Elijah Paine | |
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Judge of the United States District Court for the District of Vermont | |
In office March 3, 1801 – April 1, 1842 |
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Appointed by | John Adams |
Preceded by | Samuel Hitchcock |
Succeeded by | Samuel Prentiss |
United States Senator from Vermont |
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In office March 4, 1795 – September 1, 1801 |
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Preceded by | Stephen R. Bradley |
Succeeded by | Stephen R. Bradley |
Personal details | |
Born |
Brooklyn, Connecticut |
January 21, 1757
Died | April 28, 1842 Williamstown, Vermont |
(aged 85)
Political party | Federalist |
Spouse(s) | Sarah Porter Paine |
Children | Martin Paine, Elijah Paine, George Paine, Charles Paine |
Profession | lawyer, politician, judge |
Elijah Paine (January 21, 1757 – April 28, 1842) was a United States Senator from Vermont, serving as a Federalist from 1795 to 1801, and thereafter a long-serving United States federal judge.
Born in Brooklyn, Connecticut, Paine attended the public schools. He served in Continental Army during the Revolutionary War, from 1776 to 1777, and then received an A.B. from Harvard College in 1781 before reading law to be admitted to the bar in 1784. He married Sarah Porter of Plymouth, New Hampshire. They had four sons; Martin Paine, an eminent physician; Elijah Paine Jr, a judge of the New York Supreme Court; George Paine, a prominent lawyer; and Charles Paine, who was Governor of Vermont from 1841 to 1843.
Paine began practicing law from 1784 to 1787 in Windsor, Vermont while cultivating a farm. He also began a settlement at Williamstown, Orange County, Vermont, and established a cloth factory and a saw and grist mill in Northfield, Vermont on Robinson Brook running down Mill Hill.
Paine served as secretary of the State constitutional convention in 1786, and as a member of the Vermont House of Representatives from 1787 to 1790, also serving as a Vermont probate judge for the Randolph District from 1788 to 1791. He was a Justice of the Vermont Supreme Court from 1791 until he resigned in 1795, having been elected to the United States Senate in 1794 and taking office on March 4, 1795. He was reelected as a Federalist in 1800, but only served until September 1, 1801, when he resigned after having taken a federal judicial position.