History of Scott County, Iowa, Part 29

Author: Inter-state Publishing Company (Chicago, Ill.)
Publication date: 1882
Publisher: Chicago, Inter-state publishing co.
Number of Pages: 1280

USA > Iowa > Scott County > History of Scott County, Iowa > Part 29

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On this same day of court the grand jury which had been in session, made the first report of indictments, as follows: The first finding was not " a true bill," in the case of Jemima Bennett for adultery; and the same was true of Otis Bennett; Catherine Miller, having been considered by that body on a charge of "as- sault with attempt to kill," was likewise found not guilty. William

312

HISTORY OF SCOTT COUNTY.

Gibbons was prosecuting witness in the first two cases. The fourth case reported was that of Philena Brown, for arson, against whom "a true bill " was found. George Eldred was prosecuting witness. This latter case, like the first two, originated in Clinton County before William Hogan, a justice of the peace there, and was founded on a charge that " on the night of the third day of Sep- tember, 1838, she did burn one certain log honse or cabin, which was the property and residence of this deponent (George Eldred) with a number of other articles; or that he believes the above named Philena Brown is guilty of the act, and further deponent saith not." She was held to bail in $500 to appear at the next term of the District Court, Matthew A. Harrington and R. C. Brown, sureties. The casc came on for hearing before Judge Williams, with Simeon Meredith, prosecuting attorney, and Rorer & Starr, attorneys for defendant, who cleared their client, and an attachment was issued against Mr. Eldred for the costs, amounting to $100.31, which Deputy Sheriff Broddleston returned with " no property found." The fee bill may not be uninteresting. It was as follows:

CLERK'S FEES.

Entering defendant's appearance $ .12}

Discharging bail. .25

Entering suit on court calendar .123

Docketing cause. .18₺

Filing papers. . .31}

Swearing and impaneling jury

.50

Taxing costs.

.37}

Entering motions

.11៛

Issning subpoenas. .37₺

.25

Issning writ of executions

Taking two recognizances .50

Entering discharge .123

Total $5.311

SHERIFF'S FEES.

Attending prisoners before court $ .25

Making ont jury list. .25

Appearance of defendants .12}

HISTORY OF SCOTT COUNTY.

313

Opening court. .123

Serving on nine witnesses 1.68₴

Mileage, 40 miles

3.20

Total

$5.63ª

OTHER FEES.

District Attorney's fee

6.00

Witness fees $3.36

Total fee bill $100.31

All of which Uncle Sam had to pay himself, as he undoubtedly did. Thus ended the first criminal prosecution in the Scott County District Court. Nobody convicted, nobody responsible for costs but the Government.

Next followed an indictment for perjury. Then the grand jury retired, but, finding no further business, was discharged with two days' fees and mileage, excepting John Work, who, having taken himself off without leave, stood attached to appear at the next term of court for contempt.

As previously stated, the first case docketed in Scott County District Court was entitled : " Jabez A. Birchard, Jr., Administrator, vs. H. G. Stone, C. C. Applegate, William Stacey and Alfred White." The suit was brought on a certain promissory note of de- fendants, made to the plaintiff, as administrator of the estate of one Daniel Wyman, deceased, whereby they "jointly and severally promised to pay $550 without defalcation or stay of execution, value received in a quit-claim to a certain tract of land lying at the mouth of Sycamore Creek." The note was drawn July 1, 1837, payable nine months after date. It was not paid as agreed, and suit was brought for the October term, 1838-the first court held in the county. James W. Grimes, of Burlington, was the plaintiff's attorney, and G. C. R. Mitchell and Jonathan W. Parker, of the law firm of Parker & Mitchell, of Davenport, for defendants.

The musty old papers in the office of the clerk of the District Court contain the usual proceedings-the original petition in the lawyer-like hand-writing of the future governor of Iowa and senator of the United States ; the answer of the defendants in the more plain and leisurely written hand of the future judge, Mr. Mitchell. The subpoena by which Roswell H. Spencer, Andrew J. Hyde,

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HISTORY OF SCOTT COUNTY.

Medad J. Lyman, George Carpenter and Ira F. Smith, were sum- moned to appear, is made ont on a roughly printed blank from the Iowa Sun printing office, by D. Hoge, Clerk of the Court in the May term of 1839.

