John Pope

John Pope was third territorial governor of Arkansas, serving from 1829 to 1835.

Pope was born in Prince William County, Virginia, in 1770. He attended William & Mary College, graduating with a law degree. He moved with his family to Kentucky and began practicing law in Lexington in 1794. He served as a Democrat in the U.S. Senate from 1806 to 1812, losing in the latter year for his opposition to the War of 1812.

He was appointed Arkansas territorial governor in March 1829 by President Andrew Jackson. One of his first acts was to establish regular postal delivery between Little Rock and Memphis. In 1836 he returned to Kentucky to re-enter politics and practice criminal law.

Pope died on July 12, 1845, in Springfield, Kentucky.

References

• The National Cyclopaedia of American Biography: Being the History of the United States as Illustrated in the Lives of the Founders, Builders, and Defenders of the Republic, vol. 10 (J.T. White, 1900), 183.