USA > Iowa > Johnson County > Leading events in Johnson County, Iowa history, biographical > Part 17
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Mr. Schmidt chose for his wife Miss Angusta Strub, a native of lowa City, born December 18, 1863. They have one son, Paul G., who is associated in business with his father. The family residence is at 225 Fairchild street. They are communicants of St. Mary's Catholic church.
Mr. Schmidt takes the liberal view in politics. He is a member of Iowa City lodge No. 590, B. P. O. E., of which he was exalted ruler for the years 1909-10. During his inenm- beney he had the honor of dedicating the new Elks Temple at Iowa City. Mr. Schmidt is also a member of the Knights of Columbus, and was a trustee of the order for six years. He is a member of the German Aid Society, and a charter member of the Iowa City Country Club, in which latter organization he has always held an office. In March, 1911, he was elected alderman from his ward by the largest democratie majority ever given in the second ward.
HISTORY OF JOHNSON COUNTY, IOWA
THEODORE FREDERIC SANXAY
The prominent part which the Sanxay family has taken (still takes, for that matter) in the history of Iowa City and Johnson county may be gathered by the reader from a peru- sal of volume one of this history. One of the distinguished representatives of this family, Theodore Frederic Sanxay, is now and has been for a number of years a resident of New York City. A sketch of his life and activities will properly supplement the reference which has already been made to his family in the preceding volume. Mr. Sanxay has never lost active interest in the old town of his birth. He reckons him- self as one of her sons --- gone out, it is true, to other and per- haps larger fields, but alive with affection for the home scenes and the home faces of the long ago.
Theodore Frederic Sanxay is the eldest son of Theodore Sanxay and Hetty A. Perry, and is of the eighth generation in the line of descent from Pierre Sanxay, Huguenot-pastor of the Reformed church at Saintes, in the old Province of Saint Onge, France, from 1570 to 1576. Our subject was born March 12, 1843, at Iowa City, Iowa. He attended the schools of his native city, including that of Dr. William Reynolds, and finally became one of the students of the State University on its opening. In 1858 he went to Cleveland, Ohio, and attended the Cleveland Institute, situated on University Heights, and, although a new pupil, was selected as the Fourth of July ora- tor of the school on the occasion of the celebration of that day in 1860. He also received private instruction from Professor Carl Ruger, the eminent teacher of the classical languages in that city. In 1861 he entered as a freshman in the Western Reserve college at Hudson, Ohio. Among his classmates were Samuel E. Williamson, who became eminent at the bar of Ohio, and George Trumbull Ladd and Thomas H. Seymour, afterwards distinguished professors at Yale University. The year following Mr. Sanxay entered as a sophomore at Prince- ton University, New Jersey, and graduated therefrom, A. B., in 1864. While at Princeton he was chosen by vote of the stu- dents as junior orator to represent Clio Hall, one of the liter- ary societies, on the junior orator stage at the commencement of 1863. He received the degree of A. M. from Princeton in 1867.
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After his graduation from Princeton, our subject took up the study of law, and after a time spent in Cincinnati as a student in the law office of Vachel Worthington, son-in-law of Judge Jacob Burnet, he left that city for Chicago and entered the office of Walker and Dexter, leading lawyers of that city, the former being counsel for the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railroad Company. Failing to recover his health, impaired by a severe illness during his last term at Princeton, he took a trip to Europe, and returning in the fall of 1864, he entered the law school at Albany, New York, where he continued his studies for two years, during a part of which period William McKinley, the late president, was also there as a student. In 1866 he took his degree of LL.B. and was admitted to practice
OLD SANXAY HOMESTEAD
at the bar of the state of New York ; but he remained one year longer, continuing his studies until 1867. During his stay in Albany his services were utilized for campaign speeches by the republican local committee for that county.
