Wynkoop, D. A.

WYNKOOP

Posted By: Ken Wright (email)
Date: 1/18/2008 at 13:49:12

BENCH AND BAR OF IOWA.
American Biographical Publishing Co., 1901

DON ALONZO WYNKOOP,
MAQUOKETA.

The subject of this sketch, who is recognized as the ablest lawyer, in many respects, now practicing at the Jackson county bar, is a native of Chemung county, New York, and was born at Chemung, September 17, 1840, to Winolia T. and Christiana (Moore) Wynkoop. His father, also a native of Chemung county, was of Dutch or Holland lineage, was a man of high mental attainments and influence in his community. He was a civil engineer by profession, and as such surveyed the line and estimated the entire cost of a railroad from Chicago to Council Bluffs; the line was afterward changed to cross the Mississippi River at Clinton, and is now owned and operated by the Chicago & Northwestern Railroad Company. He moved with his family from New York to Stark county, Illinois, and thence, about 1855, to Jackson county, Iowa, where he passed the remainder of his life. Our subject’s mother was a native of Orange county, New York, and of Irish descent. She was a cousin of Judge William Fullerton, and a second cousin of the celebrated Charles O’ Connor.

Don was educated in the public and high schools of Bellevue, Iowa, where he also studied law in the office of Messrs. Booth & Galion. He was admitted to the bar in 1862, and began practice at Bellevue, and ever since has carried on a general practice in Jackson and adjoining counties in Iowa and in Illinois in his own name. Since he began practice Mr. Wynkoop has never been absent from a term of court in his own county, and while he has gained wide notoriety as a general practitioner, he has made his reputation chiefly as a successful and skillful criminal and trial lawyer, there having been few important criminal trials in his or adjacent counties for many years in which he has not been retained on one side or the other. He removed from Bellevue to Maquoketa, his present home, in 1888.

Mr. Wynkoop is a Democrat in political faith, and though he has always been more or less active in political campaigns, he has never held any except minor offices. He served once as mayor of Bellevue, and was a candidate for the district judgeship, but was defeated by Judge Brannan, of Muscatine, by a small majority.

Mr. Wynkoop is prominent in social and benevolent orders, being a thirty-second degree and a Scottish Rite Mason, a member of Knights of Pythias and has served as deputy grand chancellor of Nobles of the Mystic Shrine for Iowa.