Peters, Samuel Ritter, jurist and member of Congress, was born in Pickaway county, Ohio, Aug. 16, 1842, a son of Louis S. and Margaret (Ritter) Peters. His early education was acquired in the common schools, and he then took a three-year course at the Ohio Wesleyan University. He left college in 1861 to enter the army, enlisting in the Seventy-third Ohio infantry, and served with that regiment until mustered out on June 8, 1865, having held successively the offices of sergeant, second lieutenant, first lieutenant and captain. In the fall of 1865 he entered the law department of the University of Michigan, where he graduated in 1867 and was admitted to the bar the same year. Coming west he located at Newton, Kan., and began to take an active part in the public and political life of that frontier town. In the fall of 1874 he was elected to the state senate, and in March of the following year was appointed judge of the Ninth judicial district. The fall of 1875 he was elected to the judgeship without opposition and reëlected in 1879. Mr. Peters was elected to Congress in 1882, as Congressman-at-large from Kansas, as a Republican and reëlected in 1884, 1886 and 1888. At the expiration of his service he resumed the practice of his profession. In 1896 he received his degree from the Ohio Wesleyan University as a member of the class of 1863.