USA > Iowa > Jackson County > History of Jackson County, Iowa; Volume I > Part 11
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About two weeks before the date set for the election, Judge Dillon held a term of court at Bellevue. At about eleven o'clock of the second day he inter- rupted the counsel who were trying a jury case with "We will postpone the fur- ther hearing until afternoon. I understand there are a number of persons here who wish to be naturalized." Then addressing the audience who filled the court- room said, "If there is anyone here who wishes to be naturalized, let him stand up." And everybody outside of the bar arose as one man. Both parties had scoured the county, and about four hundred were naturalized at that term. There was no failure on either side for want of witnesses. The writer knows of one person, now a large land holder, who arrived in America from Luxemburg in October, 1860, who was told that he ought to go down to Bellevue and get his first papers-that is to declare his intention of becoming a citizen-who went home from court that evening with full naturalization papers in his pocket, thanks to the vigilant care of Fred Scarborough, the clerk of the District Court, and he has been voting on these papers ever since.
Just before the election an attempt was made by the Bellevue people to en- join the holding of the election, but Judge Dillon refused the writ, though urged by both Judge Booth and Judge Leffingwell in speeches of remarkable force. Henry O'Connor appeared with the advocates of Andrew's claims. The excite-, ment increased in intensity as the date of the election drew near. In fact, if a statement in the Bellevue paper was correct, it came near having tragic conse- quences. In the issue just preceeding the election, that paper lamented the per- sonal feeling that was manifested, and stated that on the Saturday before active hostilities had broken out between the contending forces and that one of the Bellevue volunteers from Clinton county, had opened the war by discharging a loaded shell from a window in the second story of the Sublette House at the commander-in-chief of the Andrew forces, which had missed the head of that august personage by a narrow margin. It is believed that the statement was true, but the shell was an ordinary household utensil of pottery and not the "iron shard" that Kipling writes of, and was discharged in the manner of a hand grenade, and not from the "reeking tube" of his Recessional.
The majority in favor of Andrew at this election was five hundred and sixty. Another effort was made in the court to defeat the removal of the records but it was unsuccessful, and the Supreme Court decided that because the April elec- tion had not been expressly abolished by name, an election for county seat could be held at that time, but not for any other purpose. I recall telling the learned counsel for the appellants that there were just five hundred and sixty reasons why they should be beaten, and they were. All the same, I think Judge Kelso's construction of the law was correct.
A few years afterward Bellevue made another attempt to have another vote taken between Andrew and Bellevue, and filed a petition signed by the requisite number of voters, but before it was passed on by the board of supervisors, An- drew procured enough of the signers to the petition to sign a remonstrance, and so reduced the number below the requisite majority. This ended the efforts of Bellevue to recover the county seat from Andrew.
When the last movement began to be agitated, I was asked to attend a meeting of some of its promoters, and at the meeting was also asked to give my opinion as to the proposed step. I advised against making the attempt, basing my judgment not only on the decisive majority against Bellevue on the former contest, but also
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on the fact that a majority of the voters in the county lived on the south side of the Maquoketa River, and on the further fact that the people of Bellevue had without remonstrance allowed the principal roads leading into their own to be so changed for the worse that Dubuque on the one side and Lyons on the other were more easily accessible to more than two-thirds of the people of the county than Bellevue. All my attempts to inaugurate "a good road movement" in that town had met with no response whatever. The others, however, knew better and determined to go ahead; and assigned me to the task of canvassing the four townships in the southwestern part of the county, which was certainly the "en- emy's country," assuring me that if I could get fifty signatures from that terri- tory we could get the vote ordered, and carry the election.
I returned the petitions with three or four times the number assigned to me. I did the canvassing principally through others. A good many of them signed the remonstrance also. If my friends who were so sure of winning the contest had canvassed their own territory with half the care that I did mine, the vote would have been ordered and Bellevue would have been beaten at the polls.
About this time the Andrew people, in order to "cinch" their hold on the county seat, made an offer to the board of supervisors to sell to the county the courthouse, which they had erected at their own expense, at a trifle over one- third of its cost. The board before acting on the offer referred the matter to my- self and a brother lawyer to examine the title, greatly to the disgust of the per- sons making the offer ; and while we were engaged in making the examination of the records, I heard them expressing their opinion of the board for putting a Bellevue man on this committee, in terms more forcible than elegant.
