USA > Iowa > Poweshiek County > History of Poweshiek County, Iowa: a record of settlement, organization, progress and achievement, Volume 1 > Part 15
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Under President Buchanan's administration, the postoffice at Forest Home was held by the only democrat, Philip Mickel, who wished to remove to Monte- zuma to study law. The general feeling was adverse to having a republican postmaster, but upon Mr. Mickel's recommendation, Nancy J., a daughter of Dr. Terrell, was appointed to the position. The postoffice was then removed to the Terrell home, where it remained until Lincoln was inaugurated.
In 1861 Dr. Terrell removed to a farm south of town, where he cleared the timber and built a house. While engaged in the erection of the building every mechanic except one brick mason enlisted in the Federal army. Dr. Terrell being a strong Union man, was eager to enter the service himself, but his neigh- bors urged him to stay and attend to their families, the men of the neighborhood already having enlisted. He therefore remained at home and ministered to the soldiers' families free of charge. He was the only professional man who ever engaged in business in Forest Home. Dr. Terrell's death occurred November 28. 1897, and his wife's May 22, 1882.
Dr. Salter was quite early in the practice in Montezuma and Dr. J. C. Tribbet, a graduate of Miami Medical College, of Cincinnati, Ohio, opened an office there
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in the spring of 1872. Thoroughly qualified to practice, he soon built up an extensive clientele and became one of the leading physicians of that section of the county.
Dr. Edgar H. Ennis became a physician of high standing at Dresden, or Deep River. He was raised a farmer boy in Maryland, where he was born in 1835. Upon attaining the age of manhood, he chose the medical profession, attended a course of lectures in the Medical College of Ohio, located at Cincin- nati, read medicine three years in the office of a practitioner, and in the spring of 1861 opened an office in Keokuk county. His removal to this county occurred in 1864, when he took up his residence at Dresden and soon became known as a physician and surgeon of ability.
Dr. Elbert W. Clark came from Glover, Vermont, graduated at Rush Medi- cal College, and it is said that he began to practice in Grinnell in 1871, but was not satisfied for a time with his success. Another physician is said to have induced him to renew his practice. His success soon secured him a place as physician and surgeon of the Iowa Central railroad, and made him so well known and so much admired that he was chosen mayor of the town and senator of his district, and also made him first in important business enterprises. His advice to his students as they left him is said to have been: "Keep your eyes and ears open and your mouth shut." He practiced as he preached.
THE MEDICAL SOCIETY.
Many years ago the physicians of the county formed a society, elected officers and held meetings at stated intervals, but no data is at hand from which to con- struct a detailed article in relation thereto. However, the present Poweshiek County Medical Society has kept the records of its proceedings, from which was obtained the following facts :
On October 9, 1903, a meeting of physicians of Poweshiek county was held at Grinnell, in response to a circular letter issued by Dr. D. C. Brockman, of Ottumwa, which had for its purpose the organization of a county medical society, in accordance with the constitution of the State Medical Society.
At the meeting above mentioned the Poweshiek County Medical Society was organized and those present were the following original members: E. F. Tal- bott, J. R. Lewis, O. F. Parish, S. C. Buck, T. M. Hedges, E. B. Williams, C. W. Reynolds, C. D. Conaway, G. W. Wilson, U. N. Busby, C. D. Busby, E. W. Clark, A. M. Sherman, J. M. Wetmore, P. E. Somers.
Upon a ballot being taken Dr. E. W. Clark was selected as president; Dr. E. B. Williams, vice-president; Dr. P. E. Somers, secretary and treasurer ; Dr. Charles Busby, V. S. Wilcox and S. C. Buck, members board of censors.
A list of the members of the society is hereto appended :
J. M. Lockwood, F. E. Vest, O. F. Parish, F. R. Lewis, F. M. Cooper, C. E. Harris, E. B. Williams, A. M. Sherman, E. S. Evans, Bush Houston, Delano Wilcox, V. S. Wilcox, Mattie T. Crain, L. F. Crain, E. F. Talbott, C. D. Busby, E. E. Harris, P. E. Somers, E. B. Wiley, O W. King, S. C. Buck, C. H. Lauder, E. J. Ringena, F. E. Simeral ..
