Page:History of Iowa From the Earliest Times to the Beginning of the Twentieth Century Volume 4.djvu/156

  State Convention for Judge of the Supreme Court. He was elected and in 1868 became Chief Justice. In 1869 he was reëlected for six years but before qualifying was appointed by President Grant United States Circuit Judge for the Eighth Circuit, consisting of the States of Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Arkansas, Nebraska, Minnesota and Colorado. In 1869 he was made lecturer on Legal Jurisprudence in the State University of Iowa. He was the founder and editor of the Central Law Journal and author of a “Digest of the Decisions of the Supreme Court of Iowa,” as well as five volumes of United States Circuit Court Reports from 1871 to 1880. In 1879 he resigned the Circuit Judgeship (a life appointment) and removed to New York City where he had been chosen Professor of Real Estate and Equity Jurisprudence of the Law Department of Columbia College. In 1891-2 he was Lecturer on Municipal Law in Yale College. In 1892 he was chosen president of the American Bar Association. He has long had charge of the legal business of the Union Pacific Railroad Company, the Western Union Telegraph Company and the Manhattan Elevated Railroad Company. He has found time to continue his law writing as the author of a “Commentary on the Law of Municipal Corporations,” published in 1872, which has run through four editions; “Removal of Causes from State Courts to Federal Courts,” published in 1876, which has passed through three editions; “Laws and Jurisprudence of England and America,” being a series of lectures delivered before Yale University, published in Boston in 1895. Judge Dillon's works have had a large sale in England as well as in America, some editions having been published in London. In this country they were from the first recognized as standard legal authority. He is the author of many pamphlets on legal and historical affairs, and one of the most elegant memorial volumes that has appeared in this country, in memory of his wife and daughter who were lost at sea in July, 1898. His wife was the accomplished daughter of Hon. Hiram Price, long member of Congress from the Second Iowa District. From a boyhood of poverty and obscurity, but endowed with remarkable intellectual powers and untiring energy, John F. Dillon has by force of character, during a life of continuous work, reached the summit of the American Bar.  JOHN N. DIXON was born in Fayette County, Pennsylvania, February 20, 1821. His education was acquired at Friends Academy, Mount Pleasant, Ohio, and continued by a classical course in a college at Athens. After graduation he returned to the farm and gave special attention to horticulture. In 1855 he removed to Mahaska County, Iowa, where he planted what was then the largest orchard in the State. He became a prominent member of the State Horticultural Society, making valuable practical contributions to its literature, founded upon his experimental work. In 1869 he was elected on the Republican ticket to the State Senate, serving in the Thirteenth General Assembly. He was for several years a 