In the spring of 1867 Mr. Sanxay went to the city of New York and entered upon the practice of law, connecting himself with the office of his cousin, the late Skeffington Sanxay, who died shortly thereafter. Mr. Sanxay has been a resident of New York City continuously ever since. He was actively en- gaged in the practice of law in the nation's metropolis for twenty-six years, and until 1893, when by reason of failing health (his health always having been delicate) he was com-
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pelled to relax, and ultimately he retired altogether therefrom. His practice, which he conducted singly, having entered into no partnership relations, was general, covering most of the leading branches of the law. He was especially active in liti- gated business and in the trial of cases. While thus engaged in practice, and especially during the early part of the period aforesaid, he was also active in the duties of citizenship. He engaged in the campaigns as a republican speaker in his home city and New Jersey, and when, about the year 1873, the move- ment was organized to de-Tammany-ize the republican party in the city of New York, by re-enrollment and re-organization pursuant to a resolution of the republican state convention, he entered actively into the movement, and was among the delegates chosen to represent the Twentieth Assembly dis- triet in the re-organized republican county committee - said committee having charge of the management of the republican party in the city of New York. He has always continued to be a republican, though with independent views, which became more pronounced as he withdrew from party activity, his re- tirement being made necessary from the lack of strong health and in view of the exacting demands of professional practice. He has never held or sought a political office.
Since retiring from business activity, Mr. Sanxay has de- voted himself to the management of his private affairs, and to a considerable extent the affairs of others which seemed to fall on him, or which his former practice entailed. He has devoted much study to political questions, for which he has a natural fondness, and is also the author of a historical and genealogical work in which, in connection with the records of his ancestors, and by means of laborious investigations and researches, and by extensive correspondence with Huguenot savants and others in Europe, he has been able to contribute to Huguenot history a hitherto unpublished chapter. Mr. Sanxay has been active in hospital affairs, and has been a member of the board of directors of the New York Ophthalmic Hospital for eighteen years, being now the president of the hospital. He personally drafted and secured the passage by the New York legislature of a law exempting hospital prop- erty from taxation, even though not in use for hospital pur- poses, when the rental income therefrom was necessary for
SAMUEL J. KIRKWOOD
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BIOGRAPHICAL
and used in the maintenance of the hospital and its work. Our subject was connected with the old First Presbyterian church, corner Fifth avenue and Eleventh street, at the time of the pastorate of the late Dr. William M. Paxton, and organized for it a Young People's Association. He was later connected with the Collegiate Dutch Reformed church, Fifth avenue and Forty-eighth street, and for several years was superintendent of its Sunday school.
Mr. Sanxay has traveled considerably, several trips to Enrope being included in his itinerary. He makes annual visits to his old home in Iowa City, in the welfare of which city he retains a feeling of deep interest. He has been a mem- ber of the Union League club of New York for over forty years. He is also a member of the Princeton club of New York, the New York Historical Society, the Huguenot Society of America, Iowa Society of New York, Sons of the American Revolution, and The State Historical Society of Towa. He has never married.
MRS. JANE KIRKWOOD
At the advanced age of ninety years, Jane (Clark) Kirk- wood, widow of Hon. Samuel J. Kirkwood, lowa's honored war governor, and former secretary of the interior under President Garfield, resides in the family mansion at 1028 Kirk- wood avenue, lowa City. It is needless to state that no resi- dent of the University city is more highly esteemed or held in more universal and tender respect by its citizens than this aged reliet of lowa's once foremost citizen. The memory of the stirring days in which she stood by the side of her loyal husband when his heart and brain were ocenpied with affairs of momentons interest to the nation lingers about her head like a halo. A touch of the pathetic past is graven upon her noble face, and the unforgotten visions of the yesterdays of the nation's travail lie in the depths of her tender eyes. Her friends gather about her and esteem her beloved. How could it be otherwise when her life and character compass so much that is priceless in the history of her state and nation ?
Jane (Clark) Kirkwood is the eldest of the two surviving
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HISTORY OF JOHNSON COUNTY, IOWA
daughters of Ichabod Clark and Isabel McQuade, who were married in Washington county, Pennsylvania, in 1812. She was born September 1, 1821, in Richland county, Ohio. Her surviving sister is Mrs. Joseph Jewett, born in October, 1826. Ichabod Clark and wife, soon after their marriage, moved to Richland county, Ohio, where the father resided until his death at the age of sixty-three. He was a farmer and a miller, and a veteran in the War of 1812. After the death of her husband, Mrs. Clark (in 1854) removed to Johnson county, Iowa, and located at Iowa City, where she died at the age of seventy-six. She was the mother of ten children. Jane (Mrs. Kirkwood) was educated in Richland county, Ohio, and at- tended the Seminary at Grantville. She was a school teacher for a few summers in her old home county. On the 27th of December, 1843, she was married to Samuel J. Kirkwood, then a young man of thirty, just beginning the practice of law at Mansfield, Ohio. With her husband she removed to Iowa in 1855. The historic mansion in which she now resides was built in 1864. Mrs. Kirkwood recalls that one of her first tasks after her marriage was the weaving of a carpet with her own hands, the wool for which she had herself spun and had dyed. Soon after her marriage she united with the Methodist Epis- copal church, of which she has been a consistent and useful member all these nearly seventy years.
