SECTION XIII.
CEDAR COUNTY IN THE STATE AND NATION.
submitted by Linda Stoddard, March 2, 2011, pages 486-491

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The first member of the Territorial Council from Cedar County was a member of the Whittlesey family, Charles Whittlesey, who was one of three brothers. The old Whittlesey mill was near the south line of the county. He served in the Council during its first and second sessions. From the account of one who knew him we may learn that he came from the State of New York, and was not skilled in the ways of the Iowa farmer or in the life of a great prairie state. 306   Of his record in the assembly of the territory we find little account to guide us at this time. In the third session of the council Cedar was represented by S. Clinton Hastings, a prominent man in the territory and later in the history of the courts.

The recent work on the Courts and the Legal Profession gives a good account of this man. He served as a member of the council during the third, fourth, seventh, and eighth sessions. He located in Bloomington (Muscatine) in 1837 and began the practice of law, wherein he was not only prominent but successful as well. Among his associates of that day some will be mentioned in the connection with the professions as coming to this county for practice in the courts. There were R. P. Lowe, afterwards governor of the state; Stephen Whicher, Wm. G. Woodward, the son of the man by that name in the famous Dartmouth College case; J. Scott Richman, who was in Tipton in the day of the sale of the town lots by the county as his name appears in the list of buyers.

Hastings does not belong to this county altogether, but he was the member for this county and practiced in the courts here in the very beginning. At one time he was the president of the territorial council. He was associated with James W. Grimes in the publication of the "Blue Book," which included the laws of Iowa then. He became chief justice of this state by appointment, holding the office one year. He was the editor of a leading paper in Indiana during the presidential contest resulting in the election of Martin Van Buren. He removed to California late in the forties and became attorney general and afterwards chief justice of its supreme court.

John P. Cook went from Cedar to the fifth and sixth sessions of the Territorial Council. He was among the first citizens of the county and is mentioned many times in connection with all phases of the early county history. One could not tell all that he had to do with the events that helped to make this county in a single book. He was recognized later as one of the leading lawyers of the state, and one may as well mention here his election to congress from the second district in competition with Lincoln Clark in 1852. These same men had been the opposing candidates in the election two years previous. Iowa had but two districts at that time.

These were the members of the council and the assembly had from this county the familiar names of Robert G. Roberts, Van Antwerp, S. P. Higginson, John Culbertson and Joseph K. Snyder. The first established a reputation for certain attributes and one expression that he Robt. G. Roberts uttered in this assembly has remained with the record wherever his name is mentioned—"Is Cedar in that 'ar bill?" In the old cartoon referred to in another connection in the historical library at the State University these words are put into his mouth as expressing the chief method of recognizing the man. He was among the earliest settlers of Iowa township and Charley Crawford remembers when he came to the house of his father to leave his hunting dog in the boy's care until his return from whatever expedition he happened to have in mind. The return saddened the boy for the fine hunting dog was much appreciated.

In the second session of the territorial assembly the member for this county did not reside within its limits, as three counties were included in the district. The member's name was Geo. H. Walworth, according to the authority of the State Historical Department.

The name of Van Antwerp was one to juggle with when the county seat contest was in full swing. In the conventions held for the nominations Rochester and Tipton named the candidates, and the man under discussion was an avowed favorite with the Rochester party, and against him was pitted always some one who could win the contest for Tipton. He was once a candidate for the council when John P. Cook won the office. Antwerp was one of the towns set up as a beacon to the commissioners who were to relocate the county seat. It took its name from the member mentioned.

Samuel P. Higginson has been written about enough in this study to make him familiar enough to most people. He gave the county its start in business by loaning the money, it is remembered, to pre-empt the quarter on which the original of Tipton is located. Like a good samaritan that he was he took his pay in town lots at ten dollars per lot. He got the first mortgage recorded in the county, and Stephen Toney gave it to him. Captain Higginson went to the assembly of the territory at the fourth session and we may suppose he used his sea experience to keep his head in the whirl of business at the capital. He it was who used to own the "Bunker Hill Stock Farm," but long before it had its present reputation.

In the fifth and sixth sessions of the territorial assembly John W. Culbertson went from Cedar County. He came to the county just in time to fit into the new county seat and became one of the first residents and business men of the place when he said, "not a building here, only a shanty used as a claim house."

He put up a small house and the county commissioners proposed that if he would put up an addition to his house and keep a hotel they would furnish the lumber. It was necessary to have some one to keep the traveling public comfortable. The firm of Friend and Culbertson is stamped on the memory of all the pioneers of the county. But they have been mentioned very often.

Joseph K. Snyder was the last man to represent the county in the lower house of the assembly until the territory became a state. He served two sessions, the seventh and eighth. He had to do with many county affairs and completed the first court house on the square after the first contractor had failed to finish the job.

