Alvah Sabin

Sabin was born in Georgia, Vermont, to Benjamin Sabin and Polly McMaster Sabin, and was educated in the common schools. He was also a member of the Vermont militia and served during the War of 1812. Sabin also attended the University of Vermont in Burlington, which awarded him the honorary degree of master of arts in 1826.[3]

After the war, Sabin studied theology in Philadelphia and graduated from Columbian College (now George Washington University), Washington, D.C., in 1821.[4] He was ordained a minister and preached at Cambridge, Westfield, and Underhill until 1825, when he returned to Georgia, Vermont. He was pastor of the Georgia Baptist Church for fifty-three years.[5]

Sabin was a member of the Vermont House of Representatives from 1826 to 1835, 1838 to 1840, 1847 to 1849, 1851, 1861 and 1862.[6] He served in the Vermont Senate in 1841, 1843, and 1845.[7] He was the Secretary of State of Vermont in 1841,[8] and served as Probate Judge.[9] He was a member of the Constitutional; Conventions of 1843 and 1850, and was Assistant Judge of the Franklin County Court from 1846 to 1852.

He was elected as a Whig Party (United States) to the Thirty-third Congress and reelected as an Opposition Party candidate to the Thirty-fourth Congresses, serving from March 4, 1853, to March 3, 1857.[10] While in Congress he served as chairman for the Committee on Revisal and Unfinished Business in the Thirty-fourth Congress. He was not a candidate for renomination in 1856. He served as a delegate to the first Anti-Slavery National Convention,[11] and was the county commissioner of Franklin County, Vermont, in 1861 and 1862, responsible for curbing the buying and selling of alcoholic beverages. He moved to Sycamore, Illinois, in 1867 and continued his ministerial duties.

Sabin married Anna Mears in 1819. They had five children together, Benjamin F. Sabin, Julia A. Sabin, Harriet Amelia Sabin, Parthenia A. Sabin and Diantha Marie Sabin. Following Anna's death, Sabin later married Susan Marsh.[12][13]

Sabin died on January 22, 1885, in Sycamore. He is interred at Georgia Plains Cemetery in Georgia Plains, Vermont.[14]

• "Vermont: the Green mountain state, Volume 3" by Walter Hill Crockett, published by The Century History Company, Inc., 1921.

• United States Congress. "Alvah Sabin (id: S000002)". Biographical Directory of the United States Congress.
• Alvah Sabin at Find a Grave
• govtrack.us: Rep. Alvah Sabin
• Ancestry.com: Alvah Sabin (1793 - 1885)
• The Political Graveyard: Sabin, Alvah (1793-1885)