USA > Iowa > The United States biographical dictionary and portrait gallery of eminent and self made men, Iowa volume > Part 5
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Judge Knapp has always affiliated with the demo- cratic party. He lives in a republican district as well as state, and owes his present position to his superior qualifications as a jurist. He has figured very extensively in the politics of the state, and was the democratic candidate for supreme judge in 1869, and for governor in 1871, and received the votes of the democratic members of the general assembly for United States senator at the session of 1872.
The judge is a Chapter Mason. He has been a member of the Congregational church for many years, and has never soiled either his good christian name or the ermine. Two years ago the very dis- tinguished honor was conferred upon him of ap- pointing him a member of the commission of five persons, whose duty it is to investigate the charges brought against Rev. Henry Ward Beecher. The committee met in the Fifth Avenue Hotel, New York, on the 20th of July, 1876, organized, ascer- tained that no charges had then been brought, and adjourned to meet at the call of the president of the commission. The names of the members are : Nathaniel Shipman, judge of the United States dis- trict court, Connecticut; Judge S. B. Gookin, Indi- ana; Judge Joseph C. Knapp, Iowa; Jonathan E. Sargent, New Hampshire, and Hon. A. Finch, Wis- consin.
On the roth of December, 1849, Miss Sarah A. Benton, of Keosauqua, became the wife of Judge Knapp, and they have three daughters. Keo is the wife of Hobart A. Stoddard, of Little Rock, Arkan- sas; Io is the wife of Fred. H. Hill, of Attica, Michi- gan, and Hannah Benton is a student in Iowa Col- lege, Grinnell. Mrs. Knapp is an active christian, benevolent in feeling and in deeds; a woman of es- thetic tastes, and a great admirer and extensive cul- tivator of flowers. Her summer house is a Centen- nial "Floral Hall " in miniature.
HON. JAMES HARLAN, MOUNT PLEASANT.
JAMES HARLAN, for seventeen years a mem- L ber of the United States senate, and one of the oldest statesmen that Iowa has ever sent to that distinguished body, is a native of Clark county, Illi- nois, and was born on the 26th of August, 1820. His parents, Silas and Mary Conley Harlan, were members of the agricultural class. The progenitor of the Harlan family in this country came from Eng- land, and settled in South Carolina, moving thence to Pennsylvania. The maternal grandfather of Sen- ator Harlan was a soldier in the great struggle for American independence.
Silas Harlan moved with his family to Park coun- ty, Indiana, when the subject of this memoir was three years old, and there the son was reared on a farm and made his home until his twenty-fifth year.
He received his education at Asbury University, Green Castle, Indiana, then under the presidency of Bishop Simpson, graduating in 1845. He taught more or less during this period, and did other kinds of work to defray expenses. Mr. Harlan came to Iowa and located at Iowa City, where he read law and was admitted to the bar in 1847 or 1848. He practiced there until 1853, when he was elected the first president of the Iowa Wesleyan University, lo- cated at Mount Pleasant. Two years later, in Janu- ary, 1855, he was elected to the United States senate, and consequently resigned the presidency of that in- stitution, his term commencing on the 4th of March, 1855.
Mr. Harlan's first speech in the senate was on the admission of Kansas, made on the 27th of March,
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1856. He had prepared it with great care, and it deeply impressed the older members of the senate. He was set down at once as an orator and a power- ful logician. On the 12th of January, 1857, the sen- ate, by a party vote, resolved "that James Harlan is not entitled to his seat as a senator from Iowa." This vote was based on the following facts: The senate and house of representatives of Iowa agreed to go into joint session to elect a senator. After the joint session had met and adjourned from day to day for some time, it was discovered that the whigs were about to be successful, and the demo- cratic senators absented themselves for the purpose of preventing an election. A quorum of the joint session met, however, and a clear majority of both houses elected Mr. Harlan. Two years after, the matter was brought up on the protest of the demo- cratic members of the state senate, and Mr. Harlan ousted. But he repaired immediately to Iowa City, where the legislature was in session. He arrived one day, was reëlected the next. He returned to Washington, was resworn, and resumed his seat on the 29th of the month, a triumph worth all it cost.
