USA > Iowa > Clinton County > Wolfe's history of Clinton County, Iowa, Volume 1 > Part 21
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In 1886 Mr. Howit was elected county attorney, and upon the death of Judge Leffingwell, in 1887, he was, on the recommendation of the bar of the seventh judicial district, appointed by Governor Larrabee district judge. He served in that position until 1891, when he resigned and moved to Salt Lake City.
Immediately after entering upon the practice of law at Salt Lake City, he was by the President appointed United States attorney for the territory of Utah, which position he served until Utah was admitted as a state. He was a member of the convention that drafted the constitution for Utah, and was at the first election after it become a state, elected judge of the district court in
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the city of Salt Lake, which position he afterwards resigned to enter upon the practice of his profession, and he is at present one of the leading lawyers in the Mormon city and state.
FIRST COURTS.
The first term of the United States district court held in Clinton county convened at Camanche, the first seat of justice, October 12, 1840. Hon. Thomas S. Wilson, of Dubuque, was the judge; James D. Bourne, also from Dubuque before he became a resident of this county in 1836, was the sheriff ; Martin Dunning, of Camanche, who died there in 1874, was the clerk, and William J. A. Bradford, prosecuting attorney.
The grand jurors were James Claborne, Benjamin Baker, Otis Bennett, Richard H. Dawson, Eldad Beard, Henry Strickler, Robert C. Bourne, Alan- son Dickerman, Arthur Smith, Samuel N. Bedford, George W. Harlan, John Welsh and Absalom Dennis.
The district comprised the counties of Jackson, Dubuque, Scott and Clayton, and was the second judicial district of the territory of Iowa.
The first entry after the organization of the court and the empanelment of the grand jury was that of James Claborne against J. S. Mccullough, as- sumpsit. The plaintiff dismissed his suit and the court taxed the cost to him.
On the 13th of October, the prosecuting attorney moved the court in the case of the United States against Timothy Bigelow, for a scire facias against the defendant, to show cause why his recognizance should not be for- feited. Bigelow had been indicted for forgery of United States coins. He, however, appeared in court, and the default was set aside.
The first jury trial was held October 14, 1840, an appeal case in which John Thomas was plaintiff and John Eldred, defendant. The jury empaneled were William H. Onley, John Sloan, Philip Deeds, Nathaniel Barber, William Pearsall, Reuben Root, Daniel Hess, Robert Aickmann, Stephen Tripp, Charles E. Langford, Francis F. Ketchum and Stephen Briggs, who gave a verdict for the appellee for five dollars and twenty-five cents. The suit was originally brought by Thomas against Eldred before Abner Beard, one of the justices of the peace of Clinton county (attached to Scott for judicial pur- poses). He lived at De Witt. The original suit was commenced December 13, 1839, and was for "five dollars cash lent and interest." Judgment was rendered for plaintiff for five dollars damages and six dollars and eighty-seven cents costs. The defendant appealed and gave the requisite bond for judg- ment and costs. The bondsman was Robert Calder. The amount of the judgment and costs was thirty-two dollars and eighty-one cents. Attached
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to the papers in the case are receipts from John F. Homer, Abraham Folck and James W. Kirtley, for their witness fees. Mr. Kirtley dates his "Point Pleasant, October 11, 1842."
Levy was made upon one yoke of cattle and one silver watch, which were sold for seventeen dollars and twenty-five cents, "being all the property to be found at this time, November 10, 1842. James D. Bourne, Sheriff of Clinton county." Execution was then issued against the bondsman, but is recalled by the clerk of the court.
Every paper in the case is wholly in manuscript, except the district court subpoenas, the typographic appearance of which is indicative of the limited resources of the printers of that day. They are issued in the name of the United States of America, and are signed, "Witness, the Honorable Thomas S. Wilson, judge of the third judicial district of the territory of Iowa, and the temporary seal of said court, affixed this fifteenth day of September, A. D. 1840. M. Dunning, Clerk." The temporary seal was a wafer and diamond shaped paper.
