BIOGRAPHY: Stiles, Edward H.
From the A.T. Andreas Illustrated Historical Atlas of the State of Iowa, 1875

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Honorable EDWARD H. STILES was born at Granby, Hartford County, Connecticut, 
October 8, 1836.  He received an academic education, and in 1856 began the study of 
law.  In December of the latter year he came to Wapello County, Iowa, where during the 
ensuing Winter he taught school.  In the Spring of 1857 he resumed the study of law in the 
office of Colonel S. W. Summers, then a leading attorney of Ottumwa, with whom he 
formed a copartnership, on his admission to the bar, in December following.
In 1858 Mr. Stiles was elected a member of the City Council of Ottumwa.  In 1859 
he was elected city solicitor.  During the memorable Presidential campaign of 1860 he 
very heartily espoused the cause of the Honorable Stephen A. Douglas, advocating his 
claims to the Presidency in many forcible speeches.  At the Presidential election in the 
same year Mr. Stiles voted for the last time with the Democratic party, with which he had 
previously been identified allying himself, on the breaking out of the great rebellion, with 
the Republican party, and has ever since been an avowed and earnest Republican.  In 
January, 1861, at the first session of the first Board of Supervisors in the county, Mr. Stiles 
was elected attorney of the board: a year later he was re-elected.  In January, 1864, he 
took his seat in the lower House of the State Legislature as a Republican Representative 
from Wapello County, serving during the session on the important standing committees 
on judiciary and finance and on a notable special committee on a prohibitory liquor law.  
In 1865 Mr. Stiles was elected over his former law partner, Colonel Summers, who was his 
Democratic opponent on this occasion, to the State Senate.  Here, likewise, he was 
prominent as a member of the Judiciary and Finance Committees, and of a joint 
committee of the Legislature appointed to investigate the facts respecting a certain 
large deficit in the Swamp Land Fund of the State.  As chairman, on the part of the 
Senate, of the latter committee, Mr. Stiles personally conducted the examination of all 
the witnesses, took all the testimony and wrote the report, the investigation consuming 
the greater part of the session.  At the same session, in 1866, the office of Reporter of the 
Decisions of the Supreme Court, the incumbents of which were previously appointed by 
the judges of the court, made elective.  This unwise innovation was strenuously opposed 
by Mr. Stiles, who was rather remarkably, considering this fact, nominated by the 
Republican State Convention, held during the succeeding Summer, as a candidate for 
the office, and elected at the ensuing Fall election.  Thereupon he resigned his position 
of State Senator, three years of the term of which were unexpired.
In October, 1870, Mr. Stiles was re-elected to the office of Reporter.  Four years 
later, upon the expiration of his second term, he positively declined to be further a 
candidate, and according ly retired.
As Reporter of the Decisions of the Supreme Court, Mr. Stiles prepared the head 
notes and published sixteen volumes – number 22 to37 inclusive – of the Iowa Reports, 
which rank high among the law reports of the country.  During 1873-74 he also prepared 
and published a new Iowa Digest, in two volumes.  This work was projected by T. F. 
Withrow, Esq., last predecessor of Mr. Stiles to the office of Reporter, who was early 
compelled to relinquish its preparation in consequence of an important professional 
engagement in another state.  Indubitable evidence of great care and excessive labor 
expended upon the work appear on every page.
Mr. Stiles is associated in professional practice with E. L. Burton, Esq., a gentleman 
of high personal character and eminent legal attainments.  Messrs. Stiles & Barton 
number among their very respectable clients the corporations of all the four railroads 
centering at Ottumwa.
September 19, 1861, in the City of Philadelphia, Mr. Stiles was united in marriage 
with Miss Emma Vernon, of Chester County, Pennsylvania.