then elected in 1868. He ...

in 1858. He returned to the practice of law and was a delegate to the ill-fated 1861

Washington Peace Conference The Peace Conference of 1861 was a meeting of 131 leading American politicians in February 1861, at the Willard Hotel in Washington, D.C., on the eve of the American Civil War. The conference's purpose was to avoid, if possible, the secession of t ...

to try to prevent the

American Civil War The American Civil War (April 12, 1861May 26, 1865; also known by Names of the American Civil War, other names) was a civil war in the United States between the Union (American Civil War), Union ("the North") and the Confederate States of A ...

. Reid was a member of a state constitutional convention in 1875. In the early 1870s Reid moved from his farm on the

Dan River Dan River may refer to: * Dan River (Virginia) * Dan River (China) * Dan River (Middle East) Other * Little Dan River * Browns Dan River * Dan Hole River See also * Dan (disambiguation) Dan or DAN may refer to: People * Dan (name), inc ...

to the nearby seat of Rockingham County Wentworth where he continued to practice law and was respected as an elder statesman of the Democratic Party. In May 1881 Reid suffered a serious stroke at Wentworth and was soon moved to his elder son's Reidsville home where he died in June 1891 and was buried in nearby Greenview Cemetery. His widow and first cousin, Henrietta Settle Reid, died in 1913 and was buried by her husband. None of the few remaining descendants of David Settle Reid live today in his native Rockingham County.

References

External links

History of Reidsville
* NC State Capitol 1861

{{DEFAULTSORT:Reid, David 1813 births 1891 deaths Democratic Party governors of North Carolina Democratic Party North Carolina state senators People from Reidsville, North Carolina North Carolina postmasters Democratic Party United States senators from North Carolina Democratic Party members of the United States House of Representatives from North Carolina Settle family 19th-century members of the United States House of Representatives 19th-century United States senators 19th-century members of the North Carolina General Assembly