GOVERNOR SAMUEL J. KIRKWOOD was of Scotch- Irish descent. His grandfather, Robert Kirkwood, was born in the north of Ireland, and came with his widowed mother to America in 1731. The mother settled in New Castle, Delaware, where Robert grew to man's estate and became the father of five sons and one daughter, the youngest of the sons, Jabez, being the father of Samuel Jordan Kirkwood, our subject. A former biographical sketch of Governor Kirkwood recites that "Captain Robert Kirkwood (a cousin of the aforesaid Robert) was a valiant soldier in the Revolution. He was successively in the battles of Long Island, Trenton, Camden, Eutaw Springs, Ninety-six, and Hobkirk's Hill. The regiment to which he belonged was so badly reduced in the latter battle, that only enough for one company was left, when it was re- organized as a single company and its command given to Cap- tain Kirkwood. For his valor and meritorious services, he was
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advanced by General Washington from a captaincy to the office of Brigadier-General, without filling any intervening office. He was killed in the battle between St. Clair's troops and the Indians on the Wabash in 1791, in a bayonet charge against the enemy."
Jabez Kirkwood was born in Harford county, Maryland, in the year 1776, and he married for his second wife a widow, Mrs. Wallace, whose maiden name was Mary Alexander, who was born in Scotland. One of the fruits of this second marriage was Samuel Jordan, who was born in Harford coun- ty, Maryland, December 20, 1813. Ilis father was both a farmer and a blacksmith, and, like most of the Kirkwoods of that time, was a man of more than ordinary ability, and took a leading and active part in affairs of both church and state. Samuel's education was begun at a very early age, as there was a log school house on his father's farm, and so apt was he that he cannot remember when he could not repeat the multi- plication table, and he was always in advance of the scholars of his years. At the age of ten he went to Washington City and entered a school kept by John McCloud, in which his half- brother, Robert, an excellent classical scholar, was an assist- ant teacher. After spending four years in this school he en- tered a drug store as clerk, and a year afterwards, at the age of seventeen, went to Pennsylvania and engaged in school teaching. At the close of several terms of teaching he re- turned to Washington, and spent two years as clerk in the drug store of his brother Wallace. Then returning home, he spent a year in completing his classical studies.
In 1835, when he was twenty-one years of age, his father removed to Richland county, Ohio, and there opened a farm in the wilderness. Samuel worked on this farm in the summer and in the winter taught school. In the year 1840, as deputy assessor, he did the work of assessing thirteen townships in the county. Then he engaged for a year as clerk in a store and tavern kept by his principal. Relinquishing this, at the age of twenty-eight. he went to Mansfield, entered the law office of Judge T. W. Bartley, and commenced a two years' study of the law, being afterward admitted to the bar. He spent twelve years in practice at Mansfield, being in 1850 elected a member of the Constitutional convention to revise
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HISTORY OF JOHNSON COUNTY, IOWA
the constitution of Ohio. In the deliberations of this body he took an active part, and though it was composed of some of the ablest men Ohio then possessed, he took a prominent po- sition among them. During his law practice he was engaged in an important murder trial, in which were employed as oppos- ing counsel Thomas Ewing and Columbus Delano. It is a remarkable coincidence that these three men. Kirkwood, Ewing, and Delano, were afterwards in presidential cabinets, each as secretary of the interior.
In 1855 Mr. Kirkwood abandoned the practice of law, bade good-by to Ohio, and joined the then surging throngs that in vast numbers were seeking new homes on the fertile soil and
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RESIDENCE OF MRS. JANE KIRK WOOD
in the genial clime of Iowa. On his arrival in Iowa City, he entered into partnership with his brother-in-law, Hon. Ezekiel Clark, and engaged in the farming, milling and merchandise business. The firm owned a large farm of twelve hundred acres, and a large grist and flouring mill at Coralville, on the lowa river, about two miles above lowa City. Their store was located in the latter city.
