Gov. Curtis H. Brogden

Curtis Hooks Brogden (6 December 1816 – 5 January 1901) was the Republican governor of the U.S. state of North Carolina from 1874 to 1877.

He was born in Goldsboro, North Carolina, and the son of a local farmer. Brogden joined the North Carolina state militia at the age of 18 and rose to the rank of major general. First elected to the North Carolina House of Commons in 1838 as a Democrat, he served in the leigslature for nearly 15 years, until 1851. In 1838, he was also elected Wayne County Justice of the Peace, a position he held for twenty consecutive years.

In 1852, Brogden rose to the North Carolina Senate, where he served until 1857, when he was named North Carolina Comptroller by the General Assembly. Brogden briefly left the senate in 1867; during the span from 1867-1868, he represented Wayne County at a state constitutional convention and was a member of the Electoral College supporting Ulysses S. Grant.

Brogden returned to the North Carolina senate in 1868 and served for four years until he was elected lieutenant governor on the Republican ticket with Tod R. Caldwell. When Caldwell died in office, Brogden succeeded to the position of governor. During his term in office, the state saw the re-opening of the University of North Carolina; Brogden also called for the formation of a black college and a state penitentiary.

At the end of his term as governor, Brogden was elected to the United States House of Representatives, where he served only one term 1877–1879, after which he retired from public life (with the exception of a single term, in 1887, representing Wayne County in the North Carolina House of Commons).

Brogden died in his hometown of Goldsboro in 1901 and is buried there.