Memorial and biographical record of Iowa, Part 187

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Publication date: 1896
Publisher: Chicago : Lewis Pub. Co.
Number of Pages: 1360

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Jacob Julius Wohlwend was born in Baden, Germany, February 19, 1839, son of Martin and Catharina Wohlwend, both natives of Ger- many. Three children, two sons and a daugh- ter, composed their family, and one of the sons is now deceased. The daughter, Catharina, is the widow of Kasper Schied and lives in Bur- lington. Their father was a forester in Ger- many, and was a participant in the war in that country known as the Revolution of 1848. In 1853 he emigrated with his family to America, took up his abode in. Keokuk, Iowa, and in that city passed the rest of his life, dying there in 1867 at the age of sixty-seven years. His wife died in 1859. They were Lutherans.

Judge Wohlwend, the subject of our sketch,

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was fourteen years of age at the time he crossed the Atlantic with his parents and made settle- ment in Keokuk. In his native land he had received a fair schooling, and the year follow- ing his arrival in Iowa he began learning the printer's trade in the Gate City office. He has been a printer and publisher constantly since then until 1894, with the exception of a short time during the war, when he was with the Mississippi flotilla. From 1853 to 1872 he made Keokuk his home, and since 1872, as already stated, he has resided at Burlington. He established the Keokuk Telegraph, which he published for a number of years, or until his removal to this place, and here he was at first foreman on the Iowa Tribune, a German paper; and he also worked on the Hawkeye. In 1879 he purchased the Iowa Tribune, and ran it from 1880 until 1887, when he sold out and opened up a job printing office, the latter being conducted in partnership with his sons.

February 8, 1859, Mr. Wohlwend was united in marriage to Miss Rosa Schied, daugh- ter of John and Barbara (Smith) Schied; and with the passing years sons and daughters to the number of nine came to brighten their home, their names being William J., Edward F., Charles C., George Martin, Henry, Julia, Emma, Mina and Clara. William J. is now foreman of the Hawkeye. He married Miss Emma Waldsmith, and they have four chil- dren. Edward F. married Miss Christina Loesch; he also is a printer. Charles is a traveling man; he married Miss Nellie Leh- mann. The other sons are printers, and are still members of the home circle.

While not members of any church, Mr. and Mrs. Wohlwend give their preference to the Lutheran faith and attend worship at this church. He is a member of the A. O. U. W. and also of the Printers' Union; and his polit- ical support is given to the Democratic party. By this party he was in 1894 elected to the office he is now ably filling, that of Police Judge.

His residence is at No. 21 1 Garfield avenue, Burlington.

J UDGE GEORGE G. WRIGHT .- The name of this gentleman stands out in bold relief against the background of Iowa's illustrious pioneers, many of whom will go down to posterity as great in the nation's annals as in the record and traditions of this proud prairie State. Iowa justly boasts of able statesmen, just judges and fluent ora- tors; of faithful, conscientious lawgivers, ad- vanced educators and popular lecturers; of zealous promoters of the agricultural industries of the State; of eloquent platform speakers, charming after-dinner talkers and upright, suc- cessful business men; but probably no other possesses all these qualifications combined to such a degree as does the subject of this sketch. His great versatility of talent has enabled him to fill the multifarious positions in public life to which he has been called with great credit to himself and the commendation of his friends, which term probably comes, in his case, as near to including all who knew him as is ever the case with a living man.

Little, rock-ribbed Wales, so many of whose children are naturally gifted with ora- tory and song, was the home of his ancestry. His native State was Indiana, whose early in- habitants had a struggle against miasmatic influences, perhaps not overdrawn in Dickens' portrayal of the experiences of Martin Chuzzle- wit and Mark Tapley, and who may have been by those very vicissitudes of hardship, home- sickness and the leaden weight of malarial dis- eases, remarkably strengthened in their love for one another and the homes they wrung from the wilderness in the face of such diffi- culties. At any rate, certain it is that the temperament for humorous and poetic speech, logic and impassioned oratory, with intense love of home and family, and a feeling for all social and domestic ties, are characteristic of this honored citizen of Iowa. Something of all this appears in his very lineaments, and the State is fortunate in possessing, in the portrait which hangs in the Supreme Court room at the capitol, a likeness which will convey to coming generations, if they have insight, a

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glimpse of the personal qualities which en- deared this eminent inan to his contempo- raries.

