Davis Hanson Waite (April 9, 1825 – November 27, 1901) was an American politician. He was a member of the Populist Party, and he served as the eighth Governor of Colorado from 1893 to 1895.
Biography
Early years
Davis Hanson Waite was born on April 9, 1825, in Jamestown, New York, to Joseph Waite and Olive Davis Waite. He studied law and graduated from Jamestown Academy. In 1851, he married Frances Eliza Russell and together they had three children, Arthur, Olive and May Josephine. Waite served in the state legislatures of Wisconsin in 1857, and Kansas in 1879.
Waite moved with his family to Leadville, Colorado, in 1879 to practice law. After his wife Frances died in November 1880, he moved to Aspen. In Aspen he started the local newspaper and served as secretary of the local assembly of the Knights of Labor. He remarried to Celia O. Maltby (née Crane) on January 8, 1885. They had one son, Frank Hanson Waite.
His election coincided with the Panic of 1893 which hit the silver mining industry in Colorado particularly hard. In 1894, the Western Federation of Miners went on a five-month strike and Waite intervened on behalf of the union, ordering the deployment of the state militia to support and protect the miners. That same year Waite supported the American Railroad Union during the national Pullman Strike. As governor he was also instrumental in the passage of women's suffrage in Colorado, the second state to do so.
He was defeated for reelection in 1894, but continued to be active in the Populist movement until his death in 1901.
Death and legacy
Waite died on November 27, 1901, while preparing Thanksgiving dinner at his home in Aspen. His house on West Francis Street in Aspen has been listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
Footnotes
Further reading
- David B. Griffiths, "Far-Western Populist Thought: A Comparative Study of John R. Rogers and Davis H. Waite," Pacific Northwest Quarterly, vol. 60, no. 4 (Oct. 1969), pp. 183–192. In JSTOR.