Background
Andrew Jackson Faulk was born at Milford, Pike County, Pennsylvania. In 18rs his parents, John and Margaret (Heiner) Faulk, moved to Kittanning, in Armstrong County.
third governor of Dakota Territory
Andrew Jackson Faulk was born at Milford, Pike County, Pennsylvania. In 18rs his parents, John and Margaret (Heiner) Faulk, moved to Kittanning, in Armstrong County.
In Kittanning, in Armstrong County Andrew received his education in the subscription schools and Kittanning Academy.
Later he learned the printing trade, then studied law under Michael Gallagher and Joseph Buffington, though he was not admitted to the bar until 1866.
He attacked the Pennsylvania law permitting imprisonment for debt and gave active support to Thaddeus Stevens’s free-school program.
Because of his opposition to the further extension of slavery in the territories, he became an advocate of Col. Samuel Black’s anti-slavery resolution in the Democratic state convention at Pittsburgh in 1849, and following its repudiation by the succeeding convention, he shifted from the Democratic to the newly formed Republican party.
His work at the post was important, for his.
tactful and honest policy in dealing with the professedly friendly Yankton Indians did much to prevent their alliance with the hostile Santee Sioux to make war on the whites while the federal troops were occupied in the Civil War.
From 1864 to 1866 Faulk was again in Pennsylvania.
There he assisted in organizing and superintending the Latonia Coal Company of New York, and promoted the Paxton Oil Company of Pittsburgh.
In 1866 he returned to Dakota as territorial governor and superintendent of Indian affairs, by virtue of President Johnson’s appointment.
During his two-year term of office he aided the geologist, E. N. Hayden, in calling attention to the mineral resources to be found in the Black Hills by bringing the Black Hills question before the territorial legislature, and by inducing that body to appeal to Congress for help in recovering the region from the Indians.
As an advisory member of General Sherman’s commission which negotiated the treaty of Fort Laramie, establishing the Indians west of the Missouri River, Faulk aided in opening the Black Hills to white settlers.
After retiring from the governorship he continued to reside at Yankton until his death.
Faulk essayed a crusader’s role in local politics early in life, first through the medium of the Armstrong County Democrat, which he edited and published from 1837 to 1841, and then by means of various county offices which he held from 1840 to 1860.
In 1835 he married Charlotte McMath, of Washington County, Pennsylvania.
