Iowa Historical Law Guide

Contents

Legal Ages at a Glance

The legal system

Iowa is an English common-law state, and the common law came in through its territorial parentage. The land entered the United States with the Louisiana Purchase of 1803 and passed through Missouri Territory, then Michigan Territory in 1834, then Wisconsin Territory in 1836, then Iowa Territory from 4 July 1838, and finally statehood on 28 December 1846¹. The Iowa country was almost unsettled by Europeans under French and Spanish rule, so the courts the territory received were common-law courts and the law they applied was English.

The first seventeen years have to be traced through other territories' law books. The Black Hawk Purchase opened to settlement on 1 June 1833, and for a year the land had no organized civil government at all. Congress attached it to Michigan Territory on 28 June 1834, it passed to Wisconsin Territory on 4 July 1836, and when Iowa Territory was created on 4 July 1838 its Organic Act extended the existing laws of Wisconsin Territory over the new territory until the Iowa legislature altered them². So for a rule in force before the Iowa legislature acted on the subject, the governing text is a Wisconsin or Michigan territorial statute, and the dates below say when Iowa first legislated for itself.

Two territorial texts fix the point. The Ordinance of 1787, reprinted at the front of the territorial statute book, entitled the inhabitants to judicial proceedings according to the course of the common law³. The territorial courts act then empowered the supreme court to carry its judgments and decrees into execution according to the rules and principles of the common law and equity⁴.

The codes

Iowa law runs through one lineage. The territorial legislature enacted the Statute Laws of the Territory of Iowa at its first session in November 1838 — the "Old Blue Book" — and the Revised Statutes of 1843, the "Blue Book," compiled the territorial law down to statehood. The Code of 1851 was enacted and took effect on 1 July 1851; it is the master document, and most of the rules below start there. The Revision of 1860 restated it, printing the source section in parentheses beside each new number, and stands as a compilation except for its Codes of Civil and Criminal Practice, which were enacted on 4 July 1860. The Codes of 1873, 1897, and 1924 through 1950 follow.

Each code prints the derivation of every section in brackets at its foot, so a section of the 1939 Code shows its ancestor in 1924, 1897, 1873, 1860, and 1851, and every rule in this guide can be followed back through the volumes.

Legal age of adulthood

Majority at twenty-one for men and eighteen for women

Full legal age in Iowa was 21 for a man and 18 for a woman, and marriage made any minor an adult at once: the period of minority extended in males to 21 and in females to 18, but all minors attained their majority by marriage⁵. The rule was in the Code of 1851 and ran forward through the Revision of 1860, the Code of 1873, and the Code of 1897 in the same words.

The territorial decades ran on the same two ages. The territorial marriage act required consent for a male under 21 and a female under 18⁶, which is the territorial legislature saying when each sex came of age. The territorial statutes fix no age of majority in general terms, so the marriage act carries the point.

The General Assembly raised the woman's age to 21 in 1923, leaving a woman of 18 the power to make a valid contract of marriage as an adult⁷. The Code of 1924 is the first code to print the new rule, and it stood through 1950.

The date changes the arithmetic on two common records. In the years before 1923 a woman's guardianship closed at 18, and 18 was the age at which she could make a will in her own right. A guardian's final settlement for a girl therefore brackets her eighteenth birthday, and for a boy his twenty-first.

The married minor

Marriage ended minority outright. A fifteen-year-old bride was a legal adult from the wedding day, free to contract, convey, sue, and be sued. This accounts for Iowa deeds and contracts signed by very young married people with no guardian in the record.

A minor's contracts and deeds

A minor was bound by contracts for necessaries — food, clothing, shelter, schooling, the things a person cannot do without — and by his other contracts as well unless he disaffirmed them, that is, declared he would not be held to them, within a reasonable time after reaching majority, and restored whatever he still held of what he had received⁸.

A deed followed the same rule, which is why a minor's land was ordinarily sold by a guardian under a court order.

Marriage

Who was old enough to marry

Two ages govern, and Iowa did not set them for itself until 1840:

Iowa set no marrying age of its own until 1840. The first Iowa territorial legislature of 1838–39 passed no marriage act, so a couple marrying in the Black Hawk Purchase before March 1840 married under the Wisconsin or Michigan territorial law carried forward by the Organic Act, and the 1840 act closed by repealing whatever law on the subject was then in force⁹. The territorial legislature fixed the first Iowa pair by an act approved 6 January 1840 and in force from 1 March that year: a male of 18 and a female of 14 could marry, provided they were not nearer of kin than first cousins and had no living husband or wife¹⁰. From 1851 a marriage between a male of 16 and a female of 14 was valid¹¹. Where a party was under age, the marriage was a nullity or not at that party's option, exercised at any time before he or she was six months older than the age fixed¹¹. So an underage marriage stood unless the underage party moved against it, and the window closed six months after the birthday. The same words appear in the Revision of 1860 and in the Code of 1939¹².

Parental consent

Consent was required for any male under 21 or any female under 18 — the ages of majority — both before and after 1851. Under the territorial act the father gave it, and on his death or incapacity the mother or guardian did⁶. Under the Code of 1851 a license could issue only where both parties were of the marrying age, where any minor had the previous consent of a parent or guardian, and where each party's condition allowed him to make a civil contract¹³.

The consent left a record. It was filed in the county office after being acknowledged by the parent or guardian or proved genuine, and a memorandum of the fact entered on the county court records¹⁴. Where the judge did not know the parties, he took the testimony of competent and disinterested witnesses as to their age and condition and entered their names on the record¹⁵. From the later nineteenth century the clerk required at least one affidavit from a disinterested person stating the parties' age and qualification¹⁶.

Where the marriage record is

The county judge issued the license¹⁷, and the clerk of the county court kept a register of the parties' names, the date of the marriage, and the person who solemnized it¹⁸. That register is the index to the Iowa marriage record. One rule matters more than the rest: a marriage performed in any manner other than the statute prescribed was valid all the same¹⁹. The statute directed how a marriage should be made and then left the marriage standing where it was made otherwise, which is why a valid Iowa marriage may leave a thin record or none.

Common-law marriage

Iowa recognized common-law marriage through 1950, and the Code of 1851 assumed it: continuous cohabitation as husband and wife was made presumptive evidence of marriage for the purpose of the surviving spouse's share in land²⁰.

The courts settled the elements, and they are three: a present intent and agreement of both parties to be married, continuous cohabitation, and a public declaration or holding out to the community that they were husband and wife²¹. Reputation in the neighborhood and the couple's conduct are the ordinary proof. A marriage the couple kept to themselves fell outside the doctrine.

A validly married Iowa couple may leave no county marriage record at all, and their children are legitimate. Where the county has nothing, look for the couple in the census as husband and wife, for deeds and probate filings describing her as his wife, and for the neighbors' statements in any estate or pension file.

The restrictions on marriage

Marriage was a civil contract requiring the consent of parties capable of entering into other contracts²².

The territorial act stated its bars in one sentence: the parties had to be of the marrying age, no nearer of kin than first cousins, and free of a living husband or wife¹⁰. The state law spread the same ground over three places. The clerk could issue no license to a party under the marrying age, to a minor without consent, or to a person whose condition disqualified him from making any civil contract¹³. A marriage within the forbidden degrees of kindred — a man with his aunt, niece, sister, daughter, stepmother, mother-in-law, daughter-in-law or stepdaughter, and the matching list for a woman — was void; first cousins fell outside the list²³. And marrying while a husband or wife was living was the crime of bigamy, punishable from the Code of 1851 onward²⁴.

In the twentieth century Iowa added a mental-capacity screen. Institutions filed lists of mental defectives, the clerk issued no license to a person on a list, and there was a procedure to try the question of competency and to appeal it²⁵. Where an Iowa couple of the 1920s or 1930s met an unexplained delay or refusal, that proceeding is the file to look for.

Race and marriage

The territorial statute declared marriages between white people and Black or mixed-race people illegal and void²⁶. That act took effect on 1 March 1840.

From 1 July 1851 Iowa marriage law applied to all persons alike, whatever their race. The Code of 1851 set out the whole of the marriage law in seventeen sections²⁷. Black, white, and mixed-race couples married under the ordinary law, took out the ordinary license, and appear in the ordinary county register. Iowa was among the first states to reach that position, and held it through 1950.

Iowa was free soil. The territorial Supreme Court's first decision held that a Black man brought into the territory could not be reduced to slavery for an unpaid debt, and discharged him from all custody and constraint²⁸.

Property ownership

Which men could own land

A man could own land at any age, taking it by purchase, gift, inheritance, or devise — a gift of land made by will²⁹. Majority added the power to deal in it himself: at 21 he could buy, sell, mortgage, and convey in his own name, and his deed stood.

