Strangers to Us All Lawyers and Poetry

Edward Payson

(1814-1890)
Maine

"Edward Payson was born in Portland, Sept. 14, 1813, a son of the eminent Rev. Dr. Edward Payson. The first thirteen years after graduation from Bowdoin were spent in a Southern State, where he studied and practiced law, and also, a part of the time, employed himself in teaching. He then returned to his Northern home, gave up the profession, to which he had never been much attached, and settled on a farm in Westbrook, (now Deering) where he has since lived, retaining a desk in his son's office in Portland. He has represented his town in the Legislature, has contributed interesting articles, both in prose and verse, to the papers and magazines, prominent among which was 'The Law of Equivalents,' published in the American Quarterly Review; wrote 'The Maine Law in the Balance,' issued in a pamphlet form, and has published a work of fiction, entitled 'Doctor Tom.' He has two sons, both graduates of Bowdoin, and both members of the Cumberland Bar."

[George Bancroft Griffith (ed.), The Poets of Maine 174 (Portland, Maine: Elwell, Pickard & Co., 1888)]

Writings

Edward Payson, Doctor Tom (Boston: Lee and Shepard, 1877)