History of Paris, (Oxford County) Maine United States of America

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Biographies:

Hannibal Hamlin, vice-president of the United States, was born on Paris Hill, Maine, Aug 27, 1809; son of Dr. Cyrus and Anna (Livermore) Hamlin; gran/lson of Capt. Eleazer Hamlin of Pembroke, Mass., who commanded a body of Continental minutemen, which included his sons, Africa, America, Europe and Asia, in the war of the Revolution; and a descendant of James Hamlin, who settled on Cape Cod in 1639. He was prepared for college at Hebron academy, but after 1829 when his father died he was obliged to devote his time to the care of the farm, teaching school in the winter seasons to provide for his mother and sisters. He had made some progress in the study of law, but found little time to prosecute it. He joined with Horatio King in the publication of The Jeffersonian, a local newspaper, which he sold to his partner at the end of a year and again took up the study of law in the office of Gen. Samuel Fessenden in Portland, and was admitted to the bar in 1833, settling at Hampden, Penobscot county. In 1835 he was elected by the Democrats a representative in the state legislature and served, 1835-40. He was speaker of the hoase for three terms, the youngest man to fill that position in Maine. He was defeated for representative in the 27th congress in the election of 1840, but was a representative in the 28th and 29th congresses, 1843-47. He signalled his maiden Democratic speech in congress by announcing that he was an uncompromising foe to the extension of slavery, and after the speech he was congratulated by John Quincy Adams, former President of the United States, who greeted him with: "Light breaketh in the east! sir, light breaketh in the east!" His second notable speech was in opposition to the annexation of Texas, and during his second term he denounced the practice of duelling, offered and secured the passage of the celebrated "Wilmot proviso" through the house, and was named by the antislavery Democrats as speaker. He was the candidate of the anti-slavery Democrats before the state legislature as U.S. senator in 1846, but was defeated by one vote after the legislature had balloted six weeks. He was elected a representative in the state legislature in 1847 and in May, 1848, was elected by a majority of one vote U.S. senator to fill a vacancy caused by the death of Senator John Fairfield and which was at the time of his election held temporarily by W. B. S. Moor, appointed to the vacancy by Governor Dana. He was re-elected in 1850 for a full senatorial term after a dead-lock in the legislature for three months. He renounced his allegiance to the Democratic party on the nomination of Buchanan in 1856, became the Republican candidate for governor of Maine, and was elected by 25,000 plurality. He resigned from the senate on Feb. 6, 1857, to assume the governorship and was succeeded in the U.S. senate by Amos Nourse. He was again elected to the U.S. senate in 1857 and resigned the governorship Feb. 20, 1857, to take his seat in the senate, March 4, 1857. He resigned the senatorship, Jan. 1, 1861, having been elected Vice-President on the ticket with Abraham Lincoln for President and was succeeded in the senate by Lot M. Morrill. He presided over the senate throughout the first term of Mr. Lincoln's administration. In 1864 his party gave the vice-presidential nomination to the south, the administration fearing the recognition of the independence of the southern Confederacy by Great Britain and France unless the Republican party took its vice-presidential candidate from a central southern state. He declined the secretaryship of the treasury offered him by President Lincoln; was appointed collector of the port of Boston by President Johnson in 1865 and resigned the lucrative office in 1866 as he disapproved of the policy of the President. He was again elected U.S. senator in 1869 and for the fifth time in 1875. He declined reelection in 1881, after a service of twenty-five years as U.S. senator, during which time he had held the chairmanship of the committees on commerce, post-offices and post-roads, and of foreign affairs. In 1881 President Garfield offered him the position of U.S. minister to Germany, Italy or Spain, and he accepted the mission to Spain, but resigned the post in 1883. He was regent of the Smithsonian institution, ex offico, 1861-65, and by appointment, 1870-82, and was for a time dean of the board. He received the degree of LL.D. from Colby in 1859, and was trustee of the institution, 1857-91. He was the third citizen of the United States who had been elected and served as Vice-President to die on the nation's birthday. He was twice married, both of his wives being daughters of Judge Stephen Emery of Paris Hill, Maine. He died at the Tanatine Club rooms, Bangor, Maine, July 4, 1891.

From: Twentieth Century Biographical Dictionary of Notable Americans, Johnson, Rossiter, editor

Horatio King, cabinet officer, was born in Paris, Oxford county, Maine, June 21, 1811; son of Samuel and Sarah (Hall) King; grandson of George King, of Rayham, Mass., a soldier in the American Revolution, and of Jonathan Hall, a native of Hopkinton, Mass. He was brought up on a farm, received a public school education, and in 1829 entered the office of the Jeffersonian, published in Paris, where he learned the printer's trade. He soon became equal owner of the journal with Hannibal Hamlin, and in 1831 the sole proprietor.. In 1833 he moved to Portland, where he edited and published the Jeffersonian until he sold it to the Standard in 1838. He was married in 1865 to Ann Collins, of Portland, Maine, who died in 1869, and in 1875 to Isabella G. Osborne, of Auburn, N.Y., who survived him, He received appointment as clerk in the post-office department at Washington from Amos Kendall in March, 1839, and was gradually advanced. In 1850 he was put in charge of the foreign mail service, where he originated and perfected postal arrangements of great importance, one of which was the reduction, between Bremen and the United States, of the half-ounce letter rate from twenty cents (then, 1853, the lowest rate to Europe), to ten cents, which was the beginning of low postage across the Atlantic. In March, 1854, he was appointed first assistant postmaster-general by President Pierce, to fill the vacancy caused by the death of Major Hobble. He held this position until Jan. 1, 1861, when he became acting postmaster-general. On Feb. 1, 1861, on the transfer of General Holt to the war department, he was nominated by President Buchanan, and, February 12, confirmed by the senate, as postmaster-general, serving in that capacity until the inauguration of President Lincoln and the appointment of his successor, March 7, 1861. He is the only man who ever entered the post-office department in the lowest clerkship and left it as postmaster-general. He remained in Washington during the civil war, and served, by unsolicited appointment by President Lincoln, as one of a board of commissioners to settle for the slaves emancipated in the District of Columbia; this action being prior to the issue of the general emancipation proclamation. Though exempt by law from performing military duty in the civil war, he furnished a representative recruit, who was duly mustered in and served in the Federal army. This exhibition of patriotism and public spirit received official acknowledgment froan the government. After retiring with Buchanan's cabinet, he practised as an attorney before the executive departments and international commissions in Washington until about 1875, when he retired as far as practicable from active business. After leaving the post-office department he worked assiduously some eight years before congress to secure the adoption of the "penalty envelope," the use of which has saved the government many thousand dollars. This, and many other works for the public good, he did without thought of, or receipt of, any financial reward. He was a member, and most of the time secretary, of the Washington National Monument society from 1869 until the completion and dedication of the monument, Feb. 22, 1885. He received the degree of LL.D. from Dickinson college in 1896. He is the author of: An Oration Before the Union Literary Society of Washington (1841): Sketches of Travel (1878); Turning on the Light: A Review of Buchanan's Administration (1895). He died in Washington, D.C., May 90, 1897.

From: Twentieth Century Biographical Dictionary of Notable Americans, Johnson, Rossiter, editor