USA > Iowa > An illustrated history of the state of Iowa, being a complete civil, political, and military history of the state, from its first exploration down to 1875; > Part 72
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barked in the practice of the law, and in the real estate and insurance bus- iness. He brought to Iowa his whig anti-slavery principles, and when the whig party made a wreck of itself, and the republican party in 1855 be- gan to crystallize itself into an organ- ization, Mr. Bloomer and others or- ganized republicanism in Pottawatta- mie county. In 1856, he again took the editorial pen as editor of the Chronotype, the first republican news- paper ever published in the state west of the Des Moines river. In 1856, he served as an alderman of the city. In 1857, he was the republican candidate for mayor of Council Bluffs, and was defeated. In 1858, he was the republi- can candidate for county judge, and defeated, and in 1859, ran as a repub- lican for representative, and was de- feated. In 1861, he was appointed re- ceiver of the United States land office, and held the place twelve years, and until the office was abolished by the removal of the records of the district to Des Moines. In 1860, he was elect- ed a member of the state board of ed- ucation, and served in that capacity until the board was abolished by law. For nine years he held the office, elec- torally, of president of the school board of Council Bluffs, and during that time, and under his personal su- pervision, all the school houses, of which the city is so justly proud, were built. Twice, after the city had at- tained a population of more than ten thousand inhabitants, he was elected its mayor. During the war of the re- bellion, Mr. Bloomer was the presi- dent of the Union League of Council Bluffs, and took an active part, in en- ergy and money, in the raising of troops for the suppression of the in- surrection. A quarter of a century ago, he became a member of the Pro- testant Episcopal church, of which he has ever since been a consistent mem- ber. In 1840, he married Miss Amelia Jenks, an estimable and talented lady, a sketch of whose life forms a separate paper. Mr. Bloomer is a prominent member of the Odd Fellows, and his pen has for years contributed to its best literature, and even now (1874), he is a contributor to the Annals of Iowa, and an editor of a local journal of wide influence.
er, wife of IIon. D. C. Bloomer, was born in Homer, Corttand county, N. Y. Her maiden name was Jenks. Her education was mainly acquired in the district schools, and for a short time previous to her marriage, she was a teacher in the public schools in her own neighborhood. Her heart has always been with the free schools of the country, and with the cause of general education. She was mar- ried to Mr. Bloomer in 1840, and with him took up her residence in Seneca Falls, N. Y., where they re- mained until the fall of 1853. In 1842, Mrs. Bloomer became a member of the Protestant Episcopal church, and has ever since remained a sincere member of that society. A woman of decided views on temperance, slavery and other questions, she gave utterance to them first through the columns of her husband's news- paper, and latterly from the lecture platform. In January, 1848, she com- menced the publication of a temper- ance newspaper called the Lily, and for six years, she alone, with success and energy managed its columns. The Lily was the first newspaper in the country that took the advanced platform of woman's rights. Re- form in dress was one of the ideas seized by Mrs. Bloomer, and in her journal she advocated a style, which is known by her name, that has never been adopted except by a few.
To say that Mrs. Bloomer has been a remarkable woman would be inade- quate. It is impossible for her to be idle. When the Woman's Suffrage Society of Iowa was organized, she was its vice president, and at its second meeting its president. Ever since, she has been in the front rank of the movement, ready and willing at all times to aid the cause. During their residence in Mount Vernon, Ohio, she was associate editor of the Western Home Visitor, a weekly jour- nal of extensive circulation. In the winter of 1856, she addressed the legis- lature of Nebraska, on the right of women to the ballot, and the terri- rial house of representatives shortly afterwards passed a bill giving women the right to vote, but it failed in the council. For thirty years Mrs. Bloomer has shared her husband's fortunes and misfortunes, and still lives to bless his
Amelia Bloomer. Amelia Bloom- I home. Without children of her own,
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she has always had an adopted family of little ones around her, to give tone to her warm and generous heart. Both Mr. and Mrs. Bloomer are highly respected by all who know them, and are regarded as having contributed greatly to the advancement of the in. terests of their adopted atate, and of the city of which they, at an early date, became inhabitants.