The answer contains the usual denials, denying everything that the plaintiff's petition contains, slick and clean. The case went for the plaintiff, and execution was issued for the sum of $353.73, which was paid July 5, 1839, to Mr. Birchard, and the execution was de- clared satisfied in full, by A. H. Davenport, Sheriff, by Richard Hamer, Deputy. The entire cost of the suit amounted to $17.123. This would be considered a very moderate bill in these late days of more expensive litigation. A scrap of paper in the bundles shows that the witness, Carpenter, did not live to collect his witness fee, but that it was collected into the estate after his decease by William Nichols, Administrator.

In December, 1873, the Democrat of Davenport had this to say of this case : "Thirty-five years have elapsed since James W. Grimes drew up the petition and Ebenezer Cook filed it. The judges, the two clerks of the court ( Ebenezer Cook and David Hope ), the attorneys on both sides, the plaintiff and two of the defendants ( Stacey and White ), have passed beyond the bench and bar of earthly tribunals ; the two sheriff's and two of the defendants are yet among the living. Frazer Wilson, the first sheriff of Scott County, is a resident of Rock Island, we believe ; and A. H. Dav- enport is a merchant residing in Le Claire, where also lives Applegate, and ( we believe ) Mr. Stone. Two of the witnesses, Roswell H. Spencer and Andrew J. Hyde, are yet living, the former in Rock Island, the latter on the same farm of many broad acres on which he lived at the time of which we write.

The original papers before us, in all their mustiness, seem not to have been opened out to the light for a third of a century. The paper is coarse, dingy white, rough of surface, and guiltless of ruled lines. The seal bears the impress of the " silver quarter, " and wherever used is denominated the " temporary seal."

Exceedingly has the business of this court swelled since the filing of these original papers. Numerous judges have ocenpied the same bench since then, one of them, G. C. R. Mitchell, one of the attorneys in the case. Lawyers by the hundreds have appeared within the bar since then, and clients by the thousands have sought justice thereat, sometimes in vain, more often, let us hope, sought and found ; millions have rained from the pockets of those who

315

IIISTORY OF SCOTT COUNTY.

thought to secure their rights or defend their wrongs, and still the conrt sits on, the sneing and the sued ; lawyers and clients gain in numbers year after year as the earth revolves, and the world increases in light and knowledge. So it lias and does ; so it will until the mystic millenial day, when the lion plaintiff and the lamb-like de- fendant shall lie down together in peace, and the child-like lawyer shall lead them-no more forever. "

The second session of the District Court of Scott County was opened May 27, 1839, and as before, in St. Anthony's church. Hon. Thomas S. Wilson had succeeded Judge Williams upon the bench ; A. II. Davenport had been appointed sheriff by the Territorial Legislature; and at chambers in Dubuque, on the 21st of the pre- vions February, David Hoge was by Judge Wilson appointed clerk of the court, and John V. Berry was appointed district attorney. This was an entire re-organization of the tribunal of justice in this Judicial District, which embraced the counties of Scott, Clinton, Dubuque and Johnson.

There was no lack of business on the docket. In fact, for a com- munity so young and a population so sparse the alacrity with which it embraced the courts was highly gratifying-to the lawyers. On the first day of the court James Grant, an attorney for the village of Rockingham, moved that "this court do now remove to the village of Rockingham, for reasons by him filed." The records assert, "Therefore, the court, after having heard the argument of the counsel on the part of the motion and that of counsel opposed, took the same under advisement until to-morrow morning." Again we quote from the Democrat:

" Right diligently have we searched the old papers of the court in qnest of the ' reasons by him filed,' but all in vain. Of course the record books show nothing of the stir that the motion made in court. But what naturally would be the result of such a high- handed attempt to forever wipe the then infant metropolis of the State out of existence, and by the removal of the court condemn it to everlasting odium and disgrace, may be easily imagined. It

was not enough that Judge Irwin, of the United States District Court, had turned his back on the infant city, because of the unex- ampled nastiness and discomfort of the local tavern, and opened court in Rockingham, that he might fare sumptuously every day at the more magnificently kept caravansary of Henry W. Higgins; it was not enough that the legislative triumvirate of the county had hoisted its flag at the doomed village, ntterly refusing to acknowl-

316

HISTORY OF SCOTT COUNTY.

edge Davenport, save as a neighboring dependency; all this humil- iation was not enough; but this belligerent gentleman, then as now the farmer-lawyer, must rise in his place, and in a loud voice, a motion make that this court adjourn to Rockingham! The only reason that can be assigned for this willful attempt at urbicide is found in the fact that Mr. Grant's farm was two miles nearer Rock- ingham than Davenport, and consequently, if his motion prevailed he would have a full hour more in each day of the session in milk- ing his cows and hoeing his bean patch.

