Jefferson County Online A part of the IAGenWeb and USGenWeb Projects Who's Who in Jefferson County, 1931 James P. Starr

"The Fairfield Daily Ledger"
Tuesday, August 25, 1931
Front Page

Who's Who In Jefferson County
By Herbert F. McDougal

JAMES P. STARR

The first large body of water that James P. Starr ever saw was the Des Moines river--and it was from the high seat of his grandfather's phaeton as grandfather, grandmother and young James were fording that stream before even the Keosauqua bridge was built, back in 1874.

They had come behind a brisk team from Fairmount, Missouri, where Mr. Starr was born November 3, 1869. Fairmont was one of those towns that fervid local orators used to refer to as "cities of destiny", and it really did seem to be such until the railroad was built four miles too far away and Fairmont moved almost bodily over to the new town of Wyaconda. A few years ago when Mr. Starr took his family back to show them the site of the house where he was born, even the cellar had disappeared.

His father, Robert Starr, was a lawyer before him, a veteran of the Civil War, who had given a leg to the cause. The Starrs were old Pennsylvania Irish Quakers, who had come over in the time of William Penn, and when Mr. Starr's grandfather gave his three sons permission to go to war, he was promptly read out of the church.

The Starr family moved to Keosauqua in 1874 and young Jim went to the public schools and was an honor student in the first class to be graduated from the high scool there--in 1888. He was the only boy in a class that had five girls in it.

He read law in his father's office, poring over Blackstone and Kent and Walker. Then he taught school for four terms. The first of these was the Gray district school. He had forty-four pupils, fourteen of these being boys who were larger than he. He got the top salary for teachers, $35 a month, and paid $1.50 a week for five days' board. On Friday evenings, he borrowed a horse and rode back to Keosauqua to spend the week end. Then he taught two terms at the Bradford school and one at Enterprise in Vernon township.

He then went to the University of Iowa law school for a year and was admitted to practice by the supreme court, along with Senator Smith W. Brookhart. He practiced with his father, beginning in 1892, until the latter's death in 1901. During that time, however, he was for four years a deputy clerk of the court. After the death of his father, he formed a partnership with C. Calhoun, under the name of Starr & Calhoun, and this relationship continued until he moved to Fairfield in December, 1906. For seven years he practiced alone, and on January 1, 1914, formed a partnership with A. G. Jordan, a partnership that still continues. continues. (sic)

Mr. Starr has been a member of the board of education for two years, served out Dr. J. Fred Clarke's term as mayor, when he resigned, and then was elected to that office. During his adminsitration the sanitary sewer system was installed, the first water purification devices were put in, and some of the brick paving laid. He is a member of the Christian church, and Odd Fellow and a Lion. For a number of years he was secretary and treasurer of the Chautauqua association.

He married Miss Chloe Fellows of Keosauqua March 3, 1892. They have four children--Mrs. Allen D. Pettee of Plainfield, N. J.; Mrs. Don M. Clark of Indianapolis; Miss Io W. Starr, until recently a teacher in the State School for the Blind at Vinton, and James Carleton Starr, a student at the University of Iowa.