As has been intimated, Judge Wright's par- ents were of Welsh stock. To them were born nine children, five sons and four daugh- ters, of whom one son died in infancy. The father of the family died when the subject of this sketch was but five years old, leaving a widow with six children at home dependent upon her and her small estate. It often hap- pens that within such narrow limits the heroic discipline was received and the heroic heart awakened which fit one for the highest walks of life. Of that houseful of children the Judge and two sisters remain.

George G. Wright was born in Blooming- ton, Indiana, on the 24th of March, 1820. A lameness, resulting from rheumatism, early cut him off from the more active sports of boy- hood, but did not cause him to fall into idle moping. He was a diligent student, and was graduated at the Indiana State University with high honors at the age of nineteen. Each county in Indiana had the privilege of sending two worthy and prominent students to the State University tuition free. These chosen · sons were denominated by the other students "charity scholars," and Judge Wright was one of these.

Upon receiving his degree, the future Judge entered upon the study of law in his brother's office, in 1839. The brother, Joseph A. Wright, in whose office young George acquired the beginning of his legal lore and erudition, became a very eminent man in his State, serv- ing in the House of Representatives, in Con- gress and as Governor of Indiana; afterward as Minister to Berlin, United States Senator, and again Minister to Berlin, where he died in 1867.

Judge Wright attained his manhood in this State, having settled in the then new Territory of Iowa, November 14, 1840. He was elected Prosecuting Attorney of Van Buren county in the first year of his stay here, from which post he stepped into the State Senate in 1848. In

1855 he was made Chief Justice of Iowa, and was almost continuously upon that bench until 1870. In January of the last year he was elected to the United States Senate, taking his seat there in March, 1871. For six years he was a member of that branch of our national council, serving on the committees on finance and judiciary, and was chairman of the com- mittee on claims and of the committee on re- trenchment and reformn. He declined re-elec- tion in 1876.

Judge Wright was five years president of the State Agricultural Society, and served the Van Buren Agricultural Society in the same capacity a like term, after having been its first secretary in 1842. He was one of the organ- izers of the present law department of the State University in 1865, since which time he has always been more or less connected with it as a lecturer and instructor. It is to be hoped he has been able to indelibly impress his high ideal of moral and professional recti- tude upon the young law students who held him in such high and affectionate regard, and with whom he is so popular as a lecturer. He did not, however, restrict his labors in that line entirely to that institution. In the midst of his busy professional and political life he has responded so far as possible to every de- mand on his time and powers. He has de- livered lectures on many topics in a majority of the counties of the State, before colleges, universities, agricultural associations, in the interest of schools, churches, libraries and all kinds of benevolent organizations.

In the unstudied utterances thrown off at a moment's call, Judge Wright is particularly happy. On one occasion, hurried to a ban- quet without time to prepare his regular toilet, his daughter being with him, expressed regret to a friend that he must go in his well-worn business suit, thinking they were almost cer- tain to call on him for a toast or a response. Sure enough he was called up to respond to some sentiment, and, as usual, the bursts of laughter his gay sallies of wit evoked were quenched in the tears his pathos drew forth so

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. readily and the tears in their' turn evaporated in humorous smiles. As they were preparing to return, the daughter, while caressing his arm, was heard to say, "Father, I was not ashamed of the old coat, I was so proud of the man inside it."

Judge Wright is President of the Iowa Pio- neer Lawmakers' Association, now serving his third term. The recognition of his eminence as a jurist in the nation at large was shown in his election to the presidency of the American Bar Association in 1887 and 1888. As a lead- ing young attorney Judge Wright practiced throughout the Des Moines Valley, giving and taking hard blows from 1840 until 1855, and with his " honors thick upon him " returned to the bar in 1877, at his home in Des Moines. Five years later he accepted the presidency of the Polk County Savings Bank, and continues to occupy his office and chair in both with the utmost regularity.