"But the motion didn't prevail, and Davenport was saved from the very brink of everlasting disgrace! The friends of Davenport arose in their might. It is not necessary to say that the pure- minded judge was in any way influenced, for judges never are; nor yet will it suffice for the Rockinghamers to say that he was a Dubuque man, and in all matters between Davenport and Rock- ingham, Dubuque sided with the former. We will say nothing about the reason for the refusal to grant the motion, but sim- ply to reproduce the words of the court as recorded in the Court Record :

"'The application to remove the District Court of the United States in and for Scott County from Davenport to Rockingham.

"'For that it seems to the court that the subject matter of this motion does not come before the court in the proper form; it is therefore considered by this court that the relators take nothing by their motion, and that the same be overruled.'

"It is needless here to depict the chagrin that mantled the expectant Rockinghamers, or the exultant joy that thrilled the Davenport heart, as the decision fell from the lips of this noble Daniel of the law. The town rang out with rejoicing, and an old settler informs ns that some of the ' boys ' didn't get well over the excitement for as much as a day or two, so intense was their en- thusiasm.

" The District Court never adjourned to Rockingham. Mr. Grant took the case up to the higher tribunals, but while it was stew- ing in the court the pluck of the good people of Rockingham gave out; they abandoned the idea of making it the county seat, with- drew all proposals to the county commissioners to build a court- house and jail at their own expense, and so the matter of removal ended forever."

Hon Thomas S. Wilson, the second judge of the district, . was identified with the interests of Iowa before it became a State. While it was a Territory he was appointed one of its judges ; and

317

HISTORY OF SCOTT COUNTY.

there are persons now living who recollect him, with his boyish look, sitting on the bench about 40 years ago. His history pre- sents points of no inconsiderable interest.

He 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, Canonsburg, Pa., and grad- uated 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, Capt. 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 40 years, and has often been the recipient of political honors. It was in 1838, when but 25 years of age, that he received from President Van Buren the appointment of one of the judges of the Supreme Court of the Territory. In June of the same year he was nominated as a candidate for Con- gress 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 dis- trict, and hield the office 10 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 10 years later he married Miss Mary Stokley, a native of Derbyshire, England.

On the admission of Iowa into the Union, and under its first constitution, Scott County formed a part of the second district, together with the counties of Buchanan, Cedar, Clayton, Clinton, Delaware, Dubnque, Fayette, Jackson, Jones and Muscatine. In 1847 Allamakee and Winneshick were added to the distriet, and in 1851 Black Hawk, Bremen, Butler and Grundy.

James Grant, of Scott County, was the first judge of the district, and was elected April 5, 1847, and commissioned April 27.

318

HISTORY OF SCOTT COUNTY.

James Grant was born on a plantation near the village of En- field, Halifax Co., North Carolina, Dec. 13, 1812. His father, James Grant, was the son of James Grant, who belonged to the High- land class of Grante, fought for the Pretender at the battle Cullo- den, and was transported for the good of King George II., with 1,500 others of like rebellious opinions, to the colony of North Caro- lina. His mother, Elizabeth Whitaker Grant, was the danghter of Mat. C. Whitaker, of Halifax County, who emigrated to North Carolina from Warwick Co., Virginia, and who was a lineal de- scendent of the Rev. Alexander Whitaker, an Episcopal min- ister who was one of the first Virginia colonists, and who baptized Pocahontas. Probably the portrait of Alexander Whitaker in the act of baptizing Pocahontas, in the rotunda of the capitol, at Wash- ington, is an imaginary one, but many people think it bears a striking resemblance to the Whitaker family, now very numerous in North Carolina, and which numbers among its meinbers Mat. Whitaker Ransom, a senator from North Carolina, and a son of a sister of James Grant's mother.

