First Court Session

DUNN, LUCKE, WASHBURNE, COOK, LEFFINGWELL, DILLON, SHIRAS, SMITH

Posted By: Anne Hermann (email)
Date: 8/20/2009 at 22:41:09

Bellevue Herald, October 7, 1930.

FIRST COURT SESSION IN COUNTY IN 1837

After the town of Bellevue was laid out, July 2, 1836, by an Act of Congress, the proceeds derived from the sale of lots were turned over to the then constituted authorities, as a special fund to be used and employed in building a court house. The limits of Jackson County, Wisconsin Territory, at that time comprised within its boundaries, what is now Jones and Linn counties. The inhabitants numbered 267 people.

When the court house was begun cannot at this time be definitely ascertained. The first session of court held in Jackson county was in June 1837, presided over by Judge Dunn, of Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin. There were two cases on the civil calendar and one criminal case. The two civil cases were continued, and the defendant in the criminal case, was bound over to appear at the next term of court. The first term of court was held in a log house, at or near the present location of Lucke Bros. shoe store.

The term of court occupied one day, was in and of itself of no significance, but what lent color to the first term was the galaxy of lawyers who attended, several of whom achieved national fame and prominence. Among them was Hon. E. B. Washburne, of Galena, Illinois, who was Minister to France during the French Commune in 1871 and ’72 (and under trying circumstances acquitted himself with great credit); The Hon. James Grant of Davenport, founder of the Grant Library of Davenport, and one of the wealthiest lawyers and one of the original promoters of the Rock Island Railway Company and leader of the Iowa Bar, in its early history; Hon. James Church man, a great lawyer, of the Illinois Bar, Hon. Peter Engle who presided many years over the Criminal Court of St. Louis, and Hon. Thomas Wilson who was appointed the first judge under Iowa Territory.

The lawyers who attended its sessions, from 1846 to 1860, were such well known lawyers as John P. Cook, William E. Leffingwell, Henry O’Connor, Judge Jno F. Dillon, Judge O.P.Shiras, the gifted and eloquent Ben M. Samuels, Hon. Platt Smith, and Judge A. R. Cotton.

These lawyers last named all achieved eminence in their profession. Leffingwell and Cook became members of Congress; O’Connor, Attorney General of Iowa, and Solicitor of the United States Treasury Department; Jno F. Dillon, who has left several textbooks on law and later became Chief Counsel at New York of the Gould Railways, was also a U. S. Circuit Judge and O.P.Shiras, who likewise was U. S. Judge of Iowa from 1882 to 1904 and Platt Smith, who became one of the most distinguished advocates in the north west.