Gorham Parks

Who was Gorham Parks?

Gorham Parks was a U.S. Representative from Maine, and a Democratic Party candidate for Maine Governor.

Born in Westfield, Massachusetts, Parks attended the common schools and graduated from Harvard University in 1813, where he studied law. He was admitted to the bar in 1819 and began his practice in Bangor, Maine in 1823.

Parks was elected as a Jacksonian to the Twenty-third and Twenty-fourth United States Congresses. He was a local leaders of the Loco-foco or radical faction of the Democratic Party, which was anti-bank, anti-paper money, and anti-monopoly. He was opposed locally by Bangor's "Bank Junto", or conservative Democrats, which included Samuel Veazie, William Emerson, John Hodgdon, and Thomas A. Hill.

In 1837 Parks was the Democratic candidate for Maine governor. The election was unusual in that Parks' opponent, Edward Kent of the Whig Party, lived in the same city and both were Harvard graduates. In one of the closest gubanatorial races in Maine history, Parks lost by less than a thousand votes.

Parks was subsequently appointed United States Marshal for the District of Maine, and then United States Attorney for Maine. He ended his political career as United States Consul at Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, a post later occupied by his former opponent Edward Kent