Ebenezer J . Ormsbee Ebenezer Jolls Ormsbee ( June 8 , 1834 – April 3 , 1924 ) was a teacher , a lawyer , a U . S . politician of the Republican Party , and an American Civil War veteran . Early life . Ormsbee was born in Shoreham , Vermont , the son of John Mason and Polly ( Willson ) Ormsbee . After combining farm work and an early education at academies at Brandon and South Woodstock , he began studying law in 1857 , and was admitted to the Rutland County bar in 1861 . Civil War . He enlisted in the Brandon " Allen Grays " in April 1861 , which became Company G of the 1st Vermont Infantry . He was elected 2nd lieutenant on April 25 , 1861 , and served with the regiment for its full three month term . In September 1862 , he joined Company G , 12th Vermont Infantry , serving as its captain , and was mustered out with his regiment in July 1863 . Post war life . After he returned home , Ormsbee started practicing law in Brandon , as a partner of Anson A . Nicholson , and later with Ebenezer N . Briggs . He was appointed assistant United States internal revenue assessor in 1868 , serving until 1872 . He served as state ' s attorney for Rutland Count from 1870 to 1874 , represented Brandon in the General Assembly in 1872 , and senator from Rutland county in 1878 . He was appointed and served a trustee of the Vermont reform school from 1880 until 1884 . In 1884 , Ormsbee was nominated by the State Republican Convention to run for lieutenant governor with Samuel E . Pingree , the party ' s gubernatorial candidate ; Ormsbee received 297 of the 510 votes , winning the nomination and the subsequent election for lieutenant governor . He was elected governor in 1886 . During his administration , he appointed a commission of three members to revise the educational laws of the state , and presided over the initial work of the state ' s new railroad commission . In 1887 , President Grover Cleveland proposed to return Confederate flags captured by Union troops during the Civil War . This obviously caused a storm of opposition throughout the north . The Vermont Department of the Grand Army of the Republic declared " we most solemnly and earnestly protest for ourselves and in the name of our fallen comrades . . . against removing from their finial resting place the bloody emblems of a treason that cost many precious lives , fully believing that such removal will do more to keep alive the bitter recollections of the war than anything that has transpired since its close . " Governor Ormsbee forwarded this resolution to President Cleveland , declaring they " have my unqualified and warmest approval , and you may rest assured that they contain the sentiments of Vermont on this subject . " At the end of 1891 Ormsbee was appointed by President Benjamin Harrison to serve on a commission to treat with the Paiute Indians at the Pyramid Lake Indian Reservation , in Nevada , to get the tribe to relinquish a claim to part of their reservation . The same year , he was appointed by President Harrison U . S . Land commissioner at Samoa to act with similar British and German commissions to adjust claims of foreigners to lands in Samoa , representing millions of acres of land . Ormsbee completed his work in May 1893 , returned to the United States and resumed his law practice in Brandon . In 1896 , ex - Governor Ormsbee joined a number of Vermont luminaries in a train trip to Canton , Ohio , in support of William McKinley ' s campaign for the presidency . In 1901 , he presided over a banquet in honor of Vice President Theodore Roosevelt . In 1902 , now President , Roosevelt returned to Vermont , and Ormsbee again presided over the ceremonies at a train stop in Brandon . In 1913 , ex - Governor Ormsbee presided over the dedication of a monument to Stephen A . Douglas , Brandon ' s most famous native son . Orsmbee married , in 1862 , Jennie L . Briggs , daughter of Ebenezer N . Briggs of Brandon . She died in 1866 . He married again , in 1867 , Frances Davenport , daughter of William L . and Loretta Cole Wadhams of Wadhams Mills , New York . He was a Freemason , and a longtime comrade of C . J . Ormsbee Post # 18 , Grand Army of the Republic , named for his brother , Charles James Ormsbee , 5th Vermont Infantry , who was killed in action at the Battle of the Wilderness on May 5 , 1864 . Ormsbee was president of the Brandon Free Public Library , president of the Brandon Cemetery Association , member of the prudential committee of the Brandon graded and high school for over 27 years , and president of the Brandon National Bank for more than 14 years . He died of apoplexy in Brandon , and was interred in Pine Hill cemetery .