Enoch Lincoln

Enoch Lincoln (December 28, 1788 – October 8, 1829) was an American lawyer and politician who served as a United States Representative from, successively, Massachusetts and Maine, and later as the sixth governor of Maine. He was born in Worcester, Massachusetts, the son of Levi Lincoln Sr., a prominent Jeffersonian Republican who served as Attorney General of the United States under President Thomas Jefferson, and his wife. He was the younger brother of Levi Lincoln Jr., who became governor of Massachusetts. Lincoln was distantly related to President Abraham Lincoln, sharing a common ancestor, Samuel Lincoln, who had settled in Hingham, Massachusetts, in the seventeenth century.

Lincoln received his early education in Massachusetts and entered Harvard College, from which he graduated in 1807. After completing his undergraduate studies, he read law in the traditional manner of the period and prepared for admission to the bar. His legal training culminated in his admission to the bar in 1811, after which he commenced the practice of law in Salem, Massachusetts. His early legal career in Salem established his professional reputation and provided the foundation for his subsequent public service.

In 1815 Lincoln was appointed United States district attorney, a post he held until 1818. During this period he handled federal legal matters in Massachusetts, gaining experience in public law and federal practice. In 1819 he moved to Paris, in what was then the District of Maine within the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, and continued the practice of law there. His relocation to Paris, Maine, placed him in a growing frontier region whose political future would soon be shaped by the movement for statehood.

Lincoln entered national politics in 1818. In November of that year, he was elected as a Democratic-Republican from Massachusetts, representing a Maine district, to the Fifteenth Congress to fill the vacancy caused by the resignation of Albion K. Parris. He was reelected to the Sixteenth Congress and served from November 4, 1818, to March 3, 1821. While serving in Congress during this period, he represented the interests of the Maine district at a time when questions of representation, commerce, and the balance between free and slave states were increasingly prominent in national debate.

Upon the admission of Maine as a state in 1820, Lincoln continued his congressional career as a representative of the new state. He was elected as a Democratic-Republican from Maine to the Seventeenth Congress, and was reelected to the Eighteenth Congress as an Adams–Clay Republican, reflecting his alignment with the nationalist and pro-internal improvements program associated with John Quincy Adams and Henry Clay. He was again reelected as a Pro-Adams candidate to the Nineteenth Congress. In this second phase of his House service, he served from March 4, 1821, until his resignation sometime in 1826. During his years in Congress after Maine statehood, Lincoln was identified with the Adams wing of the former Democratic-Republican Party, supporting policies favoring economic development and a strong national government.

In addition to his legislative duties, Lincoln was active in intellectual and historical circles. In 1819 he was elected a member of the American Antiquarian Society, a learned society devoted to the preservation and study of American history and culture. A portion of his business and personal papers is preserved in the manuscript collections of the American Antiquarian Society within the Lincoln Family Papers, providing valuable documentation of his legal practice and public career.

Lincoln resigned from Congress in 1826 and turned his attention fully to state politics in Maine. He was elected governor of Maine in 1827 and served as the state’s sixth governor from 1827 until his death in 1829. He won three consecutive terms, each with more than 90 percent of the vote, an indication of his broad popularity and the strength of his political support within the state. Although eligible, he chose not to run for a fourth term. His gubernatorial tenure coincided with the formative years of Maine’s statehood, during which he oversaw issues of internal development, land policy, and the organization of state institutions.

Lincoln died in office in Augusta, Maine, on October 8, 1829, before his final term expired and after the election of his successor, Jonathan G. Hunton. Because of the timing of his death and the transition to the new administration, two presidents of the Maine Senate, Nathan Cutler and Joshua Hall, served as interim, lame-duck successors between Lincoln and Hunton. Lincoln was interred in a mausoleum in Capitol Park, directly opposite the Maine State House in Augusta. In later years it was discovered that his body was missing from the mausoleum, with no official explanation available. The town of Lincoln, Maine, was named in his honor, reflecting the esteem in which he was held by his contemporaries and by the citizens of the state he helped to lead in its early years.