USA > Iowa > Floyd County > History of Floyd County, Iowa : together with sketches of its cities, villages and townships, educational, religious, civil, military, and political history; portraits of prominent persons, and biographies of representative citizens > Part 36
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HISTORY OF FLOYD COUNTY.
1. That the rules and regulations laid down for the government of the Senate of the United States, in Jefferson's Manual, so far as applicable, shall be the rules and regulations of this board.
2. The regular hours of adjournment shall be to nine o'clock, A. M., and to two o'clock, P. M.
3. All propositions and motions shall be submitted in writing, except motions to adjourn, motions to commit, motions to lay upon the table, motions to rescind or reconsider, motions to correct the minutes, motions to admit parties or counsel who are not members of this board, and motions to require the attendance of witnesses and for the production of papers.
4. No person who is not a member of this board shall be per- mitted to debate, discuss or interfere with deliberations of this body on any question without permission of a majority of the board, which permission shall be upon the application or motion of a member of this board.
5. New rules, alterations or amendments may be made at any time by a vote of two-thirds of the members present.
Messrs. Harwood, Gaylord and Rex were appointed a committee on official bonds.
Resolved, That this board will not approve of any official bond signed by any member of this board after the organization thereof.
Standing committees were appointed on the school fund, finance, county buildings and property, county poor, official bonds, peti- tions, judiciary, public printing, and roads and bridges.
The contract for building the court-house, and all matters con- nected therewith, were referred to the judiciary committee.
The next morning (Jan. 9) the members drew lots for term of office, resulting as follows: For one year-Ball, Cook, Gaylord, . Hall, Refsnider; for two years-Harwood, Mathews, Rex, Town- send.
The committee on the county poor made the following report, which was adopted:
1. That in the present embarrassed condition of the county it is not expedient to purchase any real estate, farm or house for the use of the poor.
2. That in all cases where the condition of the paupers is such as to render it practicable, they be put by contract to the lowest bidder, believing that mode to be the most economical for their support.
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HISTORY OF FLOYD COUNTY.
3. That the supervisors be authorized to act in their respective towns in case of any application of paupers until the next sitting of the board.
Ordered, that all orders heretofore made by the County Court, attaching any inhabitant of one township to another for election purposes only, where no change of boundary is made, is a nullity, and that hereafter all persons will vote in the township where they reside.
Jan. 10. Resolved, That the financial committee examine and report upon the validity of the railroad bonds issued by the county judge to the Cedar Falls & Minnesota Railroad Company, and whether there are any obligations of this county in reference thereto, to be provided for by action of this Board.
Voted, to employ legal counsel; also, to procure a seal, with the words, "Supervisors' Seal of Floyd County, Iowa."
Jan. 11. The judiciary committee was instructed to procure a suitable place for the safety of the county records, and for prisoners.
Ordered, that the county records be moved to the southeast cor- ner of room on the second floor of the stone building now occupied by the Board of Supervisors; and that, if said room be found in- sufficient, the clerk make other provision.
The proceedings of the Board of Supervisors at their January session in 1862, were printed in full in the Intelligencer. Besides routine business, the following items were transacted: David Wiltse was appointed County Surveyor, vice James Coley, elected, who declined to serve; settlement made with Lewis Tucker, for contracts for building the court-house, at a total of $10,557.05; Ulster Township made to comprise sections 25 to 36, inclusive, of 96 north, and 17 west, and sections 1 to 30, inclusive, of 95, 17, and sections 19, 20 and 21 of 96, 17, were struck off and added to Rock Grove Township; resolved not to change the boundaries of any township without a petition of the inhabitants thereof; committee appointed, headed by Chester Butterfield, Chairman of the Board of Supervisors, to look after the interests of the county in the mat- ter of the county bonds issued to the Cedar Falls & Minnesota Railroad Company, with power to settle the matter as in their judgment shall seem best; J. V. W. Montague was appointed agent to takes proofs in relation to swamp lands in the county.
Amount of cash in the county treasury, $4,001.50; amount of bills claimed, $1,480.76; allowed, $1,420.04; paid on the court- house during the preceding year, $3,596.50.
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HISTORY OF FLOYD COUNTY.