On the 19th of October, 1843, Mr. Wright was married to Hannah M. Dibble, daughter of Judge Thomas Dibble, who was at one time a member of the New York Legislature and in 1846 of the Constitutional Convention of Iowa. This union was blessed with seven children, five sons and two daughters. One son died in his 'teens; the others reached maturity, mar- ried and all but one are living.

Active as Judge Wright was during all the war period, when Iowa almost stripped herself of able-bodied men to fight her country's bat- tles, it was entirely out of the question for him to go personally to the front, but he gave a gal- lant soldier to the Union Army in the person of his eldest born, who attained his majority just about the end of the Civil war, and whose recent sudden death, while it seemed so un- timely, yet was the earthly close of a life remarkably full and rounded. The golden wedding of the parents last autumnn was the silver wedding of this eldest son and wife. The silver circlet is now prematurely severed, but the golden band of the pioneer wedding still endures.

Of religious faith, the foundation and crown

of a perfectly symmetrical character, the stanzas Judge Wright read at Governor Kirk- wood's funeral speak, voicing a recognition of the Omnipotent Hand, which touches with love and power the course of national and in- dividual life, weaving all into a wondrous tapestry. The obstacles which beset Judge Wright's pathway were many. Poor, lame and fatherless, but with indomitable will and perseverance, he attained to the most exalted positions in this great State, and furnished an object lesson for all boys of what can be ac- complished in America, unless energy fail.

Since the above sketch was written Judge Wright has been called away, the " Omnipo- tent Hand," of which he wrote, has been laid upon him, and the "golden band of the pioneer wedding " has been severed. In the different organizations with which he was con- nected, the public gatherings where he was wont to be seen in social life and in business circles, he is missed, but more than all in that home, where the true, kindly, noble character of the man was best known. His history is largely that of the history of the State. There is no one who figures more honorably or prom- inently in the public affairs of Iowa, which go. to form its annals; and though the friends who knew him find him no more among them in person he lives in their memory, and his work remains in the formation of one of the most important States in the Mississippi valley.

ENERAL ED WRIGHT was one of the most prominent and honored fig- ures in Iowa's history, a man whose superior ability and genuine worth made him a leader among his fellow men and gained him the honor and deference which the American people-recognizing no titles-in- stinctively pay to higher mental power and irreproachable character. There are few men whose lives are crowned with the respect which was universally accorded him, but through

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more than forty years' connection with Iowa his was an unblemished character. With him success in life was reached by his sterling qualities of mind and heart. True to every manly principle, he never deviated from what his judgment indicated to be right and honora- ble between his fellow men and himself. He passed away December 6, 1895, but the mem- ory of his noble life remains as an inspiration to all who knew him.

General Wright was born in Columbiana county, Ohio, near the city of Salem, June 27, 1827, and is a son of James and Mary (Hinch- man) Wright, the former a native of Virginia and the latter of New Jersey. The father was a farmer by occupation, and died in Stark county, Ohio, in 1855, at the age of about fifty-five years. His wife survived him until 1884, passing away at the age of eighty. Their family numbered six children, four sons and two daughters, namely: General Ed; Eliza, deceased wife of James C. Crocker, of Salem, Ohio; Lot; and Lavinia, widow of William Ullery. The paternal grandfather, Joseph Wright, was a native of Greenbrier county, Virginia, and also made farming his life work. He served as a soldier in the war · of 1812, reared a family of five sons and four daughters, and spent his entire life in the Old Dominion. He was a man of powerful phy- sique, being six feet four inches in height, and weighing 240 pounds. He was never ill in his life until after he had reached the age of sixty years! He had a very jovial, genial disposi- tion, with a strong vein of humor. The ma- ternal grandfather, Henry Hinchman, was born near Salem, New Jersey, carried on agricul- tural pursuits, and died in middle life.

The childhood and youth of General Wright were passed in Columbiana and Wright coun- ties, Ohio, and the district schools of the neighborhood afforded him his educational priv- ileges. There was nothing in his early sur- roundings to indicate the prominent position to which he would one day attain; in fact, like many of the most noted men of the na- tion, his was the quiet life of the farmer boy.

