USA > Iowa > Delaware County > History of Delaware County, Iowa, and its people, Volume I > Part 18
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PARKVIEW HOSPITAL
It may be truthfully said that the American people have made marvelous advancements in demanding the safety and convenience of hospitals for the sick. maimed. crippled and abnormal in physical make-up. Never in the history of the United States have there been as many good hospitals as now and nu- merous new ones are being erected every year. In cities where for years only one hospital existed. there are now several, and all well patronized. In smaller towns and cities where only ten years ago it was considered impossible to estab- lish and maintain a hospital, there now stand splendid buildings, well equipped for the treatment and comfort of patients.
Twenty-five years ago it was a very rare occurrence to call a graduate nurse to the bedside of a patient in a private home. Ninses were then considered necessary only in hospitals, but today the average family immediately on call- ing the family physician, also demands the presence of a competent nurse, even though the ailment is not of a serious nature. In evidence of this demand there have been graduate nurses admitted to practice in the State of Towa at the rate of one for every day for the past several months, and the demand for good nurses is even still greater now than a year ago. This ery for more and better hos- pitals. for more and better nurses, is one of the best evidences of the self-propa- gating power of Christianity, and the best indication of the advancement of civilization.
It is said that never in the history of Manchester, or of Delaware County, have so many people gone to hospitals as in the past four or five years, and
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since the establishment of Parkview Hospital in October. 1911, there have even more patients gone to outside hospitals than before that date. Since October, 1911, 300 patients have been cared for in Parkview Hospital, half of which were surgical cases. Most of the surgical cases would have been of necessity sent to other hospitals, and had the Parkview institution been more extensive, many of the patients sent elsewhere would gladly have remained here and en- tered the home institution instead of going elsewhere.
As before related, Parkview Hospital was established in October. 1911, by a coterie of Manchester physicians. They leased a two-story frame building faeing the main entrance of Tirrill Park, which they, with the assistance of the citizens, furnished with the means at hand. Many contributions were made and money raised through the efforts of the loyal women of the community, which was expended in securing necessary appliances, furniture and comforts for the institution. The doors of the hospital were then opened to every physi- cian in and out of the county, and appeals were sent out to local organizations for support, but only to a limited degree have these supplications been fruit- ful. However, the aims and objects of the men and women who have placed themselves in the management and control of the hospital have reached a degree of unanticipated success that has led them to strongly hope that the condition of things of this worthy institution will reach the hearts and purse strings of the community, to the end that a larger and better sanitarium will be built at no far distant day. The hospital building is entirely inadequate to the demands upon it. The equipment does not meet the demands daily made by the neces- sities and conditions of its patrons, so that a strong movement is now on foot for the creation of a citizens' hospital organization, whose duty it shall be to devise plans for the building of a new hospital. A larger hospital is necessary and greater efforts to obtain one are also imperative.
The present management of the hospital is composed of the following physi- cians: H. A. Dittmer, president; T. J. Burns, vice president ; J. A. May, sec- retary; E. G. Dittmer, treasurer; and H. M. Bradley. These physicians also compose the board of directors.
An auxiliary board composed of women is made up as follows: Mesdames W. N. Boynton, Charles Seeds. M. F. LeRoy, C. Lister, J. J. Goen, F. L. Durey. Thomas Elder, R. W. Tirrill, and Miss Eva Smith. The officials are: Presi- dent, Mrs W. N. Boynton ; first vice president, Mrs. Charles Seeds; second vice president, Mrs. M. F. LeRoy; recording secretary, Miss Eva Smith ; correspond- ing secretary, Mrs. Thomas Elder ; treasurer, Mrs. R. W. Tirrill.