As chairman of this committee, I reported that the title was defective, as the record of the town plat showed that it was located in township five (5) range three (3), which was somewhere in Arkansas, while Andrew was actually located in township 85 north and range three (3) east.
While reading this. I heard my Andrew friends muttering "I told you so; that is what we get by having a Bellevue man pass upon the title," and it would have taken but little to have caused an explosion.
But as I went on with the statement that this defect was not in our judgment fatal, and was probably due to an error in copying by the recorder, which, if necessary, be corrected by a decree of the court, and that in our judgment the title was sufficient and the bargain a desirable one, and recommended the board to close with the offer, their astonishment was greater than their previous anger.
They acknowledged that even a Bellevue man knew a good thing when he saw it, and though the building was not what it ought to have been for a court- house, its purchase saved the county a good deal of money, but it failed to keep the county seat there.
The contest, which ended in October, 1873, in the transfer of the county seat from Andrew to Maquoketa, was after I had removed from the county, and I had no part in it. Andrew was handicapped by the rumors of maladministration of the county affairs, which the same month proved well founded; and the re- moval of the county seat was a blow from which, after the lapse of a third of a century, it has not yet recovered.
The other attempts to obtain a vote on the question since 1867, I have but little knowledge of and leave it for others to speak of.
Maquoketa has been the county seat for nearly one-half the time that Jack- son county has had its political existence, and will probably remain the county seat of that politcal division of Iowa until some Japanese historian, viewing the ruins of the state capitol at Des Moines, and meditating on the marvelous extinc- tion of the great American republic, shall outline his history of the decline and fall of that great commonwealth of corn and cattle, of hens and hogs and horses for which Jackson county was once so notable a part, and of which the old stone courthouse at Andrew shall be the only surviving monument of its greatness.
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THE JUDICIARY. BY HON. WILLIAM GRAHAM.
On June 28, 1834, the Congress of the United States enacted as follows : "That all that part of the territory of the United States bounded on the east by the Mississippi River, on the south by the state line of Missouri, and a line drawn due west from the northwest corner of said state to the Missour River ; on the south- west and west by the Missouri River and the White Earth River, falling into the same ; and on the north, by the northern boundary of the United States, shall be, and hereby is, for the purpose of temporary government, attached to, and made a part of, the Territory of Michigan, and the inhabitants therein shall be entitled to the same privileges and immunities, and be subject to the same laws, rules and regulations, in all respects, as the other citzens of Michigan Territory."
By this act the whole of the States of Iowa, Wisconsin and Minnesota, the east half of South Dakota and nearly the whole of North Dakota became part of the territory of Michigan. The legislature of that. territory in September, 1834, divided the district of Iowa into two counties by a line running due west from the lower end of Rock Island. The northern county was to be called Du- buque, and John King was appointed judge of that county. Whether any cases from that part, which is now the county of Jackson, came before Judge King has not become a matter of history.
On April 20, 1836, Congress created the territory of Wisconsin, including all of what are now the States of Wisconsin, Iowa and Minnesota, and that part of the two Dakotas formerly attached to the territory of Michigan, and provided that all cases in the courts of Michigan undisposed of on July 3, 1836 (the day the law took effect) should be transferred to the courts of Wisconsin provided for in said act.
THE SUPREME COURT.
In the organization of Wisconsin Territory, Charles Dunn was appointed chief justice, and David Irwin and William C. Frazier, associate justices ; and Judge Irwin was assigned to preside over the judicial district which embraced what is now the State of Iowa.
On account of the illness of Judge Irwin only one term of court had been held in what is now the State of Iowa, prior to November, 1837, and a conven- tion of delegates held at Burlington in November, 1837, memorialized Congress to establish a separate territorial organization on the west side of the Mississippi, and. among other reasons, assigned the fact that this part of Wisconsin was prac- tically without judicial relief. At this time the region now embraced in Jackson county was part of Dubuque county. The second session of the first territorial legislature of Wisconsin organized Jackson county with its present boundaries, which have remained unchanged ever since. On June 1. 1838, the first District Court was held in Jackson county at Bellevue. by Hon. Charles Dunn, chief jus- tice of the Territory of Wisconsin, by whom W. A. Warren was appointed crier ; W. H. Brown, district attorney ; and Edwin Reeves, attorney for the Territory. Beside these two the only other lawyers present. so far as the records disclose, were Thomas S. Wilson, who a month afterward became one of the justices of the Supreme Court of the Territory of Iowa, and T. P. Bennett. Hon. Thomas Drummond, who was for forty years the able and accomplished judge of the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, was admitted to practice at this term. This was the only term of a court of general jurisdiction held within the limits of Jackson county while it was a part of Wisconsin.
