USA > Iowa > The United States biographical dictionary and portrait gallery of eminent and self made men, Iowa volume > Part 40
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Dickens presents us with the picture of a happy household in the "Cheeryble Brothers." He could have found in the Chambers Brothers living illustra- tions of the virtues which his fertile pen has given to us in the pages of fiction. Wealthy, as the term is now understood, they are not, for wealth cannot remain with men of such broad and generous natures as the Chambers Brothers.
GEORGE D. WOODIN,
SIGOURNEY.
G EORGE D. WOODIN, attorney and coun- J selor-at-law, was born in Warren county, Penn- sylvania, on the 27th of February, 1827, and is the eldest of a family of seven children of David Woodin and Parthenia née Cobb, natives of Monroe county, New York.
The Woodin family in America are descended from Puritan stock, the original ancestor having come over with the Massachusetts Bay Company in 1628. The family does not seem to have been prolific, nor to have produced many distinguished men. They have been mainly tillers of the soil, of quiet, practical habits, virtuous and law-abiding
citizens. The mother of our subject was of Irish ancestry ; a smart, intellectual woman, of great en- ergy and force of character, and from whom our subject inherits some of the most valuable traits of his character.
George D. worked on his father's farm, attending the district school in winter, until the autumn of 1844, when he attended one term at the Waterford, Penn- sylvania, Academy, and the next winter taught a district school. The next two summers were spent at Jamestown Academy, New York, and the winters were spent in teaching. In 1847 he entered Alle- gheny College, at Meadville, Pennsylvania, with one
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term of studies in the preparatory course yet to complete ; that institution very benevolently regu- lating its curriculum of studies for the convenience of those who had to support themselves by teaching in the winter. The full course of one term in the preparatory department and four years in college was completed in four years, while at the same time he taught school for three months each winter, and made one year in law studies with A. B. Richmond, Esq., of Meadville, Pennsylvania. He was gradu- ated with honors, at the head of his class, in 1851, having defrayed the entire expense of his education by teaching, except ten dollars given him by his mother.
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After leaving college he taught in the academy at Warren, Pennsylvania, for one year, reading law at the same time in the office of L. D. Wetmore. He was admitted to the bar in 1852, and for one year thereafter practiced his profession with his preceptor, developing at the same time rare powers and genius as a practitioner.
In 1853 he resolved to cast his lot with the young State of Iowa, then coming prominently into notice, and offering great inducement as a home to young men of energy and enterprise in every capacity, and after due inquiry he selected the then incipient town of Iowa City as his future home. His entire stock in trade consisted, on arrival, of a few books, a suit of clothes, and four dollars in money. He soon fell into practice, however, and was not long in establish- ing a reputation. At that time the bar at Iowa City was one of the ablest in the state, with Gilman, Fol- som and W. Penn Clark at its head, the supreme court then holding its entire session at that place. Besides questions at issue incident to a new state, there were many preemption cases tried, the United States land office then being located at Iowa City.
In 1854 he became prosecuting attorney of John- son county, and in 1855 was elected mayor of Iowa City, and during the period of his mayoralty issued fifty thousand dollars' worth of railroad bonds, levied by an almost unanimous vote of the electors of the city, to aid in constructing the Mississippi and Mis- souri railroad, now the Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific.
It is worthy of note that at that time Mr. Woodin had serious doubts as to the validity of the security, and was strongly inclined to refuse to issne the bonds. His views in this regard, however, were shared by but one man in the community, James H. Gower, so merging his own opinions in the all but
universal sentiment of the community, he issued the bonds. These were of the same class of securities out of which grew the celebrated conflict between the state and federal courts, the former holding them to be illegally issued, and the latter to be valid. The case was finally decided by the federal courts in favor of the bonds.
In 1856 he was elected to the legislature from Johnson county, and served one term, with distinc- tion. In 1857 he moved to Sigourney, Keokuk county, which has since been his home, and in 1858 was elected district attorney for the old sixth judi- cial district, and served four years, during which period he earned for himself the reputation of being one of the most skillful, accomplished and successful criminal lawyers of the state. Since his removal to Sigourney he has been engaged on one side or other of almost every case tried in the circuit or district courts of the county ; and during a period of over twenty years he has not been absent from the court-house one full hour at any one time during a session of court,- a fact well worthy of record, as indicating his habits of industry and close attention to business.
