Albion K. Parris (courtesy Maine State Museum)
(1788-1857) was born in Hebron, Maine (at that time a part of Massachusetts) on January 19, 1788. He was a cousin of
Virgil Delphini Parris also a U.S. U.S. Representative.
Albion Parris, a U.S. Representative from Massachusetts and a Senator from Maine, graduated from Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, in 1806; studied law; and was admitted to the bar and commenced practice in Paris in 1809, acting as prosecuting attorney of Oxford County in 1811.
He was a member, Massachusetts House of Representatives from 1813 to 1814, and a member of the State Senate from 1814 to 1815. Parris was also elected as a Democratic-Republican from the State of Massachusetts to the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Congresses and served from March 4, 1815, to February 3, 1818, when he resigned.
He became judge of the District Court of the United States for the District of Maine 1818-1820, a delegate to the Maine constitutional convention in 1819, and Judge of Probate for Cumberland County from 1820 to 1821.
In 1822 he was elected Governor of Maine, serving until 1827 when he was elected to the United States Senate from where he served from March 4, 1827 to August 26, 1828 when he resigned.
After serving as judge of the Supreme Court of Maine (1828-1836), he became the second Comptroller of the United States Treasury which office he held from 1836 to 1850.
Returning to Maine, Parris was mayor of Portland in 1852 and the unsuccessful Democratic candidate for Governor in 1854. He died in Portland in February 11, 1857 with interment in Western Cemetery.
Additional resources
Albion Parris Congressional Biography: https://bioguideretro.congress.gov/Home/MemberDetails?memIndex=P000079 (accessed January 5. 2021)
*Arndt, J. Chris. “Albion Keith Parris,” American National Biography. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999, Vol. 17, pp. 64-65.
*Biographical Encyclopedia of Maine of the 19th Century. Boston: Metropolitan Publishing and Engraving Company, 1885, pp. 81-84.
Chase, Henry. Representative Men of Maine.
*“Death of Hon. A.K. Paris,” Eastern Argus, Portland, February 12, 1857
*Moody, Robert E. “Albion Keith Parris,” Dictionary of American Biography. New York: Scribner’s Sons, 1933, Vol. 14, p. 254.
*Willis, William. “Albion Keith Parris,” Maine Historical and Genealogical Recorder, Bangor, July, 1893, pp. 117-121.
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*Cited in Friends of the Blaine House at http://blainehouse.org/governors(accessed April 25, 2011)
When doing genealogy in Maine one finds many people named for A. K. Parris! He must have been a popular guy or at least well known.
Typically the name will be AKP Berry, AKP xxxxx, etc.
Every time I find one I chuckle.