On June 12, 1838, Congress organized all that part of Wisconsin lying west of the Mississippi into Iowa Territory. Three judges were appointed: Hon. Charles Mason, of Burlington. chief justice ; and Hon. Joseph Williams, of Mus- catine, and Hon. Thomas S. Wilson, of Dubuque, associate justices. The Dis-
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trict Courts were to be held in the several counties by a single judge, and an appeal could be taken from their judgment to these justices sitting in banc; Jack- son county was in the district assigned to Judge Wilson, but for some reason, probably because there were cases pending in which Judge Wilson had been re- tained as counsel, the first court held in Jackson county was presided over by Chief Justice Mason, and opened its session at Bellevue, then the county seat, on the 24th day of September, 1838. J. K. Moss was appointed clerk. This was the only term of court held by Judge Mason in Jackson county, and he did not revisit the county until the political campaign of 1859 was in progress, when he and Judge Wilson were candidates on the democratic ticket for judges of the Supreme Court. Judge Mason, before studying law, had graduated from the Military Academy at West Point, and was a fine lawyer and an accomplished gentleman and scholar.
These three judges continued to serve during the whole time Iowa was a territory, and for some time after the state was admitted into the Union. Judge Williams never held any term of court in Jackson county and Judge Wilson pre- sided continuously from April, 1839, when he held his first term in Bellevue with Morris S. Allen, afterward for many years sheriff of the county, and foreman of the grand jury, until he resigned in October, 1847. In June, 1847, Chief Jus- tice Mason resigned to become commissioner of patents under President Polk and Judge Williams was promoted to the position of chief justice, and Governor Briggs appointed John F. Kinney in place of Judge Williams, promoted, and George Green in place of Judge Wilson, resigned.
The constitution, under which the state was admitted into the Union, provided that the judges of the Supreme Court should be three in number and be elected by the legislature for six years.
In the first general assembly which convened at Iowa City, November 30, 1846, the democrats had a majority in the senate, and the whigs a majority im the house of representatives, but by reason of some local troubles in Lee county the democratic representives from that county refused to act with their party associates, and so neither United States senators nor judges of the Supreme Court were elected, either at that or the special session, and so the territorial judges held over as judges of the Supreme Court, though the legislature made provision for electing district judges. Judge Williams' term as chief justice expired in January, 1848, and Governor Briggs appointed S. Clinton Hastings, also of Muscatine, to that position, which he occupied for one year.
The second general assembly convened on the 3d of December, 1848, and. the democrats having a clear majority in both houses, promptly elected the two senators, and also elected Hon. Joseph Williams, chief justice, and Hon. John F. Kinney and Hon. George Green, associate judges, for six years, from Jan- uary 15, 1849, and these jurists served their full term of office, which expired January 15, 1855, except that Judge Kinney resigned in 1854 and was succeeded by Hon. Jonathan C. Hall, of Burlington, who held the office for one year.
Judge Williams has always been recognized as an able lawyer, but is better remembered as a genial gentleman of inexhaustible humor. "Ramping Joe" was the title by which he was affectionately called by his followers, as his friend, "Old Abe," of Springfield, Illinois, was by his. Buchanan appointed him a territorial judge in Kansas in the troublous times there, and no fault was found with his de- cisions, and he retired with the respect, as well as the affection, of all. He re- turned to Muscatine, where he ended his days soon after the close of the Civil War. Judge Kinney was also a territorial judge in Utah, and was noted for his independence and uprightness. He returned east as far as Nebraska, and afterward represented that state in Congress, and was a citizen of that state at the time of his death. Judge Green was the reporter of the court during and after his term of office, but engaged in banking at Cedar Rapids after leaving the bench, and was so engaged during the rest of his life.
