Robert Pinckney Dunlap was an American politician. He served as governor of Maine.
Background
Robert Pinckney Dunlap was born on August 17, 1794 at Brunswick, Maine, United States. His grandfather, Robert Dunlap, a native of Barilla, County Antrim, Ireland, was a Presbyterian minister and master of arts of the University of Edinburgh, who settled at Brunswick in 1747. Capt. John Dunlap, son of Rev. Robert, married as his second wife Mary Tappan of Newburyport, Massachusetts, and by traffic in furs and pelts, by shipbuilding and overseas trading, became one of the richest men in the District of Maine. Robert was the third son of John and Mary Dunlap.
Education
Robert graduated from Bowdoin College in 1815, and was admitted to the bar in 1818.
Career
Wealthy, personable, well-liked, Dunlap forsook the law and Federalist tradition for a life-long political career as a Jacksonian Democrat.
At twenty-six he was in the Maine legislature, serving as representative during the years 1821 and 1822, and as senator during 1824-28 and 1831-33.
He presided over the Senate for four years with an unruffled fairness and tact that won commendation from all parties. He was for a time a member of the Executive Council.
In June 1837, during Dunlap’s term, a Maine census agent was arrested by the governor of New Brunswick in that northeastern territory which had been in dispute since the Treaty of Paris of 1783. Dunlap proclaimed the soil of Maine invaded, called out the militia, entered into correspondence with John Forsyth, secretary of state, and by his vigor and tact brought and kept the critical situation before the eyes of the national government, at the same time holding the longstanding boundary controversy in abeyance throughout his term.
In August of the same year (1837) he also commanded national attention when, although a Democrat and sympathetic with the grievances of the South, he refused to extradite to Georgia the master and mate of a schooner on which a slave had stowed away. He served on the Board of Overseers of Bowdoin College, 1821-59, and was president of the Board from 1843 until his death. His advocacy of Freemasonry in the period of the powerful AntiMasonic party and general disapprobation is significant of his character. He served two terms in Congress, 1843-47; was collector of the port of Portland, 1848; and from 1853 to 1857 was postmaster at Brunswick.
Achievements
Dunlap was instrumental in obtaining prison reforms, the first insane asylum in Maine, the first geological survey of the state, and —- by the sale of state lands — Revolutionary pensions and a school fund.
Politics
From 1834 to 1838 Dunlap was governor of Maine, having defeated his Federalist-Whig opponents on the Jacksonian platform of the Union with state’s rights, opposition to the protective tariff and the banking interests, and persistent championship of the laboring and agricultural classes.
He remained a loyal Democrat despite the disruptive slavery issue.
Personality
Throughout his public life Dunlap received an unusual share of respect and popularity. Tall, impressive, with a calm but commanding countenance, he united suavity of manners with an expert knowledge of parliamentary rules and dignified impartiality.
Connections
In 1825 Dunlap married Lydia Chapman of Beverly, Massachusetts, who bore him three sons and one daughter.