Hon. James Grant. James Grant was born on a plantation near the vil- lage of Eufield, Halifax county, North Carolina, Dec. 12, 1812. He was the second of eight children, and of his early years there is little of special interest to narrate. At thirteen he was prepared for college, and taken to the university of his native state, at Chapel Hill, to join the freshman class; but he was so small that the venerable president, who had taught his father, advised the latter to retain him at home for two years, and then have him join an advanced class. This advice was followed, and James entered the sophomore class of 1828, and gradnated, with a class of thirteen others, in 1831. It will be seen that Grant graduated while he was under eighteen. After graduating, he taught school three years at Raleigh, and emigrated to the west when he was twenty-one. He reached Illinois in December, 1833, obtained a license to practice law in January, 1834, and settled in Chicago, then a village of five hundred inhabitants, in April, 1834. He remained in Chicago until June, 1838, when he discovered that the lake winds impaired his health, and he removed to the territory of Wisconsin, selecting Davenport, in Scott county, for his future home, on the 18th of June, 1838. In 1841, he was elected a member of the house of representatives of the fourth Iowa ter- ritorial legislative assembly, from the district composed of Scott and Clin- ton counties, his colleague being Jos. M. Robertson. In 1844, the people of Scott county elected him to represent them in the first constitutional con- vention, and in 1846, he was sent to the second constitutional convention ; and in both sessions he drew up the section embracing the bill of rights. After the adoption of the constitution in 1847, under which Iowa was ad- mitted into the union as a state.
Grant was elected, April 5, 1847, a judge for the district composed of the counties of Allamakee, Black Hawk, Bremer, Butler, Buchanan, Cedar, Clayton, Clinton, Delaware, Dubuque,. Fayette, Grundy, Jackson, Muscatine, Scott and Winneshiek, and held the office during the term of five years, declining a reélection. The title of judge has clung to him, however, ever since his elevation to the bench. In 1852, he was again a member of the house of representatives in the Iowa legislature from Scott county, and was elected speaker. Since that time he has kept aloof from office. From 1853, until now, he has been engaged in the largest and most lucrative prac- tice of any attorney in the northwest. On the 23d of June, congress created the territory of Iowa. On the 8th of July, 1839, he married his first wife, Sarah E. Hubbard, who gave birth to a daughter who died in 1841; and the mother followed her to the grave in 1842. In January, 1844, he was mar. ried to Ada C. Hubbard, who died in June, 1846, leaving a daughter who survived her mother a year. On June 10, 1848, he was married to his present wife, Elizabeth Brown Leonard, with whom he has spent twenty-five years of wedded life. The celebration of their silver wedding took place at Davenport, and was celebrated on a grand scale, and participated in by a vast multitude of friends. Without children of their own, Judge Grant has always had his house filled with them, of relations on both sides, and upon them he lavishes his large in- come, prouder of them than many fathers with the best of children. Few women can be found like Mrs. Grant, willing to devote their whole lives, as she does hers, to the care of other women's children. Judge Grant has met with great success in his pro- fession. In 1834, he was appointed, by Gov. Duncan, prosecuting attorney for the sixth district of Illinois. In June, 1836, he resigned this office, finding it interfered with his home business.
Gen. Jonathan Emerson Fletcher. Gen. Jonathan E. Fletcher was a na- tive of Thetford, Vermont, and came to Muscatine in the summer of 1838, when Iowa was made a separate terri- tory. He attended the first land sale
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in the territory, in November, 1838, at which he bought lands six miles west of the city, upon which he located in the fall of 1839, and went to farming, having previously returned to Ver- , mont and married his surviving wife. He had resided a few years in Ohio . before he came to Iowa. Gen. Fletcher held many responsible offices in this territory and state. He was a member of the convention which framed the old constitution, taking an important part in the formation of our funda- mental law. In 1846, he was ap. pointed, by President Polk, an Indian agent for the Winnebagoes, and served in that capacity eleven years; few agents were ever better calculated to manage a tribe of Indians. The Win- nebagoes, Sioux and Chippewas were frequently at war, and he was often instrumental in saving much blood- shed. With quiet apprehension, de- cision and firmness, and great courage to face and surmount all difficulties, his valuable services in his long ca- reer as Indian agent, to the govern- ment, and to the country, are incalcu- lable. Gen. Fletcher returned to his farm, one mile west of Muscatine, Ia., 1858, where he resided till his death. He left a wife and eight children, his eldest son a practicing physician at Detroit, Mich.
