of
Muscatine County Iowa
1911
| History of Muscatine County Iowa 1911 | |
Source: History of Muscatine County Iowa, Volume I, 1911, page 375
HARRY 0'CONNOR. Harry O'Connor was born in Ireland and did not come to this country until he was of age. He was a tailor by trade and after his marriage, while he supported his family by his daily labor on the bench, he studied law, and after a course under the tutelage of Belamy Storer of Cincinnati, came to Muscatine to begin practice in 1842. He was a lawyer of considerable ability, but was best known for his gifts of oratory and warmth of heart. He was an abolitionist and gave his service for liberty to his country in those days of peril which can never be repaid. He was a private soldier in the First Iowa Infantry and afterward major in the Thirty-fifth. After the Civil war he was twice elected attorney general, receiving a very strong support for governor at the time Governor Carpenter was first nominated. In 1856 he was a delegate to the convention which organized the republican party in the state, and in 1857 was elected district attorney for the seventh district. From 1867 to 1872 he was attorney general of the state and in the latter year President Grant appointed him solicitor of the department of state. Major O'Connor as solicitor served under Secretaries Hamilton Fish, William M. Evarts, F. F. Freylinghuysen and James G. Blaine--fourteen years in all. He died at the Soldiers' Home, November 6, 1900. During Governor Carpenter's administration there were many rumors of fraud being perpetrated in the organization of counties, townships and school districts in northwestern Iowa. Governor Carpenter sent Attorney General O'Connor to investigate. When he returned, O'Connor reported one of the suspected cases, who was a man, and with his family was the only resident of a township. This man had organized the township, road districts and school districts and elected himself and his family to various offices, was building bridges, making roads, etc., at profitable prices, had built a schoolhouse, in which he lived, and hired a school teacher, who was his own daughter. Concluding, O'Connor exclaimed, "There is only one redeeming feature about the case." "What is that?" asked the governor. "The man is an Irishman," said O'Connor.
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