Hon. Edward Hooker Gillette, US Representative

Source:
Newspaper Name Index, USA, Canada, and Australia
MyHeritage.com [online database], MyHeritage Ltd.
https://www.myheritage.com/research/collection-10969/newspaper-name...

Record:
https://www.myheritage.com/research/record-10969-2637674288/edward-...
Edward H. Gillette

Citation:
Evening Times-Republican. - 1918-08-15
Text: ... 'Moines, Au^r. IB.?Former Conressman Edward H. Gillette, Of Clover fills Place,.Valley Junction, died Wednesday.: He wksprominent. In' Iowa, politics 'in the days of greenbacklsm. He sOrVed One term in the house of represfefitatives at Washtngtoii. He was ...
Publication title: Evening times-Republican.
Publication place: Marshalltown, Marshall, Iowa
Date: Aug 15 1918

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Biography

Taken from Wikipedia entry for Edward Hooker Gillette:

Early adult life

Foreseeing westward expansion after the war, Francis Gillette and brother-in-law John Hooker had purchased shares in a concern which owned thousands of acres of sprawling Iowa landscape. Edward left college in 1863 to oversee their investment. He settled on a large farm outside of Des Moines, the new capital of the nation’s newly added twenty-ninth state. He raised high-bred livestock and later purchased another farm in Walnut Township, four miles west of Des Moines. There he engaged in several business enterprises, including building and manufacturing, while developing his farm.

On June 26, 1866, Edward married Sophia Theresa Stoddard, who had formerly been betrothed to his fallen brother, Robert, who had been killed at Fort Fisher, near Wilmington, North Carolina, the morning after the surrender of the fort.

Edward served as editor of the Iowa Tribune, the central organ of the Populist party of Iowa. He also served as chairman of the Greenback Party's National Committee, and was a delegate to its National Convention in 1876. In 1878, Gillette was elected as a Greenback Party member to the United States House of Representatives, serving in the 46th Congress with fellow Iowa Greenback Party member James B. Weaver from 1879 to 1881.

Political career

The May 1876 convention in Indianapolis resulted in the formation of the Greenback Party, which cooperated with the Democratic Party to elect a joint ticket two years later. Edward, representing the 7th Congressional District, ran for a seat in the 46th Congress with the directness and forthright style of his father. The Greenback-Labor Party, supporting issues important in the rural west at the time, pulled in more than a million votes and sent fifteen congressmen, including Edward, to Washington in 1878.

On October 10 the Hartford Times reported,

“This is certainly a great triumph for this Hartford young man... nominated for Congress by the Greenbackers, then by the Democrats, in a district that at the last election gave a Republican majority of 6,000, and went into the canvass without a dollar to aid him. Against the money and the organization of the Republicans he brought nothing but a personally spirited contest, and depended wholly for what money he obtained upon the sales of newspapers and documents which he carried with him, and sold at 10 cents each from the platform, and by going personally about among the crowd. That he should, under such circumstances, annihilate a Republican majority of 6,000, and change it into a majority of about 1,000 the other way, is a testimony to the popularity, and doubtless also to the favor with which his political ideas are rewarded in Iowa.”

During his Congressional term, Edward also served as chairman of the State Central Committee of the Union Labor Party.

Edward served from March 4, 1879 to March 3, 1881. The Democrats put up their own candidate in the next election, dividing the votes and giving an easy victory to his Republican opponent, former diplomat John A. Kasson, who was returning to Congress for the third time.

After term in congress

Following his return from Washington, Edward remained active in local and party politics in the populist cause. In 1893 he was the People's Party candidate for Iowa Secretary of State, but lost.

He and Sophia had three children, a son and two daughters. After divorcing Sophia, Edward married Mrs. Jennie Isabel Apple on February 28, 1907.

Edward served for ten years as editor of the Iowa Tribune, was chairman of the National Committee Union Labor/Populist Party, and served for years as one of the directors of the Iowa Humane Society.

Congressman Gillette lived out his life on his farm, Clover Hills Place, near Valley Junction, Iowa, close to Des Moines, and died there on August 14, 1918, at the age of seventy-eight. He was interred in the nearby Glendale Cemetery in Valley Junction, the only family member not buried in the Hooker or Gillette family plots in Farmington, Connecticut.

Bibliographic details for "Edward H. Gillette"

• Page name: Edward H. Gillette
• Author: Wikipedia contributors
• Publisher: Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia.
• Date of last revision: 13 December 2023 19:01 UTC
• Date retrieved: 4 May 2024 11:31 UTC
• Permanent link: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Edward_H._Gillette&oldid...
• Primary contributors: revision history statistics
• Page Version ID: 1189744815

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Taken from Herringshaw's American Blue Book of Biography:

Gillette Edward Hooker, farmer, journalist, manufacturer and statesman of Valley Junction, Iowa, was born on Oct 1, 1840 in Bloomfield, Conn. In 1879- 81 he was a member of congress. In 1881- 91 he was editor of the Iowa Tribune. 

* Link:https://books.google.com/books?id=UUM6AQAAMAAJ&pg=PA517&lpg=PA517&dq=edward+hooker+gillett&source'

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Greenback Party

During the Civil War, paper not backed by specie had been issued by the federal government. Northern farmers who held these greenbacks associated them with wealth, while the rich creditors and investors were against greenbacks because they thought the use of paper money not backed by specie as crazy and out of order. The government also stopped the coining of silver in addition to removing greenbacks, which led to farmers, debtors, and western miners to press for unlimited coinage of silver. There was also discontent among the same lower class group due to the growing problem of government corruption, tariffs, railroads, and trusts

Compiled by D. Glenn

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Page 242

Bibliographic information:

• A History of the Doggett-Daggett Family
• by Doggett, Samuel Bradlee, 1858-
• Publication date 1894
• Publisher Boston : Press of Rockwell and Churchill
• Contributor Allen County Public Library Genealogy Center
• Copyright-evidence Evidence reported by CallieLamkin for item historyofdoggett00indogg on September 4, 2008: no visible notice of copyright; stated date is 1894.
• Possible copyright status NOT_IN_COPYRIGHT
• Pages 804
• https://archive.org/details/historyofdoggett00indogg/page/141/mode/1up

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Page 245

Page 381

Bibliographic information:

• The descendants of Rev. Thomas Hooker, Hartford, Connecticut, 1586-1908 : being an account of what is known of Rev. Thomas Hooker's family in England : and more particularly concerning himself and his influence upon the early history of our country : also all items of interest which it has been possible to gather concerning the early generations of Hookers and their descendants in America
• by Hooker, Edward
• Publication date 1909
• Publisher Rochester, N.Y. : Margaret Huntington Hooker
• Book from the collections of Harvard University
• Pages 612
• Possible copyright status NOT_IN_COPYRIGHT
• https://archive.org/details/descendantsrevt00hookgoog/page/38/mode/1up

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