James Grant, in size and personal appearance, with a broad fore- head and small features below, bears a marked resemblance to his mother, and from her inherits both mental and physical peculiari- ties. He bears no resemblance to his father, except in certain ex- pressions of the countenance when in repose. His father was a man of large body, six feet high, bony and muscular; he was born to affluence, and was fatherless from his infancy. Like most Southern young men, he was not inured to labor; and without par- ents to gnide him, and possessed of abundance, he studied no pro- fession, followed the business of a planter, and lost his estate from sheer improvidence, before his son was 12 years old.

Judge Grant was the second of eight children. There was nothing peculiar about him in infancy. His first recollection is not unlike the picture we see of the boy in new boots. He remembers when his frock, as it was called, was discarded for breeches. He com- menced going to school the Jannary after he was eight years old. On Monday, before he began, his mother taught him his letters. In 10 months he could spell every word in Walker's dictionary. lIe was precocions. It was no trouble to him to learn, no matter what the study. He would occupy no place in his class but first, and when his lessons were learned no boy was more ready for play. He was always ready to play, to fish, to hunt, to ride. He was never truant from school, or from any duty, but always wanted his

Named Med Poutine

321

HISTORY OF SCOTT COUNTY.

own way. His plays were the amusements of men. He wanted a gun to shoot large game, not birds; to hunt the fox on horse- baek, and not the hare on foot. The schools at which he was taught were called academies, where boys were fitted for college, and where Greek and Latin were tanght, to the exclusion of many studies now properly deemed essential to a common education.

At 13 he was prepared for college, and taken to the university of his native State, at Chapel Hill, to join the freshman class; but he was so small that the venerable president, who had taught his father, advised the latter to retain him at home for two years, then have him join an advanced elass. This advice was followed, and James Grant entered the sophomore class of 1828, having for school-mates, among others, J. D. Hooper, Thomas Owen, Allen and Calvin Jones, Jacob Tompson, Secretary of the Interior under President Buchanan, James M. Williamson, now of Memphis, Ten- nessee. Grant was taken siek in his senior year, and graduated, with a class of 13 others in 1831. As he was not a student for part of the year, the distinetions of the class, the highest of which would have been his, were conferred on Hooper and Calvin Jones.

Young Grant was a diligent student, and still in size a boy, with classmates young men. In the study of mathematies he had no equal, and his teachers pronounced him the best mathematician ever in the college up to that time.

It will be seen that Grant graduated while he was under 1S. After graduating, he taught school three years at Raleigh, and emigrated to the West when he was 21. He is the only one of his class who emigrated to the Northwest, and he emigrated be- cause he hated to live in a slave State.

He reached Illinois in December, 1833, obtained license to prac- tiee law in Jannary, 1834, and settled in Chicago, then a village of 500 inhabitants, in April, 1834.

Shortly after he went to Chicago, a fist-fight about his first client brought him into notice, and he soon acquired reputation in his business. His combativeness has been sobered by age, but it has not left him entirely yet. He remained in Chicago until June, 1838, when he discovered that the lake winds impaired his health, and he emigrated to the Territory of Wisconsin, seleeting Daven- port, in Scott County, for his future home, on the 18th of June, 1838. On the 23d of June Congress created the Territory of Iowa. On the Sth of July, 1839, he married his first wife, Sarah E. IInb.

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HISTORY OF SCOTT COUNTY.

bard, who was born within sound of the waves of Plymouth Rock; and thus the Puritan of Massachusetts and the Cavalier of Virginia were united in the eold country of the Northwest.

His first wife gave birth to a daughter, who died in 1841, and the mother followed her to the grave in 1842.

In Jannary, 1844, he was married to Ada C. Hubbard, who emi- grated from Windsor, Vt., to Scott County. She died in child- birth, in June, 1846, leaving a daughter, who survived her mother a year.

On June 10, 1848, he was married to his present wife, Elizabeth Brown Leonard. She was born Dec. 21, 1825, in the town of Griswold, New London Co., Conn. Her parents were James and Betsy K. (Brown) Leonard. Her father emigrated from Con- necticut with his family in October, 1838. After a long and tedi- ous journey of eight weeks by New York, Philadelphia, Pittsburg, the Ohio River, and St. Louis, they all crossed in safety the great Father of Waters on an ice bridge, from Savannah, Ill., to Charleston (now Sabula), Iowa, the 12th of December, 1838. Sabula was the home of her father, James Leonard, till his death, which ocenrred suddenly at Iowa City, in May, 1845, while a inember of the Legislature, then in session at this place, and was the home of his only daughter (Mrs. Grant) until her marriage in June, 1848.