Col. Nathan Boone. There is one name, which, whenever it is mentioned among military men and old frontier men, is always mentioned with re- spect, and that name is Nathan Boone. On account of his father, Col. Daniel Boone, of Kentucky, the fame of his son is not as widespread as it should be. He was born in Kentucky, in 1782, in the settlement made by his father; lived there till he was grown to manhood, and then moved to the territory of Missouri, where, at thirty years of age, and on the 25th of March, 1812, he was made, by the president of the United States, a captain of mounted rangers. These rangers, of which there were seven companies, were raised during the war with Great Britain, for the protection of the fron- tier of the United States against the Indians, and were to serve on foot or on horseback, as the exigencies of the service might require. He served through the whole war, his company being made up of frontier men from
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Missouri territory. He was promoted major of the Missouri mounted rangers, on the 10th of Dec., 1813; continued as captain in 1814, and his command was finally disbanded when the whole army was cut down at the close of the war, in June, 1815. By nature he was cool and daring, com- bining the superior knowledge of the white man with the cunning of the Indian. He had the passion peculiar to his family, for the chase, and often went off on long and lonely marches in pursuit of the denizens of the for- est. After leaving the army, he was sometimes employed as a surveyor, and laid off many Indian boundaries in the territory north of Missouri. His home he moved beyond the Ozark mountains, where, in a beautiful val- ley and far in advance of civilization, he made it cheerful and happy. There he lived until the breaking out of the Black Hawk war, when he was again called upon by the president to serve his company in the field. A battalion of mounted rangers was raised and placed under the command of Maj. Henry Dodge, one of the companies of which was commanded by Nathan Boone. Capt. Boone's commission was dated June 16, 1832. This battal- ion rendered good service during the Black Hawk troubles, and after the war closed, it was sent west of the Mississippi, and served in the Indian country. Here Boone's knowledge of woodcraft was invaluable, and he was known to be one of the ablest woodsmen that ever belonged to the U. S. army. In August, 1833, the battalion of rangers was reorganized as the 1st regiment of U. S. dragoons, Maj. Dodge having been promoted colonel; Stephen W. Kearney, lieut. colonel; and Richard B. Mason, major. While a captain, Boone was stationed at Fort Des Moines, and at Leavenworth, but every summer his company made long expeditions far out in the Indian country. He was the favorite pioneer captain of Col. Kearney, who had the most implicit confidence in his knowledge and sagacity. In the settlement of the Osage Indian difficulties, in 1837, and those of the Cherokees, in 1839, Boone acted a conspicuous part. During the Mexican war he was kept on the plains in the Indian country; he was promoted major in the 1st regiment
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on the 15th of February, 1847, and served as such until July 25, 1850, when he was promoted lieut. colonel of the 2d dragoons. Feeling that old age was wearing upon him, and that he was no longer able to keep the field, he resigned his position in the army, July 15, 1853, and died at his home in Missouri, in January, 1857, in the seventy-fifth year of his age. To him, as a successful pioneer in the great west, belongs much credit that has been given to later explorers. He had unflinching perseverance, per- aonal courage, and an integrity which nothing could shake. In personal ap- pearance, he is said to have strongly resembled his celebrated father - Daniel Boone, the first aettler of Ken- tucky.
