Samuel Minturn Peck (1854 - 1938)

Samuel Minturn Peck (1854-1938) was Alabama's first poet laureate. He published seven collections of poetry and a volume of prose short stories. Although his work gained some popularity, he was never acclaimed by critics. The importance of his poems and other literary endeavors remains of historical interest. Peck was born in Tuscaloosa, Tuscaloosa County, on November 4, 1854, to Elisha Wolsey and Lucy Lamb Peck. His father was a New Yorker who came to Alabama in 1824 to practice law. The family lived briefly in Illinois from 1865 to 1867 and then returned to Tuscaloosa, when Elisha Peck became Chief Justice of the Alabama Supreme Court under the Reconstruction government. Samuel Peck enrolled in the University of Alabama in 1871 and graduated with a master's degree in 1876.