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Physicians practicing in the county not members of the society are:
A. H. Barker, U. N. Busby, A. C. Landis, Brooklyn ; E. C. Bliss, J. W. Cogs- well, J. F. Preston, Josephine W. Rust, Grinnell; F. S. Grimes, G. W. Gamble, Deep River : Paul T. Logue. S. B. McGarry, Searsboro.
HOMEOPATHY IN POWESHIEK COUNTY.
Mrs. Rachel Harris was the pioneer in homeopathy in Grinnell, having gradu- ated from the Hahnemann Medical College of Chicago, with the class of 1871. She practiced until her death in 1888 and was here alone in the field until February, 1879, when Dr. W. S. Simpson opened an office. Dr. E. B. Wiley, who has practiced continuously up to the present time and is still located in Grinnell, came here in the fall of 1882. In 1883 Dr. Simpson went east to pur- sue further studies and his place was taken by Dr. Brunback, who remained until 1885, when his place was in turn taken by Dr. Hill. Dr. Hill left in 1887, when Dr. Simpson again returned and entered general practice, in which he continued until 1894, when Dr. Barker took up his practice for a year or two. Dr. Simp- son remained in Grinnell until 1900, when he removed to Des Moines and Dr. Wight took his place, practicing in Grinnell for a few years and then going to Sheldon.
In the same year, 1900, Dr. Barton came to Grinnell, but remained only a few months. The latest recruit to homeopathy in Grinnell is Dr. J. W. Cogges- well, who engaged in practice here in 1908.
In Brooklyn the chronicle of homeopathy is not so long. Drs. Fletcher and Emmons came together in 1879. the latter leaving in the fall of 1880, while Dr. Fletcher remained for a year or eighteen months longer. Dr. A. E. Wessel, who practiced there for several years after 1888, removed to Guernsey, where he remained for five or six years. Dr. Barker, who is at present practicing in Brooklyn, removed there from Grinnell in 1895.
With the exception of Searsboro, where Dr. Logue located in 1907, the other towns of the county seem to have had no homeopathic physicians.
CHAPTER XI.
BENCH AND BAR.
LAWYERS HAVE GREAT INFLUENCE IN SHAPING AND MAKING LAWS-STANDARD OF MORALITY HIGH-POWESHIEK BAR MADE UP OF ABLE AND INFLUENTIAL MEN- SKETCHES OF EARLY MEMBERS OF THIS BAR-REMINISCENCES OF THE LATE JUDGE BLANCHARD.
Perhaps no body of men, not excepting the clergy, may exercise a greater influence for good, at times, in a community than those who follow the profes- sion 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 constitute 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 consciously 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. How can legislation, designed solely for the welfare of the public, be expected from one whose honor as a lawyer has not been above suspicion ? And since lawyers, outside of the legislature, have a great influence 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 effect the judiciary, which is supplied from its ranks. It is not always, 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 lacking 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 sometimes realized that one who has been a strenuous and not too scrupulous politician up to the moment of his
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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 consciences, 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 county of Poweshiek that the members of the bar 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 throughout 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 he confidence and respect of the public 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 the part of it which lies back of one's own generation is concerned, is attended with consider- able 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 outside 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 ever seen that name outside of the covers of the dusty reports in which it appears. Hamilton, in the conventions, in the Federalist and in the treasury, and Webster, in the senate and in public 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 recogni- ion 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
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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 mention 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.
POWESHIEK'S FIRST LAWYER.
Edwin F. Whitcomb came to the county about 1852 and began the practice of law at Montezuma, accomplishing but very little in the business he had chosen for a livelihood. As a matter of fact, he preferred to speculate, especially in land. He bought forty acres adjoining the town, which he platted and called the locality Whitcombe's addition to Montezuma. In the course of time he became the owner of the Stanley House, then the principal hotel, located on the site of the present Webber House. He ran the hotel a while and then moved away and sometime afterward died.
Reuben Mickel was perhaps the next active practicing lawyer in the county and located some time prior to 1857 at Montezuma. He was then a man of probably twenty-eight or thirty years of age. Judge W. R. Lewis, who is au- thority for most of the data used and relied upon in this article, thinks that Mr. Mickel was a Pennsylvanian by birth and that he married a young lady by the name of Shearer, whose parents were early settlers of the county. He was a good business lawyer and a fair practitioner, not strong as an advocate, but fair minded and very practical. In financial matters he was very successful and kept in connection with his law business a money exchange office and was in a way, the banker of the town. That was before any bank was established in Monte- zuma. He received no deposits but keeping funds in Chicago, would accom- modate his neighbors for a certain compensation with drafts and letters of credit. He was at the time of which we speak the leading attorney of the county and considered safe and reliable in his counsels. About 1880 he went to Chicago, not to practice law, but to engage in other business pursuits.
