Representative Silas Matteson Weaver View All Years

SILAS MATTESON WEAVER was born at Arkwright, Chautauqua County, New York, December 18, 1843, and died at Iowa Falls, Iowa, November 6, 1923. He acquired his education at Fredonia Academy, Fredonia, New York, was admitted to the bar at Buffalo, New York, in 1868, and the same year at Iowa Falls, Iowa, and began the practice of law. For the next eighteen years he devoted himself principally to his law practice, although from 1874 to 1879 he was editor of the Iowa Falls Sentinel, and later he edited the Hardin County Citizen for a time. In 1883 he was elected representative and was re-elected in 1885, serving in the Twentieth and Twenty-first general assemblies. In the Twentieth he was chairman of the Judiciary Committee. That was the session of the famous fight for the adoption of the prohibition statute after the constitutional amendment had been declared illegal by the Supreme Court. The House was so evenly divided on the measure that every vote of those favorable was required, and Mr. Weaver, who at the time was sick at his home in Iowa Falls, arose from the sick bed, came to Des Moines and was carried into the State House and into the House Chamber on a stretcher and voted for the measure, helping to save it from defeat. (The measure received fifty-two votes, one more than a constitutional majority. See page 278, Journal of the House, Twentieth General Assembly.) In the Twenty-first Assembly he was chairman of the Board of Managers in the impeachment trial of John L. Brown, auditor of state. In 1886 he was elected a judge of the District Court of the Eleventh Judicial District, and was re-elected in 1890, 1894, and 1898. In 1901 he was elected a judge of the Supreme Court and was re­elected in 1908, 1914, and 1920. Thus for fifteen years he was on the district bench and for twenty-two years on the supreme bench, thirty-seven years in all of continuous judicial service. His mind was that of the trained lawyer and of the cultured scholar. His style as shown in his written opinions excelled in clarity and in felicity of expression, frequently attaining literary excellence. He had independence and vigor of thought, was modest and unpretentious, and had a sympathy for all humanity, especially for the oppressed. He was a life-long Republican and a member of the Methodist church.