RANKIN, JOHN WALKER, HON.

RANKIN, THOMASSON, CURTIS, MASON, LOVE, MILLER, MCCRARY

Posted By: County Coordinator
Date: 6/30/2019 at 14:43:50

Keokuk City
(P.O. Keokuk)

RANKIN, JOHN WALKER, HON., was born in Washington Co., Penn., June 21, 1823; he was the fourth of a family of nine children ; they were bereaved of their father when he was but 11 years of age and left in limited circumstances wholly to the care of a widowed mother ; the industry, economy and excellent management of that pious mother enabled her to bring up all her family in more than ordinary respectability, and give them all, sons and daughters, a liberal education. John W. entered Washington College, and graduated with distinguished honors in 1842 ; at Wooster, Ohio, he taught school and studied law, and was there admitted to the bar; he came to Keokuk in 1848, and soon rose to distinction in his profession. Shortly after his settlement here he married Sarah E., daughter of Col. William Thomasson, of Louisville, Ky.; he died July 10, 1869, after an illness of less than two days. The sudden death of Judge Rankin cast a gloom over the entire city; meetings of the bar were held at Keokuk and Fort Madison, and the tributes there paid to his memory attest the great loss sustained by his associates in the profession. During his twenty-one years residence in Keokuk, Judge Rankin was Judge, member of the State Senate, and Colonel of the 17th I. V. I. in the civil war; in the same course of years, he was associated as law partner with Gen. S. R. Curtis, lawyer, statesman and soldier; Judge Mason, eminent as a jurist ; Judge Love, now occupying the bench of the U. S. District Court, of this State; Judge Samuel F. Miller, Justice of the U. S. Supreme Court ; and George W. McCrary, our present Secretary of War, and as a lawyer and jurist Judge Rankin was not inferior to the most learned and able of these great men ; he loved his profession; he never spoke ill of any one; if he could not praise, he was silent. He had no enemies.

Source: BIOGRAPHICAL DIRECTORY
HISTORY OF LEE COUNTY IOWA
CHICAGO: WESTERN HISTORICAL COMPANY, 1879

Transcription typed/proofed as article was originally published in 1879