Andrew Jackson Hanscom (February 3, 1828 – September 11, 1907) was a pioneer, lawyer, politician, and real estate broker from Omaha, Nebraska.
At 17 Hanscom attended Antioch College in Yellow Springs, Ohio,[1] and during this period he served as first lieutenant of Company C., First Michigan Infantry, during the Mexican–American War.
[3] That year he moved across the Missouri River and built a claim shack and small frame building near 15th and Farnam Streets in present-day Downtown Omaha.
When Alfred Jones surveyed Omaha later that year he divided it into 320 blocks, after which point Hanscom discovered his claim had been reserved for schools.
[2] Late that year Hanscom was appointed colonel of the First Nebraska Regiment,[4] and he helped found the Omaha Claim Club.
These events led to the illegal convening of several anti-Omaha legislators in the notorious Florence session, in which they called for a new government to rule on the proceedings.
The acting governor Thomas B. Cuming ruled that the capital would not leave Omaha and the session ended before any further antics could happen.