USA > Iowa > The United States biographical dictionary and portrait gallery of eminent and self made men, Iowa volume > Part 115
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He is radical in all his views, and on all questions in which he takes an interest, whether political or religious. He is necessarily a leader in whatever sphere of activity he may operate, not because he desires to lead, but because that in his presence men are conscious of something in him that should be deferred to, and that determines his position by a destiny that cannot be disregarded. He is a man of large intelligence, always keeping abreast of the times. He is naturally, and by culture and disci- pline, a gentleman, a patriot and a christian.
He was married on the 5th of May, 1833, to Miss Elizabeth Shannon, a native of Westmoreland coun- ty, Pennsylvania, of Scotch and German parentage. She died on the 9th of November, 1848, leaving two
sons and three daughters surviving her: Josiah, George, Sarah Jane, Mary, and Martha Shannon. Josiah is connected with the large boot and shoe house of M. D. Wells and Co., of Chicago; George was murdered by Indians on his way to Texas in 1869, and is buried in an unknown grave; Sarah was married to George C. Anderson, of Washington, and died in 1863; Mary was the wife of James L. Anderson, Esq., and died in 1853; Martha Shannon is the wife of Dr. W. R. Adair, of Washington. On the 26th of June, 1849, Mr. Dawson's second mar- riage occurred, to Miss Jennett French, who died on the 27th of April, 1859, leaving three children, the youngest of whom, James Willard, died in 1872, aged sixteen ; Hellen F. and Maryette survive. On the 15th of February, 1860, he married Mrs. N. A. Clarke, widow of the late Rev. John B. Clarke, of Le Claire, Iowa, by whom he has had three children, two of whom survive, Harlan H. and Llewellyn ; the second, Robert L., died in 1876.
JOSEPH LYMAN,
COUNCIL BLUFFS.
A MONG the leading attorneys of Council Bluffs is Joseph Lyman, twenty years a resident of Pottawattamie county. His native place is Lyons, Oakland county, Michigan, where he was born on the 13th of September, 1840. The Lymans from whom he sprung are of Scotch descent, and settled on the Connecticut river in Massachusetts, his grand- father being a captain in the revolutionary army. His father, William Lyman, a farmer, was born in Lebanon, Connecticut. His mother's maiden name was Sarah Pierce. When Joseph was but eighteen months old the family removed from Michigan to Defiance, Ohio, and lived there until 1857, when they pushed westward, and settled in the eastern part of Pottawattamie county, Iowa. There, for three or four years, as in Ohio, Joseph aided his father in opening a farm, attending, and afterward teaching, a district school. He was the pioneer schoolmaster in two or three districts. In 1857 there were one or two schools in Council Bluffs, but no regular school-house in the county; now they are reckoned by the hundred.
In 1861 Mr. Lyman enlisted as a private in com- pany E, 4th Iowa Cavalry, A. B. Porter, colonel; in 1862 was promoted to adjutant 29th Infantry, Thom-
as H. Benton, commander, and in 1864 to major of the same. He was in many engagements, and had two horses shot under him, but received no wound himself. For some time he was on the staff of Gen- eral S. A. Rice, and when mustered out on the roth of September, 1865, was on the staff of General Fred. Steele, acting as adjutant-general of the army of the Rio Grande, with headquarters at Brownsville, Texas. When he was promoted to the rank of ma- jor it was by especial request of every captain in the regiment. He was a cool and brave officer, and aided by gallantry in burnishing the military record of Iowa during the civil war.
On leaving the service Major Lyman returned to Iowa; commenced reading law with Judges Wright and Cole, of Des Moines, in November, 1865; was admitted to the bar at that place at the December term of the supreme court, 1866; commenced prac- tice at Council Bluffs in the January following, and has since made the law his entire business. He is a partner of Hon. W. F. Sapp, member of congress from the eighth district.
Mr. Lyman is a first-class lawyer. He is untiring in his labors; prepares his cases with the utmost care, and tries them most admirably. He has a
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logical cast of mind, is clear in his reasoning, candid, sincere, earnest, and makes a good impression on a jury.
Major Lyman has always been a republican ; is a firm and earnest member of the party, but seems to have no political aspirations. As far as we can learn, he is contented with success in his profession.
He is a Knight Templar in the Masonic order; has been master of Excelsior Lodge, Council Bluffs,
for several years; high priest of the Star Chapter; commander of Ivanhoe Commandery ; grand warden of the grand lodge of the state, and captain-general of the grand commandery.
