Daniel Duane Tompkins Farnsworth was born on Staten Island, New York, and moved to Buckhannon, Upshur County, at the age of two. He was raised on a farm and later worked as a tailor, merchant, banker, railroad director, and as one of the first Upshur County justices of the peace. In 1861, Farnsworth became a member of the first Wheeling Convention, proposing the first statehood resolution. He served in the Reorganized Government of Virginia and West Virginia state senates between 1862 and 1869, and helped revise the state code in 1868. On February 26, 1869, Arthur I. Boreman resigned as governor to join the United States Senate. Farnsworth, as state senate president, succeeded him, serving a seven-day term.
During the 1870s, Farnsworth was a leader in the state's Greenback party and attended the 1872 constitutional convention. He died in Buckhannon in 1892.
Inaugural Address
Newspaper Articles On Farnsworth Taking Office
Governor D. D. T. Farnsworth Letter, 27 February
1869
West
Virginia History Center