Mr. Harlan was reelected to the United States senate in 1861, and resigned on the 15th of May, 1865, to take the office of secretary of the interior. Mr. Lincoln had appointed him to this office in March, about a month before the President was as- sassinated, but Mr. Harlan delayed taking his seat in the cabinet until a month after the awful tragedy. There was striking fitness in placing Mr. Harlan at the head of the interior department. His previous position on the committees on public lands, Indian affairs, the agricultural bureau, and the Pacific rail- road, having familiarized him with much of the de- tails of his labor in the cabinet.
Mr. Harlan was elected to the senate for a third term in January, 1866, and on the Ist of September following resigned the portfolio of the interior de- partment. On the 4th of March, 1867, he took his seat in the senate, and faithfully served his constit- uents another full term.
When Mr. Harlan first went into the senate the democrats had control of the committees, and he held minor positions, being at first on the committee on public lands, and at its bottom. A little later, when the republicans had control, he became chair- man of that committee. Subsequently he was chair- man of the committees on Indian affairs and on the District of Columbia. Of the former committee and the committee on the Pacific railroad he was a mem-
ber more than three fourths of the time while in congress.
After he became chairman of the committee on public lands he exerted a powerful, we may say con- trolling, influence in shaping the policy of the gov- ernment in disposing of the public domain in such a manner as to advance the public interests, the interests of frontier settlers, and especially the cause of education. His moulding hand had much to do 'with modifying the homestead bill, making it a be- neficent measure for the poor settler, without mate- rially injuring the public treasury.
He did a noble work on the committee on agricul- ture, strongly advocating every measure calculated to develop and advance grand national interests. A report which he prepared on this subject was marked by great painstaking and solid scientific research. Whoever wishes to see the breadth of Mr. Harlan's views, and the range of his knowledge, must look over the columns of the "Congressional Globe " while he was in the senate, and notice his inaugu- ration of the proposition for the construction of a ship canal from the northern lakes to the waters of the Mississippi; his opposition to legislation on the Sabbath ; his introduction of resolutions on fasting and prayer; his propositions for reform in the chaplain service of the army and navy ; in aid of foreign emigration ; the reconstruction of the in- surrectionary states; the improvement of navigation of lakes and rivers; the application of meteorolog- ical observations in aid of agriculture to land as well as sea; for the support of scientific explorations and kindred measures; for reform in criminal jus- tice in the District of Columbia and in the territories ; and his remarks on such subjects as the bankrupt bill; the bill to reorganize the court of claims; on the bill to indemnify the President; on the con- scription bill; on the conditions of release of state prisoners ; on the disqualification of color in carrying the mails; on the organization of territories; on amendment to the constitution; on bill to establish freedmen's bureau ; on inter-continental telegraph ; on the construction of railroads, and on education in the District of Columbia for white and colored children.
Mr. Harlan was originally a whig, and as such was elected state superintendent of public instruc- tion in April, 1847. The term was for three years, but by some political legerdemain the election was at length declared void, and he was ruled out at the end of one year. He was reëlected in 1848, but
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was counted out because some votes were cast for James Harland, others for James Harlin, and the democratic secretary of state made out the returns with such a variety of candidates that James Harlan had not a majority over the democratic candidate.
Mr. Harlan was nominated for governor in 1849, but was not of the age required by the constitution, and the name of James L. Thompson, of Johnson county, was substituted by the whig central com- mittee.
Mr. Harlan was a member of the so-called peace congress of 1861, being appointed by Governor Kirkwood.
The wife of Senator Harlan was Miss Ann Eliza Peck, of Maysville, Kentucky. They were married in October, 1845, and of four children whom they have had, only one, Mary E., the wife of Robert T. Lincoln, of Chicago, son of President Lincoln, is living. Two died in early childhood, and William A. at twenty-three years of age.
JOSEPH KECK,
WASHINGTON.
JOSEPH KECK, banker, was born in Hunting- ton county, Pennsylvania, on the 29th of Novem- ber, 1819, and is the son of Andrew Keck and Rebecca née Rottruck. His grandfather was a na- tive of Bavaria, and migrated to Lehigh county, Pennsylvania, about the year 1737, where he died, and where a considerable settlement of his descend- ants still reside.