A SOUTHERN SYMPATHIZER.
Reuben Mickel was essentially a politician, his sympathies being with the democratic partisans. He was bitterly opposed to the war and at the time of the impression, or draft, of men into the service, about 1863, he was charged with furnishing the money to the members of a military organization, composed of democrats, to buy arms and ammunition for the purpose of resisting the draft and opposing the government in its war against rebellion. Judge W. R. Lewis was captain and Professor Leonard F. Parker, lieutenant of a local military company, who were ordered by the provost marshal, under the authority of the governor, to arrest all the members of the rebel sympathizing militia that could be found. Lieutenant Parker went down Sugar creek and made a number of
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arrests, taking his prisoners to Grinnell, where he corralled them in a lumber shed. After this was accomplished, Lieutenant Matthews, son of the provost marshal, arrived in Montezuma with sealed orders to arrest Mickel, but was unsuccessful in finding him. Judge Lewis, captain of the militia, suggested to the lieutenant that if he would go home, Lewis would secure his man and take him in person to the governor. This undertaking Lewis accomplished and with Mr. Mickel called upon Governor Stone at the capital. There Mickel had a long interview with the governor, who permitted him to return to his home.
The charge against Mickel was that he had encouraged the plan and furnished money to purchase arms for killing deputy marshals, who were sent out from the provost marshal's office to notify people along Sugar creek that they had been drafted and must report at a certain time and become soldiers. These deputy marshals were named Bashore and Woodruff, and while in the perform- ance of their orders, it was charged, Mickel had sent two or three men out on their trail and that the men had shot the deputies. It was known positively that Mickel had given substantial encouragement to the enemies of the government, convincing evidence of which was a letter of Mickel's, which was secured, in- dicating in positive terms that Mickel had sold guns or revolvers to members of the company for which he desired pay from certain of its members.
Mr. Mickel continued undisturbed in his business at Montezuma until after the war, when, becoming dissatisfied with the county, its people, the condition of his business standing, and the results of the war, he left for Chicago, where he remained a while and then moved to the Oregon country, where all trace of him became obliterated. After a time had elapsed, his wife attempted to secure insurance upon his life, which the insurance companies resisted. Nothing further has been heard of him.
Marsena E. Cutts was a citizen of Montezuma in the early '50s. He was a native of Vermont but came from Michigan, where he had joined a survey- ing party of public lands. He had previously completed a college course and desiring to settle down and practice law, turned his face toward the west and settled in Poweshiek county. It is Judge Lewis' impression that Mr. Cutts, who was a brother-in-law, was admitted to the bar at Oskaloosa, while a student in a law office there. After taking up the practice at Montezuma, he soon secured a prominent place as a lawyer, being a man of wonderful mentality, great energy and an orator of no mean ability. In the trial of a case he was rough and abusive but with it all he made his point and grew to be not only one of the prominent lawyers of Poweshiek county, but of the state. About 1866 Mr. Cutts moved to Oskaloosa and soon thereafter formed a partnership with Hon. W. H. Seevers, who later became a member of the supreme court of Iowa. In 1872 Major Henry O'Connor resigned as attorney general of the state and Mr. Cutts was appointed to fill the vacancy. This position he held with credit and great ability until 1877. In the '8os he was a candidate for congress on the republican ticket and was declared elected, but his opponent, Judge J. C. Cook, of Newton, was his competitor and contested the election. On the very last days of congress, in the second year of Cutts' term, Cook was declared to be entitled to his seat. However, Cutts had served the full time, for which he received his pay, and Cook was also paid for the full term without taking any other part in congress
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but to look after his contest. At the succeeding congressional election Cutts had General Weaver as the opposing candidate for the place, and succeeded in defeating him. During his second term, Mr. Cutts died at his home in Oskaloosa.
