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John C. Callaghan

Range of Years Served: 
1929
Party: 
Democrat
Served as Secretary of State: Jan. 7, 1929 – Jan. 27, 1929 Born: July 9, 1869, Gallitzin, Cambria County, Pennsylvania Died: Jan. 27, 1929, St. Joseph's Hospital, Phoenix, Maricopa County, Arizona Buried: Pennsylvania "Callaghan was elected at the last election [Nov. 6, 1928] and was to have taken office Jan. 7, but his inauguration was postponed because he was confined to a hospital at that time [he had been taken to the hospital on Jan. 5, 1929]. Callaghan died in office Jan. 27, 1929. ("Secretary of State of Arizona Passes on." The Helena Independent (Helena, Montana), Jan. 28, 1929, p. 8) George W. Nickle was the first person ever to be appointed secretary of state on Jan. 29, but declined the appointment the next day.

Biography

Name:  John C. Callaghan

Name as Secretary of State:  J.C. Callaghan
  
Other Elected Offices:  
Arizona State Treasurer: Party: Democrat, Office Years: 1927 – 1928
Arizona State Auditor: Party: Democrat, Office Years: 1912 – 1916

Education:  Night school

Occupations:  Coal miner at age 11; bookkeeper then assistant cashier, Webster Coal & Coke Company, Ehrenfeld, Cambria Co., Pennsylvania; cashier at store, Bisbee, Arizona; under Sheriff A. V. Lewis, Tombstone, 1903 – 1904

Memberships: President of the State Board of Equalization; State Board of Control, State Board of Commissioners of Paroled Prisoners, State Loan Commission, Land Board of Arizona; Elk, and a Past Exalted Ruler of Bisbee Lodge No. 671.

Firsts: First state Auditor

Notable: “He was a pioneer advocate in Arizona of the Initiative and the Referendum, as early as 1905 declaring for these in the press, together with other proposed reforms, many of which were later incorporated in the Constitution of Arizona….”  (Who's Who in Arizona, 1913)

Memorial/Resolution: 9th Legislature, Regular Session, 1929, Senate Joint Resolution No. 1 “On the Death of the Honorable J. C. Callaghan Secretary of State of Arizona.”  Approved January 30, 1929.

Sources:  Birth and education:  Who’s Who in Arizona, 1913, p. 353; death and burial:  AZ death record; party as Secretary of State:  1928 general election canvass; occupations:  Who’s Who in Arizona, 1913; McClintock, James H.  Arizona, Prehistoric, Aboriginal, Pioneer, Modern; The Nation's Youngest Commonwealth Within a Land of Ancient Culture.  Vol. 3.  Chicago, IL:  S.J. Clarke Publishing Co., 1916, pp. 116-117; U.S. AZ 1900 census; memorial