He spent a short term at the Atwater Academy and then engaged in teaching school through the winter seasons until 1849, spending the summers of 1846 and *1847 in learning the trade of carpenter and millwright. He was married in 1848 to Miss Martha Thompson, a lady of good education and unusual good sense and intelligence, who is remembered with great kindness and respect by many people of Cedar county and the city of Des Moines. After his marriage General Wright engaged in the milling business at his old home until 1852, when he emigrated to Iowa, locating in Cedar county. The record of his life from now on can probably best be told in the words of Charles Aldrich, one of his most intimate friends, who wrote the following before the death of the General:

" In the autumn of 1855." wrote Mr. Al- drich, "the people of Cedar county elected to a seat in the Legislature a young farmer, who, during the intervening thirty-nine years, has come to be one of the best-known men in our State. It was but a few weeks after that body opened its memorable last session in Iowa City before the people of Iowa began to hear of Ed Wright, and they have known him well and in many useful ca- pacities from that time until now. Few men anywhere have been more continuously in office, and yet there is nothing in his charac- ter or in his daily walk of conversation to sug- gest or countenance the idea that he is an office-seeker. There is nothing demonstra- tive in his action or methods. His ways are very quiet, his manner eminently genial and pleasing, as becomes a man with Quaker an- cestry. Any idea of management or acting for effect is wholly foreign to his nature or to a fair understanding of the man. Moreover, no one is more outspoken or positive in the ex- pression of his opinions. None of his utter- ances are of a doubtful nature or admit of dubious constructions. But he has, in all these years, been in active politics and alınost continuously in public office. There must be some reason unusual and extraordinary for such

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a successful career. But to those who know him intimately and well there is no fog or mystery connected with his success. One simple rule has governed his course through life, and that is to do well and with all his might whatever his hands found to do. The belief in his integrity, and that he is a per- fectly safe and always judicious and reliable man-adequate to the performance of any task he would undertake or any responsibility that he would assume- is universal. The man to whom that kind of a reputation seems to attach itself as a natural sequence, to be part and parcel of his make-up, and who possesses the equally rare gift of contentedly biding his time, is pretty apt to be in demand, -to be wanted. He will stand like a pillar in a community while even greater men will fall by the way- side, -' die and make so sign.'

" When he took his seat in the Legislature the first subject to which he gave his attention was that of parliamentary law and the rules of the House. There were plenty of old, profes - sional, cultured men in that body, -men who, like Colonel Crockett, could speak eloquently upon any occasion or upon none whatever! but in a very short time Ed Wright possessed a better knowledge of the rules of procedure governing deliberative bodies than all the old stagers combined. When knotty questions arose during his long legislative career, even speakers would appeal to him to straighten out the kinks. He was listened to as one who spoke by authority, and he generally had his finger upon the section or clause in Cushing's great manual of parliamentary law which ren- dered his position unassailable. He easily acquired the confidence of everybody, -those with whom he was associated intimately as well as the public at large. When he was once chairman of the committee on claims, he personally acquainted himself with the merits of every account brought against the State. If he recommended or opposed the payment of a claim, that settled its fate at once and finally.

" But with all his great but quiet popu- larity, General Wright is far from being an

easy-going person, without opinions or prej- udices. He is one who does his own think- ing. He has never been any man's man. In fact, he has at times provoked the deepest hos- tility in influential quarters because he would submit to no domination. His standard of justice and right is his own, and from this mere outside influence never swerves him; and now, at the age of nearly sixty-eight years, and close upon the time when the infirmities of years and the exposure of a soldier's life will necessitate his abstention from all respon- sibility and care, he is still in the harness at a post of arduous duty to which he was called because his services were needed, looking as carefully after every detail and as scrupulously guarding the public interests as at any time in his long, laborious and most useful career. " In 1862 he was commissioned Major of the