The items of general interest transacted by the board at their session in June, 1862, are the following :
The county treasurer was authorized to refund money on any taxes wrongfully paid ; but in case of any doubt as to the propriety of refunding the same, he shall submit such claims to the action of the board. The school section in 96 north, 17 west, was appraised at $2 an acre, and the clerk authorized to sell it. Proposals were invited from physicians to attend sick paupers. The west half of section 18, township 96 north, 15 west, was taken from Floyd Township and attached to Niles ; the south & of section 31, town- ship 39 north, 15 west, was transferred from St. Charles to Niles ; and the north half of section 1 to 5, inclusive, of township 95 north, 15 west, was transferred from Niles to St. Charles. The clerk was authorized to have township maps made. Resolutions . concerning the county railroad bonds were adopted, which are given in full in our chapter on railroads. The committee ap- pointed the January previous on this subject, namely, Chester But- terfield, R. W. Humphrey and R. N. Mathews, made two reports, a majority and a minority report, and they were both laid upon the table. A special committee was appointed at this session, consisting of R. N. Mathews, Benjamin Reed and Rudolph Rex, who united upon the series of resolutions above referred to.
. At the special session held Aug. 22, 1863, for the purpose of considering the railroad bonds, the board agreed to exchange papers with the C. F. & M. R. R. Co. and have all obligations canceled. See full report in the chapter on railroads.
A period here intervenes when the proceedings of the board were not published in any newspaper, and the written records were destroyed by the disastrous fire of 1881.
During the session of June (1 to 6), 1863, the most important business transacted was the adoption of an amendment to a former resolution, granting relief to families of volunteers, so that aid be extended to the families of such volunteers as had died or might thereafter die while in the service of the United States, for the term of six months after the death of such volunteer, provided such family is needy and resides in this county.
Considerable discussion was had upon the petition of Alma Bennett for an allowance from Sept. 1 to Nov. 1, 1862, she being the wife of a volunteer who enlisted in August that year. To equalize the dealings of the board, R. N. Mathews moved that the families of all persons of Floyd County, who had volunteered
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since the beginning of the war, be allowed a sum sufficient to make one dollar per week. By vote this motion was put with Alma Bennett's petition, and then both were unanimously voted down together.
Floyd County railroad bonds to the C. F. & M.[R. R. Co., to the amount of $1,500, having been redeemed and delivered into the hands of the committee of the board, were destroyed at this ses- sion.
June 5, 1874, abolished the office of township collector, leaving the taxes to be paid directly to the county treasurer.
In 1878 the question of township representation in the Board of Supervisors was again agitated, some desiring to return to the old system of one supervisor for each township. It was claimed that under the system in vogue in 1878 there was a great deal of geo- graphical trading of official patronage, the larger townships or the villages saying to the smaller townships, "We will give you the supervisorship if you will let us have the county officers," etc., thereby working in the interests of certain sections of the county. Representation was too uneven. For instance, St. Charles Town- ship, with over 4,000 population, had no supervisor for years, while Scott, with not one-fifth the population, had a supervisor constantly. This was claimed to be in opposition to the theory of Republican government. To remedy the latter defect, it was proposed to divide the county into supervisor districts, in such a way that the supervisors would represent respectively about an equal population.
Nothing more in this direction appears ever to have been done.
At the January session was appointed a special committee to confer with the State Fish Commissioner with reference to the mill- dams of the county and making fish-ways for them. Also, raised the salary of the county superintendent of schools to $4 a day, for three months.
CHAPTER V. THE COURTS AND THE BAR.
THE COURTS.
Probate Courts, which were established at the organization of Iowa Territory, were abolished in January, 1851, when County Courts were established, having probate jurisdiction. Under this regime Floyd County was organized in 1854, as elsewhere described. The General Assembly of 1860 superseded the county judge in most of his functions, by providing for boards of supervisors, the county judge or court continuing to exercise probate jurisdiction. In 1868 the probate business was given to the Circuit Court, and the office of county judge was abolished, and this arrangement has since remained. In 1870 the territorial jurisdiction of the Circuit and District Courts was made coincident, while the Circuit Court has ex- clusive probate jurisdiction and concurrent civil jurisdiction with the District Court, and the latter exclusive criminal jurisdiction. This adjustment of judicial functions remains in vogue.