Andrew Keck was a farmer, and removed to Ju- niata county when our subject was but seven years of age, where he lived for many years, and died near Monticello, Indiana, in 1859. His wife, the mother of our subject, was a native of Pennsylvania, of Ger- man ancestry.
Joseph attended the common subscription schools, taught a few months of each winter by the unlet- tered pedagogue who "boarded 'round " with the pupils, till the age of sixteen, though he can hardly be said to have got beyond the three "R's," but he was a man of wonderful natural gifts, and by the constant study of men and things has attained a fair general information.
At the age of nineteen years he removed to Dela- ware county, Ohio, where he learned the cabinet- making trade, at which he afterward worked for twelve years, and was one of the best mechanics of the period. In youth and early manhood his one and controlling desire was to be a farmer, to own a good farm, well stocked and thoroughly managed, and with a view to the gratifying of this desire he removed to Washington, Iowa, in 1842, then a town of about two hundred inhabitants. Here he worked at his trade for six months as a journeyman, after which he opened a shop and continued the business for eight years with very considerable success. In
1849 he purchased an unimproved farm near town, intending to give his attention to the pursuit which had been the dream of his early life, but other and more promising fields of enterprise soon opened to his vision. He had also become the owner of some city lots, which soon increased in value; several tracts of unimproved land in other parts of the county fell into his possession in trade, and he soon found himself successfully engaged in real-estate transactions which proved remunerative. He con- tinued this business till 1857, but two years pre- viously he had commenced to dispose of his prop- erty and to contract his operations. In the last- named year, previous to the "panic," by which 1857 is painfully remembered by many citizens of our country, he had disposed of his superfluous property and made his collections, a circumstance of the ut- most moment to him financially. In 1859 he be- came the owner of some stock in a branch of the State Bank, then being organized in Washington, and was subsequently elected a director of the same, and some eighteen months afterward, several of the original stockholders withdrawing, Mr. Keck was elected president of the bank, to which position he was reelected each year successively till 1877, when he sold out and retired. Meantime (in 1863) the bank accepted a charter from the national govern- ment and became the First National Bank of Wash- ington, and has since been one of the best managed and most reliable moneyed institutions in the state. In 1871 he organized the First National Bank of Sigourney, with a capital stock of fifty thousand dol- lars, of which he has since been president.
He has never been an office-seeker, nor has he had any taste for public positions, but in deference
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to the wishes of his fellow-citizens he has accepted some local offices of trust and responsibility, the duties of which he discharged with scrupulous ex- actness and to the best interest of all concerned. His political views have always been republican, and his time, means and influence were cheerfully given for the benefit of his country in the late rebellion.
In religious opinion, he prefers the Methodist church, of which he is a regular attendant and a generous supporter, though in this, as in most of his charities, he is his own almoner, always dispensing his bounty with his own hands and seeing it bear fruit under his own eyes. In the same way he in- tends to dispose of his large accumulations during his lifetime.
Mr. Keck is a most cautious and safe financier. His great success is the result of prudent foresight and painstaking discrimination, together with a life- long habit of spending less than he earned and never going in debt. He is a man of remarkable prescience, and hence all his investments and trans- actions have been profitable. He has never " ground the face of the poor," nor taken advantage of the circumstances of those overtaken by disaster to drive
a close bargain, or obtain any advantage in trade. Every enterprise with which he has ever been con- nected has been conducted in an honorable, trans- parent and straightforward manner.
As a citizen, his neighbors call him "a No. 1 man." He is temperate, amiable, courteous and gentlemanly in all his ways. As an executive offi- cer, he possesses the highest talents, and would do honor to almost any position in the gift of the peo- ple of his state. In social life, he is mild, unassum- ing and agreeable; he is a man of eminent good sense, and this characteristic will be found to per- vade his whole mind, character and actions.
