 In 1845, President James Polk appointed him as receiver of the land office at Fayette, Missouri, where he served until 1849.Two years later in 1851, Governor Austin Augustus King appointed him as State Treasurer of Missouri, filling a vacancy caused by the death of incumbent Peter Garland Glover.His first wife, the former Minerva Jackson, with whom he had two children, died in 1858, during his tenure in office.