Eugene_Hale
Eugene Hale (1836-1918) a U.S. Representative and a U.S. Senator from Maine and father of Frederick Hale another U.S. Senator, was born in Turner on June 9, 1836. He was educated in the common schools and at Hebron Academy, studied law in Portland, was admitted to the bar in 1857.
Hale began his practice in Orland but soon moved to Ellsworth with the Thomas Robinson law firm, established in 1831. After Robinson’s death, Hale join with Luicilius A. Emery with the firm to be known as Hale and Emery. In 1883, Hannibal E. Hamlin, son of Abraham Lincoln’s Vice President Hannibal Hamlin, joined the firm. Later that year Hale and Hamlin became the name that survives today at the office in Ellsworth.
Eugene Hale was prosecuting attorney for Hancock County (1858-1866) an a member of the Maine House of Representatives (1867-1868, 1879-1880). Elected as a Republican to the Forty-first and to the four succeeding Congresses (March 4, 1869-March 3, 1879); he was an unsuccessful candidate for reelection in 1878 to the Forty-sixth Congress.
Hale declined appointments to the Cabinets of Presidents Ulysses S. Grant and Rutherford B. Hayes. He was elected as a Republican to the United States Senate in 1881, reelected in 1887, 1893, 1899, and 1905. Overall he served from March 4, 1881, to March 3, 1911; he was not a candidate for renomination.
In the Senate he was chairman of the Committee on the Census (Fiftieth through Fifty-second Congresses, and Fifty-ninth Congress), Committee on Private Land Claims (Fifty-third Congress), Committee on Printing (Fifty-fourth Congress), Committee on Naval Affairs (Fifty-fifth through Sixtieth Congresses), Republican Conference, 1908-1911; Committee on Appropriations (Sixtieth and Sixty-first Congresses), Committee on Public Expenditures (Sixty-first Congress); member of the National Monetary Commission.
Hale retired from public life and was a resident of Washington, D.C., until his death on October 27, 1918 with interment in Woodbine Cemetery in Ellsworth.
Additional resources
Hale, Eugene. Speech of Hon. Eugene Hale, of Maine, in the Senate of the United States, March 7, 1890. Washington, DC. 1890. [University of Maine, Raymond H. Fogler Library, Special Collections]
Mace, Benjamin H. Statement of Benjamin H. Mace, on soldiers’ claims, and the action of Eugene Hale, M.C., in relation thereto. Bangor Me. Printed at the Daily Commercial Office. 1872. [University of Maine, Raymond H. Fogler Library, Special Collections]
“Eugene Hale” photo from https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q1373107 (accessed February 21, 2019) [Public Domain]