On the 26th of March, 1844, he married Miss Elizabeth Jackson, a native of Pennsylvania, of Scotch origin, a lady in every way the counterpart of her husband. They have five children, all living : Irving Alonzo, Mary Caroline, Viola Isadore, Luella Celicia, and Charles H. Irving A. is cashier of his father's bank at Sigourney; Mary C. is the wife of W. G. Simmons, of Washington ; Viola I. is the wife of Albert Phelps, of Washington; Luella C. is the wife of E. F. Crandall, Esq., of Spring Hill; the youngest is still attending school.
GEORGE L. DAVENPORT,
DAVENPORT.
W THEN one visits the city of Davenport to-day, and stands a unit in the midst of thronging hundreds, and beholds its wealth and influence, it is difficult for him to realize that all before and around him, including two cities in the vicinity, is the growth of half a century. Intimately associated with the early history and struggles of this enter- prising city, which bears the name of his father, is the one which heads this sketch.
George I .. Davenport, pioneer, merchant, banker and real-estate owner, was born on Rock Island, on the 15th of November, 1817, and is eldest son of Colonel George Davenport. being the first white child born in this section of the country. He was nursed by an Indian maid and his playmates were Indian boys; he therefore learned to talk their language about as soon as he did English. His early education was gained at the school of an in- valid soldier at Fort Armstrong, and at the age of ten he was sent to attend school at Cincinnati, Ohio, where he remained two years, and then returned |
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to the island, and was placed in the store of the American Fur Company, of which his father was a member, remaining until this trading-post was given up upon the removal of the Indians, in 1837, to the Des Moines river. During this time he was away to school, part of the time at the Illinois College at Jacksonville, at the Catholic University at St. Louis, and at the Winchester Academy at Winchester, Vir- ginia. He was at an early age adopted into the Fox tribe, and was called "Mosquake," and was always a great favorite with them. In the fall of 1837 he accompanied by request the Sac and Fox delega- tions of chiefs to Washington, and visited other large cities. They made a treaty with the govern- ment, selling a large tract of land. He also attended the several treaties with the Indians with Governor Dodge, then U. S. Commissioner.
In 1832 he made the first "claim" west of the Mississippi, and built the first frame house in the territory. In the winter of 1837 and 1838 he was actively engaged in trying to secure the location of
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the county seat at Davenport, in which he was suc- cessful. In 1838 he went into the store of Daven- port and Le Claire. In 1839 he married and com- menced business for himself, and continued till 1853, during this time taking an active interest in all public improvements, and contributed largely to ad- vance the growth of the town and county, laying ont roads, building bridges, school-houses and churches, and surveying for the improvement of the water- power on the rapids of the Mississippi river for manufacturing purposes. In the fall of 1848 he leased a steam flouring mill with two other mer- chants, for the purpose of breaking the system of bartering grain, they paying cash to the farmers for their wheat. In the spring of 1850, in company with Mr. A. Le Claire, built the first foundry and machine shops, and constructed the first steam- engine, and made the first castings in the city. He sold out in 1855. In 1854 the first gas company in the state was organized, and he was elected presi- dent, and has occupied that position twenty-two years. In the fall of 1857 a branch of the State Bank of Iowa was organized, and he was elected
president, and continued in that position ten years, and when it was merged into the Davenport Na- tional Bank he was elected president of that institu- tion, remaining for eight years, until the spring of 1875, when he resigned, and retired from active business. To the good management of Mr. Daven- port the Davenport National owes much of its suc- cess, which makes it one of the solid institutions of the country. In 1871 he was elected a director of the Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific railroad, and still continues in that position, and has held many other appointments of honor and trust. Mr. Daven- port has done much for the improvement of the city, has built several fine blocks, and is liberal in his en- couragement of enterprise. In every position which in his eventful life he has been called to fill, Mr. Daven- port has been successful in the highest sense. As a business man, he has been upright, reliable and honorable, and in all places and under all circum- stances he is loyal to truth, honor and right, justly valuing his own self-respect and the deserved esteem of his fellow men, as infinitely better than wealth, fame or position.
HON. ASAHEL W. HUBBARD,
SIOUX CITY.
