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 83

Author: Tuttle, Charles R. (Charles Richard), b. 1848. cn; Durrie, Daniel S. (Daniel Steele), 1819-1892, joint author
Publication date: 1876
Publisher: Chicago, R. S. Peale & co.
Number of Pages: 760

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 83

Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).

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Le Grand Byington

1816-1907

Jarra City Sorra nov. 27/07 Daily Prend Came 12/4 / 07 to Pay Billingslan

The extraordinary pan yf life al- jotted to LeGrand Byington was but ony of the many notable facts in the career of a truly remarkable man. Born in New Haven county, Connect- icut, of English ancestry, on March 24, 1816, he preserved absolutely un- dimmed every mental faculty to the hour of his death. To the present generation he was not so well known, but, fifty years ago, his name was a household word in Iowa. For ma- ny years during his middle manhood he was considered the most forceful public speaker in the state.

Orphaned of his father when a mere infant, he was buffeted ahout in numerous familles during his youth and almost entirely excluded from, the meager educational advan- tages of that time. In 1831, at the age of 15 years, he entered as an apprentice of the printing business at Lowville, Lewis county, N. Y. By a vigorous course of study he ac- quired during three years much of his education. In 1834, on his eighteenth birthday, he began the publication of the Lewis County Democrat, which he edited and print- ed for one year. The publication not proving remunerative, he enter- ed a general store.

In 1836 he removed to Elyria, O., and for two years printed the Elyria Republican, a democratic paper. The files of this paper, still preserved. show him to have been a staunch advocate of President Jackson and reveal him as an ardent disciple of Jeffersonian democracy. During these two years he diligently read law with the view of future prac- tice. In order to acquire some slight means with which to begin the prac- tice of law, he went to Ravenna, O., in 1838, to publish the Buckeye Dem- ocrat, at a stated salary; but, after a few months, litigation between the owners of the paper resulted in its suspension, and in the loss of his accumulated salary. This marked the close of his journalistic work as a profession, but throughout his life he had a passion for contributing to the public press. During the last! thirty years of his life, hundreds of. his signed articles have appeared in the press, generally upon topics of current politics. These articles were. universally marked by keen analysis and by great force. He was gifted with remarkable power of sarcasm and ridicule.

In the summer of 1839 he definitely determined to remove to the west and engage in the practice of law, Saint Louis being his objective point. On his way thither, while waiting for the transfer of mail to the canal boat at Chilicothe, a chance meeting with Wm. Allen, then a U. S. Sena- tor, entirely changed his future des- tiny. Senator Allen persuaded him to stop off at Chilicothe ond take temporary charge of the Advertiser, in connection with beginning the practice of law.

In his first case, he assisted in the prosecution of a homicide case, Allan G. Thurman and Thomas Ewing de- fending-a conviction being secured. He shortly afterwards removed to

Piketon, the county seat of Pike county, a short distance from Chili- cothe, in the same judicial circuit, and there engaged in the practice of law for nearly te» years. His rise in the profession was exceedingly rapid. In the fall of 1841, he was elected to the 40th General Assem- bly of Ohio, as a member of the House of Representatives, his dis- trict »mbracing the counties of Hocking, Ross, Pike and Jackson The session began December 6, 1841, and Mr. Byington was made chair- man of the judiciary committee. the most important committee in the house; as well as chairamn on cor- porations, a very important commit- tee on account of the then banking system. He immediately became the leader of the majority, the Democrats controling the house by a narrow margin. It will be noted that MIr. Byington had removed as a stranger to a new community, with crippled resources, had engaged in the prac- tice of a profession ordinarily re- quiring years in which' to become es- tablished in business, and in two years, at the age of 25, had become a leading lawyer in southern Ohio, and the leader of his party in the legislature. He was undoubtedly the last survivor of the 40th General As- sembly of Ohio. An influential mem- ber of that body was Robert G. Schenck, who was appointed minis- ter to England by President Grant. Mr. Byington was re-elected to the 41st and 42nd General Assemblies. During his residence at Piketon, he was once a candidate for Congress, but the district was hopelessly Whig. I:) 1848 he was a presidential elec- tor and cast the electoral vote of Ohio for Cass. Early in the prac- tice of his profession he was the victim of a dastardly attack, which nearly cost him his life, and perma- gently deprived him of the sight of his right eye. A ruffian named Rob-

insou, whom he prosecuted in a crim- inal case, attacked him as he was leaving his office and struck him in the eye, shattering his spectacles and driving a piece of glass into the iris. He beat Mr. Byington into in- sensibility. It may be mentioned as an apparent providential retribution that his assailant afterward became totally blind, while Mr. Byington was enabled to use his single eye to extreme old age without inconven- ience.

