Vinton, Samuel F.

Born: 1792-09-25 South Hadley, Massachusetts

Died: 1862-05-11 Washington, D.C.

Samuel Vinton graduated from Williams College in 1814 and studied law. He earned admittance to the bar in 1816 and started a practice in Gallipolis, Ohio. Vinton married Romaine Madeleine Bureau in 1824, and the couple had two children. Vinton held several local offices before winning election to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1822. He would go on to serve in the House until 1837, first as a supporter of Henry Clay and John Quincy Adams and later as a Whig. He decline another nomination in 1836 to concentrate on his law practice, but returned to the House, as a Whig, in 1843, serving until 1851. He served alongside Abraham Lincoln during the Thirtieth Congress. He ran unsuccessfully for Governor of Ohio in 1851, but earned appointment from President Lincoln in 1862 to appraise the slaves emancipated in the District of Columbia.

Biographical Directory of the American Congress, 1774-1996 (Alexandria, VA: CQ Staff Directories, 1997), 1992; Gravestone, Pine Street Cemetery, Gallipolis, OH; Donald J. Ratcliffe, "Vinton, Samuel Finley," American National Biography, ed. by John A. Garraty and Mark C. Carnes (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999), 22:383-84.