Theodore S. Parvin. Theodore Sutton Parvin was born Jan. 15, 1817, in Cumberland county, New Jersey. His father was a seafaring man, and his early training fell mainly to his mother, a devoted lady of the Preshy- terian faith. In November, 1829, he removed with his father's family to Cincinnati, Ohio, and soon afterward entered Woodward College at that place. In the fall of 1833, having meritoriously passed through the col- lege course, he commenced the study of law with the Hon. Timothy Walker. Uniting the benefits of office study with the more illustrative teachings of the school, he entered the Cincin- nati Law School, from which he was graduated in 1837, and immediately admitted to practice. In the spring of 1838, Robert Lucas, who had been governor of Ohio, was appointed by President Van Buren governor of the young territory of Iowa. On his way from his home in Ohio, and passing through Cincinnati, he met young Parvin at the tea table of a mutual friend. Being greatly pleased with the young man, he immediately appointed him his private secretary, which office he retained until promoted to that of prosecuting attorney. At the end of two years he resigned that position to be elected, for three consecutive terma, judge of the probate court. Previous to this he had held the office of secre- tary of the legislative council during the session of 1840-41. Upon the or- ganization of the United States district court for the district of Iowa, Judge
Parvin was appointed its clerk, a po- sition he held for ten years. In 1856, he was elected register of the state land office, and therefore reaigned the clerkship of that court. Indebted to the public school system of Ohio for a liberal education, Mr. Parvin has al- ways been an enthusiast in the cause of public education. He brought or- der, to the free schools of Muscatine, out of chaos, when the present school code was adopted in Iowa, serving as president of the school board of that city. At the initial steps of the or- ganization of the state university, in 1854, he was made one of its trustees. He was again elected trustee in 1858, but resigned the next year upon his election as "curator and librarian," a position giving him the powers and duties but not the title of president of the university. At the end of 1859, Mr. Parvin exchanged his title for that of professor of natural history, a chair which he held for eight years. Politi- cal economy was the last chair filled by Prof. Parwin, but the general elec- tion of 1870 developed party feeling, which found its way within the uni- versity, and the board of trustees, on an extravagant impulse, voted away the chair and the professor of politi- cal economy. Since that time, Prof. Parvin has devoted himself almost exclusively to the promotion and ex- tension of the Masonic order, of which we may say he was the founder in Iowa. For twenty-nine years, and ever since its institution, he has been grand secretary of the grand lodge of Iowa, except one year, when he held the more exalted but not more respon- sible office of grand master. In 1843, Prof. Parvin was married to Miss Ag- nes McCully. They have six children, two of whom are married. The eldest daughter was one of the first three la- dies to take the degree of A. B. in the state university. In 1850, Prof. Parvin united with the Presbyterian Church, in which body he is an honored and useful member. Prof. Parvin was one of the institutors of the State Histori- cal Society, in Jan., 1857, serving as curator of the first and subsequent boards, until Dec., 1863, when he was elected corresponding secretary, and reelected in 1864. In 1865, he was again elected a member of the board of curators, and, in 1866, one of the vice presidents of the society. Dur-
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ing the two years he was correspond- ing secretary, le edited the Annals of Iowa. Prof. Parvin's residence has been in Iowa City since 1860. Here he devotes himself to collecting ma- terials for history, and embodying the records of ancient Masonry. In early life an accident entailed upon him permanent lameness, which has proved a blessing in disguise, turning his at- tention away from outside occupations toward the cultivation of letters and the study of books.
Serranus Clinton Hastings. Ser- ranus Clinton Hastings was born Nov. 22, 1814, in Jefferson county, N. Y. In early youth he passed six years in study at Gouverneur Academy, and from this time to manhood, passed through various difficulties arising from pov- erty, in his attempts to prosecute his studies. At the age of twenty, he be- came principal of the Norwich Acad- emy, in Chenango county, N. Y. After one year's successful teaching, he resigned this position, and com- menced the study of law with Charles Thorpe, Esq., of Norwich. Here he continued his studies but a few months, and in 1834, emigrated to Lawrence- burg, Indiana, where he completed his legal course with Daniel S. Majors, Esq. He did not, however, enter at once upon his professional labors, and in 1836, during the bitter presidential contest, we find him editing, in the in- terests of the democratic party, The Indiana Signal, which gave spirited and effective support to Martin Van Buren. His editorial career of six months closed with the triumph of his candidate. Mr. Hastings resumed his journey westward in Dec., 1836, and on reaching Terra Haute, Indiana, ably sustained the test of a severe le- gal examination at the hands of Judge Porter. His next move was still fur- ther west, until he reached the " Black Hawk purchase " (now the state of Iowa), and arrived at Burlington in January, 1837. The following spring he took up his abode on the west bank of the Mississippi, where has since sprung up the city of Muscatine, Iowa, and here resolved to practice the pro- fession for which he had prepared himself, having first been examined by Judge Irwin, and admitted to the bar. At that time this vast stretch of coun- try was attached to the territory of
