Person

John Jordan Crittenden (Franklin Co, KY, Representative, Senator, & former KY Governor)

b. 1787-09-10 d. 1863-07-26

Kentucky attorney and politician. Kentucky native. Married to Sarah O. Lee Crittenden. Father of George Bib Crittenden, Ann Mary Crittenden Coleman, Cornelia A. Crittenden Young, Thomas Leonidas Crittenden, Sarah Lee Crittenden Watson, and Robert Henry Crittenden. Married to Maria Knox Innes Crittenden. Father of John J. Crittenden III and Eugene Wilkinson Crittenden. Married to Elizabeth Moss Crittenden. Attended Pisgah Academy in Woodford County, Kentucky. Attended Washington College in Lexington, Virginia. Graduated from William and Mary College in Williamsburg, Virginia, in 1806. Admitted to the bar in 1807. Practiced law in Woodford County, Kentucky; Russellville, Kentucky; and Frankfort, Kentucky. Attorney for the Illinois Territory from 1809 to 1810. Served as a major to General Samuel Hopkins and as an aide-de-camp to Governor Isaac Shelby during the War of 1812. Member of the House of Representatives of the Commonwealth of Kentucky from 1811 to 1817, 1825, and from 1829 to 1832. Member of the United States Senate from 1817 to 1819, 1835 to 1848, and 1855 to 1861. United States district attorney from 1827 to 1829. Attorney general of the United States from March to September 1841 and from 1850 to 1853. Governor of the Commonwealth of Kentucky from 1848 to 1850. Employed Thomas Lee as a laborer in Franklin County in 1850. Owned forty-two enslaved persons in Franklin County in 1850. Owned nine enslaved persons in Franklin County in 1860. Unionist member of the United States House of Representative from the Eighth Congressional District of Kentucky from 1861 to 1863. Died in Frankfort, Kentucky on July 26, 1863.

Details

Sex
Male
Race
White

Bibliography

Seventh Manuscript Census of the United States (1850), Population Schedules, Kentucky, Franklin County, District 1, p. 36B.

Seventh Manuscript Census of the United States (1850), Slave Schedules, Kentucky, Franklin County, District No 1., p. 862-3.

Eighth Manuscript Census of the United States (1860), Population Schedules, Kentucky, Franklin County, Frankfort Dist. No 1, p. 83.

Eighth Manuscript Census of the United States (1860), Slave Schedules, Kentucky, Franklin County, Frankfort District No 1, p. 490A.

Charles Lanman, Biographical Annals of the Civil Government of the United States (Washington: J. M. Morrison, 1887), 118-119.

“Crittenden, John J,” The Kentucky Encyclopedia, ed. John E. Kleber (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1992), 240

“Crittenden, John Jordan,” Biographical Directory of the United States Congress, accessed December 19, 2016, http://bioguide.congress.gov/scripts/biodisplay.pl?index=C000912.

"John Jordan Crittenden, Jr, (1787-1863)," Find A Grave, Memorial #23284, accessed December 19, 2016, http://www.findagrave.com/memorial/23284.

Citation

Crittenden, John Jordan. Accessed via the Civil War Governors of Kentucky Digital Documentary Edition, https://discovery.civilwargovernors.org/document/S32198788 (January 24, 2026).

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