For
Muscatine County Iowa
1911
| Biographies For Muscatine County Iowa 1911 | |
Source: History of Muscatine County Iowa, Volume II, Biographical, 1911, page 20
HON. JEROME DE WITT CARSKADDAN. In eary youth making choice of a profession in which advancement must depend entirely upon individual merit and ability, Hon. Jerome De Witt Carskaddan gradually worked his way upward until long since he gained a place among the foremost lawyers of eastern Iowa--a position which he has ever maintained, for in his professional career he has been a constant and thorough student of the fundamental principles of the science of the law. Into other fields of labor he has also directed his energies and successful accomplishment has resulted because of his close application, his executive force and initiative spirit.The family name indicates the Scotch ancestry of the Carskaddans. The line is traced back direct to Robert Carskaddan who was born in Scotland, and on coming to the new world settled first at Nova Scotia. Subsequently he removed to Rhode Island and afterward became a resident of New York. In the Revolutionary war among the patriot forces there was a Robert Carskaddan and his three sons, William, Robert, Jr., and Thomas, who enlisted from Ulster county, New York. The paternal grandfather of Jerome D. Carskaddan was Robert Carskaddan, who was born near Newburgh, New York, and in early life engaged in the manufacture of spinning wheels, while later he turned his attention to farming. He married Cornelia Ziele, who was of Holland Dutch descent, and a daughter of John Ziele, who was a captain in the second regiment of the Ulster county militia and also a soldier in the French and Indian war. He was captured by Indians and taken to Canada, but escaped and made his way home. His daughter, Cornelia, became the wife of Robert Carskaddan, and both died at an advanced age, the grandfather of our subject passing away when eighty-seven years of age, while his wife died in her eighty-fifth year. Their family numbered nine children; John, Elizabeth, Catherine, Ziele, Thomas, Harvey, Harriet, Diana and David. The last named died in childhood.
Of this family Harvey Carskaddan was born in New York and there learned the tanner and currier's trade, after which he conducted a tannery near Durhamville, New York. Later, however, he turned his attention to merchandising and the transportation business on the lakes. He removed to Black Rock, Erie county, New York, and thence went to Buffalo. During the last twenty-five or thirty years of his life, however, he was engaged in farming in Madison county, New York, near the old home of his father. He wedded Susan Barker, likewise a native of the Empire state. Her father, however, was a native of Connecticut and of English stock and was a farmer by occupation. Both Mr. and Mrs. Harvey Carskaddan were members of the Universalist church, his death occurring in 1880, when he was eighty years of age, and his wife, surviving him for two years, also passed away at the age of eighty. They were the parents of four children: Jerome D.; Clarence, who is now practicing law in Oneida, New York; Myron, who died at the age of twenty-two years; and Ada, who died at the age of fourteen years.
The birth of Jerome De Witt Carskaddan occurred near Seneca Falls, in Seneca county, New York, November 6, 1829. His parents appreciated the value of education and he gladly availed himself of the opportunities that were afforded him of supplementing his early intellectual training by study in Hamilton College, of Clinton, New York, from which he was graduated in 1851. He was a classmate there and close friend of the late Charles Dudley Warner. Determining upon a professional career and choosing the practice of law as his life work, he began reading in the office and under the direction of Sloan & Shoecraft, of Oneida, New York, remaining in their office until admitted to the bar at a general term of the supreme court of New York held early in 1853. He at once sought the opportunities of the growing middle west and coming to Iowa, established his home and opened an office in Muscatine. Taking up his abode here, he determined to drop the use of his middle name and has since been known as Jerome Carskaddan. For fifty-seven years he has been an active factor in the life of the city, leaving the impress of his individuality upon its legal interests, its financial and other activities. In January, 1854, he joined T. M. Williams, a son of the Hon. Joseph Williams, in purchasing the Democrat-Inquirer, which he edited and published at Muscatine for two years. He entered upon the practice of law in 1856 as a partner of the late E. H. Thayer, the business relation between them being maintained until Mr. Thayer was elected to the bench of the county court in 1857. In the same year Mr. Carskaddan was chosen prosecuting attorney of Muscatine county, which office he acceptably filled for two terms. He was then chosen for judicial honors, being elected county judge in 1861 and filling the office until June, 1864, when he resigned, although his service on the bench had given entire satisfaction, his judicial decisions "winning him golden opinions from all sorts of people." In December, 1863, he entered into partnership with the late judge De Witt C. Richman, and they were associated for about fifteen years, this being regarded as one of the strongest law firms of eastern Iowa until its dissolution through the election of Mr. Richman to the circuit bench.
Mr. Carskaddan was afterward alone in practice until September 1, 1896, when he was joined by William D. Burk in a partnership that remained without change until January, 1906, when I. S. Pepper joined the firm under the style of Carskaddan, Burk & Pepper. That firm continued until the death of Mr. Burk in 1908, since which time the firm has been Carskaddan & Pepper. Mr. Carskaddan and his partners have represented the Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific Railway Company in Muscatine county since 1863. He is a lawyer of marked ability whose cases have ever been prepared with great thoroughness and care, while his broad legal learning is recognized in the readiness with which he brings precedent and principle to bear upon the cases. He is and has been since March 6, 1894, president of the Muscatine Savings Bank, now the First Trust & Savings Bank; is president of the Van Nostrand Saddlery Company and is connected with several other local enterprises which profit by his keen business discernment and powers of organization.
Judge Carskaddan has long been recognized as an influential factor in republican circles. He drew up the platform of the first republican convention ever held in Muscatine county, which was probably the first county convention of the party ever held in the state. He became an advocate of republican principles at the time the party was organized, his first vote being cast for Fremont and Dayton in 1856. In all the intervening years he has never wavered in his allegiance to the high principles for which the party has stood, yet he never countenances for a moment the methods which seek to make a party organization a tool for individual service and profit.
On the 1st of May, 1854, Judge Carskaddan was united in marriage to Miss Marilla Brown, a daughter of Clark and Julia (Babcock) Brown, of Morrisville, Madison county, New York. It was there that Mrs. Carskaddan was born and her parents were also natives of the Empire state, in which they spent their entire lives. They had a family of seven children: Edwin, Harvey, LeRoy, Adelia, Marilla, Maria and Rosalia. By her marriage Mrs. Carskaddan became the mother of a son and daughter: Paul, who was born April 14, 1861 and whose promising youth was cut short by death when he was about fifteen years of age, on November 27, 1875, on which day he was drowned in Muscatine slough while skating in company with a schoolmate, William Robertson and Gertrude, now the wife of William F. Bishop, president of the Hawkeye Pearl Button Company, of Muscatine. Mr. and Mrs. Bishop have a son, Jerome Carskaddan Bishop, who has completed his sophomore year in Cornell University.
Unpretentious in bearing, cordial and genial in manner, Judge Carskaddan is nevertheless recognized as one of the eminent members of the Iowa bar, whose prominence, however, is none the less the result of an irreproachable private life than of professional ability.
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