USA > Iowa > The United States biographical dictionary and portrait gallery of eminent and self made men, Iowa volume > Part 6
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of age he left home, filled with an ambition for a career of honor and usefulness and relying on his own efforts for a support.
He entered the Newbury Seminary in Vermont, and by teaching school during recess was enabled to remain and fit himself for college. This he ac- complished, but owing to his limited means he post- poned entering, and taught select schools and in the academy at Londonderry, Vermont, for some time: He did not graduate, but from his literary tastes and professional studies he received the degree of A.M. Reared in boyhood on a farm, he became inured to labor, and, possessed of a rugged constitu- tion, he has enjoyed perfect health and been able to accomplish his successful course. From early boy- hood he had determined to become a lawyer, and to this end all his energies were bent, though in the meantime, from 1847 to 1849, he was partner in a large mercantile house in Vermont, and being very successful acquired the means to pay the expense of his legal education. In 1850 he entered the office of Hon. H. E. Stoughton, and afterward was one year with Hon. A. Stoddart, and for a year and a half read with the well-known firm of Tracy, Con- verse and Barrett, of Woodstock. While a student
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with the latter firm he was elected one of the clerks of the house of representatives of the Vermont legis- lature. In 1854 he was admitted by the Hon. Jacob Callamore to practice in the courts of Vermont. In the autumn of the same year he removed to the great west, and located at Dubuque, Iowa. Pre- viously to this he had twice visited Iowa and pur- chased several thousand acres of land, which was the foundation of his now ample fortune.
Endowed by nature with a strong and acute in- tellect, trained under legal teachers distinguished for ability and enthusiasm, and inspired from his early years with strong ambition, he devoted him- self to his practice as soon as he had completed his professional studies. He has pursued his chosen course with untiring zeal and with a success which has already earned him no inferior rank among the leading lawyers of the land. He practiced success- ively in the firms of Samuels and Cooley ; Samuels, Cooley and Allison; and Cooley, Blatchley and Adams, until 1864, when he was appointed by Pres- ident Lincoln as commissioner to South Carolina. Here he, with his associates, took possession and sold to the Union soldiers and freedmen the islands and so much of the country as was in our lines, putting over half a million dollars into the treasury of the United States. He acted at the same time as special commissioner to settle titles and the right to possession of the city of Charleston. In July, 1865, he was appointed by President Johnson as commis- sioner of Indian affairs, which office he held until September, 1866, and for political reasons resigned (he not accepting the changing "my policy " of Johnson), it not taking effect until the following . November, when he was succeeded by the now Senator Bogy, of Missouri. It must be said, to the credit of Mr. Cooley's administration of Indian affairs, that no word of adverse criticism was ever published against it, and though others were severe- ly criticised by the press, his management was re- ceived with marked approval. In 1864 he was sec- retary of the national republican committee for Lincoln's second campaign, and took entire charge of the "document department " of the campaign, scattering over six millions of documents to the army and country generally on the "war-a-failure " issue. On his resignation of the office of commis- sioner of Indian affairs he gave his undivided atten- tion for four or five years to the practice of law in Washington. While serving as commissioner of South Carolina he gained the confidence of the
people of that state, and in the litigation of claims which followed he had a large share, and did a very remunerative practice before the court of claims and the United States supreme courts, never, how- ever, taking any case before the departments or congress. In 1862 and 1866 he was a member of the general conference of the Methodist Episcopal church at Brooklyn and Baltimore, and at the for- mer was one of the secretaries of the conference, and distinguished himself in the active part he took in the affairs of the Book Concern, and was chairman on a committee (of eighty-one) on that subject.
He was elected president of the First National Bank of Dubuque, and it is due to him perhaps more than to any one else that it is one of the solid institutions of the west. In 1873 he was nominated by the republican party as state senator ; and though the county has an average democratic majority of from fifteen hundred to eighteen hundred, he was elected by four hundred and ninety-nine majority, and nineteen hundred and sixty ahead of Governor Carpenter on the state ticket, in his county. This was the only time since his residence of twenty-two years in Dubuque he ever allowed his name to go before the people for any office, and never mingles in local politics. However, in 1874 he was prom- inently spoken of for congress by his party, and re- ceived the highest vote in the convention of any candidate for seventy-five ballots, when Hon. Mr. Granger was nominated and was defeated in the election by Hon. L. I .. Ainsworth, the democratic candidate. Mr. Cooley has never been prominent in politics, finding enough in his profession to exert all of his energies and take up all his time. In 1873 he was appointed commissioner to the Vienna Ex- position, and spent several months traveling over the continent, visiting points of interest. He has been a strong advocate of education in the state, and was president of the board of Cornell College, Iowa, for several years, making it a munificent gift of ten thousand dollars and endowing a chair in the institution. He has given more for the encourage- ment of education than any other man in the state.