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In the fifth general assembly, which convened at Iowa City on December 4, 1854, the democrats had a majority in the senate, but were in a minority in the house, where the balance of power was held by six old line whigs, as they called themselves. The republican party had not been fully organized, but the opposi- tion to the democratic party. whether whigs, Americans, or know nothings, or abolitionists when combined, had a majority on joint ballot. The contest over a successor to General Dodge as senator, and the judges of the Supreme Court lasted some considerable time, but ultimately James Harlan became senator, and George G. Wright, of Van Buren, was elected chief justice, and William E. Woodward, of Muscatine, and Norman W. Isbell, of Linn, associate justices of the Supreme Court. Up to this time every judge of the Supreme Court of Iowa, whether territorial or state, had been a democrat, but since that date only one democrat has occupied a seat on that tribunal.
The judges elected by the legislature in 1855 continued in office until the court was reorganized under the constitution of 1857, with the exception of Judge Isbell, who resigned in 1856, and was succeeded by L. D. Stockton, of Burlington. The writer has been told by members of the fifth general assembly that Dan F. Spurr, then county judge of Jackson county, came near being chosen instead of Judge Isbell, at this election, but a sharp deal was engineered by which Peter Moriarty, then editor of the "Maquoketa Excelsior," became the state printer, which ended the chances of Spurr. Judge Isbell, during the war, became judge of the District Court of the Eighth Judicial District.
The constitution of 1857 provided for the election of the judges of the Su- preme Court by the people for the term of six years and so arranged it that one judge should be elected every alternate year, and provided that the judge having the shortest time to serve should be chief justice. Chief Justice Wright and Judge Woodward determined to retire from the bench, and the republicans nom- inated Ralph P. Lowe, of Keokuk, who was then governor; L. D. Stockton, of Burlington ; and Caleb Baldwin, of Council Bluffs, while the democrats nomi- nated Charles Mason, of Burlington ; Thomas S. Wilson, of Dubuque ; and Ches- ter C. Cole, of Des Moines. The republican nominees were elected and took their seats in January, 1861, but the death of Judge Stockton brought Judge Wright back to his former position, which he retained until he was sent to the United States senate. Judge Dillon succeeded Judge Lowe in 1864, and the same year another judge was added to the number, and Judge Cole, who had joined the republican party, was appointed to the place and, at the close of his term, Judge Baldwin declined to continue longer on the bench, and was succeeded by Joseph M. Beck. Another judge was added in 1876, and another in 1894. The present bench consists of six judges.
THE DISTRICT COURT.
The constitution under which the state was admitted required the legislature, at its first session, to divide the state into four judicial districts. This duty was performed on February 4, 1847, and the Second Judicial District thus established consisted of the counties of Muscatine, Scott, Cedar, Clinton, Jackson, Jones, Du- buque, Delaware and Clayton, and all that part of the state north and west of Clayton and Delaware counties, and on the 16th of the same month made pro- vision for the election of judges in each district ; the result in the Second District was to be returned to and canvassed in Jackson county. This legislature fixed the salaries of the judges both of the Supreme and District Courts at the munifi- cent sum of one thousand dollars.
At the April election in 1847, James Grant, of Davenport, was elected district judge of the Second Judicial District, which position he held until 1852. Judge Grant was a man of ability and prompt in the discharge of his duty and impatient of delay, and by the manner in which he rushed through the business of his court and hurried back to his home he caused serious dissatisfaction among the mem-
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bers of the bar. The favorite way of bringing up cases from the justices of the peace in those days was by writ of error, and Judge Kelso, of Bellevue, used to tell of Judge Grant calling him up one morning on a writ of error which he had taken, and before he allowed Kelso to resume his seat he had heard and decided eighteen writs of error in which Kelso appeared on one side or the other.
A story used to be told how on the first day of a term in Jones county the law- yers supposed the court would open at ten o'clock, and remained at the hotel talk- ing with each other, and arranging for the trial of their cases, and Judge Grant went to the courthouse, opened court on the stroke of nine, called the docket over, and, as no one answered, continued every case, and adjourned court sine die, and as he was on his way back to the hotel met the members of the bar on their way to the courthouse, and in reply to their question, "When would court open?" an- swered "Court is-adjourned for this term, gentlemen," and left for Davenport.
