35 Facts About Joseph Lane

Joseph "Joe" Lane was an American politician and soldier.

When Oregon was admitted as a state in 1859, Lane was elected one of Oregon's first two US Senators.

Joseph Lane was born in Buncombe County, North Carolina, on December 14,1801, to a family of English extraction with roots in colonial Virginia.

Joseph Lane's father, John Lane, was a veteran of the American Revolutionary War.

The Lane family moved to Kentucky from North Carolina when Joseph was a young child.

Joseph Lane left home at the age of 15, and was married four years later.

Joseph Lane was largely self-educated, learning about the world from books he read at night.

Joseph Lane was an eloquent public speaker, a talent that helped him to win election to the Indiana House of Representatives in 1822 at the age of just 21.

Joseph Lane served in that body from 1822 to 1823, from 1830 to 1833, and from 1838 to 1839.

Joseph Lane then moved to the Indiana State Senate, where he served from 1839 to 1840, and from 1844 to 1846.

Widely esteemed by his peers, Joseph Lane was likewise elected as a captain of his local militia while still a young man.

Joseph Lane resigned his State Senate seat, and enlisted in a company of Indiana volunteers.

Joseph Lane's company was assigned to the 2nd Indiana Volunteer Regiment, and Lane was elected colonel in June 1846.

Joseph Lane was appointed a brigadier general of volunteers less than a week later.

Joseph Lane commanded the Indiana Brigade at the Battle of Buena Vista, where he served under General and future President Zachary Taylor.

Joseph Lane led the relief force which lifted the Siege of Puebla, defeating Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna at the Battle of Huamantla.

Joseph Lane arrived in Oregon on March 3,1849, following a hazardous winter trip on the Oregon Trail.

Joseph Lane resigned as territorial governor on June 18,1850, in favor of a new appointee.

On June 2,1851, Joseph Lane was elected Oregon Territory's Delegate in Congress as a Democrat.

Joseph Lane then ran for re-election as Delegate, winning election on June 6,1853.

Joseph Lane won two more terms of office as Delegate in the June elections of 1855 and 1857.

Joseph Lane was elected as one of Oregon's first two United States Senators when Oregon became a state in 1859.

In 1853, after he was re-elected as Delegate, but before he left for Washington, DC, Joseph Lane was appointed as brigadier general commanding a force of volunteers raised to suppress recent Native American violence.

Joseph Lane led the force to southern Oregon to stop Native American attacks against settlers and miners there.

Joseph Lane was again wounded in a skirmish at Table Rock, in Sams Valley, not far from today's cities of Medford and Central Point.

Joseph Lane became notorious for an exchange with Andrew Johnson of Tennessee on his last day in the Senate.

Johnson responded by suggesting that Joseph Lane was a hypocrite for so accusing Johnson when Joseph Lane so staunchly supported a movement of active treason against the United States.

Joseph Lane had taken a land claim of 1 square mile located just north of Roseburg, Oregon, in 1851.

Joseph Lane later purchased a 2,000-acre ranch located about 11 miles east of that town, which he owned for a number of years before selling to a son.

Joseph Lane constructed a home overlooking the South Umpqua River; after his Senate term, he retired there in 1861.

Joseph Lane has been accused of keeping a personal slave as late as 1878, an assumption based on the race of the African-Indian orphan, named Peter Waldo, he raised from the age of two to seventeen.

Joseph Lane was baptized as a Roman Catholic in 1867, and his family was reared in the same faith, but he renounced that faith shortly before his death.

Joseph Lane's body was interred in the Roseburg Memorial Gardens.

General Joseph Lane's daughter's home in Roseburg, where he spent much of his time, is a museum maintained by the Douglas County Historical Society.

Joseph Lane's grandson Harry Joseph Lane was a mayor of Portland, Oregon, and then US Senator from 1913 until his death in 1917.