Twenty-fourth-Methodist-Regiment of Iowa Volunteer Infantry, serving until the close of the war. He participated in the memorable battles of Champion Hills, Port Gibson, Win- chester, Fisher's Hill and Cedar Creek. He was severely wounded at Champion Hills, and slightly at Cedar Creek. At Winchester his favorite horse, " Old Jack," was killed under him by a solid cannon-shot, while he sat upon his back hurrying to the front with a box of cartridges. When the old horse fell the Major shouldered the box and hurried to the ad- vanced line, where the cartridges were badly needed. He won the reputation of a brave, efficient, vigilant, steady, resourceful officer, and was there, as everywhere, a favorite with whom he associated. Returning from the war with the rank of Lieutenant Colonel and the brevet of Brigadier General, he resumed his vocation as a Cedar county farmer. A veteran of the war, he is of course connected with the Grand Army of the Republic, and now belongs to Kinsman Post, No. 7.

* "In the autumn of 1865 General Wright was again chosen to the Iowa House of Rep- resentatives and elected Speaker. He was a very successful presiding officer- the equal of any man who has ever occupied the position

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in our State-and the superior of most of them. I was that winter Clerk of the House, and I do not recall an instance in which he was disconcerted or 'rattled' for a single mno- ment. He was thoroughly informed on every point of parliamentary law and kept the House and himself well in hand. In the autumn of 1866 he was elected Secretary of State, which distinguished position he held six years. In this, as in every other place to which he has been called, he won the most universal com- mendation. Retiring to private life in Janu- ary, 1873, he was chosen Secretary of the Board of Capitol Commissioners and assistant superintendent of construction, serving until 1884, when he became custodian of the new edifice. This is a laborious position, requiring a man of good business habits, who, to be prac- tical and efficient, should come very near being a 'jack of all trades.' General Wright dis- charged his duties so satisfactorily that he was reappointed for each succeeding biennial pe- riod, as a matter of course, until the election of Governor Horace Boies. He was then suc- ceeded by a Democrat.

" The executive council, almost immedi- ately after he was relieved from the duties of custodian of the building, placed him in charge of the improvement of the capitol grounds, for which the Legislature had made an appropria- tion of $100,000. He served until the follow- ing winter, securing plans for the work and getting it fairly commenced. He then resigned, recommending that the engineer who had been in his employ should be placed in charge of the work, which suggestion was adopted by the executive council.

" When the Columbian Fair was in prog- ress a chief of the bureau of information was needed-and who so well qualified as General Ed Wright ? If he did not have an answer at his tongue's end he knew where to find it promptly. He was sent for to take this place, remaining until the close of the fair, and as usual winning 'golden opinions ' from his large and hourly-changing constituency. In April, 1895, he was appointed a member of the board 75

of public works of the city of Des Moines," which place he occupied until his death.

General and Mrs. Wright had four chil- dren, a son and three daughters, but Asenath and Frank died in early childhood. Celia is the widow of Pitt D. Cleveland and has two children, Edna and George Wright. The other daughter is Flora, who lived with the General at their pleasant home at No. 721 Locust street. Mrs. Wright, who was a member of the Methodist Church, died in 1877.

LBERT EVERETT JACKSON, cash- ier and stockholder of the Farmers and Merchants' Bank of Tama, and one of the successful young business men and prominent citizens of Tama county, was born in Wabash, Indiana, September 23, 1860. His father, Andrew Jackson, was born in Madison county, of the same State, October 21, 1833, and his parents were Samuel and Sarah ( Wood) Jackson, natives of North Carolina. He spent his early life on his father's farm, and acquired his education in the common schools of his native State. In 1850 the family removed to Wabash county, Indiana, and in 1855 he started for Tama county, Iowa, where he arrived on the 3d of June. Soon, however, he returned to his native State to make preparations for a permanent location in this region. The winter of 1855-6 he passed in Toledo, and in the spring he rented land near that town. . In 1858 he removed to Missouri, afterward again went to Indiana, but in 1861 once more settled in Tama county. Three years later he purchased a farm in Indi- an Village township, and successfully carried on agricultural pursuits and stock-raising. From 1870 until 1875 he was engaged in ship- ping shorthorn cattle from Kentucky to Tama county, and then purchased 240 acres of land near Tama city, although retaining the posses- sion of his farın in Indian Village township, which had been increased to 400 acres. He now became largely engaged in shipping cattle to the West, and as a member of the firm of

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Jesse Harris & Company, in 1885 he became owner of a horse ranch in Colorado, the firm importing a number of horses from England and Scotland. In 1889 Mr. Jackson pur- chased the business block formerly owned by the Bank of Tama, and established the Farm- ers and Merchants' Bank, of which he is now president. He is a most enterprising and pro- gressive business man, firm of purpose, and carries forward to successful completion what- ever he undertakes.