Districts .- Floyd County was first attached to Fayette County, and then to Chickasaw. In 1851 the new Tenth District was formed composed of the counties of Clayton, Allamakee, Cerro Gordo, Chickasaw, Fayette, Floyd, Howard, Mitchell, Winneshiek and Worth. Samuel Murdock, of Clayton County, was elected Judge of the district, April 2, 1855, and commissioned [May 3. Judge Murdock served until legislated out of office in 1869 under the Constitution of 1857. Under the Constitution of 1857, new dis- tricts were formed, and Clayton, Allamakee, Bremer, Butler, Chick- asaw, Fayette, Floyd, Howard, Mitchell and Winneshiek Counties composed the Tenth Judicial District. The counties of Bremer, Butier, Floyd and Mitchell were subsequently detached in organ- izing the Twelfth District. In 1868 these counties were divided into two circuits,-Bremer, Butler and Floyd being the First, and the other five, the Second. The Twelfth District now comprises Bremer, Butler, Cerro Gordo, Floyd, Hancock, Mitchell, Winne- bago and Worth Counties; and this is also the " Twelfth Circuit." Circuit Court in Floyd County is held the first Monday in January,
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HISTORY OF FLOYD COUNTY.
June and September, and the District Court the first Monday in March and November.
Sessions .- The first County Court ever held in Floyd County, was held at Freeman, Sept. 4, 1854, Judge John M. Hunt presid- ing. There was not a single case or application for business, and the court adjourned to October 1, following, when it was again called, and the county divided into four townships,-St. Charles, Floyd, Rock Grove and Union.
The first District Court in this county was held in what was then known as the Benjamin building, on lots 1 and 2, block 14, corner of Kelly and Milwaukee streets, Charles City. This ground is now occupied by the residence of Judge R. G. Reiniger. The seal of this court was was procured in May, 1858.
The first Circuit Court was held in 1868. This department of government was first organized this year, by the Twelfth General Assembly. Each judicial district in the State was divided into two circuits. In each of these was elected a judge for four years. The Circuit Court, as thus organized, possessed original jurisdiction con- current with the District Court except in chancery and criminal cases, and exclusive jurisdiction in all appeals from justices of the peace. District Courts have been provided for by both the Consti- tutions of 1846 and 1857.
SKETCHES OF THE JUDGES.
Following are biographical sketches of district and circuit judges whose jurisdiction has embraced the county of Floyd at some period.
Thomas S. Wilson, the first Iowa Territorial Judge of the Dis- trict Court for Floyd County, was born in Steubenville, Ohio, on the 13th of October, 1813, and was the son of Peter Wilson and Frances (Stokley) Wilson. He was educated at Jefferson College, Cannonsburg, Pa., and graduated in 1832. After studying law two years he was admitted to the bar, and commenced practice in his native town. In a short time he came West, stopping first at Prairie du Chien, Wis., where he had a brother, Captain George Wilson, of the United States Infantry, under command of Colonel, afterward General, Taylor. In the autumn of 1836 he selected Dubuque for his home. Here he has resided for over forty years, and has often been the recipient of political honors. It was in 1838, when but twenty-five years of age, that he received from President Van Buren the appointment of one of the Judges of the
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Supreme Court of the Territory. In June of the same year he was nominated as a candidate for Congress by the northern counties, and was preparing to commence the canvass when the news came of his judicial appointment. Judge Wilson sat on the Supreme Bench till 1847, one year after Iowa assumed her sovereignty, when he left that high position to form a law partnership with Platt Smith, and his brother, David S. Wilson. In April, 1852, he was elected Judge of the Ninth Judicial District, and held the office ten years. Judge Wilson was in the Iowa Legislature two terms, in 1866 and 1868, and at the former session was offered the complimentary vote of the Democratic members for United States Senator, but declined the honor. Judge Wilson married Miss Anna Hoge, of Steubenville, Ohio, before he left his native State. She died in 1854, and ten years later he married Miss Mary Stokley, a native of Derbyshire, England.
Hon. Samuel Murdock was born on the 13th of March, 1817, In the year 1827 his father with his family moved to the city of Cleveland, Ohio, and finally settled on a little farm near that city, in the town of Rockport. Here he grew up to manhood, receiving such education as the common schools of that day afforded, and after arriving at full age, he taught school in several places in the State of Ohio. It was during his younger years that he be- came acquainted with the family of Hon. Reuben Wood, who was at that time one of the Supreme Judges of that State, and who afterward became her Governor. With this family he lived for several years, and it was from this Judge and Governor that he not only received many of his early lessons in general history, law and politics, but material aid and assistance, and it is to this. noble and generous family that he still feels himself indebted for the position he now occupies, and of whom he always speaks. with the tenderness of a child for its parents.
