JOHN T. MOFFIT
View Portrait of John T. Moffit
John T. Moffit, a member of the Cedar county bar, practicing at Tipton, is one of Cedar county’s native sons, his birth having occurred July8, 1862, upon his father’s farm near Mechanicsville. His parents were the Hon. Alexander and Martha J. (Poteet) Moffit, of whom extended mention is made elsewhere in this volume. He entered the district school and supplemented this by three years’ study in the Mechanicsville high school, which he entered in 1876. In September, 1879, he entered as a student the preparatory department of Cornell College, at Mt. Vernon, Iowa, graduating from the classical course on the 16th of June, 1884. He was prominent in college literary and athletic circles, holding various offices in the Adelphian Literary Society, and also serving as manager of the college baseball team for two years.
In preparation for the bar Mr. Moffit attended the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor and was graduated with the LL.B. degree on the 1st of July, 1886. In June of the following year his alma mater conferred upon him the Master of Arts degree. Following his admission to the barhe entered upon the practice of law in connection with Charles E. Wheeler under the firm style of Wheeler & Moffit, opening an office in Tipton on the 1st of November, 1887. When Judge J. H. Preston resigned his seat on the district bench on the 1st of September, 1894, he became associated with the firm under the style of Preston, Wheeler & Moffit and immediately thereafter they opened an office in Cedar Rapids to be conducted in connection with the one at Tipton. Mr. Wheeler withdrew on the 1st of September, 1897, and the firm continued as Preston & Moffit; Preston, Grimm & Moffit; and Grimm, Trewin & Moffit, until January 1, 1907, since which time Mr. Moffit has practiced alone in Tipton.
Colonel Moffit in 1885 enlisted as a private in the Iowa National Guard and rose successively to orderly sergeant and second lieutenant in 1889, captain in 1890 and major in 1894. He was in his office attending to professional duties on the 25th of April, 1898, when Governor Shaw issued his call for volunteers for the Spanish-American war. At midnight he was awakened from sleep to receive a message directing him to report to Des Moines forthwith to be enrolled. At 9:30 the next morning he reported to the adjutant general, having traveled halfway across the state. He was commissioned major of the Fiftieth Iowa Volunteer Infantry on the 26th of April, was mustered into United States service on the 18th of May, and on the 20th of August became lieutenant colonel of the regiment, which was the first to leave the state for the south. He was regularly mustered out with his command on the 30th of November, 1898, and on the following morning was again at work in his office in Tipton.
Colonel Moffit has always given his political allegiance to the republican party, and when but twenty-nine years of age was chosen to represent his district in the republican national convention at Minneapolis in 1892. He was the youngest of the Iowa delegation and one of the youngest of that entire body. He takes an active interest in politics.
In the spring of 1896 Tipton was organized into a city of the second class, Mr. Moffit was elected its first mayor, being nominated entirely without solicitation on his part. In 1904 he was elected a member of the Iowa state senate to serve for four years; was county attorney of Cedar county for four years, 1905-1910. He acted as president of the Republican Club of Cedar county in 1888 and also as chief presiding officer of the McKinley Club of Tipton, in 1896. Colonel Moffit has been a member of the city council; has been a director of the Cedar County State Bank ever since its organization. He was the leading spirit in 1890 in organizing the Tipton Fair Association and was its secretary a number of years. He is a member of the board of trustees of Cornell College, and has been secretary of the law class of 1880, University of Michigan, ever since his graduation. He has for a long time been a member of the Knights of Pythias. He is a Mason and has attained the thirty-second degree in Scottish Rite Masonry, holding membership in Iowa Consistory, No. 2. In strictly professional lines he is a member of the Iowa State Bar Association And of the American Bar Association.
Colonel Moffit was married September 28, 1892, to Miss Winifred E. Hecht, a daughter of Fred and Margaret E. (Bossert) Hecht of Clarence, Iowa. They have one daughter, Margaret Eleanor.
