Asahel Hicks Bennett was born in Swanzey, New Hampshire, in 1806. He was educated in New Hampshire and admitted to the bar of the County of Cheshire and State of New Hampshire in the year 1836. For twenty years thereafter, until his removal to Davenport, Iowa, he held a position as one of the foremost lawyers of the State.
He was married in the year 1835 to Miss Abby A. G. Smith, daughter of Moses Smith, a prominent lawyer of Lancaster, Massachusetts. This union was terminated by his death in 1880. Eight of the ten children born to Judge and Mrs. Bennett, and his widow still survive him. When he removed to Davenport he entered actively into the practice of his profession. The year following he was appointed district judge, an office which he ably filled. Said the late Hon. John N. Rogers (himself a lawyer of great ability), his first case in the District Court here was tried before Judge Bennett, and that the judge's career on the bench was such as established his reputation as a jurist of great merit, and when the practice of cases before a referee came into vogue Judge Bennett was chosen to preside over some of the most important causes that have ever arisen here because of his legal knowledge, eminent fairness and impartiality. During his life and in all his relations to the profession and the community, whether as a judge, a lawyer, citizen or man, he preserved the universal respect, esteem and confidence both of his professional brothers and of all his fellow citizens. He was elected Mayor of Davenport in the year 1872. During his term of office the construction of a water works system was inaugurated, the city market was built and other improvements made. He continued the practice of the law until within a year of his death, which occurred July 2, 1880.
BIOGRAPHIES