REV. WILLIAM K. WEAVER, D. D.

REV. WILLIAM K. WEAVER, D. D.
Rev. William K. Weaver, D. D., who has devoted twenty-six years of his life to the active work of the ministry, was born in Freeport, Pennsylvania, on the 3d of February, 1859, a son of John G. and Margaret Weaver. He comes of Holland ancestry, the first representatives of the name arriving in New Amsterdam in the early part of the seventeenth century. Representatives of the family have fought in all of the wars of the country through the colonial period and since the establishment of the republic. Rev. William K. Weaver was a pupil in the public schools of Freeport, Pennsylvania, and graduated from the high school. By teaching and other means he was then enabled to secure a classical and legal education and was admitted to the Pennsylvania bar at Kittanning, Armstrong county, Pennsylvania. He entered upon the practice of his profession and while in the office of the United States attorney in Dakota he was an active factor in securing the division of the territory into two states. He afterward determined to devote his life to the work of the ministry and spent three years as a student in a theological seminary, and was ordained in April, 1890, and for twenty-six years he has been engaged in pastoral work. Rev. Weaver has ever been deeply interested in all the vital questions which have to do with the progress of state and nation and has kept abreast with the thinking men of the age regarding the important political, sociological and economic questions. He is a progressive, being a follower of Theodore Roosevelt, and he was chosen a delegate to the national progressive conventions of 1912 and 1916. In his fraternal relations he is a Knight of Pythias and is also a Mason of high rank, having attained the thirty-second degree of the Scottish Rite. He has also crossed the sands of the desert with the Nobles of the Mystic Shrine. His military experience covers service with the Pennsylvania National Guard and the Indiana National Guard. He went through the Spanish-American war as chaplain with the rank of captain in the One Hundred and Fifty-ninth Indiana Volunteer Infantry and later became chaplain in the Wyoming National Guard, which position he held when the United States entered into the present war. As the war department decided in favor of younger men for the active campaign, he was not permitted to go to Europe and was appointed adjutant general for his state. In 1914, when the war first broke out and Germany invaded Belgium in violation of the treaty to which she and the other powers were signatory, General Weaver believed that since this country regards treaties not as scraps of paper, it should as quickly as England have resented the action and at once have become a participant in the war. At this time his son, Captain John R. Weaver, was in Chicago, and being invited to join the Canadian forces about to go over, he wired his father: “Shall I go with the Canadians or wait until the Americans go?” General Weaver's answer was: “Go with the Canadians. Your brothers will be there about the same time.” In Freeport, Pennsylvania, in 1886, Rev. Weaver was united in marriage to Miss Margaret C. Griffith, a daughter of J. R. Griffith, and they have become parents of seven children: Major Harry G. Weaver, who is a West Point graduate of 1907 and is now with the United States army; Captain F. H. Weaver, a graduate of the United States Naval Academy, with the navy; Captain W. K. Weaver, Captain John R. Weaver and Sergeant Marion K. Weaver, who are connected with the national army, at the present time, for active service in France; Margaret, a teacher in the Cheyenne public schools; and Ruth, a high school pupil. This history of the family, traced down through successive generations, is notable by reason of patriotism and loyalty to the highest American standards of citizenship. Rev. Mr. Weaver, unlike some representatives of the ministry, has never held himself aloof from the active affairs of life, having ever regarded it as the duty of every individual to become qualified for the molding of his own character and for service in behalf of his fellowmen through a thorough understanding of existing conditions in the world in which he lives. The habits of logical thinking inculcated in legal practice are manifest in his work in the ministry and there is in his public utterances from the pulpit a clearness of reasoning that has had much to do with his success.

Rev. William K. Weaver, D. D., who has devoted twenty-six years of his life to the active work of the ministry, was born in Freeport, Pennsylvania, on the 3d of February, 1859, a son of John G. and Margaret Weaver. He comes of Holland ancestry, the first representatives of the name arriving in New Amsterdam in the early part of the seventeenth century. Representatives of the family have fought in all of the wars of the country through the colonial period and since the establishment of the republic.
Rev. William K. Weaver was a pupil in the public schools of Freeport, Pennsylvania, and graduated from the high school. By teaching and other means he was then enabled to secure a classical and legal education and was admitted to the Pennsylvania bar at Kittanning, Armstrong county, Pennsylvania. He entered upon the practice of his profession and while in the office of the United States attorney in Dakota he was an active factor in securing the division of the territory into two states. He afterward determined to devote his life to the work of the ministry and spent three years as a student in a theological seminary, and was ordained in April, 1890, and for twenty-six years he has been engaged in pastoral work.
Rev. Weaver has ever been deeply interested in all the vital questions which have to do with the progress of state and nation and has kept abreast with the thinking men of the age regarding the important political, sociological and economic questions. He is a progressive, being a follower of Theodore Roosevelt, and he was chosen a delegate to the national progressive conventions of 1912 and 1916. In his fraternal relations he is a Knight of Pythias and is also a Mason of high rank, having attained the thirty-second degree of the Scottish Rite. He has also crossed the sands of the desert with the Nobles of the Mystic Shrine. His military experience covers service with the Pennsylvania National Guard and the Indiana National Guard. He went through the Spanish-American war as chaplain with the rank of captain in the One Hundred and Fifty-ninth Indiana Volunteer Infantry and later became chaplain in the Wyoming National Guard, which position he held when the United States entered into the present war. As the war department decided in favor of younger men for the active campaign, he was not permitted to go to Europe and was appointed adjutant general for his state. In 1914, when the war first broke out and Germany invaded Belgium in violation of the treaty to which she and the other powers were signatory, General Weaver believed that since this country regards treaties not as scraps of paper, it should as quickly as England have resented the action and at once have become a participant in the war. At this time his son, Captain John R. Weaver, was in Chicago, and being invited to join the Canadian forces about to go over, he wired his father: “Shall I go with the Canadians or wait until the Americans go?” General Weaver's answer was: “Go with the Canadians. Your brothers will be there about the same time.”
In Freeport, Pennsylvania, in 1886, Rev. Weaver was united in marriage to Miss Margaret C. Griffith, a daughter of J. R. Griffith, and they have become parents of seven children: Major Harry G. Weaver, who is a West Point graduate of 1907 and is now with the United States army; Captain F. H. Weaver, a graduate of the United States Naval Academy, with the navy; Captain W. K. Weaver, Captain John R. Weaver and Sergeant Marion K. Weaver, who are connected with the national army, at the present time, for active service in France; Margaret, a teacher in the Cheyenne public schools; and Ruth, a high school pupil.
This history of the family, traced down through successive generations, is notable by reason of patriotism and loyalty to the highest American standards of citizenship. Rev. Mr. Weaver, unlike some representatives of the ministry, has never held himself aloof from the active affairs of life, having ever regarded it as the duty of every individual to become qualified for the molding of his own character and for service in behalf of his fellowmen through a thorough understanding of existing conditions in the world in which he lives. The habits of logical thinking inculcated in legal practice are manifest in his work in the ministry and there is in his public utterances from the pulpit a clearness of reasoning that has had much to do with his success.