Samuel Henderson Allen (October 17, 1826 – September 19, 1905) was an American businessman, prison warden, and politician from

Maine Maine ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the New England region of the United States, and the northeasternmost state in the Contiguous United States. It borders New Hampshire to the west, the Gulf of Maine to the southeast, and the Provinces and ...

Career

Henderson was a founding member of the

Maine Republican Party The Maine Republican Party is an affiliate of the United States Republican Party in Maine. It was founded in Strong, Maine, on August 7, 1854. The party currently does not control the governor's office or either chamber of the Maine Legislatur ...

. He was elected to the

Maine House of Representatives The Maine House of Representatives is the lower house of the Maine Legislature. The House consists of 151 voting members and three nonvoting members. The voting members represent an equal number of districts across the state and are elected via ...

in 1856 from his home in Thomaston. In May 1861, he was named Deputy Collector of Customs of the Port of Thomaston, a patronage position due to the election of Republican

Abraham Lincoln Abraham Lincoln (February 12, 1809 – April 15, 1865) was the 16th president of the United States, serving from 1861 until Assassination of Abraham Lincoln, his assassination in 1865. He led the United States through the American Civil War ...

Military service

He resigned in October of that year and instead was appointed Major in the

1st Maine Volunteer Cavalry Regiment The 1st Maine Cavalry Regiment was a volunteer United States cavalry unit from Maine used during the American Civil War. Service history The regiment was organized in Augusta, Maine, on October 31, 1861, and served for three years. The original ...

. He was promoted to colonel the following May. In September 1862, he was appointed military governor of

Frederick, Maryland Frederick is a city in, and the county seat of, Frederick County, Maryland, United States. Frederick's population was 78,171 people as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, making it the List of municipalities in Maryland, second-largest ...

and served until his resignation from the Union Army on January 5, 1863, due to poor health.

Private sector and business career

After leaving the army, Allen traveled to California and Nevada before returning East. He worked for Charles Gould and Amos Gaylord Throop to purchase land for mining in Kentucky and West Virginia. In 1865, he worked in the oil business of western Pennsylvania. From 1877 to 1888, he was involved in the sale of lumber and ice from Maine's

Kennebec River The Kennebec River (Abenaki language, Abenaki: ''Kinəpékʷihtəkʷ'') is a U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map , accessed June 30, 2011 natural river within the U.S. state of Ma ...

. In 1888, he was appointed Ward of the

Maine State Prison The Maine State Prison was erected in Thomaston, Maine in 1824 and relocated to Warren in 2002. This maximum-security prison has a capacity of 916 adult male inmates with an average daily population of 900. History The state legislature estab ...

, a position held until at least 1900. Henderson was a member of the

Military Order of the Loyal Legion of the United States The Military Order of the Loyal Legion of the United States (MOLLUS), or, simply, the Loyal Legion, is a United States military order organized on April 15, 1865, by three veteran officers of the Union Army. The original membership was consisted ...

(MOLLUS) as well as the

Grand Army of the Republic The Grand Army of the Republic (GAR) was a fraternal organization composed of veterans of the Union Army (United States Army), Union Navy (United States Navy, U.S. Navy), and the United States Marine Corps, Marines who served in the American Ci ...

(GAR).

Death

He died in 1905 at the age of 79.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Allen, Samuel Henderson 1826 births 1905 deaths People from Cushing, Maine Republican Party members of the Maine House of Representatives Businesspeople from Maine People of Maine in the American Civil War Union army colonels United States military governors American prison wardens 19th-century members of the Maine Legislature 19th-century American businesspeople