Early Adult Life
Foreseeing westward expansion after the war, Francis Gillette and brother-in-law John Hooker had purchased shares in a concern which owned thousands of acres of sprawling Iowa landscape. Edward left college in 1863 to oversee their investment. He settled on a large farm outside of Des Moines, the new capital of the nation’s newly-added twenty-ninth state. He raised high-bred livestock and later purchased another farm in Walnut Township, four miles west of Des Moines. There he engaged in several business enterprises, including building and manufacturing, while developing his farm.
On June 26, 1866, Edward married Sophia Theresa Stoddard, who had formerly been betrothed to his fallen brother, Robert, who had been killed at Fort Fisher, near Wilmington, North Carolina, the morning after the surrender of the fort.
Edward served as editor of the Iowa Tribune, the central organ of the Populist party of Iowa. He also served as chairman of the Greenback Party's National Committee, and was a delegate to its National Convention in 1876. In 1878, Gillette was elected as a Greenback Party member to the United States House of Representatives, serving in the 46th Congress with fellow Iowa Greenback Party member James B. Weaver from 1879 to 1881.
Read more about this topic: Edward H. Gillette
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