William Fisher Packer (April 2, 1807September 27, 1870) was an American politician from

Pennsylvania Pennsylvania, officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a U.S. state, state spanning the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern United States, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes region, Great Lakes regions o ...

who served as the 14th

governor of Pennsylvania The asterisk ( ), from Late Latin , from Ancient Greek , , "little star", is a Typography, typographical symbol. It is so called because it resembles a conventional image of a star (heraldry), heraldic star. Computer scientists and Mathematici ...

from 1858 to 1861.

Early and personal life

Packer was born in Howard, Pennsylvania to James and Charity Packer. When William was seven years old, his father died, leaving him and his four siblings to help run the house. At the age of 13 he began work as a printer's apprentice at the Sunbury Public Inquirer and later at the Bellefonte Patriot. He also worked as a journeyman at Simon Cameron's newspaper the Pennsylvania Intelligencer in

Harrisburg Harrisburg ( ; ) is the List of capitals in the United States, capital city of the Commonwealth (U.S. state), U.S. commonwealth of Pennsylvania and the county seat, seat of Dauphin County, Pennsylvania, Dauphin County. With a population of 50, ...

. Packer studied law in

Williamsport, Pennsylvania Williamsport is a city in and the county seat of Lycoming County, Pennsylvania, United States. As of the 2020 census, it had a population of 27,754. It is the principal city of the Williamsport Metropolitan Statistical Area, which has a populati ...

, under future member of Congress Joseph Biles Anthony but did not practice, choosing instead to stay in the newspaper business. In 1829 he purchased a controlling share and became the editor of the ''Lycoming Gazette'' which he published until 1836. While working at the Lycoming Gazette, he began an early foray into politics as a major supporter of the construction of the West Branch of the Pennsylvania Canal. The state legislators in Philadelphia had opposed funding the construction and Packer penned an address to Philadelphia to raise public support for the project. The campaign worked and the Philadelphia delegation reversed their position to support the canal. Packer married Mary W. Vanderbilt on December 24, 1829. The couple had ten children.

Entry into politics

Packer's support for the canal did not go unnoticed and in 1832, he was appointed by the Canal Commission to serve as Superintendent of the canals. The position was abolished in

1835 Events January–March * January 7 – anchors off the Chonos Archipelago on her second voyage, with Charles Darwin on board as naturalist. * January 8 – The United States public debt contracts to zero, for the only time in history. ...

and Packer spent most of that year working for the re-election of Governor George Wolf and running for the

Pennsylvania State Senate The Pennsylvania State Senate is the upper house of the Pennsylvania General Assembly, the Pennsylvania state legislature. The State Senate meets in the State Capitol building in Harrisburg. Senators are elected for four-year terms, stagger ...

. A schism in the Democratic Party cost Wolf re-election and Packer a Senate seat. In 1836, Packer co-founded The Keystone, a Democratic newspaper published in

. Packer, through the Keystone, was a supporter of David R. Porter for Governor against

Joseph Ritner Joseph Ritner (March 25, 1780 – October 16, 1869) was the eighth governor of Pennsylvania, and was a member of the Anti-Masonic Party. Elected governor during the 1835 Pennsylvania gubernatorial election, he served from 1835 to 1839. Controv ...

in the election of

1838 Events January–March * January 10 – A fire destroys Lloyd's Coffee House and the Royal Exchange in London. * January 11 – At Morristown, New Jersey, Samuel Morse, Alfred Vail and Leonard Gale give the first public demonstration ...

. His support of Porter's successful bid helped him earn an appointment to the Board of Canal Commissioners, a powerful post at the time. After he was re-elected, Porter appointed Packer to the post of

Pennsylvania Auditor General The Pennsylvania auditor general is the chief fiscal officer of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. It became an elected office in 1850. The current auditor general of Pennsylvania is Republican Timothy DeFoor. History The office of the audito ...

in 1842. After an unsuccessful bid for the

Pennsylvania House of Representatives The Pennsylvania House of Representatives is the lower house of the bicameral Pennsylvania General Assembly, the legislature of the U.S. state of Pennsylvania. There are 203 members, elected for two-year terms from single member districts. It ...

in 1845, Packer won a seat in

in 1847 and served as

Speaker of the House The speaker of a deliberative assembly, especially a legislative body, is its presiding officer, or the chair. The title was first used in 1377 in England. Usage The title was first recorded in 1377 to describe the role of Thomas de Hung ...

in 1848 and 1849. Packer won re-election in 1848 and then served as a member of the

for the 12th district from 1851 to 1852. In the State Senate, Packer was an ardent supporter of railroad development in Central Pennsylvania, working towards the establishment of the Susquehanna Railroad. At the time, state policy was to restrain railroad development in southern Pennsylvania which would benefit Baltimore rather than Philadelphia. The act to authorize the railroad connected the York and Cumberland Railroad to cities like Williamsport and Sunbury and increased their access to regional trade. In 1852, Packer became the first President of the Susquehanna, stepping aside after the line was consolidated into the Northern Central Railway. During the 1856 Presidential Election, friend and fellow Pennsylvanian

James Buchanan James Buchanan Jr. ( ; April 23, 1791June 1, 1868) was the 15th president of the United States, serving from 1857 to 1861. He also served as the United States Secretary of State, secretary of state from 1845 to 1849 and represented Pennsylvan ...

ran for the Democratic nomination against incumbent

Franklin Pierce Franklin Pierce (November 23, 1804October 8, 1869) was the 14th president of the United States, serving from 1853 to 1857. A northern Democratic Party (United States), Democrat who believed that the Abolitionism in the United States, abolitio ...

and Senator

Stephen Douglas Stephen Arnold Douglas ( né Douglass; April 23, 1813 – June 3, 1861) was an American politician and lawyer from Illinois. As a U.S. senator, he was one of two nominees of the badly split Democratic Party to run for president in the 1860 ...

