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Seventh governor of Indiana — Fort Wayne was his final home
On the record
Samuel Bigger was born in Franklin, Ohio, on March 20, 1802, and educated at Ohio University. He sat in the Indiana legislature in 1833–35 and served as a circuit judge from 1835 to 1840 before winning the governorship as a Whig; he was Indiana's seventh governor, from December 9, 1840, to December 6, 1843, and his term produced the revised state code of 1841. His Fort Wayne years came after the statehouse: beaten for re-election, he moved to Fort Wayne, formed a law practice with Joseph K. Edgerton — who stands in the main people section — and died at his Fort Wayne home on September 9, 1846. He was buried in McCulloch Park, and the U.S. 27 (Lafayette Street) bridge over the St. Marys River in Fort Wayne is the Governor Samuel Bigger Memorial Bridge. Some nineteenth-century books give his death year as 1845; the Indiana Historical Bureau and modern references give September 9, 1846.
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- § 06 — people of the record · famous-people supplement
Sources: Indiana Historical Bureau (governors' history, in.gov).