James Baird WEAVER, Congress, IA (1833-1912)

WEAVER James Baird , a Representative from Iowa; born in Dayton, Ohio, June 12, 1833; moved with his parents to Michigan in 1835 and subsequently moved to Iowa and settled on a farm near Bloomfield; attended the common schools; studied law at Bloomfield 1853-1856; was graduated from the Cincinnati Law School in April 1856; was admitted to the bar in 1856 and commenced practice in Bloomfield; enlisted as a private in the Second Regiment, Iowa Volunteer Infantry, in April 1861; commissioned first lieutenant of Company G May 27, 1861; major July 25, 1862; colonel November 10, 1862; brevetted brigadier general of Volunteers March 13, 1864; mustered out May 27, 1864; elected district attorney for the second judicial district of Iowa in 1866 and served four years; appointed assessor of internal revenue for the first district of Iowa by President Johnson March 25, 1867, and served until May 20, 1873; elected as a Greenbacker to the Forty-sixth Congress (March 4, 1879-March 3, 1881); was not a candidate for renomination in 1880, but was nominated at Chicago in 1880 by the National Greenback Party as their candidate for President of the United States; unsuccessful candidate for election to the Forty-eighth Congress in 1882; elected to the Forty-ninth and Fiftieth Congresses (March 4, 1885-March 3, 1889); chairman, Committee on Expenditures in the Department of the Interior (Forty-ninth Congress), Committee on Patents (Fiftieth Congress); unsuccessful candidate for reelection to the Fifty-first Congress in 1888; Populist candidate for President in 1892; unsuccessful candidate for reelection to the Fifty-fourth Congress in 1894; unsuccessful candidate for reelection to the Fifty-sixth Congress in 1898; mayor of Colfax, Iowa, 1901-1903; died in Des Moines, Iowa, February 6, 1912; interment in Woodland Cemetery.

Bibliography

Colbert, Thomas Burnell. ``Political Fusion in Iowa: The Election of James B. Weaver to Congress in 1878.'' Arizona and the West 20 (Spring 1978): 25-40; Haynes, Fred Emory. James Baird Weaver. Iowa City: State Historical Society of Iowa, 1919. New York: Arno Press, 1975.

Source: Biographical Directory of the United States Congress, 1771-Present