In 1849, Mr. Byington had attained 'high professional eminence, as well as political prominence and had laid the foundation of his fortune. But practice of law in the old five county circuit was laborious and the new and growing West offered an attractive Utopia to men of ambition and ability. Mr. Byington contem- plated removal to Iowa several years before he came permanently to this state.

On May 15, 1845, standing under a large wild cherry tree overlooking the river opposite the Capitol Grounds he purchased from Pleasant Arthur, the land on which was to be located his future home. In October 1849 it became the Byington home- stead, and he was destined to occu- py it as a home for nearly 60 years, a home that became a synonym for wide-spread hospitality and good cheer. Upon his permanent settle- ment in Iowa. he immediately enter- ed into an exceedingly extensive land warrant and real estate busi- ness, in connection with the improv- ing and managing of several farms. It was characteristic of the man that he abruptly abandoned his profession at the zenith of success, because it was not congenial. In his ten years of real estate business in Iowa, Mr. Byington entered and owned nearly one hundred thousand acres of land aside from many thousand acres en- tered for other persons-a record

umequalled by any citizen of the state. He was president of the com- pany organized to build the Rock Island railroad from Davenport to lowa City, and contributed material- ly in defeating the effort to build the road to Muscatine instead of fowa City. On the occasion of the celebration upon the completion of the railroad in 1856, he was presi- dent of the day and delivered a not- able address at the hall of repre- sentatives in the old capitol building He was active in the organization of the state, and Johnson county, Ag. ricultural Societies. During these years he was prominent in politics. As chairman of the Democratic State Central Committee, in the campaign of 1860, he accompanied Stephen A. Douglas upon his west- ern tour. When Douglas visited Iowa City in 1860, he was greeted hy the largest crowd that had ever gathered in the city, people coming hundreds of miles to greet the first ¡presidential candidate who had ever visited Iowa. Mr. Byington in intro- ducing Mr. Douglas, delivered an address that was long notable ia lo- cal history. With the advent of the civil war came stagnation in the .sale of land and quadrupled taxes and the immense fortune gathered through so many years of strenuous

effort fell to the earth like a house of cards.

Of New England birth, with no rel- atives or interests south of Mason and Dixon's line, with no sympathy either for slavery or secession, he did his utmost to avert the war, but when it became an accomplished fact. he denounced it in unmeasured terms, declaring it to be unnecessary and to be a conspiracy of sectional political leaders. He was profound- ly convinced that the Union could not be permanently saved by war. and always maintained that, but for

a few political hot heads, slavery would have been eventually extir- pated, by force of public opinion and this would have been ultimately accomplished by peaceful means with out the sacrifice of human life and without violating the constitution. His tory has proven the error of his views, but they were none the less sincere. In 1868 he was a delegate to the National Democratic conven- tion in New York City and assisted in defeating S. P. Chase and in nom- inating Horatio Seymour. When the Democratic National Convention en- dorsed the nomination of Horace Greely in 1872 he refused his support declaring that Greely did not have a drop of Democratic blood in his veins.

In 1869 he became interested in Kansas real estate and spent much time during the early seventies in managing bis land interests in Saline and Clay counties in Kansas. He seriously contemplated permanent removal thither, but forbore doing so in deference to the wishes of his family. The last twenty years of his life were spent at the old homestead in quiet retirement. surrounded by all of his immediate family, whose loving ministrations contributed to

the contentment of a serene old age.

