Representative Sidney Slocum Sweet View All Years

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Sidney Slocum Sweet

Benton County

Born near North Granville, Washington county, New York, on the 29th of August, 1848, and was a son of Charles Addison Sweet and Eliza (Slocum) Sweet. He was reared to the sturdy discipline of the home farm and his early educational advantages were such as were afforded in the common schools of the locality and period. Through active association with men and affairs in the later years of his life he rounded out his mental discipline and became a man of broad information and mature judgment. As a young man Mr. Sweet left the old home state and went to Texas, where he remained about one year, at the expiration of· which he came to Iowa. He made his advent in Belle Plaine, Benton county, in 1869, and in this village, which was then one of but small population, he engaged in the banking business by purchasing the bank established about two years previously by Samuel L. Bardwell. This was the first financial institution in the town and Mr. Sweet individually continued the business for three years, at the expiration of which, in 1872, he became associated with other representative men of the county in the organization and incorporation of The First National Bank of Belle Plaine. He became cashier of this institution and held this position until 1877, when he was elected its president. Mr. Sweet naturally became a leader in public opinion and action in his community and though he never was ambitious for public office he never refused his services when called upon to assume positions of trust. He was an influential factor in the political affairs of his section of the state and was arrayed as a stalwart in the camp of the Republican party of whose principles and policies he was a staunch and able advocate. He served as a member of the city council was mayor of Belle Plaine for two terms, and for more than thirty years he served as secretary of the board of education. In 1885 he was elected to represent his county in the lower house of the state legislature, and in this body fidelity of purpose and his forceful personality were recognized, He was a member of the legislature that created the prohibition law of 1886, and three years later he was defeated for election to the state senate in the turbulent maelstrom that swept the Republican ticket in the state upon the rocks of adversity, as a virtual result of the enactment of the previously mentioned prohibition law. For many years Mr. Sweet represented his county at the state and congressional Conventions. and in 1904 he represented the fifth congressional district in the Republican national convention which nominated Roosevelt for the presidency. He was one of the Benton county delegates to the state conventions of his party in 1901 and 1906, and he continued to manifest a vital interest in party affairs until the close of his life. He was identified with no fraternal organizations except the Masonic order in which he attained to the thirty-second degree in the Ancient Accepted Scottish Rite. Mr. Sweet was united in marriage to :Miss Katharine Brown. whose parents were numbered among the early settlers of Benton county, whence they removed to California many years ago.

House District 47