Samuel PRENTISS, Congress, VT (1782-1857)

PRENTISS, Samuel, (brother of John Holmes Prentiss), a Senator from Vermont; born in Stonington, Conn., March 31, 1782; moved to Northfield, Mass., in 1786; completed preparatory studies and was instructed in the classics by a private tutor; studied law in Northfield and in Brattleboro, Vt.; admitted to the bar in 1802 and practiced in Montpelier, Vt. 1803-1822; member, State house of representatives 1824-1825; associate justice of the supreme court of Vermont; elected chief justice of the State supreme court in 1829; elected in 1831 as an Anti-Jacksonian to the United States Senate; reelected as a Whig in 1837 and served from March 4, 1831, to April 11, 1842, when he resigned to accept a judicial assignment; chairman, Committee on Patents and the Patent Office (Twenty-seventh Congress); originator and successful advocate of the law to suppress dueling in the District of Columbia; judge of the United States District Court of Vermont from 1842 until his death in Montpelier, Vt., January 15, 1857; interment in Green Mount Cemetery.

Bibliography

Dictionary of American Biography; Binney, Charles J.F. Memoirs of Judge Samuel Prentiss of Montpelier, Vt., and His Wife, Lucretia Hougton Prentiss. Boston: n.p., 1883.

Source: Biographical Directory of the United States Congress, 1771-Present