Keosauqua Breaks Record in Producing Great Men

ALLEN, BEAMAN, BONNEY, BROWN, CALDWELL, CLARK, COX, CUTLER, DAVIS, DEAN, ELBERT, GEAR, HALL, HOWELL, HULL, HUNTER, KNAPP, MANNING, MASON, MAYNE, NOURSE, RANKIN, REDD, RICHARDS, SLOAN

Posted By: Volunteer - Cathy Joynt Labath
Date: 2/9/2004 at 21:00:02

Ottumwa Daily Courier
Ottumwa, Wapello, Iowa
Aug 28, 1903

IOWA TOWN FAMOUS
Keosauqua Breaks Record in Producing Great Men.
THREE OTTUMWANS RAISED THERE
Van Buren County City is Envied For Its Production of Senators, Congressmen,
Governors of State, and Otherwise Eminent Personages.

There are three prominent Ottumwans who can claim the distinction of having been born in Keosauqua, the birthplace of greatness and the town that hold all the records for the production of men who have gained honors and wealth. Calvin Manning, the son of the late Edwin Manning, one of the pioneer settlers of Iowa, is one of the trio; Attorneys F.M. Hunter and W.A. Work, among the prominent members of the legal profession who received their first instruction in the office of Wright, Knapp & Caldwell, are the others. The late Seth Richards, who later lived in Ottumwa and acquired a large amount of property here, was born in Keosauqua, as was United States Senator Wm. A. Clark, of Montana; A.J. Davis of Montana, the millionaire copper king; ex-Senator Wm. E. Mason, of Illinois; the late ex-Senator J.H. Gear, Henry Clay Dean, until his death was one of the brainiest, although eccentric men in the country, and many others.

The Humorist of Keosauqua.

"Some men are born great, some achieve greatness, and some had the judgment to live in Keosauqua awhile."

Such was the explanation once given by George G. Wright, United States senator and chief justice of Iowa, when asked how this little town of a few hundred had furnished the nation several scores of senators, congressmen, cabinet members, governors of states, eminent jurists, famous lawyers, multi-millionaires, railroad managers and financiers, and leaders, in short, in very avenue of activity.

Judge Wright was the humorist of the Keosauqua colony of great men. His explanation was characteristic but it doesn't explain.

A Galaxy of Greatness.

Within a period of fifteen years from 1850 to 1865, when the village at no time numbered over 600 souls, there were numbered among its population six men who afterwards became United States senators; a dozen who were destined to be congressmen; three United States judges; half a dozen men who have since counted their wealth from two to a hundred millions; half a dozen who attained high honors as military commanders in the civil war or later; fully a dozen governors and leading state officers of Iowa and other western states, four or five great railroad managers and railroad presidents; two scores of men who have since occupied foremost places at the bar of almost every state west of the Mississippi; cabinet members, ministers in the diplomatic service, orators, statesmen, politicians, a candidate for president, great business men-in any vocation the record of the sons of Keosauqua may be found writ well up to the top.

Lincoln Appointed Caldwell.

From the office of the famous old law firm of Wright, Knapp & Caldwell went out many of the west's noted barristers. Judge Wright was head of the firm. Joseph R. Knapp, twice district attorney, then federal attorney for Iowa, candidate for governor and for the supreme bench on the democratic ticket, and one of Iowa's greatest lawyers, was the second member. Henry Clay Caldwell, a nephew of the late Paris Caldwell of this city, just retiring from the United States circuit bench of the ninth district, was the third member. In 1864 Lincoln appointed him to the district bench at Arkansas; thence he went to the circuit bench where he sat, beloved of lawyers and enjoying the confidence of litigants, until, when he announced his determination to retire a few weeks ago, he was the last man in public life appointed to office by the great emancipator. Judge Caldwell now lives at Little Rock.

Delazon Smith.

Ask an old-timer who was the greatest man in Keosauqua ever boasted, and you have a great chance to hear the name of Delazon Smith. Under President Tyler he was minister to Colombia. After that he went to the Pacific coast, made a fortune and was the first senator elected from Oregon. He was one of the greatest orators this country ever produced.

Four Noted Men.

Away back before the civil war- nearly a generation before it, in fact- two young men started a newspaper in Keosauqua. They were J.B. Howell and Samuel M. Clark. Later they moved to Keokuk and were the publishers of the Gate City. Howell went to the senate and Clark represented the Keokuk district in congress till he tired of it and withdrew.

John Henry Gear, governor of Iowa, legislator and speaker of the Iowa house, congressman and twice elected senator, was another Keosauquan of the early day. And over against him may be placed "Bill" Mason of Illinois, the rotund and happy senator from Illinois. He was a Bentonsport lad, but he went to school in Keosauqua, and Keosauqua claims the credit for him.

Augustus Hall an Orator.

Coming down to men who became more congressmen the investigator may pick up one or two new Keosauquans in this capacity in almost any casual conversation with an old-timer. Augustus C. Hall divides with Delazon Smith the honor of Keosauqua oratory. He was a great lawyer and orator, a democratic congressman and for many years chief justice of Nebraska. His son is now one of the foremost lawyers of Omaha. Seth Richards Career.

