William P. Frye

William P. Frye

William Pierce Frye (born September 2, 1830 in Lewiston , Maine , †  August 8, 1911 ibid) was an American politician ( Republican Party ) who represented the state of Maine in both chambers of Congress .

Originally from Androscoggin County , William Frye first attended public schools there and then graduated from Bowdoin College in Brunswick in 1850 . He subsequently studied law , was admitted to the bar and began practicing in Rockland in 1853 ; but later he returned to Lewiston. Frye was instrumental in founding Bates College in his hometown and was thereafter long-time curator of this institution, where he earned his doctorate in law in 1881 .

His political career began in the Maine House of Representatives , to which he was a member from 1861 to 1862 and again in 1867. From 1866 to 1867 he was mayor of Lewiston; he subsequently became Attorney General of Maine. He resigned from this post in 1869. The following year he was elected to the United States House of Representatives, whereupon he assumed his mandate in Washington, DC from March 4, 1871. He remained there after several re-elections until March 17, 1881. On that day he resigned as a member of the US Senate to take over the seat of James G. Blaine, who had resigned himself .

For Frye followed a more than 30-year career in the Senate. He was confirmed by the electorate in 1883, 1889, 1895, 1901 and 1907, and on February 7, 1896, he was promoted to pro tempore President of the Senate . He held this post until April 27, 1911. His resignation as president pro tempore for health reasons was followed by a vacancy that lasted for weeks, as the candidates for the conservative and progressive Republicans and the Democrats blocked each other. It was not until August 14th that the three groups agreed on a rotation principle, whereupon the office was constantly filled up until March 1913.

William Frye had died in Lewiston, the town of his birth, six days before the settlement. In the Senate, in addition to his work as President pro tempore, he also temporarily chaired the Rules Committee . In September 1898 he was also a member of the commission that negotiated the peace treaty with Spain after the Spanish-American War in Paris . At the time of his death, he held the honorary title of "Dean of the United States Senate" as the Senate member with the longest uninterrupted term of office.

William Frye's grandson Wallace H. White also sat for Maine in the US Senate from 1931 to 1949.

Web links

• William P. Frye in the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress (English)

• William P. Frye in the database of Find a Grave (English)