John Palmer Usher
Creator: Corwin, E.H.
Date: Between 1870 and 1879
This cabinet card represents John Palmer Usher,1816-1889, a lawyer from Indiana, who servers as U. S. Secretary of the Interior during President Abraham Lincoln's administration. Usher serves only two years, 1863-1865, before returning to private life. In 1865, he becomes the chief counsel for the Kansas Pacific Railroad; a position he held until his retirement in 1880. Usher, also, resumes his political career, when he moves to Lawrence, Kansas, in 1872, and is elected to one term as the town's mayor,1879 -1881. On April 13, 1889, at the age of seventy-three, Usher passes away at the University Hospital in Philadelphia after a lengthy illness. He is buried at the Oak Hill Cemetery in Lawrence, Kansas.