The first case, however, the papers in which are found and indorsed No. I. was the United States against Erastus Fairman, who was indicted by the grand jury for arson, October 14, 1840. The information was sworn out April 25, 1840 by Joseph P. Brown. The indictment recites that "Erastus Fairman, of said county, on the 24th day of April, 1840, in the night time of said day, with force and arms did feloniously and maliciously, wilfully and knowingly, set on fire and burn a dwelling house, in said county then standing and being, the said dwelling house then and there being the property of Madison E. Hollister, against the peace of the United States of America," etc. Simeon Gardiner, Elias Day, Joseph P. Brown and Charles Bovard entered each their recognizance in the sum of fifty dollars to appear as witnesses. At the April term this action was discontinued by the prosecut- ing attorney, and the defendant was directed by the court to "go hence without day," and the costs are ordered to be paid out of the county treasury.
Practicing law in the forties and fifties, in this portion of Iowa,-then little less than a howling wilderness,-was not what it is in 1910. Many of the early lawyers in eastern Iowa went out on the circuit and followed the presiding judge from one county seat to another, riding on horseback. They entered the hamlet of a county seat with mud-bespattered garments. But these men had brains and hearts, many of them even greater than possessed by many of the barristers of this the enlightened twentieth century. Many of their names have long since been forgotten. They neither rode in a Pull- man coach nor partook of dinner in a modern diner, yet the great laws of this
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state were formed by lawyers who became governors and senators, and thus they proved that surroundings and all obstacles may be surmounted with the genuine grit and application to the tasks at hand.
Many of our supreme judges and eminent attorneys commenced in some humble country hamlet and did well what they undertook, until the very nature of things sent them up to a higher and more pleasing, profitable posi- tion in life.
Referring to the time when Clinton county had no lawyers-well, that was early! The first attorney we have any positive record of was Samuel R. Murray, who located at Camanche in 1840, and died in Dubuque in 1844, while attending the land sales. He was probate judge at the time of his death.
John S. Stowrs located at De Witt in 1844, and was elected probate judge to succeed Judge Murray. He later moved to Wheatland, and died there July 27, 1910. He was a worthy man, but never accumulated much of this world's goods. During his life in Wheatland he was a well-known char- acter in that town, being a man of marked eccentricities.
Aylett R. Cotton was admitted to practice May 8, 1848. His residence in De Witt began in June, 1844; later he moved to Clinton and from there to San Francisco, California, where he still lives. He was a member of the House of Representatives of the twelfth and thirteenth Assemblies, and was speaker of the thirteenth Assembly. He was county judge of Clinton county and member of Congress from 1871 to 1875 from this district.
Roswell B. Millard located at Camanche in 1851 and was admitted to practice in 1853. Later he removed to Low Moor, where he still lives and is at present postmaster. He was county superintendent of schools in 1870.
Daniel W. Ellis was admitted in 1854, and located at Lyons. He was judge of the circuit court from 1872 to 1882, and later moved to Minneapolis, where he died.
Nathaniel A. Merrell, who was admitted May 5, 1856, had been previous- ly admitted in New York in 1855. He located at De Witt and was in active practice there many years. He was a member of the House of Representa- tives in the fourteenth, twentieth and twenty-sixth Assemblies and a member of the Senate in the fifteenth, sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth Assem- blies. He served as captain of Company C, Twenty-sixth Infantry, in the Civil war.
John C. Polley was admitted in New York in 1854 and in Iowa May 5, 1856. He located in De Witt and about 1870 removed to Chicago. At one time he served as county judge of Clinton county.
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Lyman A. Ellis, admitted May 5, 1856, was then a resident of Lyons, but later of Clinton. He was for sixteen years district attorney for the seventh judicial district and served in the twenty-fifth and twenty-sixth Gen- eral Assemblies of the Legislature of Iowa, as senator.
E. S. Bailey, admitted May 5, 1856, first located at De Witt, but was for many years a resident of Clinton. He enlisted in 1862 in a Wisconsin regi- ment and was major of the same; at the close of the Civil war he was retired as lieutenant-colonel. For many years he was an attorney for the North- western and Milwaukee railroad companies.
Charles W. Chase was admitted in New Hampshire in 1862, and in Iowa in 1865. He located at Clinton. In 1880 he was elected judge of the circuit court and served four years; prior to that he had been clerk of the district . court. He died in Clinton in 1908.
Kirk W. Wheeler was admitted in New York in 1859 and in Iowa in 1860. He located at De Witt and was county auditor. He moved to Huron, South Dakota, where he died.
A. T. Wheeler was admitted in Wisconsin in 1851 and in Iowa in 1860. He located at Lyons and was county attorney.
Wickliffe A. Cotton, admitted in 1867, has resided in De Witt from 1844 to the present time. He was state senator in the nineteenth and twentieth General Assemblies.
