Frank Plumley was an American politician and lawyer.
Background
He was born on December 17, 1844 at Eden, Vermont, United States, was the son of William Plumley, a prosperous Vermont farmer, and Eliza (Little) Plumley. On his father's side, his first American ancestor was Alexander Plumley, who settled in Boston in 1639.
Education
He was educated in the common schools and in the People's Academy at Morrisville, he read law at Morrisville before attending the University of Michigan for work in law and literature.
Career
At the age of twenty-four he was admitted to the bar in Lamoille County in his native state and commenced his distinguished legal career at Northfield, which became his home.
A partnership with Heman Carpenter was followed in 1876 by four years as state's attorney of Washington County. After a term in the Vermont legislature (1882), and perhaps because of his consistent Republicanism, and his earlier connections with Michigan, he was drafted in 1884 to stump that state for Blaine. He performed a similar service to his party in a number of subsequent presidential years.
In 1886 he was chairman of the Republican State Convention and two years later attended the Republican National Convention, where as a member of the platform committee he drafted a temperance plank which was adopted by the Convention.
President Harrison appointed him United States district attorney (1889 - 94), in which office he secured a number of important convictions. He served a two-year term in the Vermont Senate in 1894-96. One of Plumley's principal public services occurred in connection with the British, Dutch, and French claims against Venezuela. The British-Venezuelan Mixed Claims Commission, established under the Protocol of February 13, 1903, was to consist of one British and one Venezuelan appointee. An umpire, nominated by President Roosevelt, was to make the decisions when the commissioners failed to agree. A similar Mixed Claims Commission for the Netherlands and Venezuela was established under the Protocol of February 28, 1903. Plumley, who had been appointed in 1902 a member of the Vermont court of claims and was later (1904 - 08) to serve as its chief justice, was named umpire for both commissions by President Roosevelt and sat with the commissions at Caracas for about six months in 1903. The refusal of the Spanish Ambassador to France to serve as umpire for the Franco-Venezuelan Mixed Claims Commission led to the selection of Plumley for that work.
The sessions of this Commission were continued in 1905 in Northfield, Vermont. Unsuccessful in his first attempt to secure a nomination for Congress (1900), Plumley was elected to the Sixty-first, Sixty-second, and Sixty-third congresses (1909 - 15). In 1914 he refused a renomination to Congress in order to devote himself to his law practice.
He served on the Northfield board of education for twenty years, and was an ardent temperance advocate, attending the anti-saloon conference in New York City in 1888. He was lecturer on constitutional law at Norwich University, Northfield, from 1887 to 1902, and became a trustee of the University in 1888. He died at Northfield.
Achievements
Personality
Plumley was of impressive build and substantial character. He had gift of oratory.
Connections
His marriage to Lavinia L. Fletcher of Eden, by whom he had two children, took place August 9, 1871. His son Charles Albert Plumley was a President of Norwich University who also served in the United States House of Representatives.