Though in early years a democrat. the repeal of the Mis- souri Compromise and accompanying legislation drove Mr. Kirkwood out of that party, and though avoiding rather than seeking political preferment, the republicans of the senatorial district composed of Johnson and Iowa counties, in 1856, sent
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BIOGRAPHICAL
him to the state senate for a term of two years, and soon after its close, in 1859, he was nominated by the republicans for governor. He made a canvass of the state with his competi- tor, Hon. A. C. Dodge, in one of the most memorable political contests over held in the state, they both alternately address- ing the same audiences from the same rostrum. Mr. Kirkwood was elected by three thousand majority. During his first year as governor, he had a controversy with Governor Letcher, of Virginia, in regard to the return to that state of Barclay Cop- poc, one of John Brown's men engaged in the raid on Harper's Ferry. The requisition was defective, and Coppoc was not returned. During the second year of his first term, the Civil War broke out, and from that time until the close of his sec- ond term as governor, he was the busiest and hardest worked man in the state of Iowa.
When the call was made on him for a regiment of men for United States service, it was found that the state had com- paratively no complete military organization (a few com- panies only), no arms, no funds, and but little credit. He went to the state banks and on his own individual responsi- bility borrowed money by the tens of thousands of dollars to raise arms and equip the troops, and before the close of his second term raised and sent to the front without draft all the troops called for. No man ever looked after the welfare of his own children with more interest and untiring zeal than did he after the welfare of the lowa soldiers, from the time they were mustered into the service until they were mustered ont and returned to their homes. Mr. Kirkwood was one of the body of loya! governors that held a consultation at Altoona, Pennsylvania, in September, 1862, to consult in regard to a more vigorous prosecution of the war, and these governors presented their views to the president, visiting him in person, Governor Kirkwood being one of the speakers on that occa- sion.
Before the close of the second gubernatorial term he was offered the position of minister to Denmark by President Lin- coln, and though he at first hesitated to accept it, the appoint- ment was held several months for his acceptance, when, owing to the pressure of other duties, he finally declined it. In 1866 he was elected to fill the unexpired term of Senator Harlan in
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HISTORY OF JOHNSON COUNTY, IOWA
the United States senate. Soon after the expiration of his term in the senate he was elected to the presidency of the leading bank in Iowa City, and when the Iowa City National bank was organized he became its president and held the office for several years.
In 1875 Mr. Kirkwood was again elected governor of the state by a majority of over thirty thousand. Before the close of his last term he was reelected to a seat in the United States senate. On the 21st of January, 1879, he made in the senate a speech on the army appropriation bill, in which he discussed the relative powers of the states and the general government. This speech received the commendation of members of both parties in the senate, and was favorably commented upon by the leading papers of the country, and especially by the New York Tribune. In no speech ever made in the senate was this question more ably discussed, or the relations of the states to the general government more clearly stated and delineated.
In forming his cabinet, President Garfield gave to Governor Kirkwood the position of secretary of the interior, an office which he held until the April succeeding the President's death, when he resigned and retired from official and political life, but he was recalled to lead a forlorn hope in the race for congress on the republican ticket in 1886, when there were two other candidates, democratic and union labor, in the field, and in which the democrat, Judge Hayes, was elected.
The governor was always a great friend to both common school and higher education, having served many years on the school board of his own township, on the board of regents of the State University, and as a trustee of the State Agricul- tural college. He never shirked any public duty which the people called him to perform, filling even the humble office of road supervisor in his road district, after serving in the United States senate.
Perhaps the proudest and happiest time of the governor's life was when, on one of the balmy days of September, 1892, a party of some thirty of his old friends and former associates in political and official life, of both parties, including judges and ex-judges of the supreme and district courts, ex-gover- nors, ex-members of congress, ex-state officers, ex-army offi- cers and others, made him a call and spent a social afternoon
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BIOGRAPHICAL
in his house and on his lawn, and when a score or more of his friends sent their regrets at not being able to be present. No event could have happened that would have shown more em- phatically the esteem in which he was held in his declining years than this.