Marriage left a man's own land in his own hands. He bought and sold it in his own right, subject to his wife's share, below.

Citizenship governed the foreign-born. A resident alien held property on the same footing as a citizen. A non-resident alien could hold Iowa land in three situations: as the widow, heir, or devisee of someone who had acquired it here, as the holder of a lien — a legal claim on the land as security for a debt — enforcing it, and as a purchaser at a sale on his own judgment³⁰. Where a foreign-born ancestor's Iowa land leaves the record without a deed, an escheat proceeding under that chapter — the process by which land with no lawful owner falls to the state — is one explanation.

Women and land ownership

A single or widowed woman — a feme sole, a woman alone — could buy, own, sell, mortgage, sue, and be sued exactly as a man could³¹.

A married woman's position in Iowa was strong from the beginning. Under the Code of 1851 a wife kept her own personal property, her separate debts were hers alone to answer for, and her property together with its rents and income stood clear of her husband's creditors³². Contracts she made about her separate property, or purporting to bind only herself, bound her and not him³³. Family expenses and the children's education were chargeable on the property of both³⁴. By the Code of 1873 the rule was flat: neither spouse acquired any interest in the property of the other by the marriage, either could sue the other over property as if unmarried, and either could convey to the other³⁵.

A married woman conveyed her own land "the same as any other person" from 1851³¹. The territorial statute had required her to join her husband in the deed and to acknowledge it on an examination apart from him — a privy examination, a private interview with an officer certifying that she acted freely and without her husband's compulsion, written up in a certificate on the deed³⁶. The Code of 1851 ended that requirement, so a privy examination on an Iowa deed dates it before 1 July 1851.

Two Iowa rules turn a marital difficulty into a findable document:

• The recorded notice of a wife's property. Where a wife left her personal property under her husband's control, she filed a notice for record with the recorder of deeds stating its value and that she claimed for it out of his estate; on his death or insolvency she was then a preferred creditor to that amount³⁷. Specific articles were kept clear of his debts the same way³⁸. The notices went into the book used for chattel mortgages — mortgages on goods rather than land — and were indexed³⁹. A notice five years old was presumptive evidence of the facts in it⁴⁰.
• The abandoned wife's decree. A married woman abandoned by her husband could petition the district court for authority to act and transact business as though unmarried; on proof or default the court entered the fact of abandonment of record and granted the power⁴¹. The court could also authorize her to sue or defend in his place, to sell enough of his property to maintain the family, and to collect debts due him, and her deeds and receipts under that power were valid⁴². A husband had the same remedy⁴³. A decree of this kind in the district court records fixes the date a marriage broke down.

A husband kept his wife and children in the homestead: he could not remove them without her consent, and if he abandoned her she took custody of the minor children unless the district court directed otherwise⁴⁴.

When a wife had to sign her husband's deed

From 1 July 1851 each spouse took one-third of the other's land in fee simple — outright ownership, which the holder can sell or leave by will. The share reached every parcel the dead spouse had held at any time during the marriage. Two kinds of land were outside it: land already sold on execution or other judicial sale, meaning a sale ordered by a court to satisfy a debt, and land the survivor had relinquished by signing away the right⁴⁵.

The Code kept the old word for the new share. The section is headed "Dower," and the codes still head it that way in 1939 — but Iowa dower after 1851 is ownership of a third, not the life interest the word carries in most states. Curtesy, the husband's answering life interest in his wife's land, was abolished outright, and he was given the same one-third that she had in his⁴⁶.

Set that against an ordinary sale. Because the share reached every parcel the husband had held at any time during the marriage, a buyer took the land subject to the wife's one-third unless she joined in the deed and relinquished. Her signature is what carried the last third of the title.

So a deed of a married man's Iowa land normally carries two signatures, and a married man's deed signed alone is worth investigating — it may mean he was unmarried at that date, which is itself useful, or it may mean a claim surfaced later in the abstract.

The share was set off after death by referees appointed by the court, who could employ a surveyor, marked the share off by metes and bounds — a boundary description running line by line around the parcel — and reported to the court⁴⁷. Where the property could not readily be divided the court could order a sale and pay the survivor one-third of the proceeds⁴⁸. The referees' report describes a specific third of a specific farm, and it is one of the best land documents in an Iowa probate file.

The homestead needed both signatures

The homestead had its own rule, independent of the one-third share. A conveyance of the homestead was valid only where the husband and wife concurred in and signed it⁴⁹. The homestead answered for taxes on it and for mechanic's liens — claims by builders and suppliers for work done on the property⁵⁰ — and for debts contracted before the law or before the purchase⁵¹.

So a deed of the family home carrying both signatures where title stood in one name alone is the normal, expected Iowa form, and the wife signs there to release the homestead.

Which children could own land

A child could own land at any age. Selling it went through the county court. Where it did not violate the terms of a will under which the minor held, the court could order the minor's real estate sold or mortgaged on the guardian's application — where a sale was necessary for the minor's support or education, or where his interest would be promoted because the property was unproductive, exposed to waste — damage or neglect that lets its value run down — or otherwise peculiarly situated⁵². The petition stated the grounds, was verified by oath, and a copy with notice of the hearing was served⁵³.

A single sale of a child's land therefore leaves a petition, a notice, an order, a guardian's bond, and a deed executed by someone other than the owner. Where an Iowa deed conveys a child's land, the guardianship file holds the family.

How deeds were signed and witnessed

An Iowa deed was made good by acknowledgment and recording. To acknowledge a deed is to appear before an authorized officer and declare that the signature on it is your own and freely given. An instrument affecting real estate held against later purchasers for value without notice once recorded with the county recorder of deeds⁵⁴, and it was lawfully recorded once acknowledged or proved⁵⁵. Acknowledgment within the state was taken before a court with a seal or its judge, justice, or clerk, or before a justice of the peace or notary public⁵⁶; out of state, before a court of record, a commissioner appointed by the governor, or a notary⁵⁷. The officer endorsed a certificate on the deed⁵⁸.

Witnesses entered where the grantor — the person selling or giving the land — could not. If the grantor died before acknowledging, or his attendance could not be procured, or he refused, the due execution and delivery of the deed was proved before the same officers⁵⁹, who could subpoena and compel the attendance of witnesses⁶⁰. A witness of any age could serve, provided he understood the obligation of an oath⁶¹. In practice these witnesses were adults, because the proof might be taken years after the signing.

Race and land ownership

Free people of color could acquire, hold, and convey Iowa land on the same terms as anyone else, and did⁶². The Iowa "black laws" reached settlement in the state.

The territorial exclusion act, approved 21 January 1839, barred any Black or mixed-race person from settling or residing in the territory from the first day of April that year unless the person produced a court-attested certificate of freedom and gave bond with security in the penal sum of $500, conditioned that the person not become a county charge and for good behavior⁶³. The territorial act fell with the Code of 1851, whose general repealing section swept away the public acts passed before that session⁶⁴. The state passed its own exclusion law the same year⁶⁵, enforced once, and repealed it in 1864 by an act which recited that enforcement had been attempted contrary to the wishes of a large majority of the people, repealed the exclusion act outright, and directed that all suits pending under it be dismissed⁶⁶.

Where the certificate and bond were filed, the papers went into the county records, and they name the person, the certifying court, and the sureties.

Native land passed with the legislature's leave. The Meskwaki (Sac and Fox) were permitted by statute to reside in the state, and from 1857 they bought land in Tama County⁶⁷. A researcher tracing that title should work from the act and the resulting county deeds together.

Inheritance

A person who died without a will died intestate, and a statute divided the estate.

The territorial rules to 1851

Before the Code of 1851 the estate was divided under two systems, one for land and one for goods, and the widow's interest in the land was a life interest.

Land descended in equal shares to the children, and to the issue of a dead child by right of representation — that is, the dead child's descendants stepped into his place and divided what he would have received. Where there was no issue the land went to the father; failing him, to the brothers and sisters, with the mother taking an equal share alongside them; failing those, to the mother alone; then to the next of kin; and at the end of the line it escheated to the territory. Kindred of the half blood inherited equally with those of the whole blood, and advancements — property given to a child in the parent's lifetime — counted against that child's share⁶⁸. Nothing in that chapter touched the husband's title as tenant by the curtesy or the widow's as tenant in dower⁶⁹, the two life interests each spouse held in the other's land.

The widow's dower came from the Ordinance of 1787, which the territory carried forward: she took a third part of the real estate for life, and a third part of the personal estate⁷⁰.

