Harrison County Iowa Genealogy

HISTORY OF HARRISON COUNTY, IOWA, 1891
BIOGRAPHIES
Page 842
SANFORD H. COCHRAN

Sanford H. COCHRAN, a most successful attorney-at-law, practicing at Logan, and in all the higher courts of the country, has been a resident of the county since 1874. In September of that year, he located at Missouri Valley,where he opened a law office and remained until 1881, and then removed to Logan.

Mr. COCHRAN was born May 20, 1852, at Carmi, White County, IL. He is the son of Sanford and Martha E. (JOHNSON) COCHRN, and is the youngest son of a family of five children. The father served in the Mexican War, in Capt. LAWLER's Independent Cavalry Company, and was a bugler in the same. During the Civil War he was Captain of Company B, Fifty-sixth Illinois Infantry, serving aobut three years. Our subject had two brothers in the First Illinois Cavalry, who served a year and a half each during the Civil War.

Our subject commenced his schooling in Carmi, IL, where he attended until about fourteen years of age, and then attended Unionburg Seminary, Southern Illinois Normal University at Carbondale, and then went to West Point Military Academy, remained one year, and then went to Iowa University, graduating from the Law Department, June 30, 1874.

Mr. COCHRAN was united in marriage, April 13,1877, to Mary E. SHIMMINS, who was born in Darlington, WI. She is the daughter of Phillip and Jane (WARE) SHIMMINS, natives of England. Our subject and his wife are the parents of one child, Vernice, born May 25, 1882.

After graduating from the State University, Mr. COCHRAN was upon two occasions put on a committee to examine the law class at the University. Every profession has men within its ranks who are better fitted for some other calling; this is true in the pulpit, in the medical and legal fraternities, and then again, each one of these professions has followers, who seem in every particular just adapted to their chosen profession. That Mr. COCHRAN is gifted in the direction of a keen, far-seeing, brilliant legal mind, none who know him will doubt.

Politically he is a stanch Republican of the progressive type, and is familiar with the great issues that have been pending, and tested by the political parties of this country, and gives an intelligent opinion for the political policy he endorses. In 1887 he was made a candidate with four others for the office of District Judge, but Judge Ladd was the successful candidate. The campaign was a very animated one, yet Mr. COCHRAN never went outside of his own county to canvass, but received the support of the county from beginning to end, and received the highest number on at least two ballots, and defeated Judge MC CULLUM, who was then on the Bench, and came within two ballots of receiving the nomination, but by a compromise Judge LADD was the successful man. This showed the popularity of our subject, and had he not lived in another Congressional District, from which some other candidates did he would quite likely have been nominated and elected. But he is the last man to deplore the condition. He is not a candidate for office, and prefers to excel in the regular practice of his profession, than to bear the honors of any office. He has been eminently successful, and in a number of cases , exhibited marked ability, together with a thorough knowledge of the law. In the case of GLENN vs JEFFREY, of Monona County, he succeeded in securing title to fifteen hundred acres of land for the settlers; the case being finally tried before the Supreme Court. In the Cadwell Bank case; the criminal case wherein the State of Iowa was the plaintiff, and in the defense of John RICHARDSON, for murder, our subject won a good reputation for the manner in which he conducted the cases to a successful end.

Among other important cases with which Mr. COCHRAN has been connected, may be mentioned: the SPOONER ditch tax case; the Monona County ditch tax cases; and Schofield et al vs. Board of Supervisors of Harrison County; and a case of 1880, wherein he was engaged in the prosecution of the Western Millers' Association cases, involving the constitutionality of the "Iowa Fish Ways Laws," in which a decree was obtained under Judge LEWIS, of the District Court, holding them void. This decree virtually annulling section 3,058, of the Code as being unconstitutional. This case was one of much importance to owners of water-mill sites within Iowa, for by this decision it was determined that mill owners were not obliged to provide and maintain a means for fish to pass up or down a stream through a device provided for by such a law, as the one in question. But it is in the management and argument of important criminal cases and personal injury cases that the subject of this sketch greatly excels. As a close reasoner and magnetic and emotional orator Sanford H. COCHRAN has but few equals at the bar. While he commands large fees, we are told that someof his best efforts have been in the defense of the poor, who could pay no fee. He has accumulated a competence, is thoroughly business-like, ready to assist all public enterprises and is generous to those in misfortune.

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