having been effected with the company at Alexandria, the road was built as above set forth by way of Memphis and Glenwood to Centerville.

In 1879 the Missouri, Iowa & Nebraska was extended west through Corydon and Humeston to Van Wert, in Decatur county. At about the same time the Humeston & Shenandoah line was constructed, thus making a natural and direct line from Keokuk to Council Bluffs. For two years the Missouri, Iowa & Nebraska line was a part of the Wabash, from which it was separated in 1885, and as the Keokuk & Western this branch passed into the hands of the Burlington system in 1903. In 1911 the Burlington erected a modern depot at Centerville.

SOUTHERN IOWA TRACTION COMPANY

A third branch of this road was built in the years 1879 and 1880, a charter having been granted on May 6, 1879, to the Centerville, Moravia & Albia Railway Company. Later the road was sold to the Wabash Railroad Company and afterwards there was a foreclosure by the bondholders. The company was then reorganized as the Albia & Centerville Railway Company, and on February 10, 1910, it was conveyed to and reorganized as the Southern Iowa Traction Company.

This line from 'September, 1889, to November 26, 1910, was operated by the Iowa Central Railway Company and it was thought by many that that road owned the property. The road furnishes the shortest line between Appanoose county and the north, west and northwest, and its value to this county and Centerville cannot be overestimated. At Albia connections are made with the main line and the Des Moines line of the C. B. & Q., the M. & St. L. and the Wabash railroads. At Moravia it connects with the C. M. & St. P. and the Wabash railroads; at Centerville with the C. R. I. & P. and the C. B. & Q. railroads. Plans are now matured to convert this road into an electric traction system and to maintain an interurban service from the court house at Centerville to the court house at Albia, which will still further enhance the value of the road to the people of both Appanoose and Monroe counties.

CHICAGO, BURLINGTON & KANSAS CITY

The above named company completed a road across Appanoose county in 1874, running from Bloomfield to Moulton, and thence by way of Cincinnati to LaClede, Missouri. The people of Cincinnati contributed about $25,000 to its construction.

CHICAGO, MILWAUKEE & ST. PAUL

The Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul Railroad Company finished its Kansas City line through this county in 1886, passing through Union, Taylor, Walnut, Bellair and Lincoln townships. In 1887 its principal station in the countyMystic was laid out and has today a population of 3,000 people.

CHAPTER XV

THE BENCH AND BAR-ABLE MEN WHO HAVE SAT ON THE BENCH-PIONEER LAW

YERS MEMBERS OF THE PRESENT APPANOOSE COUNTY BAR-FIRST AND SECOND COURT HOUSES-THE NEW TEMPLE OF JUSTICE.

Perhaps no body of men, not excepting the clergy, may exercise a greater influence for good in a community than those who follow the profession of the law, and it must be admitted that no other body, not even to the so-called criminal classes, are permitted greater possibilities for an influence for evil. What that influence shall be depends upon the character of the men who constitute the bar of the community-not merely on their ability or learning but on their character. If the standard of morality among the members of the bar is high, the whole community learns to look at questions of right and wrong from a higher plane. If the bar consciously or unconsciously adopts a low standard of morality it almost inevitably contaminates the conscience of the community. And this is true not only in the practice of the profession itself, not only because of the influence of members of the bar as men rather than lawyers, but in the effect upon other professions and occupations to which the bar acts as a feeder. The members of the legislature are recruited largely from the legal profession. How can legislation, designed solely for the welfare of the public, be expected from one whose honor as a lawyer has not been above suspicion? And since lawyers. outside of the legislature, have a great influence in shaping the law, how can the people expect that influence to be exerted in their behalf when the bar itself. is unworthy? Still more does the character of the bar affect the judiciary, which is supplied from its ranks. It is not always, perhaps not generally, the case that members of the bench are chosen from those lawyers who have attained the highest rank in their profession. If a judge be industrious and honest, but not of great ability, or if he be able and honest, though lacking industry, the rights of the litigants are not likely to suffer seriously at his hands. But there have been instances where judicial office was bestowed solely as a reward for political service; and while it is sometimes realized that one who has been a strenuous and not too scrupulous politician up to the moment of his elevation to the bench, has thereafter forgotten that there was such a trade as politics and has administered justice without fear or favor, the experiment is a dangerous one. No one need be surprised if in such a case the old maxim holds true: "He who buys the office of judge must of necessity sell justice." Let our judges be men who are subject to other influences than those of the facts submitted to them and the law applicable to those facts; let them lack that independence which is an imperative requisite to one who holds the scales of justice, let a well founded

suspicion arise that their decisions are dictated by something outside of their own minds and consciences, and the confidence of the people in the maintenance of their rights through the agency of the courts is destroyed.