Personal property was distributed after the widow's allowance of apparel and provisions and after debts. The residue went to the same people who took the land, except that the widow took one-third of it if there was issue, one-half if there was none, and the whole if the intestate left no kindred at all; if the intestate was a married woman her husband took the whole residue; and with no husband, widow, or kindred the estate escheated to the county⁷¹.

One system for land and goods from 1851

The Code of 1851 put the whole estate under one set of rules: personal property not needed to pay debts was distributed to the same persons and in the same proportions as though it were real estate⁷². Learn the descent rules once and they govern everything.

The surviving spouse's share

The survivor — husband or wife alike — took one-third in value, in fee simple, of the real property the deceased had held at any time during the marriage, excluding what had been sold on execution or judicial sale or released by relinquishment⁷³. The share was set off so as to include the ordinary dwelling house and the land given by law as a homestead, or so much of it as equaled her share, unless she preferred a different arrangement; and no different arrangement was permitted where it would prejudice creditors⁷⁴.

Two points do a lot of work. The share is ownership, so the widow or widower could sell it, mortgage it, and leave it by will — land coming out of an Iowa widow's own estate a generation later is often her third. And the share was claimed by an application for admeasurement — a request that the court measure the third off and set it apart — which could be made at any time after twenty days and within ten years of the death, specifying the tracts claimed⁷⁵, so the file may open long after the funeral.

Where the property could not readily be divided, the court could order the whole sold and one-third of the proceeds paid over⁷⁶. A sale was prevented by anyone interested giving security to pay the appraised value with ten percent interest within a year, and the survivor could keep the property by giving like security to pay off the others⁷⁷. Money paid to a widow could buy a new homestead, exempt from the debts the old one had been exempt from⁷⁸.

The rest of the estate

Subject to the survivor's share and to charges, the remaining estate descended in equal shares to the children, with the heirs of a dead child taking that child's share by representation⁷⁹. Advancements counted as part of the estate for division, taken at what the gift would then be worth in the condition in which it was given, and an heir who had received more than his share kept it⁸⁰.

Beyond the children, the Code of 1851 ran the estate up a fixed ladder, and each rung is a family the researcher may need to identify. Issue, in the table below, means a person's children and their descendants:

The twentieth-century codes enlarged the childless survivor's share considerably. Where the intestate left no issue, the surviving spouse took the whole estate up to $7,500 after debts and the costs of administration, and half of everything above that figure; the intestate's parents took the other half of the excess, and the whole where there was no surviving spouse⁸⁴.

The election against a will

A surviving spouse took the share against a will. The widow's right stood whatever her husband's will said, if she objected to it and relinquished all rights the will gave her⁸⁵. The later codes made this a formal election, with notice, a record of the election, notice by an interested party, an election by law where the survivor did not act, and a separate procedure where the survivor was insane or mentally incapable⁸⁶.

The election is a dated, signed paper in the probate file, and it tells you which way the survivor went.

Minors and guardians

The father was the natural guardian of his minor children; on his death or incapacity the mother became guardian⁸⁷. Either could appoint a guardian by will, and where both parents were dead or disqualified the county court appointed⁸⁸.

A guardian was appointed whenever a minor came into property from a source other than his parents, with both parents living and well⁸⁹. This is the one people miss. A legacy from a grandparent, an uncle, or the mother's family triggers a guardianship of the estate, and the guardian is often somebody other than the father. A guardianship for a child whose father is alive tells you the child inherited from outside the household, and points at a different family.

The father, or on his death or incapacity the mother, could be appointed guardian of the property where the court thought them suitable⁹⁰.

At fourteen, a minor of sound intellect selected his own guardian, subject to the court's appointment⁹¹. The rule was the same for both sexes. A guardianship record in which the child chooses is evidence the child had reached 14, which brackets a birth year.

Both rules are older than the state. Under the territorial act the courts of probate admitted orphan minors above fourteen, the father being dead, to choose their own guardians, and appointed for those under fourteen, in every case where the minor held real or personal estate⁹². Where a minor whose father was living was entitled to an estate not derived from that father, the probate court called the father in to show cause why a guardian should not be appointed, and could name the father if he was a proper person or otherwise the person a minor of fourteen chose⁹³. A guardian other than the father had charge of the estate but no control over the child, and gave bond in double the amount of the minor's estate⁹⁴. So an Iowa guardianship file from the 1840s answers the same questions as one from the 1870s. The papers sit with the probate books, and the file moved with the court that held probate — the county court from 1851, the circuit court from 1868, and the district court from 1887.

The guardian gave bond with surety — a second person who promised to make good any loss — in double the value of the personal estate and the rents and profits of the real estate, conditioned on faithful discharge, and took an oath in the same terms⁹⁵. Within forty days he filed an inventory of all the minor's property, appraised as a decedent's would be, in the county judge's office⁹⁶. He managed the estate under the court's direction and could lease the land or lend the money during minority⁹⁷.

Guardianship ended at majority — 21 for a boy and, in the years before 1923, 18 for a girl⁹⁸. The final settlement is one of the most valuable documents in Iowa genealogy: it dates the minor's majority and so approximates a birth year, and for a girl it frequently reveals a married surname.

Children born outside marriage

An illegitimate child inherited from the mother, and she from the child⁹⁹. The birth was the whole of the proof, and the rule is as old as the territory¹⁰⁰.

The child inherited from the father where paternity was proven during his life, or where he had recognized the child as his — and that recognition had to be general and notorious, or else in writing¹⁰¹. Where the recognition was mutual, the father inherited from the child¹⁰², though in that direction the mother and her heirs took preference over the father and his¹⁰³. The Code of 1851 rested the father's side on recognition; the later codes added proof of paternity during his life as a second route¹⁰⁴.

"General and notorious" is a question of fact, and proving it made litigation. A contested Iowa estate involving an illegitimate child throws off depositions from neighbors about what the father called the child and how he treated it — which is to say, exactly the testimony a genealogist wants. Look for the case file, not just the order.

From 1851 a child born before its parents' marriage became legitimate by that marriage alone¹⁰⁵. The territorial rule had asked for one step more: the parents married, and the father then acknowledged the child after the marriage¹⁰⁶.

Paternity was separately determined in a bastardy proceeding — a court action brought to name the father of a child born outside marriage and make him pay for its keep. Where a woman was delivered of, or pregnant with, a bastard child, complaint was made in writing to the county court naming the reputed father, and a summons issued requiring him to appear on not less than seven days' notice¹⁰⁷. The county could also proceed against the putative father — the man alleged to be the father — for the child's support, and the question of paternity was tried in that action¹⁰⁸. The file names him.

Wills

The age to make a will was full age — 21 for a man, and 18 for a woman until 1923. Any person of full age and sound mind could dispose by will of all his property, subject to homestead and exemption rights and to the survivor's share, except what was needed to pay debts¹⁰⁹. Property acquired later could be devised where the intention was clear¹¹⁰.

Iowa allowed three forms, and each needed two witnesses:

All three forms, and the two-witness requirement with them, came out of the territorial probate act unchanged¹¹⁴.

A witness could be of any age if competent, and a gift to a witness failed unless two disinterested witnesses also signed¹¹⁵ — except that a witness who would have taken by intestacy could still take up to the value of what was devised¹¹⁶. So a legacy to one of the two witnesses simply fails, and its failure tells you the drafter thought that person close to the family.

Executors

The age to serve as executor was 18. Where a minor under eighteen was appointed executor, there was a temporary vacancy as to him until he reached that age¹¹⁷, and beyond that exception the court appointed only executors who were of age and suitable for the trust¹¹⁸. So an Iowa executor could be younger than an Iowa testator — an eighteen-year-old son could qualify.

A married woman acted as executor independently of her husband, and marriage after appointment left the appointment good¹¹⁹. Where a named executor was under 18 or otherwise unable, the court appointed a substitute and the administration went forward without delay¹²⁰.

Taxation

What was taxed

Five kinds of tax on individuals leave usable records: the general property tax, the poll tax, the road tax that went with it, a tax on property passing at death from 1896, and a personal income tax from 1934. A poll is the taxable person, and a poll or capitation tax is a flat charge laid on the person himself.

The county court met annually on the fourth Monday of July and levied state revenue at three mills on the dollar, ordinary county revenue at not more than six mills together with a poll tax of fifty cents, a school tax between a half mill and a mill and a half, and the road tax¹²¹.

The territorial pattern was the same one. The county commissioners met at their regular July session, levied on real and personal property up to five mills on the dollar, and could levy a poll tax of up to fifty cents on every male citizen over twenty-one and under fifty¹²². So the fifty-cent poll tax is territorial in origin, and an Iowa man appears on a poll list from the 1840s on much the same terms he would in the 1850s. The same act exempted a hundred dollars' worth of household furniture to each householder, libraries, farm implements, and mechanics' tools¹²³.

