Edward Hooker Gillette
| Edward H. Gillette | |
|---|---|
| Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Iowa's 7th district |
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In office 1879–1881 |
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| Personal details | |
| Born |
October 1, 1840 Bloomfield, Connecticut |
| Died | August 14, 1918 (aged 77) |
| Political party | |
| Alma mater | New York State College of Agriculture |
Edward Hooker Gillette (October 1, 1840 – August 14, 1918) was a nineteenth-century populist politician and editor from Iowa. He was elected on the Greenback Party ticket to represent Iowa's 7th congressional district for only one term in Congress, but remained active in populist political movements. Gillette was the son of Senator Francis Gillette and Elisabeth Daggett Hooker, a descendant of Rev. Thomas Hooker, and the brother of actor/playwright William Gillette.
Born in Bloomfield, Connecticut, he attended public schools in Hartford, Connecticut as a child and went on to attend the New York State College of Agriculture in Ovid, New York.
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.
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