Lot M. Morrill (courtesy Maine State Archives)
(1813-1883), a Senator from Maine and brother of Anson Peaslee Morrill, was born in Belgrade, May 3, 1813. He attended the district schools and Waterville (now Colby) College. He studied law; was admitted to the bar in 1839, and began practice in Readfield, then moved to Augusta in 1841. Initially a Democrat, the slavery and temperance issues led him to join the new Republican Party.
A member of the Maine House of Representatives 1854, he was elected to the State Senate in 1856, and was selected its president.
Governor of Maine from 1858 to 1860, Morrill was elected as a Republican to the United States Senate to fill the vacancy caused by the resignation of Hannibal Hamlin. He was reelected in 1863 and served from January 17, 1861, to March 3, 1869. He served as a member of the Peace Convention of 1861 held in Washington, D.C., in an effort to devise means to prevent the impending war.
He later resumed the practice of law in Augusta, but was appointed in 1869, and subsequently elected, to the United States Senate to fill the vacancy caused by the death of William Pitt Fessenden. He was reelected in 1871 and served from October 30, 1869, until his resignation on July 7, 1876. In the Senate his assignments included the following: chairman of the Committee to Audit and Control the Contingent Expense (Thirty-eighth and Thirty-ninth Congresses), Committee on the District of Columbia (Thirty-ninth Congress), Committee on Appropriations (Fortieth, Forty-first, Forty-third and Forty-fourth Congresses), Committee on the Library (Forty-first and Forty-second Congresses).
After a stint as Secretary of the Treasury of the United States under President Ulysses S. Grant 1876-1877; he was appointed by President Rutherford B. Hayes as collector of customs in Portland from 1877, serving until his death. He died in Augusta on January 10, 1883, with interment in Forest Grove Cemetery.
Additional resources
*Biographical Encyclopedia of Maine of the 19th Century. Boston: Metropolitan Publishing and Engraving Company, 1885, pp. 39-57.
Chase, Henry. ed. Representative Men of Maine.
*Ferris, Norman B. “Lot Myrick Morrill,” American National Biography. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999, Vol. 15, pp. 884-885.
*Moody, Robert E. “Lot Myrick Morrill,” Dictionary of American Biography. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1933, Vol. 13, pp. 199-200.
*North, James W. The History of Augusta. Augusta: Clapp and North, 1870, pp. 797-799.
Talbot, George Foster. ‘Lot M. Morrill.’ Collections and Proceedings of the Maine Historical Society 5 (1894): 225-75.
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*Cited in Friends of the Blaine House at http://blainehouse.org/governors (accessed April 26, 2011)