Who was a poll and who dropped off

The Code of 1851 levied the fifty-cent poll tax without saying who counted as a poll, but the later codes spell it out and the answer did not change: the levy was fifty cents on each male resident over twenty-one years of age¹²⁴, and that section traces its own descent back to the 1851 provision. The territorial act had capped the same tax at fifty cents on male citizens over twenty-one and under fifty. So a poll is an adult man, and the list of polls in a county is a list of its men over 21.

Every person liable to a county poll tax also owed a road tax fixed by the county court at not less than one nor more than two dollars a year¹²⁵. For that purpose every man between the ages of twenty-one and fifty was deemed able-bodied, unless he satisfied the court otherwise and obtained an order exempting him temporarily or permanently¹²⁶. The tax could be worked off: a man could pay the whole or part of his poll or personal property road tax in labor at a dollar a day, on written notice to the supervisor by 1 September, performing the work where directed and ordinarily within two miles of home¹²⁷. The supervisor issued numbered certificates for labor done and kept a tally¹²⁸.

Exemption ran on age or infirmity. The polls or estates of persons who by reason of age or infirmity were in the assessor's judgment unable to contribute to the public charges were exempt, subject to reversal by the county court¹²⁹. So a man can leave an Iowa road list while still alive and still resident: he turned fifty, or the assessor excused him.

Cities and towns ran a road poll tax of their own, and its terms moved twice. Under the Code of 1873 it fell on able-bodied male residents between twenty-one and fifty, who worked two days on the streets. An act of 1882 narrowed the bracket to twenty-one and forty-five and let a man pay money instead of working¹³⁰. By the twentieth-century codes the labor had disappeared and the levy was money only: cities and towns could require all able-bodied male residents between the ages of twenty-one and forty-five to pay a sum fixed by the council, not exceeding five dollars, between 1 February and 1 October, on demand made by personal notice or by mail¹³¹. A man claiming exemption filed an affidavit stating the nature of his disability, and the council approved or refused it¹³². Members of the national guard were exempt from poll tax and from road labor during service¹³³.

The assessor's annual list is the record all of this generates. Among the items returned to the state was the number of polls in each county, alongside the counts of horses, cattle, and the rest¹³⁴.

A separate tax fell on property passing at death. Iowa laid it by act of the 26th General Assembly in 1896, and the rate turned on how closely each taker was related to the deceased: property passing to anyone outside the immediate family paid five percent of its value above one thousand dollars, after debts¹³⁵. The return filed for it therefore names the beneficiaries and states each one's relationship, which is often the fullest statement of a family an estate produces.

Iowa began taxing personal income on 1 January 1934, at rates running from one percent on the first thousand dollars of taxable income to five percent above five thousand¹³⁶. Age had nothing to do with it; income did. A single person had to file at a net income of one thousand dollars, a married person living with a spouse at fifteen hundred, and anyone at all at a gross income of three thousand¹³⁷. Most Iowa families in the 1930s fell under those figures and filed nothing, so an income tax return is a sign of a household with real money.

The courts

Jury service

Iowa keyed jury service to the vote. All qualified electors of good moral character, sound judgment, and in full possession of the senses of hearing and seeing were competent jurors in their counties¹³⁸. Iowa never asked a juror to own land. Those four things — the vote, character, judgment, and working senses — were the whole of the test, and they applied to the regular panel and to a talesman alike, a talesman being a bystander summoned on the spot to fill out a short jury; the sheriff took talesmen from the bystanders or the body of the county, with no property qualification of any kind¹³⁹.

Everything therefore followed the elector qualification, which under the Constitution of 1846 was a white male citizen of the United States aged twenty-one, resident six months in the state and twenty days in the county¹⁴⁰. The working test for most of the period was an adult man of 21 who could vote.

Exemptions were generous: officeholders under the United States or the state, practicing attorneys, physicians and clergymen, professors and teachers, and all persons disabled by bodily infirmity or over sixty-five years of age¹⁴¹. Anyone could be excused whose own or the public's interests would be materially injured by attending, or whose health or a family sickness or death required absence¹⁴².

An annual jury list of one hundred and fifty competent persons was made in each county¹⁴³, apportioned among townships in proportion to the votes polled at the last general election¹⁴⁴ — which is why a county's jury records and its poll books were kept together, and why the jury list reads as a rough census of the county's adult male voters.

Black men and women on Iowa juries

Because the jury pool was the electorate, the two dates that changed it are suffrage dates.

Black men became eligible for Iowa juries in 1868, when the voters ratified the amendment striking "white" from the suffrage clause of the Constitution¹⁴⁵. From that point the jury list follows the whole male electorate.

Women became eligible in 1920–21. The Nineteenth Amendment made women qualified electors, and in 1921 the Iowa Supreme Court held that they were therefore both entitled and obliged to serve as jurors¹⁴⁶. A jury list in an Iowa county for 1921 or later carries women's names, and their appearance dates the list.

Witnesses

A witness of any age could testify. Every human being of sufficient capacity to understand the obligation of an oath was a competent witness in all cases, civil and criminal¹⁴⁷. Capacity was the whole test, and the judge examined the child and decided it. Facts that had formerly excluded testimony could still be shown to lessen its credibility¹⁴⁸.

Two disqualifications ran and then ended:

• Interest. From 1851, a person with a direct, certain, legal interest in the suit testified only where the opposite party called him¹⁴⁹. From 4 July 1860 no person was disqualified by reason of interest on the trial of any issue¹⁵⁰. An Iowa lawsuit file from the 1850s is accordingly full of depositions from neighbors and quiet from the two people actually arguing.
• Race. The territorial rule barred Black, mixed-race, and Native people from testifying against a white person¹⁵¹. The Code of 1851 made the bar wider rather than narrower: those same people were not allowed to give testimony in any cause in which a white person was a party at all¹⁵². The Iowa Supreme Court applied the section as it was written — it shut a witness of color out whether he was called for the white party or against him, and the white party could not waive it¹⁵³. So a Black plaintiff could lose a witness his own white opponents had offered. What such a witness could still do was testify in causes between other people of color and in causes where no white person was a party. From 4 July 1860 the competency section ran without racial limit, in the Code of Civil Practice enacted that day as part of the Revision of 1860¹⁵⁴.

Women were competent witnesses throughout. What reached a married woman before 1860 was the interest rule, which caught any party or interested person whatever their sex, together with the rules about spouses: the husband was a witness against the wife, and she against him, in a criminal proceeding for a crime one committed against the other, and they were witnesses for each other in all criminal prosecutions¹⁵⁵. Communications made while married stayed privileged after the marriage ended¹⁵⁶. The later codes made husband and wife witnesses for each other in all civil and criminal cases¹⁵⁷.

Criminal responsibility

The common law fixed the age, and the Iowa statutes left it there. A child under 7 was incapable of committing a crime. Between 7 and 14 the law presumed incapacity, and the State overcame the presumption by showing the child knew the wrongfulness of the act. From 14 the child bore full responsibility and was tried as an adult¹⁵⁸.

Iowa created juvenile courts in 1904, by an act enlarging the powers of the district court and regulating the treatment and control of dependent, neglected and delinquent children¹⁵⁹. By the codes a juvenile court sat in every county as a court of record, kept its own separate records, and had the jurisdiction given it by law¹⁶⁰. The chapter applied to every child under eighteen, except one accused of an offense punishable by death or life imprisonment¹⁶¹, and a "delinquent child" was defined by conduct — habitually violating a state law or city ordinance, incorrigibility, associating with thieves or vicious persons, growing up in idleness or crime, and a short list of similar categories¹⁶².

This relocates the records. After 1904 a child under 18 has a juvenile court file, in a separate series, and those files are typically closed. Where an ancestor's trouble with the law leaves no trace in the criminal dockets, the juvenile records are the reason.

Sources and where to verify

Constitutions and Organic Law

• Iowa. Constitution of 1846. Art. II, § 1 (electors: white male citizens of twenty-one, resident six months in the state and twenty days in the county). Printed in the front matter of the Code of 1851. Digital images. Iowa Legislature. https://www.legis.iowa.gov/docs/shelves/code/ocr/1851%20iowa%20code.pdf (accessed 4 August 2026).
• Iowa. Constitution of 1857, with amendments, including the amendment ratified in 1868 striking "white" from the suffrage clause of art. II, § 1. Iowa Legislature. https://www.legis.iowa.gov/docs/publications/icnst/402724.pdf (accessed 4 August 2026).
• Ordinance of 1787. The source of the territorial rule of descent and of the widow's dower, and of the guarantee of judicial proceedings according to the course of the common law (art. II). Reprinted, with the Organic Law of the Territory, in the front matter of the Revised Statutes of the Territory of Iowa, 1843, linked below.

