Page:History of Iowa From the Earliest Times to the Beginning of the Twentieth Century Volume 4.djvu/83

 practice of medicine. In 1858 he was elected superintendent of schools. In the fall of 1865 he was nominated by the Republicans for the State Senate and elected for four years. In that body he served as chairman of the committee on schools and State University. In 1871 he became the Republican candidate for Lieutenant-Governor and was elected, serving one term. In 1876 he was appointed a member of the Sioux Indian Commission for the purpose of purchasing the Black Hills reservation. In 1878 he was appointed a special Indian agent but resigned after nine months' service. He served in 1883 as a special agent of the Land Department. Mr. Bulis was a prominent candidate before the Republican Convention in 1889 for Representative in Congress in the Fourth District but after sixty ballots withdrew in favor of J. H. Sweeney, who was nominated. He served as a regent of the State University many years and was curator of the State Historical Society, mayor and postmaster of Decorah. Dr. Bulis died at Decorah on the 7th of September, 1897. SAMUEL S. BURDETT was born in England, in 1835, and emigrated to America in 1856. After graduating at Oberlin College he located at De Witt in Clinton County, where he engaged in the practice of law with Judge Graham. He was a radical Abolitionist and an active agent of the “underground railroad,” a warm friend of John Brown, assisting many fugitive slaves on their way to Canada. He was a prominent Republican speaker in the Lincoln campaign of 1860. When the Rebellion began he helped raise a company for the First Iowa Cavalry, was commissioned lieutenant of Company B, and was soon promoted to captain. He was appointed Provost Marshal at St. Louis and organized the plans for the arrest of Mulligan and his gang of so-called “Sons of Liberty” in Indiana. In 1868 he was one of the Presidential electors in Iowa, casting the vote of the State for General Grant. He removed to Osceola, Missouri, where he served two terms in Congress. In 1877 he was appointed by President Hayes Commissioner of the United States Land Department at Washington, where he served eight years. In 1885 he was chosen Grand Commander of the Grand Army of the Republic. ROBERT J. BURDETTE, journalist, lecturer and author, was born July 30, 1844, in Greensborough, Pennsylvania. He removed to Peoria, Illinois, and when the Civil War began enlisted as a private and served until peace was established, when he returned to a position as a clerk in the Peoria post-office. He afterwards became a proofreader on the Peoria Transcript, and later night editor of the same paper. Here he began to develop a remarkable talent which attracted the attention of the newspaper fraternity and was offered a position on the Burlington Hawkeye. In a few years he gave that paper a national reputation and corresponding circulation outside of the State. As a humorous writer he had few