Ramsey County History Podcast

Ramsey County Historical Society presents March of the Governors #12: William Merriam. William Merriam (1849-1931) was the first Minnesota governor born into wealth and the first to break an unwritten code of the Minnesota Republican Party when he wrested the party’s nomination from the incumbent governor, Andrew McGill, in 1888. He proved a much better vote-getter than McGill (that year, anyway), but still won his first election with only 51 percent of the vote. The next time around he did much worse—he was re-elected, yes, but with only 36 percent of the vote in a four-way contest. With his Republican Party fractured and the legislature divided, he was unable to get much done in office. He did not try for a third term. His second act, as director of the United States Census Bureau, was far more successful. When he took that job in 1897, he left Minnesota and never returned. He is known, to some, as the Father of the Modern US Census.