Codes and Compilations

• Annotated Code of the State of Iowa. Des Moines: P. R. Conaway, State Printer, 1897. The scanned copy is the second edition. Tit. XVI, ch. 4 (minors, § 3188), with each section's derivation printed at its foot. Digital images. Iowa Legislature. https://www.legis.iowa.gov/docs/shelves/code/ocr/1897%20Iowa%20Code.pdf (accessed 4 August 2026).
• The Code. Des Moines: G. W. Edwards, State Printer, 1873. Digital images. Iowa Legislature. https://www.legis.iowa.gov/docs/shelves/code/ocr/1873%20Iowa%20Code.pdf (accessed 4 August 2026).
• The Code of Iowa. Iowa City: Palmer & Paul, State Printers, 1851. The master document, effective 1 July 1851. Ch. 37 (revenue), ch. 38 (roads and the road poll tax), ch. 49 (illegitimate children), ch. 79 (conveyance of real property), ch. 81 (homestead), ch. 83 (estates of decedents), ch. 84 (husband and wife), ch. 85 (marriage), ch. 87 (minors), ch. 88 (guardianship of minors), ch. 96 (jurors), ch. 130 (evidence). Digital images of the 1912 reprint (Des Moines: Emory H. English, State Printer, 1912). Iowa Legislature. https://www.legis.iowa.gov/docs/shelves/code/ocr/1851%20iowa%20code.pdf (accessed 4 August 2026).
• Code of Iowa, 1924. [Des Moines]: State of Iowa, 1924. Compiled and edited by U. G. Whitney and O. K. Patton. The same section numbering runs through the Codes of 1927, 1931, and 1935. Digital images. Iowa Legislature. https://www.legis.iowa.gov/docs/shelves/code/ocr/1924%20Iowa%20Code.pdf (accessed 4 August 2026).
• Code of Iowa, 1939. Des Moines: State of Iowa, 1939. Compiled and edited by Richard Reichmann; printed by Wallace-Homestead Co. The code in force at the end of this period. Ch. 179–180 (juvenile court), ch. 318 (city road poll tax), ch. 351 and 351.1 (inheritance and estate tax), ch. 447 (rights of aliens), ch. 469 (marriage), ch. 472 (minors), ch. 505 (wills, executors and administrators), ch. 508 (descent and distribution), ch. 571 (bigamy). Digital images. Iowa Legislature. https://www.legis.iowa.gov/docs/shelves/code/ocr/1939%20Iowa%20Code.pdf (accessed 4 August 2026).
• Historical Chronological Outline of Codes and Session Laws. Which Iowa volumes were enacted and which were compilations, with the dates of every General Assembly. Read this before relying on any Iowa compilation. Iowa Legislature. https://www.legis.iowa.gov/docs/publications/ICA/1125311.pdf (accessed 4 August 2026).
• Iowa Code Archive. Every published version of the Iowa Code from 1839 forward, as searchable PDFs. Iowa Legislature. https://www.legis.iowa.gov/archives/code (accessed 4 August 2026).
• Revised Statutes of the Territory of Iowa. Iowa City: Printed by Hughes & Williams, 1843. The "Blue Book," compiling territorial law down to statehood. Ch. 24 (the exclusion act), ch. 46 (jurisdiction of courts), ch. 54 (conveyances, including the privy examination), ch. 83 (grand and petit jurors), ch. 99 (minors, orphans and guardians), ch. 100 and 101 (marriages), ch. 112 (practice and evidence), ch. 132 (revenue), ch. 162 (wills, administrations, descent and distribution). Ch. 61, "Distribution Law," concerns Iowa's share of federal land-sale proceeds, not intestate succession. Digital images of the reprint authorized by the Thirty-Fourth General Assembly (Des Moines: Emory H. English, State Printer, 1911). Iowa Legislature. https://www.legis.iowa.gov/docs/shelves/code/ocr/1843%20Revised%20Statutes%20of%20the%20Territory%20of%20Iowa.pdf (accessed 4 August 2026).
• Revision of 1860. Des Moines: John Teesdale, State Printer, 1860. The Code of 1851 restated, with the source section printed in parentheses beside each new number, case annotations, and a table of repealed territorial acts. Parts III and IV, the Codes of Civil and Criminal Practice, were enacted 4 July 1860; the rest is a compilation. Manufactured by Case, Lockwood & Co., Hartford, Connecticut. Digital images. Iowa Legislature. https://www.legis.iowa.gov/docs/shelves/code/ocr/1860%20Iowa%20Code.pdf (accessed 4 August 2026).
• Supplement to the Code of Iowa, 1913. Edited by Charles S. Wilcox. Des Moines: Robert Henderson, State Printer, 1914. The volume is titled for 1913 and printed in 1914. Its table of session laws is the route from a code section back to the act that made it. Digital images. Iowa Legislature. https://www.legis.iowa.gov/docs/shelves/code/ocr/1913%20Iowa%20Code%20Supplement.pdf (accessed 4 August 2026).

Session Laws

• Acts and Resolutions Passed at the Regular Session of the Tenth General Assembly of the State of Iowa. 1864. Ch. 7 repeals the 1851 exclusion act, reciting its title and chapter, and directs that pending suits be dismissed. Approved 5 February 1864. Digital images. Iowa Legislature. https://www.legis.iowa.gov/docs/publications/iactc/10.1/1864_Iowa_Acts.pdf (accessed 4 August 2026).
• Acts of the 3d General Assembly, 1851. Ch. 72, "An Act to prohibit the immigration of free negroes into this State." The title and chapter are recited in the repealing act of 1864.
• Acts of the 5th General Assembly, 1856. Ch. 30, "An Act permitting certain Indians to reside within the State," approved 15 July 1856.
• Acts of the 26th General Assembly, 1896. Ch. 28, the collateral inheritance tax, § 1 of which is the source of §§ 1467–1481 of the Annotated Code of 1897.
• Acts of the 30th General Assembly, 1904. Ch. 11, the juvenile court act, §§ 1–12 of which became §§ 254-a13 to 254-a24 of the Supplement of 1913. The derivation is printed at those sections and in the Supplement's table of session laws.
• Acts of the 40th General Assembly, 1923. Ch. 198, § 1, raising the age of majority for women to twenty-one, first printed in the Code of 1924 at § 10492.
• Iowa Acts. The session laws by chapter, for reading a pivotal act in its own words. Iowa Legislature. https://www.legis.iowa.gov/law/statutory/acts/actsChapter (accessed 4 August 2026).
• The Statute Laws of the Territory of Iowa, Enacted at the First Session of the Legislative Assembly of Said Territory, Held at Burlington, A.D. 1838–39. Du Buque: Russell & Reeves, Printers, 1839. Reprinted by the Historical Department of Iowa, Des Moines, 1900, in an edition of 1,000 copies. "An act to regulate Blacks and Mulattoes," approved 21 January 1839, runs at 69–71 of this printing. Digital images. Internet Archive. https://archive.org/details/statutelawsterr00iowagoog (accessed 4 August 2026).

Court Cases

• Blanchard v. Lambert. 43 Iowa 228 (1876).
• In re Ralph (a colored man). 1 Morris 1 (Iowa Terr. 1839).
• In re Stopps' Estate. 244 Iowa 931, 57 N.W.2d 221 (1953). Reviews the license and ceremony rules back to the Code of 1851. https://law.justia.com/cases/iowa/supreme-court/1953/48176-0.html (accessed 4 August 2026).
• Love v. Love. 185 Iowa 930, 171 N.W. 257 (1919).
• McFarland v. McFarland. 51 Iowa 565, 2 N.W. 269 (1879).
• Motts v. Usher & Thayer. 2 Iowa 82 (December 1855). Construes § 2388 of the Code of 1851: a person of color could not testify in any cause where a white person was a party, whether called for or against, and the white party could not waive the bar under § 2394.
• State v. Walker. 192 Iowa 823, 185 N.W. 619 (1921).

