Alfred Cumming (September 4, 1802 – October 9, 1873) was an American politician who served as the governor of the Utah Territory from April 12, 1858, to May 17, 1861.

On July 13, 1857, he received this commission and set out that same September with an attachment of soldiers led by Colonel Albert Sidney Johnston as part of the Utah Expedition.

At the time, Brigham Young, leader of the Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter-day Saints, was acting as interim governor of the Utah Territory.

[8][9] Buchanan offered a deal that would pardon all Utahns for their “seditions and treasons” if they let the army into Salt Lake City and welcomed Cumming as governor.

Accompanied by his wife, Elizabeth Randall Cumming, he was escorted to Utah by a large force under Colonel Albert Sidney Johnston.

Additionally, Cumming's wife shared the difficult winter near Fort Bridger and with her husband occupied the Devereaux House during the three years of their stay in Utah.

Her letters provide a rare insight into events of that time, and record her impressions of the Utah landscape and social life as well as politics among the federal appointees, especially during 1857 and 1858.

His term as governor of Utah Territory had been one in which the issues of self-determination, shared sovereignty, and territorial/federal relationships were tested as in few other times in the long American effort to create a democratic substitute for centralized colonial rule.