Cotton, Aylett R.

COTTON

Posted By: Volunteer Subscribers
Date: 2/18/2003 at 09:50:45

Aylett R. Cotton was born in Ohio, in 1826, and was there educated. He was for a time a teacher and superintendent of a public school in Ohio. In 1844 the family removed to Iowa, settling at Dewitt, in Clinton County. He subsequently taught in Ohio, and in an academy in Tennessee. He had read law along the line, and on returning to Iowa completed his studies and was admitted to the Davenport Bar, in 1848. The following year he went to California to seek his fortune in the newly discovered gold mines. In two years he returned and entered upon the practice at Dewitt, in April, 1851. In the same year he was elected County Judge, but resigned the office in the following year to accept the appointment of Prosecuting Attorney of Clinton County. After the end of that service he removed to Lyons, and in 1855 he was elected Mayor of that City. In the fall of 1856 he was elected a member of the Constitutional Convention, which framed the Constitution of 1857. He took a prominent part in the proceedings of that body, and left his impress upon some of the provisions of the instrument it framed. In 1866 he was elected to the House of the Twelfth General Assembly, and in the fall of 1869 was re-elected to the House of the Thirteenth General Assembly, and was chosen its Speaker. In 1870 he was elected to Congress and re-elected in 1872. He was an able lawyer and a faithful public servant. He was regarded as one of the most prominent lawyers of the Iowa Bar, and deserved the reputation.
He removed to California in 1883, settling in San Francisco, where he soon took a leading position in the bar of California. He built up a lucrative practice and became widely and favorably known. He lived to a great age, dying at San Francisco in 1912, in his eighty- seventh year.
In him the intellectual dominantly prevailed over the physical. He was rather small and delicate in stature and appearance. He had a close and logical mind and sifted with great care and accuracy the most difficult questions. He was characteristically a student in the real sense of the term. He was originally a Democrat and in 1855 was the nominee of the regular Democratic Convention for Judge of the Eighth Judicial District, but was defeated by underhanded means and false affidavits alleging that he was a member of the "Know-nothing party." The details of this affair are shown in an amusing article by Judge William H. Tuttle, appearing in the July, 1870, number of the old Annals of Iowa. 
Source: Recollections and Sketches of Notable Lawyers and Public Men of Early Iowa. Author: Edward H. Stiles. Des Moines. The Homestead Publishing Co.,1916