. Packer worked hard for his nomination and election. Buchanan won the nomination at the

1856 Democratic National Convention The 1856 Democratic National Convention was a presidential nominating convention that met from June 2 to June 6 in Cincinnati, Ohio. It was held to nominate the Democratic Party's candidates for president and vice president in the 1856 election ...

Cincinnati, Ohio Cincinnati ( ; colloquially nicknamed Cincy) is a city in Hamilton County, Ohio, United States, and its county seat. Settled in 1788, the city is located on the northern side of the confluence of the Licking River (Kentucky), Licking and Ohio Ri ...

, and went on to win the Presidency over Republican

John C. Frémont Major general (United States), Major-General John Charles Frémont (January 21, 1813July 13, 1890) was a United States Army officer, explorer, and politician. He was a United States senator from California and was the first History of the Repub ...

and

Know Nothing The American Party, known as the Native American Party before 1855 and colloquially referred to as the Know Nothings, or the Know Nothing Party, was an Old Stock Americans, Old Stock Nativism in United States politics, nativist political movem ...

candidate and former President

Millard Fillmore Millard Fillmore (January 7, 1800 – March 8, 1874) was the 13th president of the United States, serving from 1850 to 1853. He was the last president to be a member of the Whig Party while in the White House, and the last to be neither a De ...

Governor

1857 Events January–March * January 1 – The biggest Estonian newspaper, '' Postimees'', is established by Johann Voldemar Jannsen. * January 7 – The partly French-owned London General Omnibus Company begins operating. * Ja ...

, Packer was nominated as the Democratic Party Candidate for Governor. He was opposed by David Wilmot, author of the

Wilmot Proviso The Wilmot Proviso was an unsuccessful 1846 proposal in the United States Congress to ban slavery in territory acquired from Mexico in the Mexican–American War. The conflict over the Wilmot Proviso was one of the major events leading to the ...

which aimed to ban the expansion of slavery to territories acquired from Mexico, and Isaac Hazlehurst of the

Native American Party The American Party, known as the Native American Party before 1855 and colloquially referred to as the Know Nothings, or the Know Nothing Party, was an Old Stock nativist political movement in the United States in the 1850s. Members of the m ...

. The

Panic of 1857 The Panic of 1857 was a financial crisis in the United States caused by the declining international economy and over-expansion of the domestic economy. Because of the invention of the telegraph Telegraphy is the long-distance transmission ...

had crippled the nation's economy, including the Pennsylvania iron industry. With strong support for tariffs in more normal times, the Panic increased Pennsylvania's support for high tariffs, a stance which hurt the pro-free trade Wilmot. The question of the day, however, remained the issue of slavery in Kansas. Packer forwarded a letter to his friend, President Buchanan, supporting the Kansas-Nebraska Act, but opposing an expansion of slavery in that state without a free and open process. The split of the Republicans and Know Nothings made it difficult to defeat the united Democrats and Packer swept into office. A large crowd attended his inaugural ceremonies on January 19, 1858. In dealing with the economic crisis caused by the Panic, Packer vehemently blamed banks and the free issue of paper money over gold and silver coinage. As part of a recovery plan, the Governor approved legislation to requiring state banks to limit the issue of paper currency to amounts covered by real security deposited with the state. In 1859, Packer sought to end the state's involvement in construction and management of canals and railroads, selling off the state's investments to the Sunbury and Erie Railroad. Governor Packer was a proponent of public schools and supported the new public school system with funds for teacher training. Packer also used his veto power to stop attacks on the new public education system by forces in the legislature. As his term came to an end, southern states had begun seceding from the union. Packer recommended that the nation's differences be addressed in a national convention. He opposed secession and, in his final address to the General Assembly, he stated, "It is therefore clear, that there is no Constitutional right of secession. Secession is only another form of nullification. Either, when attempted to be carried out by force, is rebellion, and should be treated as such, by those whose sworn duty it is to maintain the supremacy of the Constitution and laws of the United States." Packer retired from public life after the end of his term and died September 27, 1870, in Williamsport. He is interred at Williamsport Cemetery.

Places named for William F. Packer

Packer Park Packer Park is a neighborhood in the South Philadelphia section of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States that originally included 1,000 homes built in two unique builder developments, of Packer Park in the 1950s and Brinton Estates during th ...

- A neighborhood along Packer Avenue in

South Philadelphia South Philadelphia, nicknamed South Philly, is the section of Philadelphia bounded by South Street to the north, the Delaware River to the east and south, and the Schuylkill River to the west."." ''City of Philadelphia''. Retrieved November 8, ...

. Packer Hall - A residence hall on the University Park campus of the

Pennsylvania State University The Pennsylvania State University (Penn State or PSU) is a Public university, public Commonwealth System of Higher Education, state-related Land-grant university, land-grant research university with campuses and facilities throughout Pennsyl ...

. Packer Street Williamsport PA

References

External links