C. J. L. Foster was one of the early lawyers and came to Montezuma from Michigan. He was a smooth and graceful talker, was regarded as perhaps the first orator at this bar at that time, and as would naturally follow, he was looked upon by the laity as one of the great lawyers of this section of the state. His chief fault lay in a lack of industry and too much reliance on his ability to win his cases by his gift of oratory. Mr. Foster was a republican and represented this county in the seventh general assembly. He returned to the state from whence he came.
William Robinson Lewis was born in Muskingum county, Ohio, in 1835, and served his father as a farmer boy until he was fifteen, when his parents removed to Coshocton county. The following seven years he acted as a clerk in his father's store and then, in 1857, took up his permanent abode in the then grow -. ing town of Montezuma. He had been admitted, however, to the bar in 1856. In 1862 he served a few months as county superintendent of schools, resigning to become a candidate for the office of clerk of the district court, to which he was elected by a large majority. Before coming to this county he was mar- ried at Burlington, Vermont, in 1865, to Mary E. Cutts, sister of M. E. Cutts, herein mentioned. He served as a member of the board of supervisors. In 1880 he was elevated to the circuit bench of the sixth judicial district and served six years, when the circuit court was abolished. In 1887 he was elected as judge of the district court for the sixth judicial district and after serving his term of four years retired, having spent in all ten years on the bench. He then resumed his practice of the law at Montezuma and in 1897 he was returned by the republican party of the county to the state senate, where he represented his constituency with honor and ability for two terms. He is now at the age of seventy-six in active practice at the county seat.
John T. Scott was a native of Scotland and came to America with his father, a carpet weaver, when three years of age. That was in 1843, finally locating in Wisconsin, where the boy secured a common-school education. In 1861 he enlisted for the Civil war and was discharged in 1866 with the rank of first lieutenant. The same year he settled in Brooklyn, where he engaged in farming for a season and then entered the law office of J. D. Hale and was admitted to the bar in 1867. Judge Lewis says of him that he was perhaps as remarkable as any member of the Poweshiek county bar. He was of ample proportions physically and very active mentally. "He looked at many things in the Scotch way and did them in the Scotch way, which was often a good way for the people whom he served. He made himself, so far as he had not been made originally, one of the most dangerous lawyers to a jury that ever practiced in the county. He was a remarkable jury lawyer, quick to discover a point in his favor and wonderfully acute in his method of utilizing it. I am quite sure he won some cases," says Judge Lewis, "that he was not entitled to, simply by his native and acquired ability and shrewdness. He was and is now a great big hearted man, although some would say he is terrible in his condemnation of cant and
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make-believe good things in anybody." In 1899 Judge Scott was elected as one of the judges of the district court for the sixth judicial district and served until 1906. "He carried to the bench the same mentality and methods which distinguished him in many respects as a practitioner at the bar. He was a hard hitter some times, often displeasing those whom he might have lived with in peace if he had been a dfferent man, but in all his work on the bench he was upright, fearless in the condemnation of wrong and sometimes a little harsh because of his detestation of the contemptible and gravely bad things that often come up in a court of justice. No man proved his kindness by his life and acts more than Judge Scott and he has always to give substantial help to a brother when he really got down to it and understood that help was needed and that the object of his assistance was trying to do the right thing." Judge Scott was a good business man, accummulated a competence and is now making his home at Colorado Springs, Colorado.
Clark Varnum was born in Vermont in 1846 and moved to Bureau county, Illinois, in 1864, and came from there to Malcom the following year. After preparation he was admitted to the bar in 1870 and opened an office in Malcom, where he soon became recognized as one of the leading attorneys of the county, building up a large and profitable practice. In 1870 his marriage to Miss Ella Shipley of the county, occurred. Eventually Mr. Varnum formed a partnership with Hon. H. S. Winslow, of Newton, and the firm of Winslow & Varnum be- came widely known as being made up of lawyers considered among the ablest in the state. Winslow died some years ago and Varnum moved to Chicago.
W. H. Redman, afterwards speaker of the Iowa house of representatives, commenced the practice of law in Montezuma soon after the close of the Civil war. For a short time he was in partnership with Judge W. R. Lewis and then conducted his business alone until after the admission of Captain J. W. Carr to the bar, when a partnership was formed between them. Later J. W. Farmer, who had been sheriff of the county a number of years, was taken into the firm, which became well known as one of the best and most successful in the county. Mr. Redman finally became general solicitor for the Steele Header Works at Grinnell, and when the concern moved to Chicago, he went along as head of the legal department.
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