Background
Thomas Rice was born 30 March 1768 in Pownalborough, Massachusetts, (now Wiscasset, Maine), to Thomas Rice and Rebecca (Kingsbury) Rice.
Thomas Rice was born 30 March 1768 in Pownalborough, Massachusetts, (now Wiscasset, Maine), to Thomas Rice and Rebecca (Kingsbury) Rice.
He graduated from Harvard University in 1791. He studied law and was admitted to the bar in Suffolk County, Massachusetts, in 1794 and commenced practice in Winslow, Maine, the following year.
Thomas Rice married Sarah Swan on 22 October 1796. He was appointed in 1807 by the supreme judicial court of Maine one of the examiners of counselors and attorneys for Kennebec County. Rice was elected as a Federalist to the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Congresses (March 4, 1815 – March 3, 1819).
He was an unsuccessful candidate for reelection in 1818 to the Sixteenth Congress.
He resumed the practice of law. After Sarah Swan Rice died 26 September 1840, Rice remarried to Susanna Greene, daughter of Colonel R. H. Greene, on 16 February 1841 at Winslow, Maine.
To this marriage, he had a son, Thomas III, who was born in 1843. He died in Winslow, Maine, on 25 August 1854.
He was interred at Pine Grove Cemetery, Waterville, Maine.
Thomas Rice was a direct descendant of Edmund Rice an early immigrant to Massachusetts Bay Colony as follows:
Thomas Rice, son of
Edmund Rice (1594 - 3 May 1663).
He served as member of the Massachusetts House of Representatives in 1814.