Kinsley S. Bingham

Twenty-five-year-old Kinsley Bingham left his New York home in 1833 saying: “Give me $500 and let me go to Michigan and I’ll be governor in two years.” He settled here, constructing this handsome Greek Revival house in 1842. Bingham’s boast was not exaggerated, since he was elected to the legislature in 1836, serving five terms, and was U.S. Congressman from 1847 to 1851. Adamantly opposed to slavery, he broke from the Democratic Party of the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850. The Republican Party chose Bingham as its candidate for governor in Jackson’s famous “Under the Oaks” convention of 1854. Six months later he took office as the nation’s first Republican governor, and in 1856 he was reelected. Becoming U.S. senator in 1859, Bingham died here on October 5, 1861.