In 1841 he entered the law office of Bates and Harrison in Iowa City where he remained a few months, and then entered the law office of the late Hon. Gill Folsane, and while in this office was admitted to the bar of Johnson County.
He was the first lawyer who permanently settled north of Dubuque. With the exception of two terms he has been present and had business in every term of the courts of his county for thirty- nine years, and during all this long period he has it to say, that no man has ever lost a case or a dollar by his carelessness or want of legal ability.
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HISTORY OF FLOYD COUNTY.
In the year 1845 he was elected a member of the Territorial Legislature from the counties of Dubuque, Delaware and Clayton. He remained in this body until Iowa passed into a State, and it was while in this body that he was mainly instrumental in securing for the State her present northern boundary. In 1848 he was elected School Fund Commissioner, an office which he held for four years, during which time he sold most of the school lands of his county, consisting of both the sixteen sections and the county's portion of the 500,000 acres donated for school purposes, and as he was al- lowed a large discretion in the sale of these valuable lands, he took care to see that they were purchased by actual settlers.
In 1855 he was elected the first District Judge of the Tenth Judi- cial District, which at that time included ten counties, and in sev- eral of these counties he held the first courts.
In early life he was a Democrat, but upon the repeal of the Mis- souri Compromise he assisted in forming the Republican party, and has ever since voted and acted with that party. In 1869 he was elected a member of the Thirteenth General Assembly, and in this assembly he distinguished himself as a lawyer and a speaker by his great speech in opposition to the repeal of the death penalty for the crime of murder. In the summer of 1869 he unearthed the "Hagerty massacre," one of the most cruel and terrible murders of modern times, in which he brought to light no less than five dead bodies, after they had been entombed and hid away for over eight months, and then he pursued and prosecuted the murderer until he lodged him in the penitentiary for life.
For this great service he was not only rewarded by the thanks of the grateful public, but the county paid him a large sum, and he received in addition $500 from the State. In 1878, in connec- tion with his friend, W. A. Benton, he planned the capture of the notorious bank robber, Jim Uncer, and had him brought from his hiding place in Chicago to Clayton County, where he was tried and sent to the penitentiary for his crimes. In 1876 he was selected by the Governor to fill Iowa's department of anthropology at the Centennial, and although the notice was a short one, yet he took the field, and in a few months he had collected and shipped to Philadelphia some of the most curious and wonderful specimens of prehistoric man that had ever been unearthed on this continent, and although his collection was small, yet it received from the historian of the Centennial the only compliment paid to Iowa for her part in the great show.
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HISTORY OF FLOYD COUNTY.
In 1878 he wrote and published a series of articles on " Prehis- toric Man." In 1859 he wrote and published his "Sketches of the public men of Iowa before she became a State," (among whom were her four first Governors), and these sketches not only gave him a wide range of acquaintance, but they placed him in a high rank among the distinguished writers of that day. He has proba- bly done more than any other man in the West to bring to light the remains of the Mound-builder and other prehistoric races that once inhabited the Mississippi Valley, and his speeches and arti- cles on this subject are of the deepest interest, and command the greatest attention.
Judge Murdock is now a resident of Elkader, Clayton County, Iowa.
Hon. Elias H. Williams .- He was born in the State of Connecti- cut on the 23d day of July, 1819, and is, both on the side of his father and mother, descended from a long line of noble and respectable ancestors, who were among the most ardent patriots of the American Revolution, and who suffered greatly from the raids of the notorious Arnold and other British commanders on the soil of Connecticut.
His father died when he was quite young, leaving his mother to take care of and educate her children, and being a lady of talent and great mental power, she determined to give her sons a first- class education, and as soon as the subject of this sketch was of the proper age she sent him to Yale College, where she kept and maintained him until he graduated with the highest honors, and soon after receiving his diploma he spent one year in New Hamp- shire as a teacher of languages; and he then made a journey to South Carolina, where he was also for some time engaged in teach- ing and reading law; and it was while residing here and seeing the degrading effects of human slavery, that he imbibed the feel- ing of hatred and disgust toward that institution, that shone forth in after years in the most fervent and eloquent speeches for its overthrow.
