Preceded by Justin Smith Morrill Preceded by Jacob Collamer Party Republican Party Succeeded by William W. Grout Spouse Adelia Poland | Preceded by James M. Tyler Name Luke Poland Succeeded by Dudley C. Denison Succeeded by Justin S. Morrill | |
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Died July 2, 1887, Waterville, Vermont, United States | ||
Luke Potter Poland (November 1, 1815 – July 2, 1887) was a United States Senator and Representative from Vermont.
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Biography
Poland was born in Westford son of Luther and Nancy Potter Poland. He attended the common schools and Jericho Academy. He worked as a clerk in Waterville, worked in his father's sawmill, taught at Morrisville schools, studied law in the office of Samuel A. Willard and was admitted to the bar in December 1836. He practiced in Morrisville. In 1838 he married Martha Smith Page and they had three children. Martha died in 1853 and he married her sister, Adelia H. With his first wife, Poland's children included: Susan E. (1840-1841); Martin Luther (1841-1878), a West Point graduate and captain in the United States Army who died while on duty at Fort Yuma on the California-Arizona border; Mary Frances (1843-1865); and Isabel Emma (1848-1927), the wife of first Andrew E. Rankin, and then Henry O. Cushman.
Career
Poland was register of probate from 1839 to 1840 and was a member of the State constitutional convention of 1843. In 1844 and 1845 he was prosecuting attorney of Lamoille County, and in 1848 he succeeded Charles Davis as an Associate Justice of the Vermont Supreme Court, a position in which he served until 1849. He served as an associate justice again from 1857 to 1860, succeeding Pierpoint Isham. In 1860, he succeeded Isaac F. Redfield as chief justice; he served until 1866, and was succeeded by John Pierpoint.
After resigning from the court, Poland was appointed as a Republican to the U.S. Senate to fill the vacancy caused by the death of Jacob Collamer, and was elected to finish the term on October 24, 1866. He served from November 21, 1865 to March 3, 1867. He was then elected to the House of Representatives for the Fortieth and to the three succeeding Congresses, serving from March 4, 1867 to March 3, 1875). While in Congress, he was chairman of the Committee on Revisal and Unfinished Business (Fortieth Congress) and a member of the Committee on Revision of the Laws (Fortieth, Forty-first and Forty-third Congresses). He was an unsuccessful candidate for reelection to the Forty-fourth Congress.
A member of the Vermont House of Representatives in 1878, Poland was also a trustee of the University of Vermont at Burlington and of the State Agricultural College. He was president of the First National Bank of St. Johnsbury for twenty years. He was again elected to the House of Representatives, and served during the Forty-eighth Congress (March 4, 1883-March 3, 1885); he was not a candidate for renomination.
Death
Poland died at his country home near Waterville on July 2, 1887 and is interred at Mount Pleasant Cemetery, St. Johnsbury.