William Wallace

Background

Grout was born in Compton, Province of Quebec, the son of Josiah and Sophronia (Ayer) Grout.

Education

Grout pursued an academic course, he attended Saint Johnsbury Academy and graduated from the State and National Law School in Poughkeepsie, New York in 1857.

Career

He served as a United States. Representative from Vermont. He was admitted to the bar in December of the same year and began the practice of law in Barton, Vermont. In 1862 Grout was nominated as State"s Attorney of Orleans County but declined, deciding instead to enter the army.

In July 1862 he received his commission as Lieutenant Colonel of the Fifteenth Regiment, Vermont Volunteer Infantry, in the Union Army during the Civil War.

Grout served as State"s Attorney of Orleans County in 1865 and 1866. In 1868 he was a delegate to Republican National Convention from Vermont.

He served in the Vermont House of Representatives from 1868 until 1870 and in 1874. Grout was elected as a Republican Congressman to the Forty-seventh Congress from Vermont"s 3rd congressional district, serving from March 4, 1881 until March 3, 1883.

The 3rd District was eliminated at the end of his term.

He was an unsuccessful candidate for Vermont"s 2nd congressional district in 1882 to the Forty-eighth Congress. Grout was elected to the Forty-ninth from the 2nd Vermont District and to the seven succeeding Congresses, serving from March 4, 1885 until March 3, 1901. He served as chairman of the Committee on the District of Columbia in the Fifty-first Congress, and was on the Committee on Expenditures in the Department of War in the Fifty-fourth through the Fifty-sixth Congresses.

After leaving Congress, he engaged in agricultural pursuits and the practice of law.

Grout died on October 7, 1902 and is interred in Pine Cemetery in Kirby, Vermont.

Achievements

• He later attained the rank of Brigadier General as commander of one of three brigades organized for border defense by the Vermont State Legislature following the Saint Albans Raid.

Membership

In 1876 he was a member of the Vermont State Senate and served as President pro tempore.