Morrill, Lot M.

Born: 1813-05-03 Maine

Died: 1883-01-10 Augusta, Maine

Flourished: 1841 to 1883 Augusta, Maine

Lot M. Morrill, attorney and public official, was born in Belgrade, Maine, and was educated in local schools before briefly attending Waterville College (later Colby College) in 1833. He subsequently read law in Readfield, Maine, where he was admitted to the bar in 1839. Two year later he relocated to Augusta, where he continued to practice law and became involved in politics, acting as chair of the state Democratic committee between 1849 and 1856. He was elected as a Democrat to the Maine House of Representatives, serving in 1854, but broke with the party during the course of 1855 and 1856 over the issue of slavery and the 1856 Democratic platform. Morrill was elected to the Maine Senate in 1855 as a Democrat, but upon taking office in 1856, the Democratic majority elected him to the ceremonial role of president of the Senate to minimize his effectiveness in that body. That same year he officially switched his allegiance to the Republican Party. As a Republican, Morrill served three one-year terms as governor of Maine, from 1858 to 1860, and when U.S. Senator for Maine Hannibal Hamlin was elected vice president under Abraham Lincoln, Morrill was selected by the legislature of Maine to succeed him in the U.S. Senate. As a senator, he was an outspoken opponent of slavery, and, in 1862, was influential in the adoption of a law outlawing slavery in the District of Columbia. He was reelected to a full term in the U.S. Senate in 1863 and was chairman of the delegation from Maine at the 1864 Republican National Convention. Morrill married Charlotte Holland Vance in 1845 and the pair had four children. He was the brother of Anson P. Morrill, who also served as governor of Maine.

Norman B. Ferris, “Morrill, Lot Myrick,” American National Biography, ed. by John A. Garraty and Mark C. Carnes (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999), 15:884-85; Robert E. Moody, “Morrill, Lot Myrick,” Dictionary of American Biography, ed. by Dumas Malone (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1934), 13:199-200; Biographical Directory of the American Congress 1774-1996 (Alexandria, VA: CQ Staff Directories, 1997), 1553-54; Robert Sobel and John Raimo, eds., Biographical Directory of the Governors of the United States 1789-1978 (Westport, CT: Meckler Books, 1978), 2:610-11; U.S. Census Office, Seventh Census of the United States (1850), Augusta, Kennebec County, ME, 34; U.S. Census Office, Eighth Census of the United States (1860), Augusta, Kennebec County, ME, 43; Proceedings of the First Three Republican National Conventions of 1856, 1860 and 1864 (Minneapolis, MN: Charles W. Johnson, 1893), 201, 248; Daily Eastern Argus (Portland, ME), 11 January 1883, 2:2; The New-York Times, 11 January 1883, 5:4; Gravestone, Forest Grove Cemetery, Augusta, ME.