Mr. Woodin has had great success as an attorney. He throws his whole soul and being, so to speak, into his cases, and stands for the time being in the shoes of his client. His addresses to the jury are quick, pungent and exceedingly earnest, and he rarely fails of success with either judge or jury. He is a man of great penetration, forecasting things almost by intuition, and seeming to know a client's case before it is half stated. As a practitioner, he has long since attained to the highest rank at the bar of his county and district.
In politics, he has always been a republican, and had he consented to serve, would have been in con- gress years since ; but refusing all offices, save those named above (which were mainly in the line of his profession), he has sedulously devoted himself to the duties of his profession, and may be emphat- ically termed a man of one work.
As a citizen, his word is a synonym of certainty, and he commands the respect of all classes of men with whom he comes in contact. He is somewhat cantious in avoiding misplaced benevolence, but has a most generous heart when the subject is known to be deserving. With strangers he is taciturn at first, and does not open himself freely to new acquaint- ances until he first discovers either moral worth or mental wealth in them; but when once secured as a
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friend, he is found to be all that the word implies. He loves a dry joke, and knows how to perpetrate one with imperturbable gravity, always keeping the expectation of the listeners at the highest tension of excitement until the climax is reached in the last word.
In July, 1859, he was married to Miss Mary E., daughter of Dr. Skillman, of Keokuk county, Iowa, formerly of Huron county, Ohio. At the date of their marriage her age bore the same proportion to his that eight does to sixteen; now their ages ap- proximate as nearly as six does to nine. They have three children, Link, Guy and Grace.
Mr. Woodin has in many respects a remarkable history. During his whole life he has never been sick enough to refrain from work a single day; and by diligence and success at his profession he has accumulated a competence of this world's goods.
While practicing at Iowa City Mr. Woodin was the partner of W. E. Miller, afterward judge of the supreme court of the state. On the return of Col- onel E. S. Sampon from the army in 1864 he formed a law partnership with that gentleman, which con- tiniued until his elevation to the bench in 1869. In 1872 his present partnership with E. W. McJunkin, Esq., was formed.
GENERAL WILLIAM VANDEVER,
DUBUQUE.
W ILLIAM VANDEVER was born in Balti- more, Maryland, on the 31st of March, 1817, his parents being on a temporary sojourn in that city. Their residence was in Philadelphia, Pennsyl- vania, to which city they returned a few years after- ward. The subject of this sketch was educated in the latter place, at private schools, and there grew to manhood. His father, William Vandever, a na- tive of the State of Delaware, descended from a Holland ancestor, who came with the first emigra- tion to New Netherlands, and removed to the shores of the Delaware about the time of the Swedish emi- gration in 1635. His mother was a Ten Eyck, of New Jersey. On both the father's and mother's side his ancestors served in the army of the revolution, and his father was a soldier of the war of 1812.
In the spring of 1835, being eighteen years of age, he accompanied his father upon a trip to the west, and spent about six months in Cincinnati, Ohio. The following winter he spent in Baltimore, and then returned to Philadelphia. From this time till his permanent removal to the west he was engaged most of the time in study and teaching. He taught a school for about a year in Chester county, Pennsyl- vania, within five of six miles of Valley Forge.
His first settlement in the west was at Rock Island, Illinois, in the spring of 1839. Here for a short time he was employed as a clerk in a store; but he soon abandoned that business and commenced read- ing law, diversifying this occupation with that of land surveying. He executed public land surveys in Illinois, Iowa and Wisconsin at various times until
1844, when he was appointed clerk of the county court of Rock Island. This office he held for a lit- tle more than two years, then, in 1846, he assumed the proprietorship of the Rock Island "Advertiser," and continued its publication for several years. While editing that paper he was an ardent advocate of public improvements, and was the first man to move in organizing a company for building a rail- road between Chicago and Rock Island. A charter was first obtained from the legislature to construct a road from Rock Island to La Salle, the southern terminus of the Illinois and Michigan canal. Gen- eral Vandever became one of the first corporators, and contributed much to the success of the enter- prise. The charter was amended at a subsequent session of the legislature, and authorized the road to be extended to Chicago.
