Starting Sept. 30, 2014, Genealogy.com will be making a big change. GenForum message boards, Family Tree Maker homepages, and the most popular articles will be preserved in a read-only format, while several other features will no longer be available, including member subscriptions and the Shop.
 
Learn more


Home Page |Surname List |Index of Individuals |InterneTree |Sources


View Tree for Joseph LaneJoseph Lane (b. 14 Dec 1801, d. 19 Apr 1881)


Picture of Joseph Lane
Gov Joseph Lane

Joseph Lane (son of John Lane and Elizabeth Street)54 was born 14 Dec 1801 in Asheville, Buncombe, North Carolina, USA54, and died 19 Apr 1881 in Roseburg, Douglas Co, Oregon. He married Polly Pierce Hart.

 Includes NotesNotes for Joseph Lane:
Joseph Lane was born in North Carolina on December 14, 1801 to John and Elizabeth Street Lane. Nine years later the family moved to Kentucky. After reaching adulthood, Lane relocated to Indiana and served in both houses of the legislature from 1822 to 1846. With the beginning of the Mexican War in 1846, he received the commission of colonel in the 2nd Indiana Volunteers. He attained the rank of major-general in 1847 before his discharge in 1848.

President James K. Polk appointed Lane to be governor of the new Oregon Territory in 1848. After a hazardous midwinter journey, he arrived at Oregon City in March 1849 to begin his duties. These duties included traveling to Walla Walla country to secure the surrender of five Cayuse Indians accused in relation to the Whitman Massacre. The Indians were later convicted and hanged. Lane served as governor until June 1850 after which he served as delegate to Congress until Oregon became a state in 1859. He served as first Oregon senator from 1859 to 1861 and ran as a Democratic candidate for vice president on the unsuccessful Breckenridge ticket in 1860. Lane's pro-slavery Southern sympathies limited his political career in the 1860s. He spent the rest of his life on his land claim in the Umpqua Valley where he took no active part in politics.

One of his sons, Lafayette Lane served in Congress from 1875 to 1877; and a grandson, Dr. Harry Lane, was a U.S. Senator from 1913 to 1917, dying in office.

Lane County, Oregon is named for Joseph Lane.

William S. Powell, Ed. Dictionary of North Carolina Biography, Vol. 4. Chapel Hill NC: The University of North Carolina Press, pp. 13-14.

Lane, Joseph (14 Dec. 1801-19 Apr. 1881), soldier, U.S. senator, governor of Oregon, and vice-presidential candidate, was born in a double log cabin on Beaverdam Creek, four miles north of Asheville. During the same year his cousin, David Lowry Swain, destined to become a North Carolina governor and president of the University of North Carolina, was born in the same cabin. Lane was a descendant of members of the noted Lane family, originally of Halifax County, who were pioneer settlers of Raleigh and Wake County. His grandfather was Jesse Lane; Jesse's brothers were Joseph and Joel, the latter of whom provided the land on which Raleigh was established. His father, John Lane, fought at the Battle of Kings Mountain and after the Revolution, in 1795, settled with his brother Charles in Buncombe County and established an ironworks. His mother was Elizabeth Street, daughter of an early sheriff of Buncombe County. Joseph was the second son of John and Elizabeth Lane.
In 1804 the family moved to Henderson County, Ky., where he attended common schools. In 1816 he moved to Warrick County, Ind., and clerked in a store. He married Mary (Polly) Pierre Hart in 1820 and settled on a riverbank farm in Vanderburgh County. Lane was a successful farmer and also bought produce and conducted a flatboat trade with New Orleans. He continued these operations for twenty-four years, becoming a prominent tradesman and community leader. In 1822 he held his first public office when he served in the Indiana legislature; he won reelection several times. During the Mexican War Lane received national attention after leading his brigade with distinction at Huamantla and in other battles. Entering as a private, he merged as a hero with the rank of major general. At the close of the war in 1848, President James K. Polk named him governor of the new and virtually unexplored Territory of Oregon.
After a rigorous winter journey, Lane proclaimed the new government on 3 Mar. 1849. Many of his duties involved pacifying the region's Indian tribes, a task in which he was notably successful. He resigned the governorship on 18 June 1850 and was subsequently named a delegate to the U.S. Congress; he was reelected three times. When Oregon joined the Union on 14 Feb. 1859, he was chosen as its first U.S. senator, serving until 3 Mar. 1861.
In 1860 Lane was named vice-presidential nominee on the Democratic ticket headed by John C. Breckinridge. In this four-way campaign, one faction of the Democrats split in an effort to prevent the election of Stephen A. Douglas. It was thought that Lane--a native Southerner, considered pro secession, and popular in all parts of the country--in combination with Breckinridge could defeat both the Douglas forces and the strong Republican ticket of Abraham Lincoln and Hannibal Hamlin. But the Republicans won with 180 electoral votes; Breckinridge and Lane came in second with 71.
It was during this unsuccessful bid for the nation's second highest office that Lane returned to North Carolina, his first visit since childhood. He went to see his father's birthplace near Raleigh and the Joel Lane House, the city's oldest. He viewed the deed of conveyance by which Joel Lane in 1792 sold the state one thousand acres on which the capital city was founded. He also was reunited with his cousin, David Lowry Swain, then president of the University of North Carolina, with whom he had corresponded over the years. He learned much about the fortunes of the Lane family during the intervening years.
Oregon had become Republican in the 1860 election. Thus, after his Senate term expired, Lane retired from public life to his farm near Roseburg, Oreg., where he died. Lane and his wife were the parents of ten children who lived to maturity: Ratliffe B., Malissa, Joseph, Simon, John, Lafayette, Roseburg, Mary, Emily, and Winifred. In 1867 Lane, his wife, and three of their children (Simon, Lafayette, and Winifred) were baptized and confirmed into the Roman Catholic faith. At his own request, however, following his death nearly fifteen years later, Lane was buried in the Masonic Cemetery at Roseburg without religious ceremony.
He is recognized as one of Oregon's leading historical figures, and two thousand of his letters as well as several portraits and sketches of him are in the archives of the Oregon Historical Society. Lane County, site of the city of Eugene and the University of Oregon, is named for him.
SEE: Asheville Citizen, 30 Dec. 1951, 31 Oct. 1959; Biog. Dir. Am. Cong.(1971); Biographical Directory of the Indiana General Assembly (1980); DAB, vol. 5 (1932);

