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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.
BibliographyColbert, 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.
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