Parris, Albion K.

Born: 1788-01-19 Oxford County, Maine

Died: 1857-02-11 Portland, Maine

Parris graduated from Dartmouth College in 1806, studied law, and was admitted to the Cumberland County bar in 1809. In 1810, he married Sarah Whitman, with whom he had four children. After serving in the Massachusetts General Court, in November 1814 he was elected to fill a vacancy in the U.S. House of Representatives. In 1818, President James Monroe appointed Parris a U.S. District Judge for the District of Maine, in which capacity he served until 1820. The following year, he was elected governor of Maine, and in 1827, the Maine Legislature elected him to the U.S. Senate. From 1828 to 1836, Parris served on the Maine Supreme Court, and from 1836 to 1849, he served as the second comptroller in the U.S. Treasury Department. At the end of this service in the Treasury Department, Parris returned to Maine and began practicing law in Portland, where residents elected him mayor in 1852. Parris was a member of the Freemasons and was a Congregationalist.

U.S. Census Office, Seventh Census of the United States (1850), Washington Ward 2, Washington, DC, 84; J. Chris Arndt, “Parris, Albion Keith,” American National Biography, ed. by John A. Garraty and Mark C. Carnes (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999), 17:64-65.