Samuel Ritter PETERS, Congress, KS (1842-1910)

PETERS, Samuel Ritter, a Representative from Kansas; born in Walnut Township, near Circleville, Pickaway County, Ohio, August 16, 1842; attended the common schools and the Ohio Wesleyan University at Delaware; enlisted in the Union Army as a private in Company E, Seventy-third Regiment, Ohio Volunteer Infantry, in October 1861 and was mustered out in June 1865, having held successively the ranks of sergeant, second lieutenant, first lieutenant, and captain; was graduated in law from the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor in 1867; was admitted to the bar the same year and commenced practice in Memphis, Mo.; editor of the Memphis Reveille 1868-1873; delegate to the Republican National Convention in 1872; mayor of Memphis in 1873; moved to Marion, Kans., in 1873 and resumed the practice of law; elected a member of the State senate in 1874 and served until his resignation in March 1875; appointed and subsequently elected judge of the ninth judicial district and served from 1875 until 1883, when he resigned; moved to Newton, Harvey County, Kans., in 1876; elected as a Republican to the Forty-eighth and to the three succeeding Congresses (March 4, 1883-March 3, 1891); was not a candidate for renomination in 1890; resumed the practice of law in Newton; member of the board of managers of the State reformatory 1895-1899; postmaster of Newton 1898-1910; editor of the Newton Daily Kansas-Republican in 1899; died in Newton, Kans., April 21, 1910; interment in Greenwood Cemetery.

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