He soon found that with his ideas of justice and human liberty South Carolina was no place for him, and hearing of the new Ter- ritory whose shores was washed by two of the greatest rivers of the globe, he now turned his footsteps toward Iowa, and in 1846 he arrived in Clayton County, and settled at Garnavillo.
In 1851 he was elected the first County Judge under the new system of county government, and this not only included all the
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county affairs, but also the probate of estates. In 1858 he was elected District Judge of the Tenth Judicial District of Iowa, and re-elected again in 1862. In 1870 he was appointed by the Gov- ernor of Iowa Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the State, and in this position he served but a short time, when he retired from law and politics, to turn his attention to the building of rail- roads; but while on the Supreme Bench his written opinions and judicial decisions were models of learning, brevity and research.
Soon after leaving the Supreme Bench he conceived and origi- nated a plan for the construction of a railroad from Dubuque, along the west bank of the Mississippi River to St. Paul, with the main branch up and along the valley of the Turkey, via Mankato, to the Northern Pacific Railroad; upon announcing his scheme to the public it was looked upon as visionary and impossible, but he threw the full force of his determined will and character into the scheme. and in a short time he had the satisfaction of being the first man to break ground on the enterprise which afterward be- came the Chicago, Dubuque & Minnesota Railroad, and it is to his energy, will and perseverance that northern Iowa and Minnesota are indebted for that magnificent line of road that follows the Father of Waters from Clinton to St. Paul.
When the Missouri Compromise was repealed, and the South had threatened to plant her slave colonies on free soil, he was among the very first men of America to protest against the en- croachment, and among the first to call together a body of men for the purpose of forming an organization against the demands of the slaveholder's power, and from that day to the present he has stood by that organization.
As a profound lawyer, an able and upright judge, as a finished scholar and a public man, his name and his public works will ever be connected with the history of the State and his county in a high and in an honorable manner.
Hon. William B. Fairfield, twenty-one years a resident of Floyd County, was born at Hudson, N. Y., Aug. 24, 1835, son of Joseph W. Fairfield, a lawyer, railroad man and banker, and Laura, nee Britton. The Fairfields were from France, the Brittons from England. Wm. B. received his early education at Hudson and College Hill, Poughkeepsie; entered the freshman class of Williams College in 1851, the class which included Pres. J. A. Garfield; graduated at Hamilton College in 1855. He was ad- mitted to the bar in 1856, at Clinton, N. Y. In the autumn of
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HISTORY OF FLOYD COUNTY.
this year he came to Charles City. Here he commenced the prac- tice of his profession, and in 1865 was one of the founders of the bank now conducted by Reiniger & Balch. In the autumn of 1864 he was elected Judge of the Twelfth District, was re-elected in 1868, but resigned in 1870. In later years he gave some atten- tion to railroad building and farming. He and Judge E. H. Will- iams built in Clinton County the first narrow-gauge railroad in the State of Iowa, and as a farmer he took special interest in im- proved live-stock, as short-horn and Jersey cattle, Berkshire hogs and Clydesdale horses.
In politics Judge Fairfield was always a Republican, and in relig- ion inclined to Unitarianism; he was a member of the Blue Lodge of Masons. As a lawyer Judge Fairfield stood high, in thorough- ness and candor.
Dec. 25, 1857, he married Miss Estelle M. Balch, daughter of Rev. W. S. Balch, then of New York City and now of Elgin, Ill .; she is a sister of W. D. Balch, the well known banker of Charles City.
Mr. Fairfield died Oct. 27, 1879, at Hudson, N. Y., where he is buried.
Hon. George W. Ruddick, Judge of the Twelfth District, is a resident of Waverly. He is of Scotch-Irish pedigree, and was born in Sullivan County, N. Y., May 11, 1835. His father was a farmer and lumberman, and died Oct. 1, 1861. His mother died when he was but two years old. He worked at his father's occu- pation until fourteen years old, attended high school a few years, and at eighteen commenced the study of law, in which he gradu- ated in 1855. Soon afterward he settled where he still resides, in Waverly, Iowa; here he practiced alone for awhile, and the rest of the time with other parties, -from 1858 to 1860 with H. A. Miles, and for a short time, commencing in 1865, with O. F. Avery. Judge Ruddick has held many local offices, as well as some of a higher order. He was a member of the General Assem- bly, 1859-'61, County Judge, 1862-'64, Circuit Judge, 1868-'70, since which time he has been Judge of the Twelfth District.
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