In 1847 General Vandever was married to Miss Williams, of Davenport, Iowa, and four years later removed to Dubuque. Here for a year or two he was employed in the surveyor-general's office. He then turned his attention to the law, forming with the Hon. Ben. M. Samuels a partnership, which con- tinued several years. Upon the reorganization of the supreme court of Iowa, in 1855, he assumed the duties of clerk of that court; but finding that atten- tion to the duties of that office interfered with his law practice, he resigned the following year.
In 1858-he was nominated by the republican party of the second congressional district, and elected by about three thousand majority ; and in 1860 he was renominated and elected by a greatly increased ma-
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jority. His opponent on the second race was his whilom law-partner, Hon. Ben. M. Samuels, the' leading democrat of Iowa. The whole northern half of the state was still in the second district, and the canvass was very extensive, very laborious, and very brilliant. The overwhelming majority of votes which Gen. Vandever received was an indication of his strength in debate.
Immediately on the breaking out of the war he abandoned his seat in congress, at the commence- ment of his second term, and in a short time entered the army in command of the 9th Iowa Infantry, a regiment recruited in his own district, and largely by his own exertions. By his valor at the battle of Pea Ridge, Missouri, and on other bloody fields, he was, in 1862, made a brigadier-general, and toward
the close of the war was breveted a major-general of volunteers. He served in the field until the close of the war, and participated in many important en- gagements. At its close he returned to private life. He performed important and very valuable services in the organizing of the companies which subse- quently built the line of railroad from Clinton to Dubuque, and effected the first negotiation that secured the funds for the construction of the whole road from Clinton to La Crescent. He then pro- jected the Iowa Pacific railroad, and was one of the chief promoters of that enterprise. In 1873 Presi- dent Grant tendered him the appointment of Indian inspector, and that position he still holds. His recent reports have thrown valuable light on the Indian question.
HON. JEROME S. WOODWARD,
INDEPENDENCE.
O NE of the surest roads to success is industry in a single direction. The man whose ener- gies are thus put forth, who loves his calling or pro- fession, and gives it his best days, rarely fails, unless overtaken by misfortunes, or his health early breaks down. The life of Hon. J. S. Woodward beautifully illustrates what industry and integrity, aiming at a single point, can accomplish in a few years. When admitted to the bar he determined to know less of everything else than of the law, and to know law as perfectly as the closest application would enable him to do it. Consequently, in his profession he has achieved eminent success, and his life has its lesson too valuable to be lost.
Jerome Southwick Woodward was born at Mid- dlebury, Scoharie county, New York, on the 5th of February, 1830. His father, Stephen Woodward, was teaching there temporarily, his home being in Hanover, New Hampshire. The mother's name was Ethelinda Ely Woodward. The father of Jerome, who was a farmer, but accustomed to teach school in the winters, moved to Tunbridge, Orange county, Vermont, when the son was seven years old. The lad worked on the farm and attended school until he was fifteen, when he fitted for college at Kimball Union Academy, Meriden, New Hampshire, but never entered.
Mr. Woodward came to the west in 1850, and taught school and read law in Janesville, Wisconsin,
for three years. He was admitted to the bar in Rock county in 1853, and removed to Independ- ence, Buchanan county, Iowa, in September of the same year, his entire capital consisting of six law books and twelve and a half cents. To-day he is perfectly independent. He has practiced law, most of the time alone, for twenty-three years, rarely turning aside from legal pursuits, even for a few months. The very few offices he has held he was strongly urged to accept. When he settled in Iowa there was a prosecuting attorney in every county, instead of one, as now, for each judicial district, and Mr. Woodward held that office for Buchanan county the second year that he was in the state. In the autumn of 1857 he was elected to the lower house of the general assembly, and took a prominent part in its discussions and more solid work. He was a delegate to the national convention which renominated Mr. Lincoln in 1864. He has been solicited to accept the nomination for different offices, but has firmly withheld his consent. His tastes are for the legal profession, and in that he is second to no man in the district.
Mr. Woodward is an Odd-Fellow, but has never aspired to position in the order.
He is a member of no church, but has a prefer- ence for the Universalist doctrine.
