1. Prentiss Mellen was a lawyer, politician, and jurist from Massachusetts and Maine.
11 Facts About Prentiss Mellen
1. 2.
Prentiss Mellen was the eighth of nine children of Rev John Mellen and Rebecca Mellen, born in 1764 in the second parish of Lancaster, Massachusetts, now Sterling.
3.
Prentiss Mellen's father was the local minister, and his mother the daughter of the first parish minister.
4.
Prentiss Mellen moved to Barnstable, where he worked as a tutor for the family of James Otis Jr.
5.
Prentiss Mellen was admitted to the bar in 1788, and established a practice in Sterling.
6.
Around 1806, he moved to Portland, where Prentiss Mellen Street is named for him.
7.
Prentiss Mellen was a trustee of Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Maine from 1817 to 1836.
8.
Prentiss Mellen was elected to the United States Senate, representing Massachusetts, 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.
9.
Prentiss Mellen served until his resignation in 1834, when age disqualified him.
10.
In 1833, Prentiss Mellen was the first President of a newly formed abolitionist society formed in Portland.
11.
Prentiss Mellen died in Portland on December 31,1840, and was buried in its Western Cemetery.