CHAPTER XI
THE BENCH AND BAR
Perhaps no body of men, not excepting the elergy, may exereise a greater influence for good in a community than those who follow the profession of the law, and it must be admitted that to no other body, not even to the so-called criminal classes, are committed greater possibilities for an influence for evil. What that influence shall be depends upon the character of the men who eon- stitute the bar of the community- not merely on their ability or learning but on their character. If the standard of morality among the members of the bar is high, the whole community learns to look at questions of right and wrong from a higher plane. If the bar, couseiously or unconsciously, adopts a low standard of morality. it almost inevitably contaminates the conscience of the community. And this is true not only in the practice of the profession itself, not only because of the influence of members of the bar as men rather than lawyers, but in the effect upon other professions and occupations to which the bar acts as a feeder. The members of the legislature are recruited largely from the legal profession. Ilow can legislation, designed solely for the welfare of the publie, be expected from one whose honor as a lawyer has not been above suspicion ? And since lawyers, outside of the legislature, have a great influ- ence in shaping the law, how can the people expect that influence to be exerted in their behalf when the bar itself is unworthy? Still more does the character of the bar affeet the judiciary, which is supplied from its ranks. It is not al- ways, perhaps not generally, the case that members of the bench are chosen from those lawyers who have attained the highest rank in their profession. If a judge be industrious and honest but not of great ability, or if he be able and honest, though laeking industry, the rights of the litigants are not likely to suffer seriously at his hands. But there have been instances where judicial office was bestowed solely as a reward for political service ; and while it is some- times realized that one who has been a strenuous and not too serupulous politician up to the moment of his elevation to the bench, has thereafter forgotten that there was such a trade as politics and has administered justice without fear or favor, the experiment is a dangerous one. No one need be surprised if in such a case the old maxim holds true: "He who buys the office of judge must of necessity sell justice." Let our judges be men who are subject to other influences than those of the facts submitted to them and the law applicable to those facts, let them lack that independence which is an imperative requisite to one who holds the scales of justice, let a well founded suspicion arise that their decisions are dictated by something outside of their own minds and con- sciences, and the confidence of the people in the maintenance of their rights through the agency of the courts is destroyed. It has been the good fortune of the City of Manchester and the County of Delaware that the members of the
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bar here have been, for the most part, men of high character as well as of ability and learning, so that its bar has won a high and honorable reputation through- out the rest of the state and because of the high character of the bar it has followed that those of its members who have been elevated to the bench have enjoyed the confidence and respect of the publie and have been honored not only in their own locality but in many cases throughout the state and in other states.
Yet the preparation of a history of the bar, so far at least as that part of it which lies baek of one's own generation is concerned, is attended with con- siderable difficulty. Probably few men who in their time play important parts in the community or even in the state or nation, leave so transient a reputation as lawyers do. A writer on this subject who took for his text. "The Lawyers of Fifty Years Ago, " said: "In thinking over the names of these distinguished men of whom I have been speaking, the thought has come to me how evanescent and limited is the lawyer's reputation, both in time and space. I doubt very much if a lawyer, whatever his standing, is much known to the profession out- side of his own state." Those who attain high rank in the profession must realize that with rare exceptions, their names are "writ in water." One may turn over the leaves of old reports and find repeated again and again as counsel in different cases the name of some lawyer who must have been in his time a power in the courts, only to wonder if he has over seen that name outside of the covers of the dusty reports in which it appears. Hamilton, in the conven- tions. in the Federalist and in the treasury, and Webster in the Senate and in publie orations, have perpetuated and increased the fame of lawyers Hamilton and Webster: but were it not for their services outside the strict limits of their profession, one might come upon their names at this date with much the same lack of recognition as that with which one finds in a reported case the names of some counsel, great perhaps in his own time, but long since forgotten.
And there is another difficulty in preparing such a history as this, brief and therefore necessarily limited to a few names, and that is that some may be omitted who are quite as worthy of mention as those whose names appear. It is not often that any one man stands as a lawyer head and shoulders above the other members of the profession ; and the same may be said of any half dozen men. In many cases the most careful measurement would fail to disclose a difference of more than a fraction of an inch, if any. Lives of eminent men who have at some period been practicing lawyers, have contained the assertion that while they were engaged in the practice of their profession they were the "leaders of the bar, " but there is almost always room for doubt as to whether the title is not a brevet bestowed by the biographer alone. Therefore, the men- tion in this article of certain lawyers must not be taken as any disparagement of those who are not mentioned, and finally, it is to be observed that this article. so far as the bar is concerned, will treat not only of those members who are past and gone, but will make mention of some of those now in the flesh.
