History of Iowa From the Earliest Times to the Beginning of the Twentieth Century/4/Edward H. Stiles
EDWARD H. STILES was born in Granby, Connecticut, October 8, 1830. He received a liberal education in the New England schools, studied law and removed to Iowa in 1856, locating at Ottumwa, where the following year he began the practice of his profession. In 1859 he was chosen city attorney and in 1861 county attorney. In 1863 he was elected on the Republican ticket Representative in the House of the Tenth General Assembly. At the close of the term he was elected to the State Senate. In 1867 he was chosen reporter of the Supreme Court, a position he held for eight years. During his term of service he edited, compiled and published fifteen volumes known as “Stiles' Iowa Reports” which rank high among the law reports of the country. He also prepared and published four volumes of digests of the decisions of the Iowa Supreme Court from the time of its Territorial organization down to the close of volume fifty-eight of the Iowa Reports. In 1881 he began to collect the material for a “History of the Early Bench and Bar of Iowa.” In 1883 he was the Republican candidate for Congress in the Sixth District but by a fusion of the Democratic and Greenback parties in support of General J. B. Weaver, Mr. Stiles was defeated. In 1886 he removed to Kansas City, where he ranked high at the bar, having served as Circuit Judge and Master in Chancery of the United States Circuit Court.