Secondary and Reference Works

• "A Brief History of Iowa Civil Rights Law." University of Iowa Libraries. The territorial racial covenants and their repeal. https://dsps.lib.uiowa.edu/hicrn/a-brief-history-of-iowa-civil-rights-law/ (accessed 4 August 2026).
• A Digest of the Decisions of the Supreme Court of Iowa from Its Organization [1839] Until the End of the Term. Chicago: Callaghan & Co., 1887. The table of cases turns a bare volume-and-page citation into a case name. Digital images. Internet Archive. https://archive.org/details/adigestdecision02courgoog (accessed 4 August 2026).
• Caselaw Access Project. The official Iowa Reports digitized volume by volume, with a metadata file per volume giving each case its name, decision date, and page span. The route from a bare volume-and-page citation to a named, dated case. https://static.case.law/iowa/2/ (accessed 4 August 2026).
• FamilySearch Research Wiki. "Iowa Court Records." The chronology of which court held probate, used here for the movement of the guardianship and probate files. https://www.familysearch.org/en/wiki/Iowa_Court_Records (accessed 4 August 2026).
• "Historic Iowa Statutory Law." The Advancing Genealogist. A walkthrough of the Iowa Legislature's archive for genealogists. https://advancinggenealogist.com/historic-iowa-statutory-law-mix/ (accessed 4 August 2026).
• O'Connor, Shannon. How Did Iowa Women Activists Lobby for the Passage of the Juvenile Court Law in 1904? The campaign behind the 1904 act, with the act reprinted. https://documents.alexanderstreet.com/d/1000685911 (accessed 4 August 2026).
• State Historical Society of Iowa. Iowa before the Civil War, including the exclusion laws and the Meskwaki settlement. https://history.iowa.gov (accessed 4 August 2026).
• U.S. Women's Bureau. The Legal Status of Women in the United States of America: Report for Iowa. Bulletin No. 157 series, law stated as of 1 January 1938, with a 1953 addendum. A digest of Iowa law on majority, minors' contracts, married women's property, the distributive share, wills, intestacy, guardianship, marriage, and jury service, with citations to the then-current code. Cross-check it against the statute. FRASER. https://fraser.stlouisfed.org/title/legal-status-women-united-states-america-5430 (accessed 4 August 2026).
• Wilson, Jennie L. Legal Status of Women in Iowa. An account by an Iowa lawyer, tracing the territorial rules and the changes of 1851. Project Gutenberg. https://www.gutenberg.org/files/12049/12049-h/12049-h.htm (accessed 4 August 2026).