Mr. Cooley has high and rare literary attainments, and is one of the most generous of men. He is called upon as often as any man in the state to de- liver addresses, lectures, etc., for benevolent pur- poses. Though the receipts at times are very large, he never would accept any compensation for his labors, and often added generously to the object of the lecture.
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He was married in September, 1850, to Miss Clara Aldrich, a lady of high attainments.
Mr. Cooley takes great interest in the forward- ing of agricultural pursuits, and has a large, well- stocked farm a little distance from Dubuque. He was elected president of the Northwestern Agricul-
tural and Mechanical Association, which office he still holds. He has, by industry and perseverance, built up a large business, has become wealthy, and is distinguished throughout the country. He is in the prime of life, is a pleasant and genial gentleman, and has a host of friends.
HON. JAMES GRANT,
DAVENPORT.
JAMES GRANT was born on a plantation near the village of Enfield, Halifax county, North Carolina, on the 12th of December, 1812. His father, James Grant, was the son of James Grant, descended from the Highland clan of Grants, who fought for the Pretender, at Culloden, and was trans- ported for the good of King George II, with fifteen hundred others of like rebellious proclivities, to the colony of North Carolina. His mother, Elizabeth Whitaker (Grant), was the daughter of Mat. C. Whit- aker, Esq., of Halifax county, North Carolina, who immigrated from Warwick county, Virginia, and was a lineal descendant of the Rev. Alexander Whitaker, who was one of the first Virginia colonists and who baptized Pocahontas. The Whitaker family, now very numerous in North Carolina, numbers among its members the Hon. Mat. Whitaker Ransom, United States senator from that state, and a cousin of our subject.
His father was a man of large body, six feet high, bony and muscular. He was born to affluence, but was left an orphan in his infancy. Like most south- ern young men, he was not inured to labor, and without parents to guide, and possessed of abun- dance, he studied no profession, followed the busi- ness of a planter and lost his estate in unfortunate speculations before our subject was twelve years old. The latter years of his life were devoted to the public service, and at the time of his death he was comptroller of the State of North Carolina.
Judge Grant was the second of a family of eight children; was raised on the patrimonial plantation ; commenced going to school at the age of eight years, having been previously taught the alphabet by his mother. He was precocious; in ten months he could spell every word in Walker's dictionary. It was no trouble to him to learn, no matter what the study. He would occupy no place in his class but the first, and when his lessons were learned no
boy was more ready for play. He was never truant from school or from any duty, but always wanted his own way.
At thirteen he was prepared for college, but in deference to the advice of the venerable president of the institution, who had taught his father, his entrance was postponed for two years. In 1828 he entered the sophomore class of Chapel-Hill Univer- sity, having for class-mates, among others, J. D. Hooper, Thomas Owen, Allen and Calvin Jones, Jacob Thompson, secretary of the interior under President Buchanan, and James M. Williamson, now of Memphis, Tennessee. Grant was taken sick in his senior year, but graduated with a class of thir- teen others in 1831, while still under eighteen years.
After leaving college he taught school three years at Raleigh, and emigrated to the west at the age of twenty-one, being governed in this move partly by his aversion to the institution of slavery.
