Thomas Jordan Jarvis

Thomas Jordan Jarvis (18 January 1836ndash 17 June 1915) was the Democratic governor of the U.S. state of North Carolina from 1879 to 1885. Jarvis later served as a U.S. Senator from 1894 to 1895.

Born in Jarvisburg, North Carolina, in Currituck County, the son of a Methodist minister, Jarvis was educated locally and went on to attend Randoph-Macon College, earning an M.A. in 1861. An educator by training, Jarvis opened a school in Pasquotank County and would later be one of the founders of East Carolina University.

Jarvis enlisted in the military at the beginning of the American Civil War and served in the Eighth North Carolina Regiment. Captured and exchanged in 1862, Jarvis, by then a Captain, was injured and permanently disabled at the Battle of Drewry's Bluff in 1864.

In 1865, Jarvis returned home and opened a general store before being named a delegate to the 1865 state constitutional convention. Active in the Democratic Party, Jarvis was elected to the State House in 1868 and served there for four years, two of them (1870-1872) as Speaker of the House. An opponent of federal Reconstruction policy, Jarvis was elected lieutenant governor in 1876 on a ticket with Zebulon Vance. Jarvis also married Mary Woodson in December 1874.

In 1879, Vance resigned the governorship to serve in the United States Senate, and Jarvis filled the vacant position. He won election in his own right in 1880, defeating Daniel G. Fowle for the Democratic nomination and narrowly winning over Republican challenger Ralph Buxton.

Term-limited, Jarvis stepped down as governor in 1885, but was appointed United States Minister to Brazil by President Grover Cleveland. Jarvis held this post for four years, after which he practiced law in Greenville, North Carolina. Following Senator Vance's death in 1892, Jarvis again succeeded him in office, serving as a U.S. Senator from until 1895, but was not elected to a term of his own.

In 1896, Jarvis was a delegate to the Democratic National Convention, where he supported William Jennings Bryan, his last major political act. He was instrumental in the founding of what is now East Carolina University in Greenville, where the oldest residential hall on campus is named in his memory. He died in Greenville in 1915. In addition to the ECU residence hall, a local United Methodist church and a street in Greenville are named in his memory. At one time, several personal artifacts were on display at the church.

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###@@@KEY@@@###succession box
title=Lieutenant Governor of North Carolina
before=Curtis H. Brogden
Office Vacant, 1874-1877
after=James L. Robinson
Office Vacant, 1879-1881
years=1877–1879succession box
title=Governor of North Carolina
before=Zebulon B. Vance
after=Alfred M. Scales
years=1879–1885U.S. Senator box
state=North Carolina
class=3
before=Zebulon B. Vance
after=Jeter C. Pritchard
alongside=Matt W. Ransom
years=1894–1895succession box
title = United States Minister to Brazil
before = Thomas A. Osborn
after = Robert Adams, Jr.
years = 11 July 1885–19 November 1888