T HE early settlers in Sioux City, Iowa, were men of foresight as well as energy. The map indicated that this was a very important point, and that here must some day be a city, the size of which would be determined in part by the number of en- terprises centering here. Among these early settlers was Judge Hubbard, a man of great force of char- acter and that kind of industrious nature which, if wisely applied, rarely fails. He located here when the village of Sioux City was but two years old, and when it had, perhaps, five hundred actual white set- tlers. He has lived to see the number exceed five thousand. He has lived to see six railroads enter the town, and was the chief promoter of these vari- ous enterprises.
Asahel Wheeler Hubbard was born on the 18th of January, 1819, at Haddam, Middlesex county, Connecticut. His parents were Simeon and Esther Wheeler Hubbard, both of Puritan stock. His fa- ther was a farmer, and the son remained at home until sixteen, working in the summers and attend- ing school during the winters. The first summer
he drove a team, hauling stone to the Connecticut river, following it with another winter term of school in his father's district. The next summer he worked in a stone-quarry seven months at ten dollars per month, devoting the money thus earned to attending a select school in Middletown, Connecticut. The summer following he cut stone at sixteen dollars per month, and then, following the same business a few months longer, he received thirty dollars per month and boarded himself.
At nineteen we see him wending his way to Indi- ana as a book agent, locating before the end of the year at Rushville, in that state, teaching school six months, and then entering a law office.
He was admitted to the bar of the district court of Rush county in January, 1841; practiced there for sixteen years and then moved to Sioux City. Here his talents soon made themselves apparent, and his fitness for certain positions made it almost impossible, whatever his own taste and inclination might be, to remain in private life.
While in Indiana, as early as 1847, Mr. Hubbard
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was elected to the state senate from Rush county, and served three years, declining to be a candidate for reelection. He had been in Iowa only one year before he was elected judge of the fourth judicial district, at that time embracing at least thirty coun- ties in the northwestern portion of the state. He served four years, and was then, in 1862, elected to congress, continuing there for six years. Among the committees on which he served were those on foreign affairs, public expenditures, and Indian af- fairs. Representing a frontier district, living in proximity to the red men, and conversant with their habits and the methods of dealing with them, the placing of him on the last named committee was eminently fitting, and on it he did especially good service. He was very attentive to his duties while in congress, and served his constituents and the state with unqualified satisfaction. Whatever re- sponsibilities he has ever assumed, either as a gov- ernment official or private citizen, he has discharged
with the utmost faithfulness. He was a whig until the party ceased to exist, and has since been a republican.
Judge Hubbard attends the Presbyterian church, but is not a communicant.
On the 10th of October, 1849, he married Miss Leah Pugh, of Rushville, Indiana, a near relative of the late Senator Pugh, of Ohio. She had four chil- dren, only one of them, a son, now living. He is practicing law in Sioux City. His first wife died in 1854. In January, 1862, Judge Hubbard married Miss Leah Swift, of Rushville, the result of the lat- ter marriage being five children, all living but one.
Judge Hubbard aided in organizing the First Na- tional Bank of Sioux City six years ago, and has been its president since it went into operation. He is still interested in railroads, and in every enter- prise which will increase the prosperity of Sioux City and develop the wealth of the upper Missouri valley.
HON. DENNIS N. COOLEY,
DUBUQUE.
A MONG the successful men of Iowa may fairly be placed the name of Hon. Dennis N. Cooley. The essentials of success, courage, patience, perse- verance, and the prudent use of good common sense, rarely fail in their legitimate result, and suc- cess brings honor in every honest occupation.
He was born at Lisbon, Grafton county, New Hampshire, on the 7th of November, 1825, and is a descendant from a long-lived family. His grandfa- ther on the paternal side, Aaron Cooley, was a major in the revolutionary war and served with much dis- tinction. He died at the advanced age of ninety-one years. His grandfather Taylor, on his mother's side, was employed in the same war when fourteen years old as wagon boy. He lived in Lisbon, New Hamp- shire, to the age of ninety-seven years. He was one of the few men who voted for Washington and Lin- coln as presidents of the United States. He repre- sented his native town in the legislature for more than twenty years. The death of his father, Hon. Benjamin Cooley, left his mother but a small estate to support and educate a family of eight children, he at that time being two years old. During boy- hood he worked on the farm and attended the com- mon schools during the winters. When fifteen years
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