Washburn, Jr., Israel

Born: 1813-06-06 Livermore, Maine

Died: 1883-05-12 Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Israel Washburn Jr. was a lawyer, state representative, U.S. representative, governor, federal government official, and brother of Cadwallader C. Washburn, Charles A. Washburn, Elihu B. Washburne, Samuel B. Washburn, and William D. Washburn. Israel's father served in the Massachusetts General Court from 1815 until 1819 and ran a store that went out of business in 1829. The failure of his father's store kept Israel from attending college, but he learned law outside of the formal education system and earned admittance to the bar in 1834. He commenced practicing law in Orono, Maine. Born into a political family, Washburn devoted his professional life to politics. After serving in local offices, he served in the Marine House of Representatives in 1842 and 1843. Washburn lost his first race for the U.S. House of Representatives in 1848 but would rebound in 1850, winning election representing the Penobscot District. He would continue to represent this district for the next ten years.

Originally a Whig, Washburn helped found the Republican Party when he gathered a group of anti-slavery representatives with the goal of organizing a new party in the aftermath of the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act. Although it is unclear who first called the nascent party "Republican," Washburn was among the first to use the moniker in a speech delivered in Bangor, Maine, shortly after the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act. The Republican nominee for governor in 1860, Washburn won election as the twenty-ninth governor of Maine. Resigning from Congress in January 1861 to assume the governorship, Washburn succeeded Lot M. Morrill, who had won election to the U.S. Senate—a position Washburn coveted—replacing Hannibal Hamlin, who resigned from the Senate to serve as vice president for Abraham Lincoln.

Taking office during the secession crisis, Washburn opposed any concessions to the American South. Once hostilities commenced, Washburn proved to be one of the North's great war governors, raising and equipping ten regiments for the U.S. Army while also promoting and protecting Maine's interests. Declining renomination in 1862, Washburn left office in January 1863. Soon after, President Lincoln appointed him collector of the port of Portland, a position he would hold until 1877. In the postwar period, Washburn ran for, and lost, multiple races for the U.S. Senate and served as the president of Rumford Falls & Buckfield Railroad. He suffered from a slowly declining health in his later years and eventually died while undergoing medical treatment.

Washburn married twice. In October 1841, he wed Mary Maud Webster, with whom he had four children. Mary Webster Washburn died in 1873, and in 1876, Israel married Rebina Napier Brown.

Jennie Barnes Pope, "Washburn, Israel," Dictionary of American Biography, ed. by Dumas Malone (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1964), 10:502-3; Heather Cox Richardson, "Washburn, Israel Jr.," American National Biography, ed. by John A. Garraty and Mark C. Carnes (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999), 22:746-47; Bangor Daily Whig and Courier (ME), 14 May 1883, 2:1; Gravestone, Mount Hope Cemetery, Bangor, ME.