Philip Francis Thomas
American politician (1810-1890)
Philip Francis Thomas (September 12, 1810 – October 2, 1890) was an American lawyer and politician. He served in the Maryland House of Delegates, was the 28th governor of Maryland from 1848 to 1851, and was Comptroller of Maryland from 1851 to 1853. He was appointed as the 23rd U.S. secretary of the treasury in 1860 in the Buchanan administration. After unsuccessfully standing for the United States Senate in 1878, he returned to the Maryland House of Delegates, and later resumed the practice of law.
Thomas was also elected twice to the United States House of Representatives, once in 1838 and again in 1874. He holds the all-time record for the longest break in between two terms of service in Congress, with 34 years separating his only two terms.
Governor of Maryland
Born in Easton, Maryland, he graduated from Dickinson College in Pennsylvania in 1830. He studied law and became a lawyer in Easton. Thomas was a delegate to the Maryland's constitutional convention in 1836 and a member of the Maryland House of Delegates in 1838, 1843, and 1845. He was elected as a Democrat to the 26th Congress in 1838 from Maryland's 2nd congressional district, but declined to run again in 1840.
“Philip Francis Thomas” enters the record as american politician (1810-1890). Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Philip, Francis and Thomas can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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The entry’s evidential value lies in the named roles, institutions and publications that can be tested against primary documentation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 4, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q529914. VIAF identifies the subject as 36000110. The Library of Congress control number is n88071917. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1810, 1890, 1848 and 1851.
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This entry incorporates text from “Philip Francis Thomas” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.