Encyclopedia Dubuque
"Encyclopedia Dubuque is the online authority for all things Dubuque, written by the people who know the city best.”
Marshall Cohen—researcher and producer, CNN
Affiliated with the Local History Network of the State Historical Society of Iowa, and the Iowa Museum Association.
STEWART, Gideon T.
GIDEON T. STEWART (Johnstown, NY, Aug. 7, 1824-–1909) Stewart studied at Oberlin College, but left before graduating to study law in Norwalk, Ohio. He later studied under Noah Haynes Swayne in Columbus, Ohio, for more than a year. He spent two years in Florida with his brother, before returning to Norwalk, where he was admitted to the bar in 1846. (1)
An American lawyer as well as a newspaper owner and editor, was very active in promoting the temperance movement. He was elected three times as Grand Worthy Chief Templar of the Good Templars of Ohio. Throughout the 1850s he attempted to organize a permanent prohibition party. In 1857, Stewart married Abby N. Simmons of Greenfield, Huron Count, Ohio, and had four children. (2) One of his sons was George Swayne STEWART.
Originally Stewart was a Whig before joining the Republican Paarty during the CIVIL WAR. He moved to Iowa in 1861 and purchased the Dubuque Times, the only daily Union paper in the northern half of the state. He sold it at the end of the war and returned Toledo, Ohio, where he purchased the Toledo Commercial. He sold this at a profit in six months and resumed his law practice in Norwalk in 1866. (3)
In 1869, Stewart was one of the delegates to the convention that established the national Prohibition Party. Afterward, he served as the party candidate three times for governor of Ohio, seven times for judge on that state's Supreme Court, once for circuit court judge, once for Congress, and once (1876) for Vice President of the United States. (4) In 1876, 1880, and 1884 the Prohibition state convention unanimously instructed the Ohio delegates to present him in the National convention as their choice for presidential candidate, but each time he refused to have his name brought forward. (5)
Stewart wrote widely on prohibition and related matters.
---
Source:
1. Reed, George Irving, Emilius Oviatt Randall, Charles Theodore Greve, Bench and Bar of Ohio: A Compendium of History and Biography, Chicago: The Century Publishing and Engraving Company, 1896, p. 205-207
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid.
4. Ibid.
5. Virtual American Biographies, Online: http://www.famousamericans.net/gideontaborstewart/