He is survived by his venerable widow (a daughter of the late Judge Chas. McCollister) and by three of the eight children born to him. Mrs. Wm. Reed, Mrs. John H. Whetstone, and Judge O. A. Byington. For many years the wedding anniversary of Mr. and Mrs. Byington was annual- ly celebrated by the family and rel- atives, the 62nd anniversary having been celebrated on the 20th of Feb- ruary last. For the last twenty years an annual gathering had been held at the old homestead in the month of July, participated in by all those residing in the county re-

lated to the family by ties of blood

or marriage. On these occasions about one hundred were .annually entertained.

The most prominent characteris- tic of LeGrand Byington was his absolute devotion to his opinions regardless of the results entailed. He shrank from no consequences in order to sustain an opinion once maturely formed. In upholding what he thought to be right no considera- tions of personal interest or even of personal safety had the slightest weight. This characteristic is best illustrated by his conduct growing out of the civil war. At its outbreak he was possessed of about £ thirty

thousand acres of valuable lowa lands, the result of many years of arduous toil. He was profoundly convinced that the war was unmec- essary, and the measures adopted d'or its prosecution were unconstitu- tional and that its continuance meant the destruction of the Union. No consideration of private interest or personal security could deter him from boldly asserting his views. Before a mob, gathered at his home in the frenzied excitement of the war, he appeared unarmed and in- vited them to do their worst. The payment of taxes to support an un- just war became to him a positive wrong. He deliberately refused to pay taxes upon his vast landed es- tate. Tax sales swept away proper- ty that would have made him the richest man in Iowa. His beautiful and valuable homestead. that shel- tered himself and family, was saved only through the intervention of his father-in-law and against his earnest protest. On one occasion he lost a valuable farm because he refusel to affix to the deed a revenue stamp, under the law for raising revenue for the support of the war. He held that congress had no constitutional authority to impose such a condition

upon the alienation of property, the law making the transfer void without the stamp. Forty years afterwards, when courts ceased to decide cases according to war neessities, the su- preme court of the United States sustained his position. There has been much discussion recently as to what were the true Jeffersonian political principles. but no person familiar with LeGrand Byington's views can carefully read the writ- ings and state papers of Thomas Jefferson, without becoming con- vinced that he was as near a Jeffer- sonian Democrat as any man of this generation. He believed in just enough government to hold society together. Every special regulation not absolutely necessary to protect life and property was regarded as oppression. War was an absolute horror-a pure barbarism. The sol- dier was the sign manual of oppres- sion. A standing army was a jug- gernaut to ride over a prostrate peo- ple; governmental red tape was a constant target for his sarcasm. He would wipe from the face of the earth every vestige of royalty. And the same views ad libitum could be cit- ed. These are surely Jeffersonian.

A life long total abstainer, he de- nounced the saloon on all occasions as a curse to humanity, as a breed- er of crime, as a corrupter of mor- als, and as unworthy a christian com munity. He always advocated its utter extinction.

Though of small stature, Mr. Bying- ton had a remarkable voice, and when in the prime of life had few equals as a public speaker. His very unusual powers of mimicry, his wide range of language, his abundant sarcasm, and his limitless fund of anecdotes combined to es- tablish for him a reputation for pub- lic speaking second to none.

In the leisure of his old age, be was constantly constructing new

political platforms to reform the manlfold ills that affected the body politia. The extravagances and usurpations of the government were subjects to which he constantly re- curred.

In brief resume it may be said that LeGrand Byington was a man of brilliant and original mind, of inflexible will and of tireless energy. His sincere but erroneous convic- tions concerning a great crisis in public affairs turned into the chan- nels of disaster and defeat a career of remarkable promise. A radical of radicals. a hater of shams, of irre- proachable private life, of kindly heart through all of his bitter ex- periences, one cannot refrain from the thought: What might have been his career had Fate mingled with his radicalism a moderate measure of | conservatism ?

Orange, Calif. DER5, 1907

4922

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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 83

Author: Tuttle, Charles R. (Charles Richard), b. 1848. cn; Durrie, Daniel S. (Daniel Steele), 1819-1892, joint author Publication date: 1876 Publisher: Chicago, R. S. Peale & co. Number of Pages: 760

Author: Tuttle, Charles R. (Charles Richard), b. 1848. cn; Durrie, Daniel S. (Daniel Steele), 1819-1892, joint author
Publication date: 1876
Publisher: Chicago, R. S. Peale & co.
Number of Pages: 760