Samuel Allyne Otis

Samuel Allyne Otis
1st Secretary of the United States Senate
In office April 8, 1789 – April 22, 1814
Succeeded by	Charles Cutts
Speaker of the Massachusetts House of Representatives
In office 1784–1785
Preceded by	Tristram Dalton
Succeeded by	Nathaniel Gorham
Delegate from Massachusetts to the Second Continental Congress
In office 1777–1778
Personal details
Born	1740 Barnstable, Massachusetts
Died	April 22, 1814 Washington, D.C.
Political party	Federalist
Children	Harrison Gray Otis (lawyer)
Alma mater	Harvard University
Profession	merchant

Samuel Allyne Otis (November 24, 1740 – April 22, 1814) was the first Secretary of the United States Senate, serving for its first 17 years. He also served in the Massachusetts House of Representatives and was a delegate to the Confederation Congress in 1787 and 1788.

Early in 1789, as plans went forward for establishing the new Congress under the recently ratified Constitution, a heated contest developed for the job of Senate Secretary. The obvious candidate was dapper sixty-year-old Charles Thomson, secretary of the soon-to-expire Continental Congress during its entire fifteen-year existence. But Thomson weakened his candidacy by telling friends that he had a different secretarial post in mind—one in George Washington's cabinet. As the March 1789 convening date of the Senate neared, however, Thomson realized that he had no chance of landing a cabinet appointment. Consequently, he decided he would indeed like to become the first Secretary of the Senate—as well as Secretary of the House and Secretary of the entire government. This would not be too taxing, he thought, because he expected to have an assistant who would "do the ordinary business of the [Senate], so that I may not be under the necessity of attending except on special occasions and when the great business of the Nation is under deliberation." This expression of Thomson's lofty self-importance helps explain why he had attracted a more-than-usual number of enemies during his public career.

A group of those foes devised a scheme—disguised as an honor—to get him out of town during the crucial last-minute maneuvering leading to the Secretary's election. Congressional leaders asked Thomson to travel from the nation's temporary New York City capital to Virginia to "notify" George Washington of his election and accompany the president-elect back to New York. Washington needed no notification, but he accepted Thomson's companionship in good humor. With Thomson safely away from the Senate, Vice President-elect John Adams maneuvered for the election of his own candidate—Samuel Allyne Otis.

Supremely qualified for the job, the forty-eight-year-old Otis had been a former quartermaster of the Continental army, speaker of the Massachusetts house of representatives, member of Congress under the Articles of Confederation, and John Adams' long-term ally. On April 8, 1789, two days after the Senate achieved its first quorum, members elected Otis as their chief legislative, financial, and administrative officer.

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