He was a whig, then a republican, to which party he still adheres.
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On the 6th of December, 1855, he was united in marriage to Miss Caroline A. Morse, of Independ- ence, a woman held in high esteem by her neighbors. They have had five children, two of whom are dead.
Mr. Woodward is of medium height and good proportions, has a dark complexion, black eyes, a
kindly expression, and a pleasant smile for all. His disposition is social, and he is a man in whom society finds a rich entertainer. He has one of the best houses in the interior of Iowa, with delightful surroundings, and with his little family has an Eden of comfort.
JOSHUA M. RICE, LYONS.
JOSHUA MOODY RICE, son of Elijah and Mary (Prescott) Rice, was born in New Hampshire on the 12th of July, 1807. Both his paternal and maternal ancestors were of English origin, and were among the earliest settlers of New Hampshire. The paternal grandfather was a soldier in the revolutionary war, and served under Washington during the whole of that pro- tracted struggle. When our subject was nine years of age the family removed from New Hampshire to Manlius, New York. The son having acquired at the common school a rudimentary English edu- cation, was at an early age apprenticed to learn the carpenter's trade; he also learned the cabinetmaker's trade, at which he worked during the winter, when, owing to the inclemency of the weather, out-door. work was impossible. He continued laboring with his father until 1829, when he was married to Sarah Ann, only daughter of Eleazer Gudney, and early in the same year located at Phoenix, Oswego county, New York, in the building up and improvement of which village he took an active part. Having met with an accident which incapacitated him from physical labor, he, some three or four years later, entered into the mercantile business, in which he was constantly engaged for the following sixteen years, and was not only burdened with the duties of his own extensive affairs, but at the same time held several public offices of trust and responsi- bility.
About this time, his brother having become some- what involved pecuniarily, Mr. Rice purchased all his interests and started him in business in Lyons, Iowa, which business during the following year he took in his own hands, employing his brother as a clerk.
In 1856, having established himself permanently in Lyons, Iowa, he closed up his mercantile busi- ness in his former residence, and soon after entered
upon several enterprises in different localities. He established one mercantile house in Fulton, another in Rochelle, Illinois, and still a third one in Thomp- son, Iowa. In all these various and extensive busi- ness enterprises he was remarkably successful, and the extent and variety of his transactions, and the admirable manner in which they were managed, furnish sufficient proof of his comprehensive intel- lect and thorough business capacity.
During the rebellion his business was greatly en- larged and extended, and he was enabled to reap immense benefits from his mercantile and also from other investments. Through the financial crisis of 1857, his sterling integrity, and indomitable energy and industry, carried him successfully and triumph- antly, with his financial reputation unimpaired, and his business operations uninterrupted.
In 1861 he disposed of his several interests in the adjacent localities, and purchased the block where his store is now located. Here he continued doing business until his death, which event occurred on the 6th of September, 1874, at the age of sixty- seven years.
His widow, who has been an active and silent partner in most of his business career, survives him; and to her may be ascribed his first achieve- ment in life. It was his wife's patrimony, and his own limited accumulations, that enabled him at the beginning to embark in mercantile pursuits.
Mr. Rice was emphatically a self-made man. He relied upon his own energy and industry for suc- cess; and in his life, as well as in his business career, he has verified the maxim that honesty is not only the best policy, but the only policy. Espe- cially to the young men in his employ he has ever been a true friend and benefactor, and they remem- ber him with affection and veneration.
He was a man universally esteemed and respected by all who knew him. In business transactions his
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advice was sought by his neighbors, and his loss is painfully felt in the entire community in which he resided. He was a public-spirited citizen, taking an active interest in every improvement calculated to benefit society. Kind, sympathetic and benevo- lent, he labored not only for himself, but equally for the benefit of others, as many a young man can testify who has been the recipient of his benefac- tions.
In religious matters, he was a liberal supporter of church organizations, although not a member of any denomination. He was an active and esteemed member of the fraternity of Odd-Fellows.
In politics, he was a decided republican, although not a partisan ; he believed and had faith in repub- lican institutions, and entertained principles in har- mony with that party.
