Lewis O. Barrows (courtesy Maine State Museum)
(1893-1967) born in Newport on June 7, 1893, attended local schools and the University of Maine. He returned home to work in his father’s drug store, in the insurance business, and then as Newport’s Town Treasurer for twelve years.
A conservative Republican, Barrows was a member of the Republican State Committee and a member of Governor Brewster’s Executive Council in 1926. In 1932 he failed to obtain his party’s nomination for governor.
Elected Secretary of State in 1935, Barrows was a successful candidate for governor in 1936 and was reelected in 1938. He was a fiscal conservative who reduced the existing deficit, stabilized the state’s school fund, and held the line on taxes.
He left office on January 1, 1941 and moved to Boston to become an executive with Liberty Mutual Insurance Company. He retired in 1957and died on January 30, 1967.
Additional resources
Barrows, Lewis O. Message of Lewis O. Barrows, governor of Maine to the special session of the eighty-ninth legislature of the state of Maine, May 23, 1940.
Portland Press Herald, January 31, 1967.
Sobel, Robert, and John Raimo, eds. Biographical Directory of the Governors of the United States, 1789-1978, Vol. 2
Tardiff, Shirley Anderson. Maine politics at the end of the second New Deal. Thesis (M.A.) in History–University of Maine, 1975.
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*Cited in Friends of the Blaine House at http://blainehouse.org/governors(accessed April 25, 2011) (accessed April 25, 2011)