In 1855 Mr. Jackson was united in mar- riage with Miss Elizabeth Quick, and to them were born eleven children, of whom eight reached years of maturity, namely: Monroe, Mary, Albert E., Emma, wife of L. I. Carson; Wilbur; Eva and Effie, twins; and Charles.

Albert Everett Jackson, whose name in- troduces this review, is one of the well-known residents of Tama county and a worthy rep- resentative of its banking interests. He was a child of only two years when his parents lo- cated on the farm in Toledo township. Through his childhood and youth he became familiar with the life of an agriculturist, its duties and its pleasures. He was graduated at the high school of Tama, and subsequently took a three-years course in the Iowa State University, of Iowa City, but on account of ill health was forced to leave that institution, in 1882, shortly before his graduation. Subse- quently he served as Deputy Recorder of Tama county, and then became numbered among the able educators of this community. For two years he taught school in Tama and Cherokee counties, and subsequently in Afton, Iowa, then joined his father in the live-stock busi- ness.

In 1885 Mr. Jackson went to Colorado, where they owned a horse ranch, and for about a year had charge of the business there, in- porting horses from England and Scotland, as a member of the firm of Jesse Harris & Com- pany. While thus engaged he secured an ap- pointment in the railway mail service, in which he continued during President Cleveland's first administration, having charge of the Tama &

Hawarden (Iowa) railway post-office. Upon his father's purchase of the Bank of Tama, and the establishment of the Farmers and Merchants' Bank, he joined the new enter- prise, and has since been its efficient cashier. The bank now has a capital of $20,000, and is doing a constantly increasing business. It is recognized as one of the solid financial institu- tions of the county, being conducted on sound business principles which command the con- fidence and support of all.

In 1886 Mr. Jackson was united in marriage with Miss Mabel Bowen, daughter of Webster and Esther Bowen, the former being a farmer and nurseryman. Mrs. Jackson was born in Marshall county, Iowa, and was educated in the Marshalltown high school. Three chil- dren grace their marriage, all daughters, name- ly: Helen Hunt, Marjory and Elois.

In connection with his other business inter- ests, Mr. Jackson is a member of the L. I. Parson Company, and the J. & C. Land & In- vestment Company. Ir his political connec- tions Mr. Jackson is a Democrat. He has served as school and district treasurer for sev- eral years, and when only twenty-one years of age he was nominated by his party as the can- didate for County Superintendent of Schools. Although the county has a strong Republican majority, he missed the election by only six- teen votes. He is now the nominee of the Democracy for the office of Representative to the State Legislature. He is unswerving in his support of Democratic principles, and no one is at a loss to know to which party his allegiance is given. For several years he has been a member of the county Democratic cen- tral committee, and has served as delegate to the State conventions.

Socially, Mr. Jackson is a valued member of Hiram of Tyre Lodge, No. 203, F. & A. M., and also belongs to Damascus Lodge, No. 237, K. of P., of which he is now serving as Chancellor Commander.

He is a very popular citizen, of genial manner, social disposition, and generous nature. He has thus won the high regard of all with

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whom he has come in contact, and has a large circle of friends who hold him in high regard. As a business man he is wide-awake and ener- getic, making the most of the opportunities

with which he is surrounded, and creating them if none exist. He is now prospering in his undertakings, and has already achieved a comfortable competence.

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Memorial and biographical record of Iowa, Part 187

Author: Publication date: 1896 Publisher: Chicago : Lewis Pub. Co. Number of Pages: 1360

Author:
Publication date: 1896
Publisher: Chicago : Lewis Pub. Co.
Number of Pages: 1360