250 and Counting

Tag: 1865 deaths

  • Valentine Efner–May 5, 1776

    Cover art for May 5, 1776: a cropped photo of the old Blenheim Covered Bridge, spanning Schoharie Creek, River Road. Photo by Jet Lowe and available via the Library of Congress.

    Given the fact that Valentine Efner (sometimes spelled “Effner”) skipped so many roll call votes in Congress, it’s a wonder he ran for Representative in the first place.

    We have to think that Efner was an informal kind of representative, and being in the rarefied air of Congress had him missing the farm life, to which he returned immediately after his term of office had ended.

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    PS Pardon the brief notes, we had a veterinary emergency here that ate up most of my night. Fortunately our dog is well.

  • June 18, 1775: Orsamus Cook Merrill

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    Cover art for JUne 18, 1775: Daguerrotype of Orsamus Cook Merrill, ca. 1850-1860. Cropped from the original image in the Bennington Museum.

    It’s Cake and Candles today for a future State Representative of a future state.

    Orsamus Cook Merrill was born in Connecticut but moved to Vermont coincidentally the same year that the Vermont Republic was admitted to the Union as our fourteenth state. He spent the rest of his life in the Bennington area, working in jobs as diverse as newspaper editor or publisher, postmaster, attorney and Engrossing Clerk for the Vermont House of Representatives before becoming a Representative himself.

    (For those not in the know: an Engrossing Clerk is responsible for preparing prints of intermediate drafts of bills that a governing body is considering before they vote at the next stage.)

    By most accounts, he represented his constituents well, and he was largely done in by shifts in the political winds. He died in 1865 and is buried in Bennington Centre Cemetery.