William Stanton Pilcher (January 5, 1803–August 14, 1858) was the eleventh mayor of Louisville, Kentucky

Louisville, Kentucky

Louisville is the largest city in the U.S. state of Kentucky, and the county seat of Jefferson County. Since 2003, the city's borders have been coterminous with those of the county because of a city-county merger. The city's population at the 2010 census was 741,096...

, serving from 1857 to 1858.

Pilcher was born in Stafford County, Virginia

Stafford County, Virginia

Stafford County is a county located in the Commonwealth of Virginia, a U.S. state, and just across the Rappahannock River from the City of Fredericksburg. As of the 2000 census, the population was 92,446, increasing to 128,961 in 2010.. Its county seat is Stafford. In 2006, and again in 2009,...

 to a wealthy manufacturing family. He came to Louisville in 1833 to study law.

Pilcher unsuccessfully ran for lieutenant governor

Lieutenant Governor of Kentucky

The office of lieutenant governor of Kentucky has existed under the last three of Kentucky's four constitutions, beginning in 1797. The lieutenant governor serves as governor of Kentucky under circumstances similar to the Vice President of the United States assuming the powers of the presidency...

 in 1844 as a Jacksonian Democrat, but was elected mayor of Louisville on the Know Nothing

Know Nothing

The Know Nothing was a movement by the nativist American political faction of the 1840s and 1850s. It was empowered by popular fears that the country was being overwhelmed by German and Irish Catholic immigrants, who were often regarded as hostile to Anglo-Saxon Protestant values and controlled by...

party on April 4, 1857 in a landslide. However, by May 13, 1858 he was too ill to continue his duties, and he died later that year, becoming the first mayor of Louisville to die in office.