The territory of Iowa made two attempts to make a constitution before being admitted as a state. At the first convenion S. A. Bissell and James Gower were the delegates from Cedar County. The convention was called at Iowa City in October, 1844, and adjourned on November 1. This constitution was rejected by the people August 4, 1845, because of dissatisfaction with the boundaries fixed. Another convention was called May 4, 1846, to which Judge Bissell went alone from this county. This convention was short, adjourning on the 19th of the same month. The constitution drawn at this time was approved by the people August 3,1846, and by Congress in December of the same year, the state being admitted December 28, 1846.

At the third convention for revising the constitution in 1857, January 19, Robert Gower was the delegate from this county. The constitution was approved by the people in August, 1857, and went into effect by the proclamation of the governor in September of the same year.

In the assembly of the state from its admission there have been thirteen men in the upper house, and twenty-seven at least in the lower house from Cedar County. It is impossible to give the complete sketch of each even if all the details were at hand.

S. A. Bissell, county judge afterwards, and one who assisted at the time of the railroad bond issue, was the first state senator. There was an extra session which he attended during his term of office. Those who knew him early in his life as a young man out of college say that his health was so precarious that he was turned loose in the woods by his father, given a gun, and told to hunt his health which he did and found to his great satisfaction. He spent some time in this very way when he first came to the county. 307  

John P. Cook appears again, in the office of senator this time, always at the front of the political field. His record continued to be made in this county until about 1852, and this marks the close of his service as senator, he having held the office two sessions.

George Smith represented the county in the fifth assembly in the senate. He was the county judge during the years '58 and '59. Came here from the east and taught school in Cass township where the Gower boys went to school to him, unless perchance there are two Smiths, which, of course, might happen.

In the sixth and seventh sessions of the Senate one of the men best known to the county served Cedar—J. W. Cattell, of Springdale township. He is one of the citizens of the county to hold an executive state office, that of State Auditor, which position he held from 1859 to 1865. He was in the state office when the officer from Virginia came to arrest Barclay Coppock and take him back for trial. In the history of the locality from which he went to Des Moines he is mentioned as the first president of the first agricultural society to be organized in this county.

J. M. Kent, whose postoffice was at Onion Grove at the time, was the senate member in the eighth and ninth sessions. He came to the county in 1852. His first election was to fill a vacancy in the twenty-first senatorial district, in 1857, and he was re-elected in 1859. He was appointed army vote commissioner in 1864. Henry Wharton, Sr., is mentioned as holding this office in the tenth and eleventh assemblies. Wm. P. Wolf succeeded him for two terms. He was elected to the house in 1863, and to the senate in 1867. He was commissioned Assistant Collector of Internal Revenue by President Lincoln and in 1870 he was chosen to complete an unexpired term in congress from the district. He was the Speaker of the House in the twentieth assembly which met in 1884. Later, in 1895, he was chosen as judge of the district court for the eighteenth district.

In the two assemblies following Judge Wolf, J. C. Chambers, of Springdale township, represented the county. He was then cashier of the West Branch Bank. He came to Springdale in 1863, where he resided for five years. After the expiration of four sessions of the senate, he was again elected serving for the twentieth and twenty-first.

H. C. Carr, a well known attorney of Tipton, held the office during the sixteenth and seventeenth assemblies. He did not come to Tipton until 1867 and about twenty years later he went to the far west where he died in 1891, within a year almost of the death of his former law partner, H. C. Piatt. He was the mayor of his adopted town and a highly respected citizen.

One of the older physicians of the county, Dr. E. B. Bills, of Durant, was chosen to the senate in the twenty-second and twenty-third assemblies. He was a pioneer of Farmington township.

The last member but one to be elected to the senate is John T. Moffit, who served in the twenty-eighth and ninth sessions. During his term in the assembly he introduced the bill making provision for the Vicksburg Commission.

The present occupant of this office is Dr. H. R. Chapman, of Bennett. He is the chairman of the Committee on Manufactures.

Of the house members from this county, Nelson W. Rathbun, of Pioneer township, comes first, who served the first session and the first extra. Away back in 1854 we hear of him as exhibiting a patent loom at the county fair, and then the name has constantly been before the people of this county through the record of his son, Captain Rathbun.

In the second assembly Jeremiah C. Betts, who was the last of the county judges, had the honor of representing Cedar and he was followed by Goodnow Taylor, of Pioneer Grove.

Amos Witter began his career as a member of the house in Cedar County in the fourth assembly. He went from Scott to the fifth and the fifth extra, and then he appears from Linn in the eighth and eighth extra. His experience seemed to prove valuable.

Allen D. Graham was the member in the fifth and he was succeeded by Ed Wright, of Gower township, who had a long career as an official of the state. He served in the house in the sixth, seventh and eighth assemblies. He began his history in this county near West Branch on a farm in 1852. He was a farmer, a carpenter, a millwright, and had been a teacher. Having become a leader in his community, he was urged for county clerk in 1855. At that time it appears he was requested by a delegation from another part of the county to wait, which he did to become the representative from the county in the last assembly to meet at Iowa City. He was reelected to this office until 1859. When the war broke out he was commissioned major in the Twenty-fourth Iowa and when he came home he ranked as Lieutenant Colonel and Brevet Brigadier General.