George B. Young, who was admitted in 1862, was then a resident of Camanche, but later removed to De Witt, and then to Clinton, where he died in 1893. He was judge of the circuit court from 1870 to 1872, when he re- signed to go into the general practice.
William H. H. Hart was admitted in 1869. He located at De Witt, thence moving to California in 1875. He was attorney-general for California and still resides in that state.
J. S. Darling was admitted in Jackson county in 1854. He located at Andrew in 1870, and removed to Clinton, where he practiced until 1907, when he moved to Arkansas, where he lives. He had few equals and no superiors at the bar.
R. J. Crouch, admitted in 1871, located in De Witt, where he died. He was one of the parties who prepared the first history of this county; for twenty years was justice of the peace and so fair were his rulings that no gen- eral complaint was ever made and no case ever appealed from him that was reversed by the higher court.
Mrs. J. Ellen Foster, admitted in 1874, at one time resided at Clinton. She was the first woman ever admitted in Iowa, or any other state, to practice
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in the supreme court. She died in Washington, D. C., in August, 1910. She espoused the temperance and woman's suffrage causes and in these she won a national reputation.
J. H. Walliker, admitted in 1871, resided in Clinton from boyhood, and still lives there. He was sheriff of Clinton county in 1873.
A. R. McCoy, admitted in Illinois in 1869 and in Iowa in 1873, resided in Fulton till 1875, then moved to Clinton; was city attorney, county attorney. He died in 1896. He was a prince of men and one admired by all.
PRESENT ACTIVE ATTORNEYS IN THE COUNTY.
At Clinton-H. F. Bowers, W. H. Carroll, J. H. Dunnan, F. W. Ellis, F. M. Fort, C. H. George, T. W. Hall, W. E. Hayes, W. J. Keefe, William Kreim, R. C. Langan, P. P. Pascal, E. L. Miller, W. T. Oakes, George B. Phelps, J. E. Purcell, W. E. Russell, L. E. Schmitt, Geo. F. Skinner, V. G. Coe, L. F. Sutton, A. L. Schuyler, J. H. Walliker, A. W. Walliker, E. C. Walsh, M. A. Walsh, P. B. Wolfe, J. L. Wolfe. At De Witt-D. Armen- trout, A. L. Pascal, W. A. Cotton, R. B. Wolfe, P. H. Judge, A. L. Pascal, Jr. At Delmar-F. L. Sunderlin. At Lyons-J. B. Ahrens, F. L. Holleran, W. H. Childs, S. C. Scott.
THE FIRST BAR CONVENTION IN IOWA. (By William Graham.)
In 1856 the eighth judicial district of Iowa comprised the counties of Muscatine, Cedar, Jones, Jackson, Clinton and Scott. Hon. William H. Tuhill, of Tipton, was judge. Only one week was allowed for a term of court in each county and two terms a year. A large amount of civil business had grown up in this district, but, owing to the great number of criminal cases on the docket, the civil business man was greatly in arrears. In Clinton county no litigated civil case had been tried for eighteen months, and in Scott county and Muscatine the delays in the administration of justice had grown to be a serious evil. The lawyers applied to the Legislature for relief, and in January, 1857, that body created the fourteenth judicial district of the counties of Jackson, Clinton and Scott, and provided for the election of a judge at the April election of that year.
Some time in February a Republican convention met and put in nomina- tion for district judge, Samuel J. Mills, then a resident of Lyons. Mr. Mills had been admitted to the bar in the state of New York, but had abandoned the
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practice and moved to Lyons and engaged in the lumber business. As his qualification for the position was unknown, his nomination was received with great dissatisfaction by the older members of the bar, and as the district was at that time overwhelmingly Republican the Democrats saw no prospect of defeating him by a partisan candidate. Some of the members of the bar of Clinton county issued a call for a meeting of lawyers, without distinction of party, to be held at Lyons on Tuesday, March 3, 1857.
At this time I was residing at Bellevue, in Jackson county, and was a partner of Judge John B. Booth, who had served one year as a judge of the eighth district. After consultation with a number of the members of the bar of that county, we determined to attend. Some of the others promised to go, but failed to do so. The winter had been a long, hard one and the spring was very late, and the Maquoketa river was on a rampage, and we were obliged to go by way of Bridgeport where there was a bridge over the stream, and spend Sunday in Maquoketa.