On the 21st of July, 1875, he was united in mar- riage with Miss Rachel Shaw, of Olney, Richland county, Illinois. Her father, Hon. Aaron Shaw, is an ex-congressman, and ex-member of the bench of that state.
DAVID D. APPLEGATE,
TOLEDO.
D AVID DAILY APPLEGATE, a resident of lowa for nearly thirty years, is a native of Jackson county, Indiana, and the date of his birth is the 31st of October, 1829. His father, Hezekiah Applegate, was a farmer, who died when David D. was sixteen years old. His great-grandfather fought with Washington under General Braddock.
The subject of this sketch was the youngest child in a family of nine children, seven of whom grew up and six are still living. At seventeen years of age he came to Cedar county, lowa; worked for differ- ent farmers two or three years, and at twenty re- turned to his native county and taught school two terms. In 1851 he returned to lowa and took up a " claim " in Tama county, twelve miles northwest of Toledo; worked his lands till the fall of 1854, when he moved to a place near where Toledo now stands, he having been chosen county clerk. This office he held by reëlections from May, 1853, to the Ist of Jan- uary, 1869, making a faithful and efficient officer.
While discharging the duties of county clerk Mr. Applegate read law at his leisure; was admitted to
the bar in the autumn of 1868, and law practice has since been his business. After being alone one year he became the partner of I .. G. Kinne, this firm (Applegate and Kinne) continuing from November, 1869, to December, 1876. Since the latter date he has practiced alone. His collecting business, as well as court practice, is excellent, and in all re- spects he is a safe, true and reliable man. He has been faithful to every trust confided in him.
Mr. Applegate was a member of the county board of supervisors in 1869 and 1870; has been mayor one term, and member of the school board at sun- dry times, being quite active in educational matters and in whatever tends to the mental or moral good of the community. He is a communicant in the Con- gregational church, and a man of unsullied character.
In politics, he was formerly a whig; latterly has been a republican. He is a Knight Templar among the Freemasons.
He was married on the 5th of June, 1856, to Miss Margaret McLaury, of Benton county, Iowa. They have had six children, three of whom are still living.
OLIVER MILLS,
LEWIS.
P ROBABLY the best representative of the stock raisers and stock dealers of Iowa is Oliver Mills, of Cass county. He is a native of Trumbull county, Ohio, and was born in the town of Gustavus, on the 2d of February, 1819. His father, Harlow Mills, was an extensive farmer and stock dealer, educating his son in all the minutiæ of the dairy and every branch of farm work. The great-grandfather of
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Oliver, Gardner Mills, was in the revolutionary army. The Millses were originally from England. The maiden name of Oliver's mother was Faith Ann Spencer, of German pedigree.
The subject of this notice was educated at the Farmington Academy, in his native county, where he spent two years, giving his attention mainly to such studies as would be of most use to him. The
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practical and best part of his education has since been obtained on the farm, in the dairy, and in other departments of agriculture. He spent the first thirty years or more of his life in Trumbull county, carry- ing on a large dairy for fifteen years, and raising and buying stock for the eastern market.
In 1850 Mr. Mills settled in Denmark, Lee county, Iowa, there establishing the first large dairy in the state, and managing it for seven years, buying and selling hogs and cattle at the same time.
In 1857 he removed to Lewis, Cass county, where he is still found. Here, for six or seven years, he was the largest cattle and swine feeder in the state, buying all the stock raised in the Nishnabotna val- ley for twenty or thirty miles in either direction, and all the corn in ten or fifteen miles, his business in some years amounting to two hundred thousand dol- lars. He was the only stock and grain dealer to any extent in this county until the Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific railroad passed through nine years ago. His name, for twenty years, has been known, through- out the state and in Chicago, as a synonyme for en- terprise, public spirit and fair dealing.
In 1875 Mr. Mills retired from business. He was long and largely identified with the agricultural in- terests of Iowa, and no man is more serviceable at
state fairs than he. He has been a director of the State Agricultural for twenty consecutive years; was its efficient president in 1874, 1875 and 1876, and has attended every fair since the society was organized.
Mr. Mills was a member of the fourteenth general assembly of Iowa, and did good service to the state in that body. He was a trustee and the treasurer of the Agricultural College two terms.
He was originally a whig, and has been a republi- can since there existed such a party, he contributing his assistance in organizing the same.
