13 Facts About Joseph McMinn

Joseph McMinn was an American politician who served as the fourth Governor of Tennessee from 1815 to 1821.

In 1786, Joseph McMinn moved to Hawkins County, Tennessee, where he had purchased a farm.

Joseph McMinn served as an officer in the territorial militia, eventually rising to the rank of brigade commander.

Joseph McMinn was chosen to deliver a copy of the completed document to the federal government in Philadelphia.

Joseph McMinn served in the Tennessee Senate from 1797 to 1801, and from 1803 to 1811, and was Speaker of the Senate from 1805 to 1811.

In 1815, Joseph McMinn ran for governor against four other prominent state politicians: Senator Jesse Wharton, Congressman Robert Weakley, former speaker of the state house Robert Foster, and fellow state constitutional convention delegate Thomas Henderson.

Joseph McMinn was reelected in 1817, again defeating Foster, and elected to a third term in 1819, defeating Enoch Parsons.

Joseph McMinn married his first wife, Anna Cooper, in 1785, and they had one daughter, Jane.

Joseph McMinn died in January 1815, and his only child, Jane, died two weeks later.

Jane Joseph McMinn had first married Hugh Campbell, second James Taylor Gaines.

In 1942, a portrait of Joseph McMinn that had been painted by noted artist Rembrandt Peale in 1796 was discovered in Philadelphia.

Joseph McMinn apparently posed for the portrait during his visit to the city to deliver the newly written Tennessee state constitution to the federal government.

Joseph McMinn joined the Presbyterian Church late in life, and was buried in an unmarked grave at the Shiloh Presbyterian Cemetery in Calhoun.