He possessed a delicate physique, the result of years of physical suffering. Yet, with all his lame- ness and other ailments, he endured labor, and rarely, if ever, failed to be attentive to the business duties of his vocation.
His remains are interred in the family burying- ground, in the cemetery at Lyons, Iowa, and his grave is marked by an imposing monument, erected to his memory by his disconsolate widow.
CYRUS HAWLEY,
MUSCATINE.
C YRUS HAWLEY was born at Norfolk, Con- necticut, on the 16th of October, 1808, and is the son of E. P. Hawley and Irene nee Frisbie. His father was a farmer, a man of plain manners, vir- tuous and industrious habits, a strict member of the Congregational church, a good citizen, and a civil, obliging neighbor. He lived respected and died at a good old age, leaving the legacy of a good name and a good example to his children, and which was nearly all he had to bequeath.
Mr. Hawley is descended from English ancestors, who settled in Farmington, Connecticut, about two hundred years ago, and where a colony of the descendants still reside, though large numbers of them have immigrated to all parts of the Union. Many have become distinguished in the different professions, while a still greater number have suc- cessfully followed commercial pursuits.
The Frisbie family are also of English origin, and settled in Norwich, Connecticut, about the same time. They were generally men of education and distinction. The Rev. Levi Frisbie, a grand-uncle of our subject, was a Congregational clergyman of considerable note during the latter part of the last century, and an elder brother of his was a success- ful surgeon, and served in the army during the revolutionary war. Both the Hawleys and the Frisbies were largely represented in the colonial army during that memorable struggle.
Cyrus Hawley spent his youth after the manner of most New England boys, working on the farm in summer and attending the snow-drifted country
school-house in winter. The common school edu- cation of the New England system in practice fifty years ago, added to the liberal and polished course pursued in the academy, so adinirably fitted hun- dreds of New England boys for the duties and higher work which they have so signally performed, and the rank they have sustained in every profession and branch of industry in every state of the Union, during the last half century, that it may well be questioned whether the popular collegiate course of to-day, with its larger expense and necessarily pro- longed seclusion from the active affairs of life, has proved a wise substitute. Suffice it to say that in the common schools, and at one of the best of Litchfield county academies, a county celebrated for its educational facilities, Mr. Hawley received his training for the business of life. For several winters previous to the age of nineteen he taught a district school, but in 1827 he entered the employ- ment of the celebrated Collins (axe) Manufacturing Co. of Hartford, and traveled for that firm over six years, and at the age of twenty-three he had by economy and prudent management saved the large sum of fifteen hundred dollars out of his salary: Out of this sum, with a liberality that became a life characteristic, he contributed twelve hundred dollars toward the education of his sisters, an investment which he has been heard to describe as the most satisfactory of his whole life. It served imme- diately and indirectly to qualify them for distin- guished places as teachers, fitted them for the higher walks of life, as the wives of men of educa-
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tion and influence; and as accomplished christian women they still wield a powerful influence for good in the respective circles in which they move.
During his connection with this firm Mr. Hawley traveled over twelve thousand miles in the south- west for his employers, mostly in stages and canal boats.
In 1834 he began business on his own account as a book merchant in Louisville, Kentucky, but in 1837 the wave of financial embarrassment, which traveled in that era of canal boats and stage coaches at the rate of one hundred miles a day, approached Louisville, and precipitated all business into a gen- eral ruin. It required until 1840 to close up his business, when he joined his brother-in-law, Dr. William Wilson, of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in in- vestments at Muscatine, Iowa. This speculation, involving three thousand dollars, proved disastrous, and left him to the resources of manual labor. Pluckily he faced the situation. We find it recorded in his diary that for five years he worked sixteen hours a day, fighting the vulture at every turn of the wheel. In 1850, having accumulated a few hun- dred dollars, he engaged in the manufacture of brick, which he continued until 1863, when he established in Muscatine his justly celebrated and successful fire and life insurance agency, which is continued till this day. In this business he has had associated with him Messrs. J. P. Dawson, Henry Hoover and M. W. Griffin; the two last named gentlemen, together with our subject, constituting the present firm of Hawley, Hoover and Co. This agency, under its able management, has grown to be one of the largest and most popular in the coun- try, its transactions covering a wider territory and greater values than that of any similar concern in the same region.
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