Mr. Mills has been a member of either a Presbyte- rian or Congregational church since he was fourteen years old, and as far as we can ascertain he has lived strictly in accordance with the gospel of peace.
Mr. Mills has a second wife. His first was Miss Sophia Arnold, of Ashtabula county, Ohio; married on the 17th of April, 1839. She died in December, 1876, leaving five children. One son, John A. Mills, a soldier four years in the Union army, had preceded her to the world of spirits. His present wife was Miss Julia Forgy, of Mount Pleasant, Iowa, formerly of Dayton, Ohio.
Nature, in her distribution of noblemen, has been generous toward Iowa, and in the front rank is Oli- ver Mills.
HON. ALBERT H. LAWRENCE,
LEMARS.
A LBERT HENRY LAWRENCE, state senator from the fiftieth district, and a citizen of north- western Iowa of much promise, is a native of Oswego county, New York, dating his birth on the 29th of July, 1839. He is a son of Thomas and Mary M. (Ellis) Lawrence, both of early Massachusetts fami- lies. His mother was a relative of General Ellis, and his great-grandsires on both sides participated in the seven years' struggle for independence. His ma- ternal grandfather was in the second war with the mother country.
Thomas Lawrence moved with his family to Onon- daga county when Albert was four years old. Here he spent his youth, receiving an academic education at Homer, Cortland county. He there prepared for college, but never entered, on account of the weak- ness of his eyes, a disease with which he is still troubled. In youth he lost his right arm.
He commenced reading law in 1860 with Smith
and Markham, of Syracuse; finished with Hon. N. C. Ruger, of the same city, and was admitted to the bar in 1864, at a term of the supreme court held in Syracuse.
Mr. Lawrence practiced one year at Pit Hole City, in the oil region of Pennsylvania, and in 1866 came to Toledo, Tama county, Iowa, where he was in practice until October, 1872, when he settled in Le- mars, Plymouth county, his present home. Here he added real estate to his professional business, and has been very successful in both branches, most of the time operating alone. Pecuniarily, few lawyers in his part of the state have had equal prosperity.
Mr. Lawrence is a close student, giving all the time that his eyes will permit to his books. During the four years which he originally gave to legal studies he laid a good foundation on which to build, and the superstructure since reared has already commanding proportions. Possibly the condition of his eyes may
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eventually compel him to abandon his profession. Should this happen, the bar of Plymouth county will lose a member of the highest standing.
While a resident of Toledo Mr. Lawrence served two years as county attorney, and since locating in Plymouth county he has been a member of the school board of the independent district of Lemars, he do- ing especially commendatory labor in the latter posi- tion. His literary taste, and his zeal for the cause of education, made him eminently useful, during three or four years in the infancy of the city, while he was on that board.
Mr. Lawrence was elected to the senate in Oc- tober, 1877, and represents Plymouth, Woodbury, Cherokee, Buena Vista, Sioux and Lyons counties. While we write he is serving in the seventeenth gen-
eral assembly ; is chairman of the committee on elec- tions, and a member of the committee of ways and means, normal schools, representative districts, and fish and game. He is always in his place, attending to his duties with the greatest assiduity.
Mr. Lawrence is an unswerving republican, and somewhat active in local politics. It is not, however, at his own suggestion that he is in the state senate ; he is modest, retiring, and the last man to push him- self forward or to ask others to do it.
On the 20th of December, 1870, Miss Clara M., daughter of S. W. Cole, then of Tama City, now of Cedar Rapids, Iowa, became the wife of Senator Lawrence, and they have two children. Mrs. Law- rence is a member of the Congregational church, where the family worship.
LEOPOLD H. GORDON,
NEWELL.
TEOPOLD H. GORDON, member of the lower house of the general assembly from the sev- enty-second district, belongs to the younger class of legislators. He was early trained in business habits; has an eminently practical turn of mind, and is one of the hard-working and very valuable members of the seventeenth general assembly. He is a native of New Hampton, Belknap county, New Hampshire, and is a son of Lewis and Sarah E. (Merrill) Gordon, and was born on the 2d of December, 1844. This branch of the Gordon family descended from Alex- ander Gordon, a soldier in the days of Charles I.
