January 6, 1873

The term of Ozro Hadley, acting governor of Arkansas since 1871, ended. Hadley’s term had been relatively quiet. He acted in concert with leading ex-Confederates in defusing the Pope County Militia War. Perhaps the biggest scandal of his administration was the appointment of William F. Roberts of Pennsylvania as state geologist. State senator James Gordon Frierson blasted the “deceitful, hypercritical, law-breaking, constitution-violating” governor for having paid $15,000 to a man who “came, got drunk on the night of his arrival at Little Rock, [and] continued drunk during the entire time he remained in the state.” Roberts was paid in state scrip rather than national currency, so the actual cost was substantially less.