He read law with William H. Haywood, of Raleigh, North Carolina, who was at one time a senator from that state. In 1834 he removed to Chicago, Illinois, then a village of five hundred. inhabitants, where he commenced the practice of his chosen profession. Shortly after his debût at the bar, a fist-fight about his first client brought him into notice, and he soon acquired reputation as an advocate. In the same year Governor Joseph Dun- can appointed him prosecuting attorney for the sixth district of Illinois, comprising all the northern part of the state from Chicago to Galena, to Rock Island, Peoria, Hennepin, La Salle and Iroquois. He trav- eled this circuit on horseback, and rode about three thousand miles a year. In June, 1836, he resigned this office, finding that it interfered with his home business. He remained in Chicago till 1838, when it became apparent that the lake winds were detri- mental to his health, and he removed to the then territory of Wisconsin, selecting Davenport, in Scott
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county, as his future home. In the same year con- gress created the territory of Iowa. For some time after his removal to the west side of the great river he lived on a farm near Davenport, and felt disposed to give up his practice. In 1841 he was elected a member of the house of representatives of the fourth territorial assembly of Iowa, to represent the dis- trict composed of Scott and Clinton counties, his colleague being Joseph M. Robertson. In 1844 the people of Scott county elected him to represent them in the first constitutional convention, his colleagues being Andrew W. Campbell and Ebenezer Cook ; and in 1846 he was again sent by the people of Scott county as their sole representative to the sec- ond constitutional convention, and in both sessions he drew up the bill of rights. Although a democrat in politics, he was nominated by the territorial gov- ernor Chambers, a whig, as prosecuting attorney in his district, and was confirmed by the council.
After the adoption of the constitution framed in 1847, under which Iowa was admitted to the Union, our subject was elected judge of the district com- posed of the counties of Allamakee, Blackhawk, Bremer, Butler, Buchanan, Cedar, Clayton, Dela- ware, Dubuque, Fayette, Grundy, Jackson, Musca- tine, Scott and Winnesheik, and held the office during the term of five years, declining reelection. In 185 1 Judge Grant gave life and vigor to the pro- ject of the Chicago and Rock Island railroad ; was its first president and made a contract with Messrs. Sheffield and Farnham to build it. In 1852 he was again a member of the legislature from Scott county, and was elected speaker of the house. Since that time he has kept aloof from office. During the in- tervening period he has been the head of one of the largest and most successful law firms of the north- west. From a statement recently made by Hon. John F. Dillon, judge of the United States circuit court, regarding Judge Grant's judicial and professional career in Iowa, we make the following extracts :
Judge Grant's life has been given essentially to the law. All outside of this has been merely accidental. His polit- ical career and his public services, except those upon the bench, are mere episodes in his life. Although he has kept alive his classical attainments in a degree quite unusual among men who have become eminent in the law, his main energies and his chief studies have been in the line of his profession. Early in life he discovered the advantages to be derived from the possession of law books, which are the most effective implements in a lawyer's vocation, and he is the owner of perhaps the most complete and valuable pri- vate law library in the west, if not in the United States. It is supposed to exceed in value the sum of $30,000. . . . To every lawyer and to every judge his library doors stand always wide open. In illustration of his public spirit it is but proper to refer here to a fact well known in Iowa.
When the legislature required a term of the supreme court of the state to be held semi-annually in Davenport, it was made a condition that it should be without cost to the state, a species of economy, by the way, which has nothing to recommend it; the better to accommodate the court and the bar, Judge Grant fitted up a room for the use of the court above his library and set it apart for them for several years, neither receiving nor expecting compensation. He combines the essential qualities of a successful lawyer, first among which I place integrity, without which no man can be a great lawyer, nor for any considerable length of time a successful one. He is incapable of conscientiously mis- stating to a court a fact or the effect of a decision, or of con- cealing an adverse decision. He has the zeal and courage necessary to great success at the bar. In addition to this, nature has gifted him with most felicitous powers of ex- pression. In the use of strong, vigorous, pure English, it is rare, indeed, to find one who equals him. I have heard him make a law argument, of an hour's length, without hesi- tating for a word, or without employing a superfluous word. Every sentence was short, clearly cut and finely chiseled - in its way a work of art that I have often admired.
He is a man of strong and tender emotions, and occasion- ally when the subject is of such a nature as to elicit his feelings, he is eloquent in the highest sense of the term. This characteristic was especially manifest in his impromptu eulogy on the lamented Stockton, pronounced at a meeting of the bar of Scott county, and in his remarks on the death of the late chief justice of the United States, in the circuit court, at Des Moines, which will never be forgotten by any who heard them.
He has a practical sagacity, so marked as justly to entitle it to the name of genius. It was this quality which enabled him so early to discern that the tide of municipal railway- aid bond litigation taken at the flood would lead on to for- tune and to fame. He fought that battle for years. Every inch of ground was hotly contested. Thestate courts were against his views. The lower federal courts were likewise against him, but in general he was sustained by the supreme court of the United States; but he had to carry his points, one by one, and the contest extended through many years. Whatever may be thought of the legal merits of the con- troversy in its varied phases, all agree that for Judge Grant it was a splendid professional victory, one which has justly given him great distinction, and a satisfaction which is not diminished by the more substantial rewards with which it has been attended.