This eminent ancestor of the branch of the Gor- don family, here under consideration, was a young soldier, captured about 1650, by Cromwell, with other Scotchmen fighting for the Stuarts and against the Puritan commonwealth. He was taken to Tuttle- field, a prison camp near London, but was released by Daniel Stone, of Cambridge, Massachusetts, Mr. Stone paying for him and sending him to Massa- chusetts. Mr. Gordon found a home with John Cloise, a mariner, who held a position in the vessel which brought Gordon over. Cloise lived at Water- town, Massachusetts, and there Gordon worked more than a year for him to pay for the transportation to this country.
The family spread through New England and into Ohio and other western states, and also into some of the southern states.
When the subject of this sketch was fourteen years old, Lewis Gordon removed with his family to Con- cord, New Hampshire, the son subsequently return- ing to his native town and spending three terms in the old academy, started there more than fifty years ago, and which he had attended four years before leaving for Concord. He took the classical course. While in Concord he spent some time as a clerk in a dry-goods store, and subsequently was in the mer- cantile business in partnership with his father.
In 1865 he came with his parents to Dubuque, Iowa, and was there engaged for five years, with his father, in running a planing mill and manufacturing sash, doors and blinds.
In 1870 Mr. Gordon removed to the new town of Newell, Buena Vista county, on the Iowa division of the Illinois Central railroad, engaging in the lumber, coal and milling business, in the firm of L. H. Gor- don and Co., his partner being George B. Burch, mayor of Dubuque. Mr. Gordon has first-class bus- iness capacities, and success has crowned his ener- getic and well directed efforts.
He was the first mayor of Newell, and by reëlec- tion has served two terms. He has been a member and treasurer of the school board, and in many ways makes himself eminently useful to the community in which he lives.
Mr. Gordon has always coincided heartily with the republican party, and his nomination for the
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general assembly in 1877 was made by acclamation. He represented Buena Vista, Cherokee, Pocahontas and Sac counties, and carried every one of them, except Cherokee county, at the October election of that year. The committees on which he is serving are : railroads, banks and banking, normal schools, printing, congressional districts, and asylum for the deaf and dumb. He is a Royal Arch Mason.
On the Ist of October, 1866, Mr. Gordon was united in marriage with Miss Annie M. Robbins, of Dubuque, and they have had two children, only one of them, Alice, nine years of age, now living. The family attend the Congregational church, and Mr. Gordon is treasurer of the society. In every rela- tion in life he has shown himself to be largely en- dowed with the elements of true manhood.
HON. WILLIAM E. MILLER, DES MOINES.
W ILLIAM EDWARD MILLER, lately on the supreme bench of Iowa, is a son of Samuel and Mary Eicher Miller, and was born near Mount Pleasant, Westmoreland county, Pennsylva- nia, on the 18th of October, 1823. His father was a native of Somerset county, in the same state; re- moved to Johnson county, Iowa, in 1854. The sub- ject of this sketch was the second son in a family of ten children, eight of whom are yet living. He spent his early youth on his father's farm, and in his fif- teenth year engaged with his father in a foundry and machine shop at Mount Pleasant, receiving, at the same period, a fair English education in the select schools of those days.
On the Ist of August, 1844, Miss Mary Robinson, daughter of James Robinson, Esq., of Fayette coun- ty, Pennsylvania, became his wife, and two years later he commenced the study of law.
In the autumn of 1852 he moved to Iowa, settling at Iowa City. The following winter he reported the proceedings of the senate during the fourth general assembly for the Iowa City "Republican " and the "Iowa Capitol Reporter." The following May, 1853, he was admitted to the bar of Johnson county, which was strongly democratic, yet in 1854 Judge Miller was elected prosecuting attorney for that county on the opposition ticket. In October, 1858, he was elected judge of the eighth judicial district, compris- ing Johnson, Benton, Cedar, Iowa, Jones, Linn and Tama counties, and although the courts at that time had a vast amount of business, he cleared the docket in two years, and established an enviable reputation as an energetic, prompt, efficient and able jurist.
His four years on the bench had not quite expired when, in 1862, he became colonel of the 28th Iowa Infantry. In March, 1863, on account of ill health, he resigned.
In 1864, soon after resuming law practice at Iowa City, he began to prepare "A Treatise on Pleading and Practice in Actions, and Special Proceedings at Law and in Equity in the Courts of Iowa, Under the Revision of 1860." The first edition of this work was published in 1868, and, though a large one, was soon exhausted, and a new one, revised to meet the changes resulting from subsequent legislation, has been published; the best evidence of the intrinsic merits of the work.
