Albert E. Pillsbury

Albert Enoch Pillsbury
Massachusetts Attorney General
In office 1891–1894
Preceded by	Andrew J. Waterman
Succeeded by	Hosea M. Knowlton
President of the Massachusetts Senate[1]
In office 1885–1886
Preceded by	George A. Bruce
Succeeded by	Halsey J. Boardman
Member of the Massachusetts Senate[1] Sixth Suffolk District[2]
In office 1884–1886
Member of the Massachusetts House of Representatives[1] Ward 17 Boston Boston[2]
In office 1876–1878
Delegate to the 1917 Massachusetts Constitutional Convention for the Ninth Norfolk District[3]
In office June 6, 1917[3] – April 6, 1918[4]
Personal details
Born	August 19, 1849[1] Milford, New Hampshire[1]
Died	December 23, 1930[5] (aged 81) Newton, Massachusetts
Political party	Republican[2]
Spouse(s)	Louisa Fuller (Johnson) Wheeler, m. July 9, 1889. Elizabeth Mooney, m. July 1, 1905.[1]
Children	Elizabeth Dinsmoor, b. July 21, 1907 Parker Webster, b. March 17, 1910.[1]
Alma mater	Lawrence Academy, Harvard College class of 1871.[1]
Profession	Attorney

Albert Enoch Pillsbury (August 19, 1849 – December 23, 1930) was a Boston lawyer who served in both houses of the Massachusetts legislature, President of the Massachusetts State Senate, and as the Attorney General of Massachusetts from 1891 to 1894. In addition to being a member of the National Negro Committee, the precursor to the NAACP, Pillsbury was a member of the Boston Committee to Advance the Cause of the Negro, which in 1911 became a branch of the NAACP. It was Pillsbury who drafted the bylaws of the NAACP. In 1913, he resigned his membership in the American Bar Association when that organization rejected the membership of William H. Lewis, a black assistant U.S. attorney and supporter of Booker T. Washington. In 1913, Pillsbury was awarded an honorary LL.D. degree from Howard University. It was there he delivered his speech illuminating, defending and praising President Lincoln's role in ending slavery that became a small book, Lincoln and Slavery.^[6]

1917 Massachusetts Constitutional Convention

In 1916 the Massachusetts legislature and electorate approved a calling of a Constitutional Convention.^[7] In May 1917 Pillsbury was elected to serve as a member of the Massachusetts Constitutional Convention of 1917, representing the Ninth Norfolk District of the Massachusetts House of Representatives.

He was the nephew of abolitionist Parker Pillsbury.

References

• See Footnote 1 to letter dated "25 Feb 1900" from A. E. Pillsbury to Booker T. Washington. The Booker T. Washington Papers, Vol. 5: 1899-1900, pp.449-450, University of Illinois Press.

Footnotes

1. Barnes, Albert Mallard (1921), Report of the secretary of the class of 1871 of Harvard college, Issue 11, Cambridge, MA: The Riverside Press, p. 134.
2. Toomey, Daniel P. (1892), Massachusetts of Today: a Memorial of the State, Historical and Biographical, Boston, MA: Columbia Publishing Company, p. 30.
3. Journal of the Constitutional Convention of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, Massachusetts Constitutional Convention, Boston, MA: Wright & Potter printing co., state printers, 1919, p. 11.
4. Journal of the Constitutional Convention of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, Massachusetts Constitutional Convention, Boston, MA: Wright & Potter printing co., state printers, 1919, p. 626.
5. "A.E. PILLSBURY DIES; A BAY STATE LEADER; Former Attorney General Was President of Massachusetts Senate in 1885-86. PRACTICED LAW 50 YEARS He Was Candidate for Governor in 1893 but Withdrew From Race-- Was 81 Years Old.". The New York Times. December 24, 1930. p. 10. Retrieved 1 December 2009.
6. Jager, Ronald and Grace Jager, Historical Pillsbury, Friends of Pillsbury State Park, 1976
7. Journal of the Constitutional Convention of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, Boston, MA: Wright & Potter printing co., state printers, 1919, pp. 7–8

External links

• Works by Pillsbury at Open Library