Orsamus Cook Merrill

Orsamus Cook Merrill (born June 18, 1775 in Farmington , Colony of Connecticut , † April 12, 1865 in Bennington , Vermont ) was an American politician . Between 1817 and 1820 he represented the state of Vermont in the US House of Representatives .

Career

Orsamus Merrill attended elementary school in his home country and moved to Bennington, Vermont in 1791. After studying law, he was admitted to the bar in 1804. During the British-American War of 1812 he was a major and later a lieutenant colonel in the infantry in the US Army . After the war, he was employed by a probate court in 1815.

Merrill was a member of the Democratic Republican Party . In the 1816 congressional election, held nationwide, he was elected to the first Vermont seat in the US House of Representatives in Washington, DC . There he took up his new mandate on March 4, 1817. Until March 3, 1819, he was able to complete a full term in Congress . In the elections of 1818 he was re-elected against Rollin Carolas Mallary . On March 4, 1819, he began his second term in Congress; the election result was challenged by Mallary. After this objection was granted, Merrill had to give up his mandate on January 12, 1820.

In 1822, Merrill was a delegate to a meeting to revise the Vermont Constitution. That same year he was elected to the Vermont House of Representatives. From 1822 to 1823 he was also a judge at a probate court, after which he was a public prosecutor until 1825. Between 1824 and 1827 Merrill was a member of the Vermont government council. In 1836 he was elected to the State Senate. Afterwards he was again judge at a probate court from 1841 to 1847. Later he was also a postman in the town of Bennington, where he also worked as a lawyer. Orsamus Merrill lived through the Civil War and died shortly after it ended on April 12, 1865 at the age of almost 90.

Web links

• Orsamus Cook Merrill in the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress (English)

• Orsamus Cook Merrill in the database of Find a Grave (English)