When the convention was called to order in the old school house at Lyons, about forty lawyers were present, most all' of them from Clinton county. James Edwards came up from Davenport with authority to speak for a goodly number of the members of the Scott county bar. Judge Booth was called to the chair and James Edwards, of Scott, and W. L. Makenzie, of Clinton, were made secretaries. Quite a number of the younger Republican lawyers of Clinton county made an attempt to have the convention endorse the nomina- tion of Mr. Mills. Lyman A. Ellis was the chief spokesman, but was "called down" by General Baker, ex-governor of New Hampshire, who was one of the syndicate then engaged in booming the new town of Clinton, who interrupted him to inquire whether he intended to support the nominee of the convention in case it should not endorse Mr. Mills. After considerable sparring between them, Mr. Ellis said that in any event he should vote for the nominee of the Republican convention. The Governor then made the point that he was not entitled to a seat in this convention and was sustained by the vote of the body, and Lyman withdrew. Afterward his brother, Hon. D. W. Ellis, arose to address the convention, and he too was ruled out on the same ground. E. S. Hart, Jasper Carnish and some others, whose names I cannot recall, after stating that they should vote for Mr. Mills regardless of what this convention should do, were also denied seats in the convention.
After an address by the chairman and a frank comparison of views among the members, Judge William E. Leffingwell placed before the body the name of Hon. Gilbert C. R. Mitchell, of Davenport, which was seconded in a vigorous speech by General Baker (afterward the well known adjutant-gen-
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eral during the Civil war and for the rest of his life) and, no other name hav- ing been mentioned, he was nominated by acclamation.
Judge Mitchell was a native of North Carolina, and had been one of the early settlers of Davenport, and active in the practice of the law. He had represented Scott county in the Territorial Legislature, and had narrowly escaped an election to Congress on the Whig ticket in 1848. He had been a Whig all his life, but on the dissolution of that party in the fifties declined to follow the majority into the ranks of the Republican organization. He was a thorough lawyer and an accomplished gentleman. He accepted the nomina- tion with reluctance, and was elected by a handsome majority over his Repub- lican competitor and made an excellent judge, and it was a matter of regret among the members of the bar that ill' health compelled him to resign his place on the bench in September following.
Mr. Mills soon afterward abandoned both the practice of the law and the lumber business and entered the ministry of the Presbyterian church, to which he devoted the rest of his life. Judge Mitchell was succeeded by Hon. A. H. Bennett, who the following year was renominated by another bar convention, but was defeated for reelection by Hon. John F. Dillon.
The convention at Lyons was the first non-partisan bar convention ever held in Iowa, though in the same judicial district several have since been held with successful results. Whether any of those who were present, but denied seats in it, still survive is unknown to the writer, who believes he is the only person living who took part in its deliberations, and he thinks it a great pity that the example set by the old fourteenth district was not followed in the other districts of the state and in the state at large. If it had been, he believes the reputation of the judiciary of Iowa would have stood higher than it does.
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CHAPTER XIV.
THE MEDICAL PROFESSION.
The family doctor and the surgeon within any community are persons who hold great responsibility, having, as they do, the lives of men, women and children in their hands. As much as the medicines prescribed by them are disliked and with all the hard things said of the profession, at large, and as little as the physicians are appreciated when one is in the happy possession of good health, yet when the fevered brow and quickened pulse is felt, when all life looks dark and all seems doubtful and full of gloom, it is then that the good physician is called and duly appreciated, for he understands just what to do to bring the sick man back to health and strength again. The followers of Galen have ever been in the vanguard of civilization, prompt to visit the sick chamber and, if possible, restore life and strength to those lanquishing with disease. These true hearted men have ever braved the storms of winter and endured the torrid heat of mid-summer, in the settlement of all new coun- tries, when, on horseback, they have made their long, tedious rides over hill and valley, through morasses and everglades. They have climbed the hills, had to swim angry streams and go through desolate wastes, in order to reach and, if possible, relieve the sick and suffering of communities.
The science of medicine in the last half century has made rapid advance- ment, and in surgery the last twenty-five years has revolutionized the science. The great colleges, hospitals and universities have educated a vast army of capable men (and women, too) who have progressed to a point where dis- eases once thought almost, if not quite, incurable have come to be looked upon as simple in treatment. The per cent of cases lost now is comparatively small to what it was in the pioneer days. Every county owes much to the good, faithful physician, who often goes unpaid for his services, but seldom refuses to administer to the needs of those in distress.
