Walter Harriman ( governor ) Walter Harriman ( April 8 , 1817July 25 , 1884 ) was an American preacher , merchant , soldier , and politician who served two terms as the Governor of New Hampshire . He was a brevet brigadier general in the Union Army during the American Civil War . Early life and career . Harriman was born in Warner , New Hampshire , where he was raised and educated . He taught school at a number of academies in New Hampshire , Massachusetts , and New Jersey from 1835 through 1840 . While teaching , he studied theology and in 1840 joined the Universalist Church . He later preached in Harvard , Massachusetts , and his native Warner . In 1849 , Harriman entered politics as a Democrat and was elected to the New Hampshire state legislature , serving through 1850 . The following year , he resigned as a minister and opened a store in Warner , partnering with John S . Pillsbury , a future Governor of Minnesota and industrialist . In 1853 , Harriman returned to politics and served as State Treasurer until 1854 when he moved to Washington , D . C . , to take the role as Clerk of the Pension Office , a patronage position which he held until 1856 when President James Buchanan took office and replaced Harriman with his own selection . Harriman returned to New Hampshire and was elected to the state legislature in 1858 . He was subsequently elected to the state senate , serving there from 1859 through 1861 . Upon the completion of his term , he entered the newspaper business as an editor in Manchester , New Hampshire . Civil War . In 1862 , Harriman was appointed colonel of the 11th New Hampshire , a newly raised three - years regiment of infantry . He led his regiment from Cincinnati , Ohio , across the rugged Cumberland Plateau of Kentucky and Tennessee to join Maj . Gen . Ambrose Burnside ' s army in Knoxville , Tennessee . Harriman had no horse and walked with his men . During this 20 - day journey , Harriman and his regiment camped for several days on the Emory River in Tennessee near the future location of the city of Harriman . ( The directors of the company that later founded the city there decided to name it for him after having a conversation with an elderly man who fondly remembered Colonel Harriman and recalled the colonel saying that there should be a town near his regiment ' s campsite . ) He interrupted his military service to run as a War Democrat in the 1863 gubernatorial campaign . He siphoned off enough regular Democratic votes to give the election to Republican candidate Joseph A . Gilmore . Harriman rejoined the 11th New Hampshire in time for the Battle of the Wilderness during the Overland Campaign . He was captured and sent south as a prisoner of war . He was exchanged in September 1864 , and mustered out as a Brevet brigadier general in June 1865 . Postbellum career . Following the Civil War ' s conclusion in early 1865 , Harriman joined the Republican Party and served as the New Hampshire Secretary of State until 1867 , when he was elected as the state ' s governor . Harriman served two terms as Governor of New Hampshire from 1867 to 1869 . Governor Harriman urged the public and the legislature to develop New Hampshire ' s agricultural , industrial and forest resources , in order to develop a post - war economy . He was very concerned with the education of post - war citizens of the state , and he signed an act creating teacher institutes . He personally drafted a law to get education out from under county commissioners , and he established an education fund with monies from the sale of state lands . In retirement , Harriman served as Naval Officer for the Port of Boston until 1877 . He published his " History of Warner " in 1879 , and then traveled to Europe and the Far East from 1882 – 83 . He published " Travels and Observations in the Far East " in 1883 . Walter Harriman died the following year in Concord , New Hampshire , where he is buried . In the early 1890s Harriman ' s son , Walter C . Harriman , was one of the founders of the city of Harriman , Tennessee , which is named for Governor Harriman .