Samuel Prentiss

Samuel Prentiss (* March 31, 1782 in Stonington, Connecticut; † January 15, 1857 in Montpelier, Vermont) was an American lawyer and politician who represented the state of Vermont in the U.S. Senate; then he became a federal judge.

As a four year old Samuel Prentiss moved with his family to Northfield in Massachusetts, where he attended the preparatory to the study of school and was introduced by a private tutor in the classical antiquity science. He then studied law in Northfield and in Brattleboro (Vermont ). In 1802 he was admitted to the bar, after which he opened a law office in Montpelier, which he ran until 1822.

His first political office held Prentiss 1824-1825 as a deputy in the House of Representatives of Vermont. After that, he was Associate Judge of the Vermont Supreme Court; In 1829 he took over the management as Chief Justice. On March 4, 1831, he then moved to the National Republican Party in the U.S. Senate in Washington. Six years later, the re-election after he had moved in the meantime to the Whigs. In the Senate he brought, among others, a bill, by its adoption of dueling in the District of Columbia were prohibited.

On April 11, 1842 Samuel Prentiss resigned to follow the vocation to the judge at the Federal District Court for the District of Vermont by President John Tyler. In this post he remained until his death in January 1857.

His younger brother John sat from 1837 to 1841 as a Democratic member of New York in the House of Representatives of the United States.