Governor Kirkwood was an American prince of the royal blood, and whether in the overalls of the rusty farmer, the dusty coat of the country miller, filling the office of governor, sitting in the United States senate, or performing the duties of cabinet minister, he has always belonged to the nobility of American manhood. To his widow, sitting in the mellow rays of life's glorious sunset, the loyal sons and daughters of Iowa offer affectionate salute. Theirs is the heritage of his glo- rious career ; theirs the pride of her dower of honor. Who can doubt that in the resplendent courts of Tomorrow her knight and lover awaits the coming of his bride of Yesterday?
CALVIN WILLIAMSON
When three years of age, Calvin Williamson, a fatherless boy, made the trip from Pennsylvania to Missouri, and passed under the care of an uncle. Two years later he accompanied that uncle and his family to Johnson county and has resided here ever since. He is now a man of sixty-six, a retired far- mer, living in Iowa City, well off in this world's goods and has a wife and three children, all married and doing well. It is the old, old story of a life devoted to an honest purpose crowned with success in the fruitful fields of the great com- monwealth of Iowa.
Mr. Williamson was born in Somerset county, Pennsyl- vania, May 6, 1845. His parents were David and Commilla (Shaver) Williamson, the former a native of Connecticut and the latter of Pennsylvania. The father died when our subject was an infant, and the little boy passed into the custody of the uncle aforementioned. His education was received in the country schools. When twenty-one years of age he began farming for himself. That was in 1866, and one year later he bought a farm in Washington township. Indefatigable in- dustry and frugality have enabled him to increase 'his hold-
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HISTORY OF JOHNSON COUNTY, IOWA
ings, so that his realty possessions in Johnson county are at this writing of considerable proportions. In 1898 he retired from active business and removed to Iowa City, where he now resides.
His marriage to Miss Matilda Fry took place in 1870. Miss Fry was born in Johnson county January 13, 1848. Her father was a native of Pennsylvania and her mother of Ohio. They were pioneers of Johnson county, having settled here in the thirties. Both reached a ripe old age. Father Fry dying at the age of ninety-four and his wife at eighty-four.
RESIDENCE OF CALVIN WILLIAMSON
Mr. and Mrs. Williamson have three children: Samuel, born October 15, 1875, is married and resides on a farm in Johnson county; Ralph C., born August 3, 1878, is a lawyer, practicing at Davenport, lowa : Nellie, horn October 22, 1880, is married and living in Franklin county, Iowa.
Mr. Williamson is a republican. His life has been an open book, with no blotted pages. His many friends hold him in respectful esteem, and he is accounted one of the substantial citizens of the county.
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BIOGRAPHICAL
FRED W. KEMMERLE
Fred W. Kemmerle has become widely known throughout Iowa as the president of the Iowa Brewing Company. He is well known as a free-handed, open-hearted man, ever ready to help the needy, and public spirited to a degree. He entered the brewing business at Aurora, Illinois, at the age of twenty- one years, and that has been his chosen occupation ever since. The power of his personality and his ability as a business man are demonstrated in the large manufacturing enterprise of which he is the head.
Mr. Kemmerle was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. November 24, 1871. His parents, Chris, and Catherine Kem- merle, were natives of Germany, and came to America in 1861.
RESIDENCE OF FRED W. KEMMERLE
settling at Philadelphia. In 1876 they went westward to Au- rora, Illinois, where they died, the father in 1892 and the mother in 1896. Chris. Kemmerle was engaged in the mer- cantile business. Fred W., as stated before, began the brew. ery trade at Ancora in his twenty-first year. He continued in that business in the same city for ten years, when he came to Iowa City. Brewing has been his occupation ever since.
In 1895 Mr. Kemmerle was married to Miss Anna Wis- brook, a native of Aurora, Illinois, whose parents were natives of Germany. They have two children : Hazel, born December 19, 1897, and Irene, born May 4, 1899. The family residence is at 214 Church street.
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HISTORY OF JOHNSON COUNTY, IOWA
WIOT R. HINKLEY
The New York family of Hinkleys has a worthy descendant in the person of Wiot R., son of Samuel Hinkley and Adaline Perkins, who was born in Johnson county, Iowa, December 14, 1866. Samuel Hinkley was a native of Madison county, New York, and came to Johnson county in 1855 in company with his brother, Henry L., where he settled on a farm in Fremont township. There he lived until his death, January 30, 1908, at the age of eighty-nine years. His wife is still living. (For a more complete account of the ancestry and activities of the Hinkley family, see the biography of Henry Luther Hinkley, published elsewhere in this volume - EDITOR. )
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