Citations

1. Organic Act of the Territory of Iowa, 12 June 1838, 5 Stat. 235, effective 4 July 1838; statehood 28 December 1846, 9 Stat. 117 ↩
2. Organic Act of the Territory of Iowa, 12 June 1838, § 12, 5 Stat. 235, 239: the inhabitants entitled to the rights secured to Wisconsin Territory, and “the existing laws of the territory of Wisconsin shall be extended over said territory,” subject to alteration by the Iowa legislature; reprinted with the Organic Law in the front matter of the Revised Statutes of the Territory of Iowa (Iowa City: Printed by Hughes & Williams, 1843); digital images of the reprint authorized by the Thirty-Fourth General Assembly (Des Moines: Emory H. English, State Printer, 1911), Iowa Legislature (https://www.legis.iowa.gov/docs/shelves/code/ocr/1843%20Revised%20Statutes%20of%20the%20Territory%20of%20Iowa.pdf : accessed 8 August 2026). Iowa was attached to Michigan Territory by the act of 28 June 1834, 4 Stat. 701, and passed to Wisconsin Territory by the act of 20 April 1836, 5 Stat. 10 ↩
3. Ordinance of 1787, art. II, entitling the inhabitants to “judicial proceedings according to the course of the common law”; reprinted in the front matter of the Revised Statutes of the Territory of Iowa (Iowa City: Printed by Hughes & Williams, 1843); digital images of the reprint authorized by the Thirty-Fourth General Assembly (Des Moines: Emory H. English, State Printer, 1911), Iowa Legislature (https://www.legis.iowa.gov/docs/shelves/code/ocr/1843%20Revised%20Statutes%20of%20the%20Territory%20of%20Iowa.pdf : accessed 4 August 2026) ↩
4. Revised Statutes of 1843, ch. 46, § 2, “An act defining the jurisdiction of the supreme and district courts” ↩
5. The Code of Iowa (Iowa City: Palmer & Paul, State Printers, 1851), § 1487; digital images of the 1912 reprint (Des Moines: Emory H. English, State Printer, 1912), Iowa Legislature (https://www.legis.iowa.gov/docs/shelves/code/ocr/1851%20iowa%20code.pdf : accessed 4 August 2026); carried through Revision of 1860 (Des Moines: John Teesdale, State Printer, 1860), § 2539; digital images, Iowa Legislature (https://www.legis.iowa.gov/docs/shelves/code/ocr/1860%20Iowa%20Code.pdf : accessed 4 August 2026), The Code (Des Moines: G. W. Edwards, State Printer, 1873), § 2237; digital images, Iowa Legislature (https://www.legis.iowa.gov/docs/shelves/code/ocr/1873%20Iowa%20Code.pdf : accessed 4 August 2026), and Annotated Code of the State of Iowa (Des Moines: P. R. Conaway, State Printer, 1897), § 3188; digital images of the second edition, Iowa Legislature (https://www.legis.iowa.gov/docs/shelves/code/ocr/1897%20Iowa%20Code.pdf : accessed 4 August 2026) ↩
6. Revised Statutes of 1843, ch. 100, § 1, requiring the consent of the father, or on his death or incapacity of the mother or guardian, for a male under 21 and a female under 18. The volume fixes no age of majority in general terms, so the marriage act is the territorial legislature’s own statement of the two ages ↩ ↩
7. Acts of the 40th General Assembly (1923), ch. 198, § 1, raising the age of majority for women to twenty-one while leaving a woman of eighteen competent to contract marriage; first printed as Code of Iowa, 1924 ([Des Moines]: State of Iowa, 1924), § 10492, whose derivation line names the act; the same section numbering runs through the Codes of 1927, 1931, and 1935; digital images, Iowa Legislature (https://www.legis.iowa.gov/docs/shelves/code/ocr/1924%20Iowa%20Code.pdf : accessed 4 August 2026); carried to Code of Iowa, 1939 (Des Moines: State of Iowa, 1939), § 10492; digital images, Iowa Legislature (https://www.legis.iowa.gov/docs/shelves/code/ocr/1939%20Iowa%20Code.pdf : accessed 4 August 2026) ↩
8. Code of 1851, § 1488; carried through Revision of 1860, § 2540, and Code of 1924, § 10493 ↩
9. The Statute Laws of the Territory of Iowa (1838–39) contains no marriage act, though its fee schedule already provides for issuing and recording a marriage license, so licenses were being issued under the law carried forward by the Organic Act cited above. Revised Statutes of 1843, ch. 100, § 14 repeals “all laws now in force in this territory, not embraced in the statutes of Iowa, on the subject of marriage” ↩
10. Revised Statutes of 1843, ch. 100, § 1, from the act approved 6 January 1840 and in force from 1 March 1840 by its own § 14: male persons of eighteen and female persons of fourteen, not nearer of kin than first cousins and not having a husband or wife living, might be joined in marriage ↩ ↩
11. Code of 1851, § 1464, fixing the ages and giving an underage party the option to avoid the marriage within six months of reaching the age ↩ ↩
12. Revision of 1860, § 2516; and Code of 1939, § 10428 ↩
13. Code of 1851, § 1466; carried through Revision of 1860, §§ 2517, 2518, Code of 1873, §§ 2187, 2188, Code of 1897, § 3141, Supplement to the Code of Iowa, 1913 (Des Moines: Robert Henderson, State Printer, 1914), edited by Charles S. Wilcox, § 3141; digital images, Iowa Legislature (https://www.legis.iowa.gov/docs/shelves/code/ocr/1913%20Iowa%20Code%20Supplement.pdf : accessed 4 August 2026), and Code of 1924, § 10429 ↩ ↩
14. Code of 1851, § 1469 ↩
15. Code of 1851, §§ 1467, 1468 ↩
16. Code of 1939, § 10430; carried from Code of 1851, § 1468 through Revision of 1860, § 2520, Code of 1873, § 2190, and Code of 1897, § 3142 ↩
17. Code of 1851, § 1465 ↩
18. Code of 1851, § 1476, the register receivable in all courts as evidence of the marriage and its date ↩
19. Code of 1851, § 1474 ↩
20. Code of 1851, § 1394 ↩
21. McFarland v. McFarland, 51 Iowa 565, 570, 2 N.W. 269 (1879); Blanchard v. Lambert, 43 Iowa 228 (1876); Love v. Love, 185 Iowa 930, 171 N.W. 257 (1919). The three elements are restated in In re Stopps’ Estate, 244 Iowa 931, 57 N.W.2d 221 (1953) ↩
22. Code of 1851, § 1463; carried through Revision of 1860, § 2515, Code of 1873, § 2185, Code of 1897, § 3139, and Code of 1924, § 10427 ↩
23. Code of 1939, § 10445, “Void marriages,” listing the forbidden degrees for a man and for a woman; carried from Code of 1897, § 3140, and Code of 1924, § 10445. First cousins appear nowhere in the list ↩
24. Code of 1939, § 12975; carried from Code of 1851, § 2706, through Revision of 1860, § 4348, Code of 1873, § 4009, Code of 1897, § 4933, and Code of 1924, § 12975 ↩
25. Code of 1939, §§ 10445.1–10445.9 ↩
26. Revised Statutes of 1843, ch. 100, § 13 ↩
27. Code of 1851, ch. 85, §§ 1463–1479; and Revision of 1860, ch. 102 ↩
28. In re Ralph (a colored man), 1 Morris 1 (Iowa Terr. 1839), decided 4 July 1839 ↩
29. The common law, received in Iowa through its courts, set no minimum age for holding title, and the Code speaks of owners generally: Code of 1851, § 1199, “All persons owning lands not held by an adverse possession, shall be deemed to be seized and possessed of the same.” What minority limited was the power to convey, Code of 1851, § 1488 ↩
30. Code of 1939, §§ 10214, 10215, and ch. 447; and see § 8403, carried from Code of 1897, § 1641 through Supplement of 1913, § 1641 and Code of 1924, § 8403 ↩
31. Code of 1851, § 1207, “A married woman may convey her interest in real estate in the same manner as other persons”; an unmarried woman was one of those other persons, dealing with her land under the general conveyancing law of ch. 78–79. Her property was her own under Code of 1851, §§ 1447, 1453 ↩ ↩
32. Code of 1851, §§ 1447, 1453 ↩
33. Code of 1851, § 1454 ↩
34. Code of 1851, § 1455 ↩
35. Code of 1873, §§ 2203, 2204, 2206; carried through Code of 1897, §§ 3154, 3155, 3157, and Code of 1924, §§ 10447, 10448, 10449 ↩
36. Revised Statutes of 1843, ch. 54, §§ 20–23, the relinquishment of dower taken only where the married woman was made acquainted with the contents of the conveyance and acknowledged, “on an examination apart from her husband,” that she executed it freely and without his compulsion or undue influence, the officer setting all of this out in a certificate ↩
37. Code of 1851, § 1448 ↩
38. Code of 1851, § 1450 ↩
39. Code of 1851, § 1451 ↩
40. Code of 1851, § 1449 ↩
41. Code of 1851, §§ 1456–1458 ↩
42. Code of 1851, § 1459 ↩
43. Code of 1851, § 1461 ↩
44. Code of 1851, § 1462 ↩
45. Code of 1851, § 1394, headed “Dower”: one third in value of all the real estate in which the husband at any time during the marriage had a legal or equitable interest, not sold on execution or other judicial sale and to which the wife had made no relinquishment, set apart as her property in fee simple; carried through Revision of 1860, § 2477, Code of 1873, § 2440, Code of 1897, § 3366, Code of 1924, § 11990, and Code of 1939, § 11990, still headed “Dower” ↩
46. Code of 1851, § 1421, applying the widow’s provisions to the husband of a deceased wife and abolishing the estate by curtesy ↩
47. Code of 1851, §§ 1396–1399; carried through Revision of 1860, § 2430, Code of 1873, § 2446, Code of 1897, § 3371, and Code of 1924, § 11996 ↩
48. Code of 1851, § 1404 ↩
49. Code of 1851, § 1247 ↩
50. Code of 1851, § 1248 ↩
51. Code of 1851, § 1249 ↩
52. Code of 1851, § 1500 ↩
53. Code of 1851, § 1501 ↩
54. Code of 1851, § 1211 ↩
55. Code of 1851, § 1212 ↩
56. Code of 1851, § 1217 ↩
57. Code of 1851, § 1218 ↩
58. Code of 1851, § 1219 ↩
59. Code of 1851, §§ 1220–1222 ↩
60. Code of 1851, § 1225 ↩
61. Code of 1851, § 2388, first sentence ↩
62. The Code gives the capacity in general terms, without racial qualification: Code of 1851, § 1199 speaks of all persons owning lands, and Code of 1851, § 1207 measures a married woman’s power to convey against that of other persons. The territorial and state black laws reached settlement and residence rather than title ↩
63. ‘An act to regulate Blacks and Mulattoes,’ approved 21 January 1839, §§ 1–2, barring settlement or residence “from and after the first day of April next”; The Statute Laws of the Territory of Iowa, Enacted at the First Session of the Legislative Assembly of Said Territory, Held at Burlington, A.D. 1838–39 (Du Buque: Russell & Reeves, Printers, 1839), 69–71; digital images of the 1900 reprint by the Historical Department of Iowa, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/statutelawsterr00iowagoog : accessed 4 August 2026). The act is carried forward as Revised Statutes of 1843, ch. 24 ↩
64. Code of 1851, § 28, the general repealing section: all public and general acts passed before that session of the general assembly, and all acts whose subjects the code revised or which were repugnant to it, repealed ↩
65. Acts of the 3d General Assembly (1851), regular session, ch. 72, ‘An Act to prohibit the immigration of free negroes into this State.’ The title and chapter are recited in the repealing act of 1864, cited at the next note ↩
