Seargent Smith Prentiss

Seargent Smith Prentiss ( born September 30, 1808 in Portland, Maine; † July 1, 1850 in Natchez, Mississippi ) was an American politician. Between 1838 and 1839 he represented the state of Mississippi in the U.S. House of Representatives.

Career

Seargent Prentiss attended Bowdoin College in Brunswick, the Gorham Academy in Maine and then to 1826. He then studied in Gorham and later in Cincinnati Jura. After his 1829 was admitted as a lawyer and a move to Mississippi, he began in Vicksburg to work in his new profession.

Politically Prentiss was a member of the Whig party. From 1836 to 1837 he was a deputy in the House of Representatives from Mississippi. In the congressional elections of 1836, in which both still at that time the state of Mississippi entitled deputies were elected state far, there had been irregularities. In these elections, Samuel Jameson Gholson and John Claiborne had been elected to the U.S. House of Representatives. Against both election results appeal was filed and the Congress declared on February 5, 1838, the elections invalid. As a result, new elections were scheduled, in which Thomas J. Word and Seargent Prentiss were elected. Prentiss took up his mandate on 30 May in 1838 and practiced there until the end of its term on March 3, 1839. For the regular elections of 1838, he opted not to run again. Together with the simultaneously selected Thomas Word and Patrick W. Tompkins, who represented the third electoral district of Mississippi in Congress 1847-1849, Seargent Prentiss was one of only three Whigs, who were ever elected for Mississippi in the U.S. House of Representatives.

After the end of his time in Congress Seargent Prentiss again worked as a lawyer in Vicksburg. In 1845 he moved to New Orleans, where he also practiced law. Seargent Prentiss died on July 1, 1850, the estate " Longwood " near Natchez, and was buried in the private cemetery on this property.