Education
He had the advantages only of a common-school education, working during his spare time in a mill where corn was ground, wood sawed, and wool carded.
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Anson Peaslee Morrill
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At one time he taught school at Miramichi, New Brunswick, Canada.
Still a store-keeper, he was later postmaster at North Belgrade, and he lived for some time at Madison.
Here his exceptional talents became evident.
When the two questions, temperance and slavery, broke the unity of the Democrats in Maine, with considerable courage he led a bolting faction of the Democrats in 1853 on the temperance issue.
Since, however, there were four candidates he did not have a majority of the votes cast and the legislature chose him when it met the next January.
Elected to Congress in 1860, he served from 1861 to 1863 but declined re�lection, preferring to make way for the election of James G. Blaine.
His independence and impetuosity frequently offended many friends.
His own acts and words often impeded his political progress.
Others, however, were attracted by his ruggedness, honesty, and integrity.
[L. C. Hatch, Maine (1919) vol.
II; Reminiscences of Neal Dow (1898), pp. 482-95, 503-21; A. M. Smith, Morrill Kindred in America, vol.
II (1931); Harper's Weekly, July 16, 1887; Daily Eastern Argus (Portland), July 6, 1887. ]
Religion
His supporters were known as "Morrill Democrats, " and as an independent candidate for the governorship he ran third.
Politics
He was sheriff of Somerset County in 1839 but lost this office in 1840, when Maine elected the Whig state and national ticket.
The fusion party that elected him governor took the name Republican for the first time in Maine on Aug. 7, 1854 (see W. F. P. Fogg, The Republican Party with the History of its Formation in Maine, 1884).
Connections
From Readfield he moved to Augusta in 1879, where he died after a short illness, leaving two children.
- opponent:
- Freesoilers
- opponent:
- Myrick
- married:
- Rowena
- Brother:
- Myrick
The following year, 1854, the Whigs and the Freesoilers joined the temperance forces to give him a vote of about 44,000 against 28,000 for his opponent, Albion K. Parris.
In 1827 he was married to Rowena M. Richardson, who died in 1882.
In the election of 1855 he again had a popular plurality, but the same Senate that elected his brother, Lot Myrick Morrill q.v., its president, appointed his Democratic opponent, Samuel Wells, governor.
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Born
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Died
1887 (aged 84) -
Religion
independent -
Political Party
Whig The Republican Party