Let us first consider the early courts, as provided for by the general gov- ernment during the existence of the state while then a part of the Territory of Michigan, Wisconsin, and under its own territorial laws: finally, the measures passed under the state constitutions creating judicial districts.
lowa has an interesting territorial history. By an aet of Congress. approved June 28, 1834, the lowa country was attached to the Territory of Michigan. On
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April 20, 1836. it was made a part of the original Territory of Wisconsin: and two years later, on June 12, 1838, Congress passed an act establishing the Ter- ritory of lowa. After eight years of territorial existence, Iowa was admitted to the Union as a state on December 28, 1846.
There really was no judicial districting of lowa country during the two years that it formed a part of the Territory of Michigan. However, on Sep- lember 6. 1834. by an act of the Legislative Council the territory lying west of the Mississippi and north of a line drawn due west from the lower end of Rock Island to the Missouri River was organized into the County of Dubuque. The territory south of this line was organized as the County of Des Moines.
Moreover, section three of this act of the Legislative Council of the Terri- tory of Michigan provided that "a County Court shall be and hereby is estab- lished in each of the said counties:" while section six declared that "Process, vivil and criminal. issued from the Circuit Court of the United States for the County of Iowa, shall run into all parts of said counties of Dubuque and Des Moines and shall be served by the sheriff or other proper officer, within either of said counties ; writs of error shall lie from the Circuit Court for the County of lowa, to the county courts established by this act. in the same manner as they now issue from the Supreme Court to the several county and circuit courts of the territory.
Thus it will be seen that during the Michigan period the lowa country formed an area which was subject to the jurisdiction of the Circuit Court of the United States for the County of lowa.
Sertion nine of the organic act establishing the original Territory of Wis- consin made provision for dividing the territory into three judicial districts. Accordingly, among the first acts passed by the First Legislative Assembly was one entitled " An act to establish the judicial districts of the Territory of Wisconsin, and for other purposes." By this act the counties of Dubuque and Des Moines were constituted the Second Judicial District and Judge David Irwin. of the Supreme Court of the territory. was appointed district judge. During the Wisconsin period, therefore. the lowa country formed a distinet and independent judicial distriet.
The art of Congress dividing the Territory of Wisconsin and establishing the Territory of lowa, provided that the new territory should be divided into three judicial districts and that each district should have a court presided over by one of the judges of the Supreme Court. Furthermore, and unless until the Legislature should pass some act of the state, the governor shall be given the power to divide the districts and assign the judges. In accordance with this provision William B. Conway. secretary of the territory, who had assumed the duties of acting governor prior to the arrival of Gov. Robert Lueas, issued on July 25. 1838, a proclamation dividing the territory into three judicial districts. The first district consisted of the counties of Clayton, Dubuque. JJack- son and Cedar and was assigned to Judge Thomas S. Wilson. Delaware County was one of those attached to Dubuque and consequently was in this district. and as we only have the status of Delaware County in mind, no attention will be paid to the other districts.
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The first act of the Legislative Assembly of the Territory of lowa, relative to judicial districts, was to divide the territory into three judicial distriets, as follows. The First District was composed of the counties of Henry. Van Buren, Lee and Des Moines, and was assigned to Chief Justice Charles Mason. The Second District was composed of the counties of Louisa, Museatine, Cedar, John- son and Slaughter, and assigned to Judge Joseph Williams. The Third District was composed of the counties of Jackson, Dubuque, Scott and Clayton, and assigned to Thomas S. Wilson. Delaware County was attached to Dubuque and consequently was a part of the Third Judicial District.
The first constitution of the State of lowa provided that "the jndieial power shall be vested in a supreme court, district courts and such inferior courts as the General Assembly may from time to time establish." It was fur- ther provided that "the first session of the General Assembly shall divide the state into four districts, which may be increased as the exigencies of the case may require." Accordingly, the four districts were created and Delaware was placed in the second, among the following counties: Muscatine, Seott, Cedar, Clinton, Jackson, Jones, Dubuque and Clayton. The counties north and west of Delaware and Clayton were attached to the County of Clayton for judicial purposes.
