Silas Peterson, a representative citizen and prominent resident of Sugar Creek Township, has been located in Montgomery County ever since 1830. Growing from childhood to mature years upright and honorable in his daily life, he early gained, and still retains, the confidence of the numerous acquaintances and friends he has throughout the State of Indiana. Occupying various positions of public trust, he has ever discharged the duties of each office with energy and ability.

Mr. Peterson was elected to the office of County Real-Estate Appraiser in 1868, and devoted himself with impartially to he work. In 1876 Mr. Peterson was the candidate of the Democratic party for State Senator, and was elected by an overwhelming majority. Giving great satisfaction to his constituents by the able manner in which he handled the interests of the district he represented, he was in 1884 unanimously selected by his party for a second term of office, and so great was his popularity, that, although the Democrats lost nearly all the elections that year by the large increase of Republican voters, Mr. Peterson was again triumphantly returned to the Senate.

The Hon. Silas Peterson is a native of Ohio, and was born in 1825. The records of the family history show their name to be well represented in early Colonial times. Before the Revolutionary War there emigrated from Switzerland to America, John Peterson, a man of courage, resolution and integrity, who located with his family in Hardy County, Va., about 1760. In the Old Dominion his son John reared eight children, and founded in the New World that branch of Petersons of which our subject is the direct descendant. The children were Solomon, the eldest-born; Elizabeth, who married William Harpool, of Madison County, Ohio; Martin; Phoebe, who became the wife of Michael Coyner, and died in Clinton County, Ind.; Jonas, who was born in 1800; John; and two who died in childhood.

In 1806 John Peterson and his family removed to Ross County, Ohio, which State had only been admitted into the Union four years before, and was yet scarcely more than a wilderness. The family passed through the privations and stirring experiences peculiar to early pioneer life on the frontier, the sons capturing game and killing wild animals where now stand flourishing towns with a populous country all about them.

Solomon Peterson, the father of our subject, was born in Virginia in 1790, and was therefore about sixteen years of age when the family emigrated to the Buckeye State. He married in Ross County, Ohio, at a very early age, Miss Elizabeth Bowers, who became the mother of five children, all of whom lived to mature years. These sons and daughters were William; Samuel; Mary, wife of Gustin Irwin; Maria, who married William Strong, and moved to Keokirk, Iowa, and still resides there; and Martin, the youngest. The mother of these children having died, the father married Miss Wilmena Walternut, who emigrated from Germany to this country with her parents. By this union Mr. Peterson became the father of Silas, our subject; Phoebe, who married Thomas Gray; and John. A third marriage added two more children to the family. These children were Solomon, and Margaret, who married Louis Cave, who served bravely as a Union soldier in the late war. The two children born after Solomon Peterson’s fourth marriage were Martha, now deceased, who married G. W. Wilson; and David.

Silas Peterson when five years old came with his parents to Montgomery County in the year 1830, and received an education in the public schools, which in those days were primitive in their method and number. When Silas Peterson was twenty-five years old, he married Miss Lorinda Dain, a lady highly esteemed by all who knew her. The husband’s possessions were limited to a small tract of land, but through close application to his business, and excellent management, his property increased until he owned at one time two thousand acres of land. In 1888, when he had already served two terms as State Senator, he was nominated again by the Democrats and was defeated only by the redistricting of the district.

Four children have blessed the union of Mr. and Mrs. Peterson; John Q., a young and prosperous farmer; Wilmena, wife of George Seybold, a hardware merchant of Waveland; Esther, wife of Rev. W. B. Slutz, a Methodist minister located at Frankfort; and Charles P., a farmer near the old homestead. Mr. Peterson has been identified in the past with Independent Order of Odd Fellows. He and his wife are valued members of the Disciples Church, at Darlington. He has always wielded a powerful influence in behalf of religion and morality, and is strongly opposed to the liquor traffic. Mr. Peterson is widely known as a man of broad intelligence, just and generous in his views, and deeply interested in local and national affairs. He has always been specially zealous in all educational matters looking toward progress.