Added to the accomplishments thus enumerated, Judge Grant is a fine classical scholar, possessing a memory which enables him to retain, not only his early, but his later studies, and to utilize his learn- ing with the best effect.
Few men have a better practical knowledge of mechanics and agriculture, or acquaintance with the wonderful achievements of modern science than he. If his professional life had been cast in some of the older states or larger cities his tastes would probably have led him to make the laws of patents a special study, and he would have become eminent to a remarkable degree in that department.
The judge has been three times married. On the 8th of July, 1839, he married his first wife, Sarah E. Hubbard, who was born within sound of the waves of Plymouth Rock, of Puritan ancestry. She gave birth to a daughter, who died in 1841 ; the mother followed her to the grave in June, 1842. In Janu-
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ary, 1844, he was married to Ada C. Hubbard, who had immigrated from Windsor, Vermont, to Scott county, Iowa; she died in June, 1846, leaving an infant daughter, who survived her mother one year. On the 10th of June, 1848, he was married to his present wife, Elizabeth Brown Leonard, who was born on the 21st of December, 1825, in the town of Griswold, New London county, Connecticut. Her parents were James and Betsy K. (Brown) Leonard, who immigrated to Iowa in the autumn of 1838, being eight weeks in making the journey, and crossing the " father of waters " on a bridge of ice on the 12th of December. . Her father was subsequently a member of the Iowa legislature, and died suddenly in 1845, while serving in that capacity. Mrs. Grant is a lady of rare personal beauty and of high intellectual attainments. Judge Grant and his wife are childless, but they have for many years devoted much of their time and fortune to the care and education of chil- dren of their relatives, having had as many as seven- teen under their control and management, and are prouder of them than many parents. They have thus made to society good returns for the large estate which their industry and prudence have accumulated during a life of activity and usefulness.
On the roth of June, 1873, the judge and Mrs. Grant celebrated the twenty-fifth anniversary of their marriage, their "silver wedding." The occa- sion was made memorable by one of the most sump- tuous entertainments and most gorgeous display of wealth and fashion which the city of Davenport had previously witnessed. Not only were the élite of the locality present, including the Scott county bar and the judges of the United States courts, but the
" aristocracy " from the surrounding county and adjacent states, and also a large contingent from the judge's native state, including several of his college classmates. A prominent feature of the ceremonies, which consisted largely of speeches and congratula- tions, was an address from the Scott county bar, accompanied by a massive silver set. The follow- ing is the address :
DAVENPORT, June 10, 1873.
HON. JAMES GRANT,-Dear Sir: Your brethren of the Scott county bar, uniting with your many other friends in the congratulations appropriate to this occasion, avail them- selves of the opportunity it affords to ask your acceptance of a slight testimonial of their warm regard and esteem for you, and of their appreciation of the many kindnesses and courtesies which you, so many years their senior at the bar, have constantly extended to your junior brethren. They can hope for nothing more than that this little tribute, viewed as a sincere expression of the kind feelings of your brothers in the profession, may afford you the same pleas- ure in its reception as they feel in offering it.
That you and your amiable and excellent wife may enjoy together many more years of happiness, is the sincere wish of your friends and brothers.
C. E. PUTNAM, H. R. CLAUSSEN, WM. T. DITTOB.
JNO. N. ROGERS,
ABNER DAVISON. JOHN C. BILLS.
GEO. E. HUBBELL, D. H. TWOMEY, S. E. BROWN. JAMES T. LANE.
JOHN ACKLEY,
JOHN W. THOMPSON,
J. D. CAMPBELL,
J. H. MURPHY,
J. W. STEWART. J. W. GREEN.
E. E. Cook. JOHN N. CRAWFORD.
J. SCOTT RICHMAN.
HERMAN BLOCK,
JOSEPH A. CRAWFORD, WM. K. WHITE.
ERNEST CLAUSSEN,
I.UDWIG BRUNING,
H. M. MARTIN,
J. H. MELVILLE,
J. HOWARD HENRY. FOSTER & GABBERT.
In politics, the judge has always favored the demo- cratic party.
