William Morris STEWART, Congress, NV (1827-1909)

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.

Bibliography

American 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.

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