John Currey

Who was John Currey?

John Moore Currey was the eighth Chief Justice of California, and candidate for Governor of California in 1859.

Born in Westmorland County, New York in 1814, John Currey died in Dixon, California in 1912. He attended Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut.

He came to California in 1849, eventually settling down in Benicia, Solano County, California where he established a successful law practice. Among his clients was Juan Manuel Vaca owner of a large tract of land, a Mexican land grant near the present-day city that bears his name Vacaville, California.

In 1859 the Anti-Lecompton Democratic Party selected Currey as their candidate for Governor of California. The rival faction at the time Lecompton Democrats chose Milton Latham as their candidate. The Republican Party ran its first California gubernatorial candidate in 1859, businessman and railroad tycoon, and later Governor Leland Stanford.

Despite the Democratic party split in California in the 1850s and the surge of new Republican Party's candidate in the campaign, Latham won the election garnering sixty percent of the vote.