The aet of 1853 was "an act fixing the boundaries of the several judicial districts and the time of holding courts therein and constituted an entirely new district. By its provisions the state was divided into nine judicial distriets and Delaware was assigned to the Second Distriet, with Dubuque, Clayton, Cherokee, Winneshiek, Fayette, Buchanan, Black Hawk, Bremer, Chickasaw and Howard.
Under the Constitution of 1857 the General Assembly passed "An act creating eleven judicial districts and defining their boundaries." Delaware by this measure was placed in the Ninth District, with Dubuque, Buchanan. Black Hawk and Grundy.
An act was passed by the General Assembly in 1886, by which the judicial districts of the state were reorganized and eighteen districts created. By this rearrangement Delaware came into the Tenth District, with Dubuque, Buchanan, Black Hawk and Grundy, where it remains at the present day. By the Act of 1894 the Nineteenth Judicial District was created and section one provided "that the County of Dubuque shall hereafter constitute the Nineteenth Judi- cial District." Section two defined the Tenth Judicial Distriet as being com- posed of Delaware, Black Hawk and Grundy counties. This section was amended, so as to include Buchanan County. In 1896 the Twentieth Judicial District was created and now there are twenty judicial districts in the state.
A number of able, painstaking men of high legal attainments and judicial capacity have presided over this court in Delaware County. The first one was Thomas S. Wilson, of Dubuque, who was not only judge when the county was in the Third District, but also when it was a part of the Second and Ninth districts. James Burt, of Dubuque, Sylvester Bagg, of Waterloo. Winslow T. Barker, of Dubuque, and John M. Brayton, of Delhi. presided over this court, among others, when Delaware County was in the Ninth Judicial Distriet. Sinee assigned to the Tenth Judicial District a long list of judges have come here
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to hold court, as the following names show: Judges, A. S. Blair, Manchester ; E. E. Cooley, Decorah; C. F. Couch, Waterloo; L. O. Hatch, McGregor; J. L. IIusted, Waterloo: D. J. Lenahan. Dubuque; Milo MeGlathery, West Union; Charles W. Mullan, Waterloo; Samuel Murdoch, Elkader; John J. Nye, Inde- pendence ; Reuben Nobles, McGregor; Fred O'Donnell, Dubuque; Franklin C. Platt, Waterloo: Charles E. Ransier, Independence; James J. Tollerton, Cedar Falls. The present judges of the district are Franklin C. Platt, Waterloo; George W. Dunham, Manchester; and Charles W. Mullan, Waterloo.
Under the Territorial Act of 1844, whereby the Third Judicial Distriet was created and the placing of Delaware therein, it was provided that the District Court should be held at Delhi, the county seat, on the first Monday after the fourth Monday in September of each year. Soon after the passage of the act Charles W. Hobbs was appointed clerk pro tem, of the United States District Court for the County of Delaware, by Judge T. S. Wilson. On the day set apart for convening of the first District Court in Delaware County, judge, officials, jurors, litigants and lawyers (?) were on hand, as the following excerpt from the clerk's record attests : Territory of Iowa, County of Delaware, ss.
"This being the day fixed by law, to wit, 30th of September, 1844, for the session of the District Court of the United States for said county, the court met. Present, JIon. Thomas S. Wilson, one of the judges of the Supreme Court and presiding judge of the Third Judicial District; William E. Leffingwell, United States marshal; John W. Penn, sheriff; and Charles W. ITobbs, clerk pro tem. "By order of the court, the sheriff returned into court the venire for a grand jury, issued in behalf of said county, the following persons summoned and in attendance, viz: Gilbert D. Dillon, Henry Baker, John Stansberry, Samuel Diekson, Oliver P. Anderson, Edward Flinn, John Bradley, Daniel Noble, John Keeler, Fayette Phillips, Allen Wilson, Hiram Minkler, Adin Paddleford, David Moreland, Daniel G. Beck, Morris M. Reed, Joel Bailey, Drake Nelson, Ezra Hubbard and Liberty W. Cole."
