John St. John (American politician)

John Pierce St. John (February 25, 1833 – August 31, 1916) was the eighth Governor of Kansas and a candidate for President of the United States in 1884.

St. John was born in Brookville, Indiana. He served as lieutenant colonel of the 143rd Illinois Volunteer Infantry Regiment in the Union Army during the American Civil War. From 1873 he sat in the Kansas Senate, and was the Republican Governor of Kansas from 1879 to 1883. Active in the temperance movement, he successfully promoted a prohibition amendment to that state's constitution. St. John also helped create the Kansas Freedmen's Relief Association during the Great Exodus of African-Americans to Kansas in 1879.

He was the Prohibition Party candidate for President of the United States in the 1884 election. On October 2, 1884 he was nearly shot, with the bullet hitting the window next to him. He received 147,482 votes (about 1.5%) on a ticket with William Daniel. The election was won by Grover Cleveland of the Democratic Party. St. John was also surpassed by two other unsuccessful candidates:
 * James Gillespie Blaine of the Republican Party.
 * Benjamin Franklin Butler of the United States Greenback Party.

St. John died after suffering heat exhaustion on August 31, 1916 in Olathe, Kansas.

The city of St. John, Kansas, is named after him.