A man of energy and magnificent ability was Seth Richards; Connecticut Yankee by birth and citizen of Van Buren county many years. He at one time owned 65,000 acres of Iowa lands. In 1880 he went to Oakland, California and there multiplied a fortune already of millions. He probably left $5,000,000 when he died in 1895 at the age of 85.

Other Keosauquans.

Benton J. Hall, member of congress from the first district; Gen. J.B. Weaver congressman and twice populist candidate for president, once polling over 1,000,000 votes; Capt. John A.T. Hull now representative of the Des Moines district in congress, chairman of the house committee on military affairs; William Webster, congressman from Nevada and for years its leading lawyer, now dead; E.K. Valentine, congressman for several terms from a Nebraska district; Elisha Cutler, Jr., elected secretary of state of Iowa when admitted into the union; Josiah Bonney who succeeded Cutler as secretary of state and afterward refused a nomination for governor; Capt. V.P. Twombly, treasurer of the state; Samuel Elbert, twice supreme judge of Colorado and afterward twice governor of that state; Lemuel Allen, now lieutenant governor of Nevada; Volney Smith, son of Delazon Smith, who became lieutenant governor of Arkansas; Jacob G. Vall, antimonopoly candidate for governor of Iowa- these are a few of the Keosauquans who have held offices worthy of mention.

Had Many War Veterans.

But not alone as lawyers and politicians were Keosauquans noted. They made a remarkable record in the civil war. Gen. Jas. M. Tuttle went out as captain of Van Buren's first company of volunteers; became colonel of the famous Second Iowa; became brigadier and then major general.

Another captain in the Second Iowa was V.P. Twombly, who is known to fame as the youth who planted the colors on the works of Fort Donelson -and kept them there- after four men had been shot down with the flag in their hands. Captain Twombly's heroic act is depicted in a magnificent bronze on the Iowa soldiers and sailors' monument at Des Moines.

Judge Caldwell, too, was a gallant soldier. He rose from the ranks to be major of the Fourth Iowa cavalry. One of the most promising careers was that of Captain Lee Elbert, cut short by a rebel bullet in the very beginning of the war, while he was performing, not for the first time, an act of noble and distinguished gallantry. He was even then, though a mere boy, marked for military honors of the first class. His father, Dr. Samuel Elbert, should not be overlooked, for he was president of the territorial council of Iowa and did a large part in saving Iowa to the union in her present beautiful conformation. Dr. Elbert was one of those who opposed and helped secure rejection of the first constitution submitted to the people, looking to the admission of the state with a western boundary about 100 miles east of the Missouri. Iowa wanted into the sisterhood but not badly enough to sacrifice her claim to the Missouri slope; and so congress tried again and this time passed an act naming the present boundaries and the state approved.

Major Hugh Brown of the regular army went as a private from Van Buren county at the opening of the war and retired from the service in 1888. Col. O.H.P. Scott of the Forty-eighth Iowa infantry, went out from Keosauqua. So did Col. Daniel Kent of the Nineteenth Iowa.

Edwin Manning a Foremost Man

Edwin Manning, who went to Keosauqua in 1837 and lived there till his death in 1892 was one of Iowa's wealthiest citizens when he died. He conducted many stores, invested in railroads, lands and banking and was one of the foremost men of the state for a half century in politics as well as business. He was the greatest patriarch of the town for his last decade of life the only one remaining there of the colony of early settlers who had met distinguished success.

Hon. C.C. Nourse, attorney general of Iowa and now a prominent member of the Des Moines bar, was a Keosauqua boy. So was D.C. Beaman, general solicitor of the big Colorado fuel and iron company from its beginning to the present. So was Calvin Manning of Ottumwa commissioner to the Paris exposition for the United States government and a leader in politics and finance of Iowa. He is a son of Edwin Manning.

Many Legal Lights.

George B. Redd and George Stidger, leading attorneys of Denver are representatives of the Keosauqua school of legal instruction that centered in the old Wright, Knapp & Caldwell office. So are W.A. Work and F.M. Hunter of Ottumwa; W.S. Mayne of Council Bluffs, Hon. Argus Cox of Bolivar, Mo., circuit court Judge George A. Rankin of San Francisco and Judge Robert Sloan for over twenty years district judge of this district, a position he still holds. He is one of the veteran jurists of the state.

H. Clay Dean, namesake of the "Millboy of the Slashes," was one of the most widely known men Keosauqua produced. He was a man of magnificent intellect and courage. Beginning as a Methodist preacher, his interest in public affairs led him into politics, and he became in the time of Greeley's prominence a democrat. Vallandigham never said more bitter things than Dean was wont to say in his speeches. He hated the republican party for its reconstruction policies, and he would hurl his anathemas in the face of any audience and dare it to attack him. He was perfectly able to thrash any half dozen ordinary men, and he did it on sundry occasions; and the power that he possessed of cowing a great audience, almost unanimously opposed to his views, into listening and submitting to his excorations was no less than wonderful. He was uncouth in appearance a giant in stature and strength, ignorant of books, but of wonderful intelligence and force. He had a considerable political career in Missouri after leaving Iowa.