In 1869 Judge Miller was again placed on the bench, this time in the circuit court of the eighth judicial district. Before his term of circuit judge had expired, a vacancy occurred in the supreme court by the transfer of Judge Dillon to the circuit court of the United States, and in casting about for some one to fill that vacancy, the governor appointed Judge Miller. This selection was deemed very wise on account of the experience that Judge Miller had had as a district and circuit judge, and his marked qualifications in every respect for that exalted posi- tion. He had been on the supreme bench but a few months, when, in October, 1870, the republican party elected him to the same office. His term expired on the Ist of January, 1876. The constitution of Iowa requires the judge having the shortest term to act as chief justice, and Judge Miller held that high posi- tion from the Ist of January, 1874, to the expiration of his term.
In the spring of 1871 Judge Miller succeeded Judge Wright in the law department of the State University as professor of constitutional and criminal law. This connection he held until June, 1875. Two years prior to this date, in the spring of 1873, in order to have access to the archives of the supreme court and to the state library, he moved to Des Moines, where he continues to reside.
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Judge Miller is a member of the Methodist Epis- ; communication of the grand lodge of that year. The copal church.
The judge is a prominent member of the Masonic order. In 1866 he was elected junior warden, and represented his lodge in that capacity at the annual
next year he was its representative as senior warden. He has written more or less Masonic literature of a legal character, and has a high standing among the fraternity in the commonwealth.
HAMILTON L. KARR,
OSCEOLA.
T' HE grandfather of the subject of this sketch was Captain Hamilton Karr, a noted pioneer and Indian hunter of Ohio. He was of Scotch de- scent, and was a man of extraordinary muscular power. Captain Karr was the father of four sons and five daughters.
William Karr, the eldest son, and father of the party whose name heads this sketch, and two sisters, still survive. He was born at Marietta, Ohio, on the 5th of April, 1796, and in the following winter re- moved with his parents to the month of Leading creek, in Gallia county (now Meigs), Ohio. He was the first white child ever brought into the territory which is now Meigs county. Educated to the busi- ness of farming, he has pursued it with fair success.
On the 20th of March, 1820, he was married to Miss Jane Murray, a native of Clarksburg, Virginia, with whom he settled on a tract of woodland, out of which he made a farm, within two miles of the place where he first landed in early childhood. He, with his wife, is living there still, enjoying unusual good health. He has raised a large family of children, consisting of six sons and three daughters, who sur- vived to manhood and womanhood. Four of the sons and two of the daughters are living, and the youngest of the former is the subject of this sketch.
Hamilton L. Karr was born in Meigs county, in the State of Ohio, on the 13th of Angust, 1836. His schooling was commenced in the common schools of the neighborhood of his birthplace when he was five or six years of age. He attended school winters and spent his summers on the farm until he was seven- teen or eighteen years of age, at which time his father granted him his time, and permitted him to operate for himself. From this time until the winter of 1857-8 he employed himself mostly in teaching and going to school.
In January, 1858, he entered the Lombard Uni- versity at Galesburg, Illinois, from which he grad- uated in June, 1862.
The war of the rebellion still raging, he returned to his home, and in August, 1862, he entered the Union army, enlisting as a private in the 116th Ohio Infantry. His qualifications and deportment soon singled him out for positions of greater usefulness, and before his regiment had left the state he was advanced to the grade of first-lieutenant. Detached service and ill health of his captain left Lieutenant Karr in command of his company.
In January, 1863, the captain resigned and Lieu- tenant Karr was promoted to the captaincy of his company. At that time there was an order in force from the governor of the State of Ohio, that all pro- motions among officers of Ohio troops should be by seniority, but notwithstanding there were senior lieu- tenants in the regiment claiming promotion by virtue of said order, Lieutenant Karr's meritorious conduct and soldierly bearing during his command of the company had so won the confidence and respect of Colonel Washburn, his regimental commander, that he refused to recommend any other person than Lieutenant Karr for the promotion, and so deter- mined was the colonel that no officer but Lieutenant Karr should take command of his company, that he proceeded at once to the capital of Ohio to prevail on the governor to deviate in this instance from his published order. All arguments with the governor prevailed only by the firm declaration that "no of- ficer will command that company over Lieutenant Karr while I command the regiment, if Lieutenant Karr has to command as lieutenant during his entire term of service."
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