Richard Cunningham McCormick

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Richard Cunningham McCormick (May 23, 1832 - June 2, 1901) was the first governor of the territory of Arizona, and a Republican member of the United States House of Representatives from New York State.

McCormick was born in New York City. After completing school, he worked in Wall Street in 1852. He then worked as a journalist, serving as newspaper correspondent during the Crimean War, editor of Young Men’s Magazine (New York) from 1857 to 1859, and as a correspondent for the New York Evening Post and New York Commercial Advertiser with Army of the Potomac during the Civil War, in 1861 and 1862.

He was appointed secretary of the Arizona Territory in 1863 by President Lincoln, and then governor of the territory in 1866, by President Johnson. He is also credited with bringing the first printing press to Arizona for the Arizona Miner, which first came into circulation on March 9, 1864. He was elected as a Unionist as Delegate from the Territory of Arizona to the Forty-first, Forty-second, and Forty-third Congresses (1869 to 1875). He later returned to New York, and was elected, as a Republican, to the Fifty-fourth Congress (1895 - 1897).

McCormick's other positions included being a commissioner of the Centennial Exposition at Philadelphia in 1876, First Assistant United States Secretary of the Treasury in 1877, commissioner general to the Paris Exposition in 1878, and president of the board of managers of the State Normal School in Jamaica, New York. He was decorated a Commander, Legion of Honor, by the President of France in 1878.