It has been the good fortune of the city of Centerville and the county of Appanoose that the members of the bar here have been, for the most part, men of high character as well as of ability and learning, so that its bar has won a high and honorable reputation throughout the rest of the state and because of the high character of the bar it has followed that those of its members who have been elevated to the bench have enjoyed the confidence and respect of the public and have been honored not only in their own locality but in many cases throughout the state.

Yet the preparation of a history of the bar, so far at least as that part of it which lies back of one's own generation is concerned, is attended with considerable difficulty. Probably few men who in their time play important parts in the community or even in the state or nation, leave so transient a reputation as lawyers do. A writer on this subject who took for his text the Lawyers of Fifty Years Ago, said: "In thinking over the names of these distinguished men of whom I have been speaking, the thought has come to me how evanescent and limited is the lawyer's reputation, both in time and space. I doubt very much if a lawyer, whatever his standing, is much known to the profession outside of his own state." Those who attain high rank in the profession must realize that with rare exceptions their names are "writ in water." One may turn over the leaves of old reports and find repeated again and again as counsel in different cases the name of some lawyer who must have been in his time a power in the courts, only to wonder if he has ever seen that name outside of the covers of the dusty reports in which it appears. Hamilton, in the conventions, in the Federalist and in the treasury, and Webster, in the senate and in public orations. have perpetuated and increased the fame of lawyers, Hamilton and Webster; but were it not for their services outside the strict limits of their profession one might come upon their names at this date with much the same lack of recognition as that with which one finds in a reported case the names of some counsel, great perhaps in his own time, but long since forgotten.

And there is another difficulty in preparing such a history as this, brief and therefore necessarily limited to a few names, and that is that some may be omitted who are quite as worthy of mention as those whose names appear. It is not often that any one man stands as a lawyer head and shoulders above the other members of the profession; and the same may be said of any half dozen men. In many cases the most careful measurement would fail to disclose a difference of more than a fraction of an inch, if any. Lives of eminent men who have at some period been practicing lawyers have contained the assertion that while they were engaged in the practice of their profession they were the "leaders of the bar;" but there is almost always room for doubt as to whether the title is now a brevet bestowed by the biographer alone. Therefore, the mention in this article of certain lawyers must not be taken as any disparagement of those who are not mentioned, and, finally, it is to be observed that this article, so far as the bar is concerned, will treat not only of those members who are past and gone but will make mention of some of those now in the flesh.

THE COURTS AND JUDGES

By an act of the territorial legislature approved February 17, 1843, the boundary lines of Appanoose county were declared, but the county remained attached to or a part of Davis county for election, revenue and judicial purposes, until, by an act of the territorial legislature, approved January 13, 1846, it was organized into a separate county. The name of the county was given by the first act of the territorial legislature. The first court held in Appanoose county was presided over by Judge Cyrus Olney, judge of the third judicial district, September, 1847. The first clerk of the court was J. F. Stratton by appointment of Judge Charles Mason.

For judicial purposes Appanoose county was originally in the first judicial district, and afterward in the third judicial district, until 1849, when it was placed in the fifth district. In 1853 it was made a part of the ninth district. In 1858 it was placed in the second district, where it has remained ever since.

No judicial district in Iowa has ever had abler judges or men of higher integrity, than the judges on the bench in the second judicial district since its organization in 1858. No suspicion of a lack of judicial honesty or integrity has ever been cast upon either of them.

Under the territorial organization as well as under the state organization up to 1851, we had the probate court, but after that the county court system until 1870, when that court was abolished.

Benjamin Spooner was the first probate judge in Appanoose county, and his first order made was the appointment of an administrator.

The first case docketed in the district court was a criminal case against George Braffit, charged with larcency. Defendant ran away and his bond was forfeited. In the first law case, the plaintiff recovered judgment for thirty-two cents. The first equity case was an action for a divorce.

There being no court house, the court was held in a little store room owned by one Wadlington, and the grand and petit juries deliberated in Jim Hough's little blacksmith shop, except when the court adjourned to the blacksmith shop, and then the juries went out to a clear place in the hazel brush near by to deliberate. When the court was held in the little store the judge sat on the counter and the clerk's table was a barrel, and when held in the blacksmith shop the judge. sat on the anvil and the clerk's desk was the bellows. It was said this made the judge hard hearted and the clerk a "loud fellow," or a "blow.”

It is a noteworthy fact that the bar of Appanoose county has always been one of the ablest in the state, and so recognized since the early days of its history. The lawyers who attended the first court were J. C. Knapp, afterward Judge Knapp, and Augustus Hall of Keosauqua, S. W. Summers of Ottumwa, and Samuel McArchon of Bloomfield, and Powers Ritchie.

The first court house was built in the fall and winter of 1847, of logs, and cost, when completed, $160. This was the home of the district court until 1860, when it was voted by the people to build a new court house to cost $15,000. The court house was occupied by the district court from 1862 until the house was condemned, years ago. Then the court was held from house to house until 1906,