At the spring election in 1852, Judge Thomas S. Wilson was elected to succeed Judge Grant and held the terms of court in Jackson county that year. In Jan- uary, 1853, the legislature rearranged the judicial districts, and created the Eighth District by taking Jackson, Clinton, Scott, Muscatine, Cedar and Jones out of the Second District, and providing that a judge should be elected at the April election. Under this law Hon. William B. Leffingwell, then president of the state senate, was elected judge. He was a splendid lawyer and made an admira- ble judge, but judicial duties were not to his taste, and after a year's service he resigned and returned to active practice. Hon. John B. Booth, of Bellevue, was appointed by Governor Hempstead to fill the vacancy, and he also served for one year and then resigned. Judge Booth had been a judge of the Common Pleas Court, and Surrogate in New York, and his adherence to the strict rules of prac- tice in that state did not please the younger members of the bar of his district.
At the spring election of 1855, Hon. Aylett R. Cotton, of Lyons, was the democratic candidate for judge, and would have made an admirable one, but the combination of the republicans and know nothings elected William H. Tuthill, of Cedar county, over him. Judge Tuthill held no term in Jackson county until September, 1855; and for some reason Judge Samuel Murdock, of Clayton, held a term in November to the great satisfaction of the attorneys and litigants. Judge Tuthill was not a success as a judge, and while civil business increased rapidly he was unable to dispose of it. Beside this a great amount of criminal business ob- structed the disposal of civil cases, and in Clinton not a single civil case was tried to a jury for a year and a half, and the docket of Scott county was nearly as badly in arrears. Jackson was more fortunate for the Barger murder case had been transferred to Clinton county which left the way clear for law and equity cases. In the winter of 1857, the lawyers persuaded the legislature to divide the district and set off Jackson, Clinton and Scott as the Fourteenth District, and provide for the election of another judge at the spring election.
The republicans nominated Samuel J. Mills, of. Lyons, who had been admitted to the bar in New York, but was then engaged in the lumber business. This nomination was not at all satisfactory to the practitioners in any of the counties. and as the district at that time was so overwhelmingly republican that no one nom- inated as a democrat stood any show of election, a call was issued for a meeting of the members of the bar to be held at Lyons, about March 1, 1857 ; the first bar convention ever held in Iowa. The writer was a member of that convention, and is believed to be the only one surviving. Judge Booth was called to the chair, and W. L. Mckenzie, of Clinton and James Edwards, of Scott, were secretaries. A number of young republican lawyers of Clinton county attempted to control the convention, and secure the endorsement of Mr. Mills, but Judge Leffingwell and General N. B. Baker, who were leaders in the movement, defeated the at- tempt, and Hon. G. C. R. Mitchell, of Scott county, was nominated and elected. Judge Mitchell was a fine lawyer and a polished gentleman. He had affiliated with the whig party and had been by it elected to the legislature, and had been its candidate for Congress. He gave great satisfaction as a judge during his brief
GERS CO. ST.LOUIS
JACKSON COUNTY ALMSHOUSE AND ASYLUM
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HISTORY OF JACKSON COUNTY
service, but on account of ill health, he resigned in the following September, and Hon. Asahel H. Bennett, of Scott county, was appointed in his place. Judge Mitchell held but one term in Jackson county, in July, 1857. A large amount of business was done ,and the criminal docket was cleared. There were two trials for murder. Carroll was convicted of murder in the second degree, for the killing of Heitman, in August, 1856, and Mrs. Conklin was tried for the murder of her husband, but acquitted. Henry Jarrett, who was under arrest charged with the murder of Ingalls ( for which crime the half-breed Indian, Grifford, had been hung by the vigilance committee in April previous), was discharged by the grand jury for want of evidence ; Grifford's confession, just before he was hung, being the only thing that implicated him in the murder; the other party implicated, McDonald, had escaped from the state. This term of court cleared the criminal docket so as to leave the way clear for civil business, and whether or not it was that the action of the vigilance committee had a deterrent effect on those crim- inally disposed, no case of homicde came before the Jackson county courts for more than ten years except the case of a mate of a steamboat, who was convicted of manslaughter for causing the death of a roustabout at Golding's Woodyard, by his cruel treatment.
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