It should be remembered that the first courthouse, built by the settlers, was a very erude affair and for some years stood without a roof, owing to inability of the county to raise funds for its completion. The upper story, designed for a jury room, was reached by an outside ladder, and with no roof and a single floor, was considered too open and publie to be used for the purpose designed. So that, after the jury had been instructed by Judge Wilson as to their duties, that body was taken, under escort of United States Marshal Leffingwell, to a little grove, a short distance southwest of the primitive temple of justice, for deliberation. David Moreland, foreman, sat on a stump, while his fellow jurors accommodated themselves to all that Nature had provided for them in the way of seats. There was little to be done by the grand jury. No complaints were presented and consequently, they found no "true bills." There being no necessity for a petit jury this first term, no summons were issued for a panel. One day finished the business of the court and on the evening of the 30th of September, 1844, the term was ended.
The only name appearing on record as an attorney at this time was that of James Crawford. "At this time," Judge Wilson is said to have related, "the
-
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log courthouse was the only building in Delhi. Mr. Hobbs. the clerk, had a little cabin in which he was living west of the courthouse. The road had not been opened to Delhi from Rockville, and I was obliged to go by way of the military road and up to Hopkinton, where I stayed over night with Mr. (Leroy) Jackson. The next day I went to Delhi and held court. and took my dinner out of Mr. Moreland's wagon. " It is a far cry from the days of Judge Wilson and Delhi's roofless courthouse and Judge Dunham and Manchester's beautiful temple of justice.
The second term of court was a special one, commencing April 1, 1845. Judge Thomas S. Wilson, presiding. The grand jury was made up of Leroy Jackson, foreman : James Eads, Robert B. Hutson, William H. Martin, Lucius Kibbee, Jr., Phipps Wiltse, Malcolm MeBane. Lawrence McNamee, Missouri Dickson, Robert Gamble, Daniel Brown, Moses Dean, William Phillips, Silas Gilmore. James Cavanaugh, Henry W. Hoskins and John Hinkle.
The case of Missouri Dickson vs. Ezra Hubbard. an action to recover pay for the building of a chimney, was continued from the first term and tried by the first petit jury impanelled, which consisted of the following named per- sons : John Flinn, O. A. Olmstead, John Paddleford, Eli Wood, Orlean Blanch- ard, S. V. Thompson. Levi Billings. Jacob Dubois, James Collier. Samuel P. Whitaker, Jolin Corbin and John Clark. Timothy Davis, attorney for Hub- bard; Gen. James Wilson for Dickson. The plaintiff was given a verdiet for $5.33.
The first criminal case was that of the United States vs. Jefferson Lowe. for the murder of Drury R. Dance, details of which crime are given on another page of this volume. Lowe's attorney was Gen. James Wilson. James Craw- ford was prosecuting attorney for the district, and was assisted by Timothy Davis. Lowe was acquitted but public opinion was strongly against him and the verdiet was not a very popular one.
At this term, as far as is known. James Crawford, JJames Wilson, Timothy Davis and William Hamilton were the only lawyers in attendance, and for some years thereafter but few members of the bar had located in the county. Probably the first lawyer to settle at Delhi was Arial K. Eaton. Of him and other lawyers of the Delaware bar, Col. John HI. Peters, one of its ofdest and ablest members, has given for this article the following impressions. He says :
"I was admitted to the bar in Connectiont. then immigrated to Illinois and practiced in the latter state a year or eighteen months. My associate in Illinois was one Tom Turner, who had a friend here in the person of a Methodist preacher. Turner induced me to come here and defend the preacher, so I did, making my way to Delaware County on horseback. This was about the year 1852, and upon my arrival in Delhi I found Arial K. Eaton already enjoying a practice at the bar. He was probably the first lawyer to take up a permanent residence in the old county seat. When I met him he was a man of middle age and I soon discovered he was more of a politician than a lawyer. He in- dueed me, however, to locate in Delhi and we had arranged to enter the practice together but he was appointed receiver of the land distriet at Washington and pulled out.
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"The next lawyer to settle in Delhi, if my memory serves me right, was Daniel Baker, a man of but little education and a lawyer of no very great ability or attainments.
"Zina A. Wellman came from the State of New York and located here for the practice of his profession. He was well read in the principles of law but had no pugnacious attribute in his composition. He was easily discouraged and did not amount to much of a lawyer. I practiced with him about a year but never could get a decision from him on any legal question of importance. Ile died a few years ago in Cherokee.
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