66. Acts of the 10th General Assembly, ch. 7, repealing chapter seventy-two of the acts of the Third General Assembly and reciting its title, approved 5 February 1864, §§ 1–3, § 2 dismissing all pending suits; Acts and Resolutions Passed at the Regular Session of the Tenth General Assembly of the State of Iowa, digital images, Iowa Legislature (https://www.legis.iowa.gov/docs/publications/iactc/10.1/1864_Iowa_Acts.pdf : accessed 4 August 2026) ↩
67. Acts of the 5th General Assembly (1856), ch. 30, “An Act permitting certain Indians to reside within the State,” approved 15 July 1856 ↩
68. Revised Statutes of 1843, ch. 162, ch. XIII, §§ 1, 5–11, “Of the descent of property” ↩
69. Revised Statutes of 1843, ch. 162, ch. XIII, § 12 ↩
70. Ordinance of 1787, the ordaining clause on descents, saving to the widow “her third part of the real estate for life, and one third part of the personal estate,” and providing that the law relative to descents and dower remain in force until altered by the legislature of the district ↩
71. Revised Statutes of 1843, ch. 162, ch. III, § 1, cl. 1–8, “Of the administration and distribution of the estates of intestates”; the advancement rule at § 2 ↩
72. Code of 1851, § 1390; carried through Revision of 1860, § 2422, Code of 1873, § 2436, Code of 1897, § 3362, and Code of 1924, § 11986 ↩
73. Code of 1851, §§ 1394, 1421, with the chain given at note 52 ↩
74. Code of 1851, § 1395 ↩
75. Code of 1851, § 1397 ↩
76. Code of 1851, § 1404 ↩
77. Code of 1851, § 1405 ↩
78. Code of 1851, § 1406 ↩
79. Code of 1851, §§ 1408, 1409 ↩
80. Code of 1851, §§ 1419, 1420; carried through Revision of 1860, §§ 2445, 2446, Code of 1873, § 2459, Code of 1897, § 3383, and Code of 1924, § 12029 ↩
81. Code of 1851, § 1410, giving one half of the estate “(including the dower of his wife)” to the father and the other half to the wife, so that her half absorbs her third rather than being added to it ↩
82. Code of 1851, §§ 1411–1413 ↩
83. Code of 1851, § 1414 ↩
84. Code of 1924, § 12017, “Absence of issue”; carried from Code of 1851, § 1410 through Revision of 1860, § 2495, Code of 1873, § 2455, Code of 1897, § 3379, and Supplement of 1913, §§ 3379, 3381-a, and standing in the same terms as Code of 1939, § 12017 ↩
85. Code of 1851, § 1407 ↩
86. Code of 1939, §§ 12006–12015 ↩
87. Code of 1851, § 1491 ↩
88. Code of 1851, § 1492 ↩
89. Code of 1851, § 1493 ↩
90. Code of 1851, § 1494 ↩
91. Code of 1851, § 1495 ↩
92. Revised Statutes of 1843, ch. 99, § 1, “An act concerning minors, orphans and guardians” ↩
93. Revised Statutes of 1843, ch. 99, § 3 ↩
94. Revised Statutes of 1843, ch. 99, § 6 ↩
95. Code of 1851, § 1496 ↩
96. Code of 1851, § 1497 ↩
97. Code of 1851, § 1499 ↩
98. Code of 1851, § 1487, fixing the ages at which minority ended; and Acts of the 40th General Assembly (1923), ch. 198, § 1, as printed at Code of 1924, § 10492 ↩
99. Code of 1851, § 1415; carried through Revision of 1860, § 2441, Code of 1873, § 2465, Code of 1897, § 3384, and Code of 1924, § 12030 ↩
100. Revised Statutes of 1843, ch. 162, ch. XIII, §§ 2–3, making the illegitimate child an heir of his mother, and the mother heir of the child, though not allowing him to claim as representing her in the estate of her kindred ↩
101. Code of 1939, § 12031; carried from Code of 1851, §§ 1416, 1417 through Revision of 1860, §§ 2442, 2443, Code of 1873, §§ 2466, 2467, Code of 1897, § 3385, and Code of 1924, § 12031 ↩
102. Code of 1851, § 1417 ↩
103. Code of 1851, § 1418 ↩
104. Code of 1851, § 1416 rests on recognition alone; the words “when the paternity is proven during his life” appear in the later codes in the chain at note 108 ↩
105. Code of 1851, § 1479 ↩
106. Revised Statutes of 1843, ch. 162, ch. XIII, § 4, legitimating the child where the parents intermarried and the father acknowledged him after the marriage ↩
107. Code of 1851, §§ 848, 849; the chapter runs §§ 848–856 ↩
108. Code of 1851, § 788 ↩
109. Code of 1851, § 1277; carried through Revision of 1860, § 2309, Code of 1873, § 2322, Code of 1897, § 3270, and Code of 1924, § 11846; and Code of 1851, § 1487 for what “full age” meant ↩
110. Code of 1851, § 1278 ↩
111. Code of 1851, § 1281 ↩
112. Code of 1851, § 1279 ↩
113. Code of 1851, § 1280 ↩
114. Revised Statutes of 1843, ch. 162, ch. I, §§ 4–6, the written will attested by two or more competent witnesses, the nuncupative (spoken) will to the value of three hundred dollars proved by two competent witnesses, and the will of a soldier in actual service or a mariner at sea ↩
115. Code of 1851, § 1282 ↩
116. Code of 1851, § 1283 ↩
117. Code of 1851, § 1305 ↩
118. Code of 1851, § 1314, the court to appoint no person manifestly unsuitable for the trust, and no minor except as otherwise provided ↩
119. Code of 1851, § 1304 ↩
120. Code of 1851, §§ 1307, 1308 ↩
121. Code of 1851, § 454 ↩
122. Revised Statutes of 1843, ch. 132, § 2, “An act to provide for assessing and collecting county and territorial revenue” ↩
123. Revised Statutes of 1843, ch. 132, § 1 ↩
124. Annotated Code of the State of Iowa (Des Moines: P. R. Conaway, State Printer, 1897), § 1303, cl. 2, levying for ordinary county revenue “a poll tax in either case of fifty cents on each male resident over twenty-one years of age”; the derivation printed at the section runs back through Code of 1873, § 796, Revision of 1860, § 710, and Code of 1851, § 454; digital images of the second edition, Iowa Legislature (https://www.legis.iowa.gov/docs/shelves/code/ocr/1897%20Iowa%20Code.pdf : accessed 8 August 2026) ↩
125. Code of 1851, § 567 ↩
126. Code of 1851, § 572 ↩
127. Code of 1851, § 588 ↩
128. Code of 1851, §§ 595–597 ↩
129. Code of 1851, § 455, cl. 9 ↩
130. The Code (Des Moines: G. W. Edwards, State Printer, 1873), § 487, requiring two days’ labor of able-bodied male residents between twenty-one and fifty; and Code of 1897, § 891, at twenty-one to forty-five, with two days’ labor of eight hours or a payment in lieu of it, the derivation naming the act of the 19th General Assembly (1882), ch. 32 ↩
131. Code of 1939, § 6231; carried from Code of 1873, § 487 through Code of 1897, § 891, Supplement of 1913, § 891, and Code of 1924, § 6231 ↩
132. Code of 1939, § 6232 ↩
133. Code of 1939, § 467.24, exempting every officer and soldier of the national guard from jury duty and from the payment of poll tax and road labor during his term of service; the derivation printed at the section runs to Code of 1897, § 2209, Supplement of 1913, § 2215-f33, and Code of 1924, § 461 ↩
134. Code of 1851, § 471, the last item in the assessor’s list being “the number of polls” ↩
135. Acts of the 26th General Assembly (1896), ch. 28, § 1, the collateral inheritance tax, codified as Code of 1897, §§ 1467–1481; later Code of 1939, ch. 351 (inheritance tax) and ch. 351.1 (Iowa estate tax) ↩
136. Code of Iowa, 1939 (Des Moines: State of Iowa, 1939), § 6943.037, imposing the tax “beginning the first day of January, 1934, upon every resident of the state” at graduated rates of one to five percent; digital images, Iowa Legislature (https://www.legis.iowa.gov/docs/shelves/code/ocr/1939%20Iowa%20Code.pdf : accessed 8 August 2026) ↩
137. Code of 1939, § 6943.045 ↩
138. Code of 1851, § 1630 ↩
139. Code of 1851, § 1777 (civil causes) and § 2970 (criminal causes), the sheriff to select talesmen to supply the deficiency from the bystanders or the body of the county, neither section attaching a property qualification ↩
140. Iowa Const. of 1846, art. II, § 1 ↩
141. Code of 1851, § 1631 ↩
142. Code of 1851, § 1632 ↩
143. Code of 1851, §§ 1633, 1634 ↩
144. Code of 1851, §§ 1635, 1636; carried through Revision of 1860, §§ 2725, 2726, Code of 1873, § 236, Code of 1897, §§ 336, 337, Supplement of 1913, § 337, and Code of 1924, § 10862 ↩
145. Iowa Const. of 1857, art. II, § 1, as amended in 1868. The schedule to the 1857 constitution, art. XII, § 14, had provided for a separate vote on striking the word “white” from the suffrage article; the change carried at the 1868 election, and the article is printed without the word in Code of 1873, the constitution in its front matter ↩
146. State v. Walker, 192 Iowa 823, 185 N.W. 619 (1921) ↩
147. Code of 1851, § 2388; and Revision of 1860, § 3978 ↩
148. Code of 1851, § 2389; carried through Revision of 1860, § 3979, Code of 1873, § 3637, Code of 1897, § 4602, and Code of 1924, § 11255 ↩
149. Code of 1851, § 2390 ↩
150. Revision of 1860, § 3980, in the Code of Civil Practice enacted 4 July 1860 ↩
151. Revised Statutes of 1843, ch. 112, § 37: “A negro, mulatto or Indian, shall not be a witness in any court, or in any case against a white person” ↩
152. Code of 1851, § 2388, second sentence ↩
153. Motts v. Usher & Thayer, 2 Iowa 82, 82–84 (December 1855), Wright, C. J.; text and page images, Caselaw Access Project (https://static.case.law/iowa/2/ : accessed 4 August 2026) ↩
154. Revision of 1860, § 3978, in Part III, the Code of Civil Practice, enacted 4 July 1860 ↩
155. Code of 1851, § 2391 ↩
156. Code of 1851, § 2392; carried through Revision of 1860, § 3984, Code of 1873, § 3642, Code of 1897, § 4607, and Code of 1924, § 11262 ↩
157. Code of 1939, § 11261; carried from Code of 1851, § 2391 through Revision of 1860, § 3983, Code of 1873, § 3641, Code of 1897, § 4606, Supplement of 1913, § 4606, and Code of 1924, § 11261 ↩
158. The common law rule. The Code of 1851, the Revision of 1860, the Code of 1873, and the Code of 1897 each fix no minimum age for criminal responsibility, so the common law governed throughout ↩
159. Acts of the 30th General Assembly (1904), ch. 11, “An Act Enlarging the Powers of the District Court, and to Regulate the Treatment and Control of Dependent, Neglected and Delinquent Children”; §§ 1–12 became §§ 254-a13 to 254-a24 of the Supplement of 1913, which prints the derivation at each section and in its table of session laws ↩
160. Code of 1939, §§ 3605, 3610; carried from Supplement of 1913, § 254-a13, the acts of the 37th General Assembly (1917), ch. 405, § 1, and Code of 1924, § 3605 ↩
161. Code of 1939, § 3617, “Applicable to certain children”; carried from Supplement of 1913, § 254-a14, the acts of the 37th General Assembly (1917), ch. 54, § 1, and Code of 1924, § 3617 ↩
162. Code of 1939, § 3619 ↩

Note: This law guide was created with assistance from multiple AI tools. Though a diligent effort was made to ensure the accuracy of the information provided, there may be unintentional errors. It's important to check the primary sources as needed to ensure accuracy.