Prentiss Mellen

Who was Prentiss Mellen?

Prentiss Mellen was a Senator from Massachusetts; born in Sterling, Massachusetts to Rev. John and Rebecca Mellen. Mellen graduated from Harvard University in 1784; studied law; admitted to the bar in 1788 and commenced practice in Sterling and Bridgewater, Massachusetts, and in Dover, New Hampshire; moved to Biddeford, Massachusetts, around 1791 and practiced law; settled in Portland, Maine, around 1806; member of the Massachusetts Executive Council 1808-1809, 1817; presidential elector in 1817; trustee of Bowdoin College, Brunswick, Maine from 1817 to 1836; elected to the United States Senate to fill the vacancy caused by the resignation of Eli P. Ashmun and served from June 5, 1818, to May 15, 1820, when he resigned; upon the admission of the State of Maine into the Union in 1820 became chief justice of the supreme court of that State and served until his resignation in 1834; member and chairman of the commission to revise and codify the public statutes of Maine in 1838; died in Portland, Maine, December 31, 1840; interment in Western Cemetery.

In 1833, Mellen was the first President of a newly formed abolitionist society formed in Portland. Samuel Fessenden and Methodist Rev. Gershom A. Cox were the vice-presidents.