He is not a member of any church, though assent- ing to the Christian religion.
His habits are most exemplary. His influence has always been on the side of law and order, morality and industry.
HON. WILLIAM G. HAMMOND,
IOWA CITY.
A MONG the leading educators of the United States, in the department of the law, stands William Gardiner Hammond, I.L.D., chancellor of the law department of the Iowa State University. He was born at Newport, Rhode Island, on the 3d of May, 1829. His parents were William G, and Sarah Tillinghast (Bull) Hammond, the former a lawyer and a graduate of Brown University in 1821, and of a family settled in Narragansett since the end of the seventeenth century, who practiced in New- port, and was surveyor of customs there from 1829
to 1847; died in 1858. The latter a daughter of Henry Bull, of Newport, Rhode Island, of a family settled there since the purchase of the island from the Indians in 1638. The founder of the family in that state was the Quaker governor of Rhode Island mentioned by Bancroft in connection with the rising against the tyranny of Andros. Both father and mother were descended on the maternal side from the Huguenot family of Tillinghasts founded by the Calvinist minister, Pardon Tillinghast. His mother also descended from the noted Baptist preacher,
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Obadiah Holmes; and on both sides his ancestors are identified with the history of Rhode Island and freedom of religious opinions. William prepared for college under the private instructions of his father and of Rev. Thacher Thayer, D.D., a Con- gregational minister. He graduated at Amherst in the class of 1849, taking Latin salutatory, to which an English oration was added as a special compli- ment. President Julius H. Seelye, M.C., was a member of the class. Seelye, Hammond, Henry Lobdell, missionary to Mosul, and William J. Rolfe, the editor of Shakspeare, were intimate friends, and formed, with a very few others, a club for mutual criticism and study, which was kept up through the college course, and had a very decided influence on the character, habits of thought and studies of all its members. He was also one of the editors of the college magazine, " The Indicator." He studied law in Brooklyn, New York, from 1849 to 185 1, with Hon. S. E. Johnson, and went into partnership with him as soon as admitted to the bar in May, 1851. He practiced law in Brooklyn and New York city until 1856; was republican candidate for county judge of Kings county in 1855.
In 1856 he went to Europe for the purpose of travel and study, and also with a view to improving the health of his wife, who was threatened with dis- ease of the lungs. He traveled through England, Ireland, France, Germany and Italy, spending a winter in the latter country and nearly a year at Heidelberg in Germany, pursuing the study of civil law and comparative jurisprudence. He returned from Europe in the fall of 1858 to find all that he had accumulated by years of successful practice swept away by the crisis of 1857-8.
After spending some months in his native place he removed to Iowa in December, 1859. He reached Iowa a perfect stranger to all its people, with less than three dollars in his pocket, and went to work in an engineering party on the small branch of railroad now known as the Dubuque Southwest- ern, beginning with a position as rear chainman at one dollar per day, and working his way up through all positions as a railroad engineer, till in about fif- teen months he became chief engineer of a new railroad enterprise, for which he had just made the preliminary surveys when the further building of railroads was stopped by the war. He then acted for a year as professor of languages in Bowen Colle- giate Institute, at Hopkinton, and spent one winter as principal of the Anamosa city schools.
In 1863 he resumed the practice of law at An- amosa, and in 1866 removed to Des Moines, where he practiced till 1868. While at Des Moines he became associated with Judges G. G. Wright and C. C. Cole, of the Iowa supreme court, in the con- duct of the Iowa Law School, a private enterprise started by the two judges in 1866. In 1868 this school was transferred to Iowa City and became the law department of the State University. The same faculty was retained, but Mr. Hammond removed to Iowa City and took chief charge of the school. From that time its growth was rapid and steady, and its reputation has been constantly extending. At first he was the only resident professor, the two judges lecturing for eight weeks each during the year. There are now two resident professors, who give all their time to the school, three other profess- ors attending a portion of each year, and four regu- lar lecturers. The average attendance is about one hundred yearly, and the annual number of gradu- ates sixty to seventy. The course still consists of a single year, but an (optional) second year has al- ready been added, and it is the purpose of the re- gents to make the course one of two full years. The entire course of study is directed by Mr. Ham- mond, who teaches himself from fifteen to eighteen hours weekly, and devotes his entire time to the supervision of the law department, of which he is chancellor.
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