Judge Grant has met with great success in his profession. In 1834 he was appointed by Governor Joseph Duncan prosecuting attorney for the sixth district of Illinois, comprising all the north part of the State from Chicago to Galena, to Rock Island, Peoria, Hennepin, La Salle, Iroquois. He traveled this cirenit on horse- back, and rode about 3,000 miles a year. In June, 1836, he resigned his office, finding that it interfered with his home business.

When he first emigrated to Iowa, he lived on a farm, near Dav- enport, and was disposed to give up his practice, but his profession would not leave him.

In 1841 he was elected a member of the House of Representatives, of the fourth Iowa Territorial Legislative Assembly, from the distriet . composed of Scott and Clinton Counties, his colleague being Joseph M. Robertson. In 1844 the people of Scott County elected him to represent them, with Andrew W. Campbell and Ebenezer Cook, in the first Constitutional Convention, and in 1846 he was again sent by the people of Scott County as their sole representative to the second Constitutional Convention, and in both sessions he drew up the section embracing the bill of rights.

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HISTORY OF SCOTT COUNTY.

The Legislatures of Territories are apt to have difficulties with an executive appointment by the President. Governor Robert Lueas had his, not only with the Legislature, but with his secretary. Gov- ernor Chambers, a Whig, who sneceeded Lucas, a Democrat, had a refractory council, who could not confirm his appointments, and in 1845 or 1846, when his quarrel with the council was at its height, he met Grant in the Supreme Court room. He knew that Grant though a Democrat, cared nothing for politics, and had no political ambition, and he sent his name to the council for prosecuting attor- ney in his district. The council confirmed the appointment, after rejecting several others, and Grant had to take the office, or offend both governor and council, the former of whom thought he was doing a gracious act, and the latter, that one of their own party ought to accept their confirmation.

After the adoption of the constitution framed in 1847, under which Iowa was admitted into the Union as a State, Grant was elected, April 5, 1847, a judge for the district composed of the counties of Allamakee, Black Hawk, Bremer, Butler, Buchanan, Cedar, Clay- ton, Clinton, Delaware, Dnbuqne, Fayette, Grundy, Jackson, Mus- eatine, Scott, and Winneshiek, and held the office during the term of five years, declining a re-election. But although such a man as Grant can easily decline an office, it is not so easy to put off a title, and that of judge has clung to him ever since his elevation to the bench, and by it we designate him in this sketeh. In 1851 Judge Grant gave life and vigor to the project of the Chieago & Rock Island Railroad, was its first president, and made a contract with Sheffield & Farnum to build it. In 1852, he was again a member of the House of Representatives in the Iowa Legislature from Scott County, with Captain Leroy Dodge as his colleague, and was elected speaker. Since that time he has kept aloof from offiee.

During the years from 1853 till now he has been engaged in the largest and most lucrative practice of any attorney in the North- west, and in 1873 his firm received and realized, in a single law suit, a fee exceeding $100,000.

Ilon. John F. Dillon, ex-Judge of the United States Circuit Court, who, as man and boy, has known Judge Grant from almost the first day of his arrival in Iowa, says of him:

"Judge Grant's life has been given essentially to the law. All out- side of this has been merely aceidental. His political career and his publie services, except those upon the bench, are mere episodes in his life. Although he has kept alive his classical attainments in a degree quite unusual among men who have become eminent

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HISTORY OF SCOTT COUNTY.

in the law, his main energies and his chief studies have been in the line of his profession. By this we do not mean that he has been divorced from the world and closeted in his law library; on the contrary, he has always taken a lively interest in the current events of the day.

" Few men have a better practical knowledge of mechanics and of agriculture, or acquaintance with the wonderful achievements of modern science, than he. If his professional life had been cast in some of the older States or larger cities, his tastes would probably have led him to have made the laws of patents for inventions a special study, and he would have become eminent in it to a re- markable degree.

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History of Scott County, Iowa, Part 29

Author: Inter-state Publishing Company (Chicago, Ill.) Publication date: 1882 Publisher: Chicago, Inter-state publishing co. Number of Pages: 1280

Author: Inter-state Publishing Company (Chicago, Ill.)
Publication date: 1882
Publisher: Chicago, Inter-state publishing co.
Number of Pages: 1280