Peter H. Silvester

Who was Peter H. Silvester?

Peter Henry Silvester was a U.S. Representative from New York, grandson of Peter Silvester.

Born in Kinderhook, New York, Silvester attended Kinderhook Academy, and was graduated from Union College, Schenectady, New York, in 1827. He studied law, was admitted to the bar in 1830 and practiced in Coxsackie, New York. He was originally a member of the Democratic-Republican Party, and joined the National Republicans and then the Whigs.

Silvester was elected as a Whig to the Thirtieth and Thirty-first Congresses. He did not run for reelection in 1850 and resumed practicing law. Like most Whigs, Silvester became a Republican when the party was organized in the mid-1850s. In 1860 he was an unsuccessful candidate for the U.S. House, losing narrowly to John B. Steele.

He later retired to one of his farms in Coxsackie, where he lived until his death on November 29, 1882. He was interred in Kinderhook Cemetery.