Background
Richard Moore Bishop was born in Fleming County, Kentucky, and received business training in his home state.
Richard Moore Bishop was born in Fleming County, Kentucky, and received business training in his home state.
Bishop served as the 34th Governor of Ohio. He came to Cincinnati, Ohio in 1848, and had a wholesale grocery business on the Public Landing as Bishop and Wells and later R. M. Bishop and Company. In 1857 he became councilman, and 1858, president of the Council.
He was Mayor from 1859 to 1861, and declined re-nomination.
While Bishop was mayor, the Prince of Wales accepted his invitation to visit the city, and, despite being a Democrat, Bishop made the address of welcome to President Lincoln as he passed through on the way to his inauguration. He presided over the great Union meeting held the first year of the war.
From 1859 to 1869, Bishop was President of the Ohio Missionary State Society, and he also served as President of the General Christian Missionary Convention. He was a mover in promoting the Cincinnati Southern Railway.
In 1877, the Democrats nominated Bishop for Governor, and he defeated Republican William H. West and three other candidates with a plurality, but not majority of the votes.
Bishop served a single two-year term as Governor, and was not re-nominated by his party. A Democratic writer summed up his administration thusly:
Governor Bishop was a conscientious man and had made a good Governor, but he was not a politician and made no attempt to keep in touch with or control the leaders of the state. His name is associated in an unenviable way with pardons to convicts, it being alleged that he influenced the Governor to grant pardons for reasons which were not always either just or humanitarian.
Bishop died at Jacksonville, Florida March 2, 1893.
Bishop was buried at Spring Grove Cemetery on March 5, 1893<cemetery records at SG>.
He made political appointments without consulting party leaders and his selections were the cause of much trouble between the Governor and some strong men who helped to elect him.
He was also a member of the Ohio Constitutional Convention of 1873.