LANE, General Joseph- (Puget Sound Weekly Courier (WA)- Apr. 22 1881)
General Joseph Lane is dead. In his time he bore an important part in the affairs of this coast and of the nation. He took an active and honorable part in the Mexican war, was Oregon's first Territorial governor, making the trip over land in mid winter to enter upon his duties. He was repeatedly elected delegate to congress from 11851 till the state was admitted, when he was elected senator, where he misrepresented her until March 4, 1861, during his occupancy of the seat in the senate giving Aid and sympathy to secession. In 1860 he was candidate for Vice President on the Breckenridge Ticket. He was always a Bourbon Democrat, in full sympathy with the slavery and secession dogmas of the south and did all he could to implant and perpetuate those views in Oregon. In his administration of affairs in Oregon he showed himself to be brave and energetic man of great ability and he might have been a tower of strength in the nation had his political struggles anterior to the war and consequent upon it are, perhaps, too fresh in our memory for us to do General Lane full justice for the many good qualities he undoubtedly possessed.

More About Joseph Lane:
Date born 2: 14 Dec 1801, Ashville, Buncombe Co North Carolina.
Died 2: 19 Apr 1881, Roseburg, Douglas, Oregon, USA.54

Children of Joseph Lane and Polly Pierce Hart are:
  1. Roseburg Lane, d. date unknown.
  2. +Malissa Lane, b. 14 May 1821, Vanderburgh, Indiana, USA54, d. 16 Jul 1895, Goldhill, Oregon, USA54.
  3. +Nathaniel Hart Lane, b. 05 Jul 1823, Evansville, Vanderburgh, Indiana, USA, d. 22 Jul 1878, Portland, Multnomah, Oregon.
  4. +Ratliffe B Lane, b. 22 Jul 1825, Vanderburgh, Indiana, USA54, 54, d. 1849, New Orleans, Louisiana, USA54, 54.
  5. +Joseph Samuel Lane, b. 13 Oct 1827, Evansville, Vanderburgh, Indiana, USA54, d. 06 Aug 1910, Myrtle Creek, Douglas, Oregon, USA54.
  6. +Mary Lane, b. 20 Apr 1830, Vanderburgh, Indiana, USA54, d. 03 Nov 1911, Oregon, USA54.
  7. +Simon Robert Lane, b. 29 Feb 1832, Evansville, Vanderburgh, Indiana, USA54, d. 01 Jun 1925, Roseburg, Douglas, Oregon, USA54.
  8. +Emily Lane, b. 16 May 1834, Vanderburgh, Indiana, USA54, d. 18 Nov 1907, Boise, Idaho, USA54.
  9. +John Lane, b. 17 May 1837, Evansville, Vanderburgh, Indiana, USA54, d. 24 Dec 1914, Lapiwha, Nez Perce, Idaho, USA54.
  10. +Winifred Lane, b. 31 Jan 1840, Evansville, Vanderburgh, Indiana, USA54, d. 18 Dec 1922, Portland, Multnomah, Oregon, USA54.
  11. LaFayette Bane Lane, b. 12 Nov 1842, Evansville, Vanderburgh, Indiana, USA54, d. 23 Nov 1896, Roseburg, Douglas, Oregon, USA54.
Created with Family Tree Maker


Search for Family - Learn About Genealogy - Helpful Web Sites - Message Boards - Guest Book - Home
© Copyright 1996-99, The Learning Company, Inc., and its subsidiaries. All rights reserved.
© Copyright 1995-97 by Matthew L. Helm. All Rights Reserved.