He was the eighth Governor of California , serving from January 1862 to December 1863 , and the first Republican governor . Due to the Great Flood of 1862 , the governor was said to have needed to row in a boat to his own inauguration . A large , slow-speaking man who always read from a prepared text , he impressed his listeners as being more sincere than a glib , extemporaneous speaker
Great Flood of 1862
Great Flood of 1862
Leland Stanford