Andrew Horatio Reeder
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Andrew Horatio Reeder (born July 12, 1807 in Easton, Pennsylvania-1864) was the first governor of the Territorial Kansas.
Reeder was born in Easton, Pennsylvania to Christina Smith and Absolom Reeder. He was educated at an academy in New Jersey. He read law in a Pennsylvania law office and was admitted to the bar there in 1828. In 1831, he married Amelia Hutter.
Reeder was a loyal Democrat and supported the idea of popular sovereignty which dealt with territories decisions on the issue of slavery. In 1854, President Franklin Pierce appointed Reeder to the office of the governor of the territory of Kansas.
As governor of the Territory of Kansas, Reeder was a proponent of the controversial Kansas-Nebraska Act. In March 30, 1855, one of the biggest voting frauds took place, when neighboring Missourians came into the Kansas Territory to vote illegally on the issue of Kansas being admitted into the U.S. as a free state or a slave state. The incident caused border violence between Kansas and Missouri, referred to as Bleeding Kansas.