Coming to the physicians of Clinton county, Iowa, it may be stated, of a truth, that they have always ranked well with those of any portion of the commonwealth of Iowa in their day and generation. The pioneer physicians of this county include such men as are named hereinafter :
Prior to 1841, no physician had located within the limits of the county, and the settlers depended upon what little stock of medicine they chanced to
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bring with them, upon Indian remedies, as related elsewhere of Buell's fam- ily, and upon the indigenous roots and herbs gathered and prepared by the experienced older ladies, and administered with generally beneficial results. Ipecac and boneset were the chief specifics in Mr. Buell's medicine chest. Doctor Peck added to the local pharmacopoeia pills and ointment, especially blue and red precipitates, which, there is a credible tradition the settlers had a "terrible itching for" about that time.
James D. Bourne, in his part of the county, turned his attention to surg- ery as well as medicine, and probably performed the first surgical operation after the Indian medicine man vanished westward. He first relieved Norman Evans, who had received a severe gash upon the knee, and afterward cut a rusty fish-gig from the hand of an unknown man, and extracted a bean from the nose of a child of Mr. Dierk, then living on Mill creek. In the spring of 1837, Robert Bourne brought to this section the first assortment of medicine, including calomel, jalap, cinchona, wormseed, Sappington's pills, which were dealt out to the settlers in heroic doses, the hardy constitutions of that time enduring drastic remedies in a manner that would now surprise most young physicians. The obstetric department was managed by the wise and experi- enced matrons and, in the absence of any proof to the contrary, must have been well performed.
The first regularly educated physician in the county was Dr. William Bassett, who came from De Kalb county, Illinois, to Camanche in 1841. From there he moved to Lyons in 1844, and practiced there until 1848, when he went across the river to Fulton, Illinois, and died there in 1867. He was born in Hinsdale, Massachusetts, in 1808; was educated at Berkshire Medical College, Pittsfield, Massachusetts, and in Woodstock, Vermont.
Dr. Zebulon Metcalf came next; he located at De Witt in 1842, and re- sided there until his death in 1847. He was born in Cherry Valley, New York, and educated in some eastern college, and was a very successful phy- sician and a man of fine education.
The following personal mentions are taken mainly from Lothrop's Med- ical History :
CAMANCHE.
Dr. J. P. Anthony settled in Camanche in 1850; in 1855 removed to Sterling, Illinois. He was assistant surgeon of the One Hundred and Twenty-seventh Illinois Volunteer Infantry, and surgeon of the Sixty-first Volunteer Infantry until the close of the war. Born in Washington county, New York, in 1823; educated at Pittsfield Medical College, Massachusetts.
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Dr. A. B. Ireland came to Camanche in 1852, where he practiced his profession until his death, in 1878. He was born in a small town in eastern Tennessee in 1816, and removed with his father to Tremont, Illinois. He re- ceived his medical education in the Illinois Medical College at Jacksonville, graduating in 1846. Doctor Ireland had an extensive practice, and was a man very widely known in the county for kindness and sterling integrity. He was elected to the State Senate in 1869, and held numerous local offices. For six or seven years he was president of the Clinton County Medical Society.
Dr. E. T. Manning came to Camanche in 1850, in the capacity of a Bap- tist preacher, with which he combined the practice of medicine. He held an honorary degree from Bennett Eclectic Medical College of Chicago. When asked why he left preaching for medicine, he said men suffered more from colic than from fear of hell, and would pay better.
C. D. Manning, son of the above, graduated in Rush Medical College, Chicago, in. 1870, and began practice in Camanche.
Dr. William McQuigg received his medical education at Cleveland Med- ical College, Ohio, came to Camanche in 1852, and practiced there until 1866, when he removed to Lyons.
Several others located in Camanche for a short time.
LYONS PHYSICIANS.
Dr. A. L. Ankeny, for many years a well known business man of Lyons, was born in Jackson county, Illinois, graduated from Rush Medical College in 1850, and practiced in Lyons until 1855, when he went into business.
Dr. Joseph Beez, a native of Bavaria, located in Lyons in 1857, and practiced there until his death in 1864, aged about forty.
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