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Wisconsin for judicial purposes. Shortly after his admittance to the bar, Mr. Hastings was commissioned a justice of the peace by Gov. Dodge, of Wisconsin, with jurisdiction ex- tending over the country between Bur- lington and Davenport, a distance of ninety miles. On June 12, 1838, Iowa was created a separate territory, and Judge Hastings soon after became the democratic candidate of his district for the first legislature to assemble un- der the territorial government. To this position he was elected, after a very spirited contest; and from time to time thereafter, and until 1846, when Iowa was admitted into the union, he continued in public life, rep- resenting his constituents either in the house or council. Mr. Hastings took an active part in what was called in Iowa the " Missouri war." Shortly after the termination of this serio- comic campaign, he was appointed on the governor's staff, with the rank of major of militia. Early in 1846, a convention of the people of Iowa as- sembled at the capital and accepted the boundaries proposed by congress for the new state. Maj. Hastings was unanimously nominated for congress, and subsequently elected. In Janu- ary, 1848, Maj. Hastings was appoint- ed chief justice of the supreme court of Iowa, which position he held a little over a year, immediately before he emigrated to California. He ar- rived in that state in the summer of 1849, and settled in Benicia. From this time he has been prominently in- terested in, and identified with, the growth and prosperity of his adopted state.
Hon. Phillip Viele. Judge Viele was born at the Valley, now Valley Falls, in the town of Pittstown, Rens- selaer county, N. Y., Sept. 10, 1799. His great ancestor, on his paternal side, was Arnaud Cornelius Viele, a Frenchman by descent, and a Hol- lander by birth, who emigrated to America and settled in Schenectady, on the Mohawk river, in the latter part of the 17th century. The parents of Judge Viele resided on a farm at the time of his birth, and he remained with them until his fifteenth year, when he was sent to the academy in Salem, Washington county N. Y., where he remained three years. He
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entered Union College at Schenectady, N. Y., in 1817, and there for several years, pursued his studies with zeal and success under the instruction of the learned and distinguished Dr. Nott. He commenced the study of the law in October, 1821, in Waterford, Sara- toga county, N. Y., and was admitted to the bar of the supreme court of that state in 1824. Judge Viele was pos- sessed of many qualities which must necessarily have raised him to an ex- alted position as a jurist and advocate, had he confined his attention to law studies and the practice of his profes- sion. But like many others, he left his Blackstone and Coke to slumber in his office, while he was drawn into the excitements of politics. At the presidential election of 1824, Judge Viele caught the enthusiasm of the hour, and took the stump in behalf of " Old Hickory." His youth and splen- did speaking ability soon gained him a wide reputation as the " Boy Orator." Such were his services to his party, and so highly were his merits esteemed that De Witt Clinton, then governor of New York, tendered him the office of surrogate of Rensselaer county, which he accepted in 1827, and held it until 1831, when he was reappointed by Gov. Throop, and then held until 1835.
In Junc, 1828, he married his wife, Catherine G., daughter of Isaac Brinck- erhoff, of Troy, a most estimable lady, whose death which occurred a few years since was a very severe loss to her husband and to all who knew her. Having become security for a relative for a large amount of money, and the relative failing in business, he honora- bly yielded up his property even to his homestead, and with his wife, started westward. After a tedious travel of a month or more by stages and steamboats, he " pitched his tent" at the place where now stands the thriving city of Fort Madison, then in the territory of Wisconsin, on June 2, 1837, where he has ever since made his home. The place soon grew into business and legal importance, and for six or eight years the Judge con- tinued at the bar with a growing busi- ness. But he still had a lingering love for the excitement of politics, and in 1836, the Judge took the stump for Gen. Harrison against his old associate Van Buren. In 1846, he united in a
| political movement of a local charac- ter, which once more separated him from his profession, to which he never again returned. The Judge with some other friends, conceived the idea of dropping the whig name for a sea- son, aud calling on the honest men of all parties to unite for the redemption of the county under the name of the " Union Retrenchment, and Reform Party of Lee County." The masses of both parties gladly responded to the call and a meeting of the citizens, ir- respective of party was held to nomi- nate county candidates in 1846. The whole ticket was elected at the fall election of 1846, by a large majority.
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