Rodman M. Price

In 1848, he returned to New York to secure himself an appointment as purser for the Pacific Squadron. He moved to a new headquarters in San Francisco, where he provisioned and payrolled ships between Monterey and Honolulu.[1]

When the California gold rush hit and inflated commodity prices, the Navy expected Price to establish the hegemony of American credit and prevent the drain of gold bullion to London.[1] Instead, he enriched himself as a real-estate tycoon and entered politics. He was elected to the first Common Council of San Francisco and became a booster of the city's Long Wharf project. In August 1849, he was "detached" from the Pacific Squadron for making unauthorized drafts on specie in the Customs House and neglecting to submit quarterly returns on expenses.[1]

Despite his removal, Price's political career flourished. In September 1849, he was a delegate to the first of the California Constitutional Conventions and finished third in the November elections for the new state's inaugural United States Representatives. He served on the first Ayuntamiento de San Francisco from August 6, 1849, to January 10, 1850.[2] He returned to Washington to render account, but on his return journey his steamer, the Orleans St. John, caught fire on the Alabama River. Price claimed his payroll vouchers were destroyed in the fire, muddling his case and leading to years of litigation over $88,000 in unaccounted Navy funds.[1]

On December 28, 1849, he purchased Rancho San Geronimo from fellow naval officer Joseph Warren Revere for $7,500. The two would split the profits of timber exports from the property. On August 6. 1851, Price bought the remainder of Revere's property for $8,000.[3] Price's move to New Jersey later inspired Revere to purchase farm land and construct The Willows, a custom mansion in Morristown, New Jersey.

In 1853, Price was recruited to run for governor on the Democratic ticket. Whig critics attacked him for his ties to the "Joint Companies," a name given to the conglomerate formed by the merger of the Delaware and Raritan Canal Company with the Camden & Amboy Railroad which effectively had a monopoly on transportation, and his residence in California, which some argued disqualified him from office.[1] The Democratic campaign focused on an opposition to monopoly and a general promise of "reform."[1] Price was elected by a reduced but substantial margin.

As governor, Price had little real influence against the county machines that dominated the Democratic Party or the large corporations that dominated the state. He hewed to standard Jacksonian democratic rhetoric, criticizing unbridled corporate consolidation, paper bank notes, and public spending. To fulfill his campaign pledge for reform, Price backed a Law Reform Commission to reorganize the state judiciary, reaching a compromise with Whigs to pass the reforms in exchange for more appointments of Whig judges to the bench.[1]

Responding to Protestant nativism in the state, Price suggested that the legislature enact a limited moratorium on naturalization in the period preceding elections and ignored calls for the prohibition of liquor and saloons, provided that the legislature upheld "constitutional rights."[1] Price favored local control on the question of slavery, particularly in Kansas, and campaigned on behalf of James Buchanan and Fernando Wood in 1856.[1]

Price also established the first state geological survey at the urging of agricultural societies and North Jersey industrialists, defraying costs by selling maps of the state's soil and mineral resources to European investors.[1]

Price continued to support the Joint Companies, bargaining with Stockton to extend the corporation's charter until 1869 with the option of a state takeover in twenty years, in part to avoid disrupting the $200,000 in tax revenue that the monopoly provided to the state.[1] He continually proposed to scrap the system of town highway commissioners in favor of countywide administration but was consistently blocked by those who relied on the highway commissions as lucrative patronage positions.

In response to outcry from Jersey shippers amid the rapid expansion of the Manhattan wharves on the Hudson River, Price and Governor of New York Myron Clark established a harbor commission to investigate whether construction was obstructing river flow and to recommend official bulkhead lines, the first in interstate port regulation.[1] He also appointed the first pilots' board to protect Newark and Jersey City operators struggling to maintain a portion of imports from Liverpool.[1]

Price is sometimes regarded as the father of the New Jersey public school system; he responded to two decades of calls for public education by signing the first legislation establishing state normal schools, turning professional education into an important statewide lobby. His work built on the prior efforts of Democratic governors Daniel Haines and George F. Fort. Price himself participated in the 1854 Sussex Institute and urged state support for its extension to all counties. In January 1855, he called for the establishment of a state training school and drafted the bill that established the Trenton Normal School.[1]