Frank Morrison Pixley (January 31, 1825 – August 13, 1895) was an American journalist and politician who served briefly as the Attorney General of California.
Pixley was born in Westmoreland, Oneida, New York. He graduated from Hamilton College and studied law in Rochester, New York. In 1847, he was elected to the Supreme Court of Michigan. Two years later he travelled to California during the Gold Rush, and spent two winters working mines on the Yuba River. He met and, in 1853, married Amelia Van Reynegom; the Pixleys lived in the North Beach area of San Francisco.
Pixley served as the 8th Attorney General of California, from 1860 to 1861. He fought in the Civil War alongside Union General Ulysses S. Grant at the Battle of Cold Harbor. In 1868 he was the Republican candidate for Congress in California's First District, losing to incumbent Samuel Beach Axtell by more than 3500 votes.
Pixley and Frank Somers founded The Argonaut in April, 1877. The Argonaut was considered one of the most important publications in California and it had a great deal of political influence. He was friends with former Governor of California John G. Downey, and after the death of Downey's wife introduced him to a much younger woman who wrote for The Argonaut, resulting in a minor scandal.
The town of Pixley, in Tulare County, California, is named after Frank Pixley.
Famous quotes containing the words frank m and/or frank:
“Are sailors, frequenters of fiddlers’ greens, without vices? No; but less often than with landsmen do their vices, so called, partake of crookedness of heart, seeming less to proceed from viciousness than exuberance of vitality after long constraint: frank manifestations in accordance with natural law.”
—Herman Melville (1819–1891)
“The radio ... goes on early in the morning and is listened to at all hours of the day, until nine, ten and often eleven o’clock in the evening. This is certainly a sign that the grown-ups have infinite patience, but it also means that the power of absorption of their brains is pretty limited, with exceptions, of course—I don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings. One or two news bulletins would be ample per day! But the old geese, well—I’ve said my piece!”
—Anne Frank (1929–1945)