Samuel F. Hersey

Who was Samuel F. Hersey?

Samuel Freeman Hersey was a politician and "lumber baron" from the U.S. state of Maine. He served in the Maine State Senate and as a United States Congressman from the district which included his hometown of Bangor.

Hersey was born in Sumner, Maine and attended common schools in both Sumner and Buckfield. He also taught school 1828–1831. He graduated from Hebron Academy in 1831.

Hersey engaged in the mercantile business in Lincoln and in Milford; and then in the lumber business in Stillwater, Minnesota, and finally Bangor, where he settled and prospered. Hersey partnered with Isaac Staples to log the St. Croix River pineries along the Minnesota–Wisconsin border. Hersey stayed in Bangor while his eldest son Roscoe represented his interests out west. The 1880 Roscoe Hersey House in Stillwater, Minnesota, is now on the National Register of Historic Places.

In addition to owning timber land he was president of the Market Bank. He was elected as a member of the Maine House of Representatives, and was a delegate to the 1860 Republican National Convention which nominated Abraham Lincoln. Hersey was a close friend and patron of Bangor politician and Abraham Lincoln's Vice President Hannibal Hamlin, which is probably why he served on the Republican National Committee 1864–1868. He was elected to the Maine State Senate in 1868–1869.