|
Senate Years of Service: 1864-1875; 1887-1893; 1893-1901; 1901-1905 Party: Republican; Republican; Silver; Republican
![](https://webarchive.library.unt.edu/eot2008/20080917151649im_/http://bioguide.congress.gov/bioguide/photo/S/S000922.jpg) |
STEWART, William Morris, a Senator from Nevada; born in Galen, near Lyons, Wayne County,
N.Y., August 9, 1827; moved with his parents to Mesopotamia Township, Trumbull
County, Ohio; attended Lyons Union School and West Farmington Academy; teacher
of mathematics at Lyons Union School; attended Yale College 1849-1850; moved to
San Francisco, Calif., in 1850 and engaged in gold mining in Nevada County;
studied law; admitted to the bar in 1852 and commenced practice in Nevada City,
Calif.; district attorney 1852; attorney general of California 1854; moved to
Virginia City, Nev., in 1860; involved in early mining litigation and in the
development of the Comstock lode; member, Territorial council 1861; member of
the State constitutional convention in 1863; upon the admission of Nevada as a
State into the Union was elected as a Republican to the United States Senate in
1864; took oath of office on February 1, 1865; reelected in 1869, and served
until March 3, 1875; did not seek reelection; chairman, Committee on Pacific
Railroads (Forty-second Congress), Committee on Railroads (Forty-third
Congress); resumed the practice of law in Nevada and California; again elected
as a Republican to the United States Senate in 1887; reelected in 1893 and
1899, as a Silver Republican, and served from March 4, 1887, to March 3, 1905;
chairman, Committee on Mines and Mining (Fiftieth through Fifty-sixth
Congresses), Committee on Indian Affairs (Fifty-seventh and Fifty-eighth
Congresses); declined to be a candidate for reelection in 1905; died in
Washington, D.C., April 23, 1909; remains were cremated and the ashes deposited
in Laurel Hill Cemetery, San Francisco, Calif.; remains removed and deposited
in unknown location.
BibliographyAmerican National Biography;
Dictionary of American Biography; Elliott, Russell R.
Servant of Power: A Political Biography of Senator William M.
Stewart. Reno: University of Nevada Press, 1983; Stewart, William M.
Reminiscences of Senator William M. Stewart of Nevada. Edited
by George Rothwell Brown. New York: Neale Publishing Co., 1908.
|