But he returned to the farm where he was not long allowed to remain, being once more chosen as member of the assembly in the eleventh session and became the speaker of the house. In 1866 he was chosen as secretary of state, which office he held six years. As one of the capital commissioners he assisted in the supervision of its construction and then became its custodian when it was finished. At the World's Fair in Chicago he was the chief of the bureau of information and after his return to Des Moines he became a city officer. At his death in 1895, he was buried with the highest honors ever paid to any private citizen from the capitol building he had helped to construct. General Ed. Wright he was called during his last days.

There seems to have been two members of the assembly for each session during the next eight terms for we find two names for each. In the ninth, H. C. Loomis, of Farmington, and J. H. Rothrock, of Tipton, both serving, also in the extra session following the regular. In the tenth, John W. Stanton and Judge Wolf, as mentioned elsewhere, filled this office. When Ed. Wright was in the assembly and was chosen speaker, John G. Safley was also a member. Wm. S. Chase, of Springdale township, and C. P. Sheldon, of Center, were the members in the twelfth. Mr. Sheldon had held this same office in Michigan before coming to Iowa in 1854. After the law was passed providing for the board of county supervisors, he was one of the first chosen for six years and held the office of chairman for five years.

James W. Beatty, of Clarence, served for two terms in the lower house with John Q. Tufts, of Farmington township.

Alexander Moffit, of Linn, one of the pioneers of that township, filled this office in the sixteenth session with Robt. G. Scott as a second member. He was followed by Elwood Macy, of Springdale, now a resident of Mount Vernon, in the seventeenth. Robert G. Scott, of Sugar Creek, was in the eighteenth, and the next two sessions Judge Wolf, as mentioned, was returned to his former position.

Robert G. Cousins was the member from Cedar in the twenty-first assembly and afterwards served as the fifth district member of the lower house of Congress from the fifth-third to the sixtieth sessions inclusive, or from the year 1893 to 1909. For many years he occupied a very prominent position in the lower house of Congress.

H. C. Piatt, of Tipton, one of the well known attorneys of the county and at one time county treasurer, was a member of the assembly at the time of his death. In the two sessions following the term of Mr. Piatt, Wm. J. Felkner, of Downey, represented the county from the far southwest corner. The next member came from the southeast corner in the person of D. H. Snoke, the man who laid the foundation of so many banks in the county.

R. W. Hinkhouse, of Sugar Creek, served in the twenty-sixth and the extra following it. Thos. B. Miller, of Stanwood, served the two immediately after him, when Dr. L. J. Leech, of West Branch, held the office for three terms This takes the record to the thirty-first session when Hiram Dewell, the present member, began his service. He is chairman of the Judicial Committee.

In another department of national service we find Lawrie Tatum, who was born of Quaker parents in New Jersey May 22, 1822, and came with them to eastern Ohio when he was six years old. His schooling was quite meager, being confined to a few terms in the public schools of the vicinity and one term in an academy. His education still continued for he was a great reader and thinker with a good memory.

He came to Iowa in 1844, and taught one term of school in Henry County and later in the year came to Cedar County, and entered the land on which he made his home until he sold it to his youngest son, W. W. Tatum. In the spring of 1848 he married Mary Ann Dean of Winona, Ohio. Four sons and one daughter were the result of this union. After selling his farm he removed to Springdale, which was his home until the time of his death, January 22, 1900.

He was active in all lines of work for the betterment of his fellowmen. He was the first Quaker to locate in this part of the county, and with a few other families they soon started the first Quaker meeting in this part of the state. He was one of the most prominent members of the meeting until the time he was called to the home above. (See history of Friends church at Springdale.)

Under Grant's Quaker (Indian) Policy he was nominated by the church and appointed by President Grant to be U. S. Indian Agent for the Kiowas, Comanches and Apaches located at Ft. Sill in the southwestern part of the Indian Territory. His administration of Indian affairs was a great success. A school was soon started for the education and training of Indian children. A number of captive children were recovered and many wrongs and abuses were corrected.

He published a book called "Our Red Brothers," in which he gave a very interesting account of his work among the Indians and also outlined Grant's Quaker policy, and some of the work of Captain Pratt at the great Indian school at Carlisle, Pa.

He also wrote a treatise on Baptism and the Sacraments, in which he set forth the Friends' views from the Bible standpoint. He also wrote a history of the Friends' church at Springdale, which he read at one of their business meetings and which was directed to be inserted in the minutes and kept for future record. 308  

He was very prominent in starting the Springdale Mutual Fire Insurance Company, one of the first in the state, and secured the services of his friend, the Hon. Wm. P. Wolf of Tipton, in introducing a bill into the State Legislature legalizing mutual co-operative assessment fire insurance.

He was one of the original stockholders and organizers of the People's Bank of West Liberty and for many years was a director.

He was a great Sabbath school worker not only in his own school but attended conventions and other schools in various parts of the county. His was a life of usefulness in the home, the school, the church, the town, the county, and the government. 309