Page:History of Iowa From the Earliest Times to the Beginning of the Twentieth Century Volume 4.djvu/193

  had carried the State at the preceding August election by more than 7,000 majority. Mr. Fisher was elected one of the trustees of the Mount Pleasant Insane Asylum in 1860 and served as president of the board until 1872. In 1801 he was appointed to act with the State Treasurer to negotiate the sale of State bonds for the War and Defense Fund. In 1863 Mr. Fisher was nominated for Governor by the Democratic State Convention but declined. He was one of the commissioners who superintended the erection of the Hospital for the Insane at Independence and the State House at Des Moines and was universally esteemed as one of the most useful public men of Iowa. He died on the 5th of February, 1879. WILLIAM H. FLEMING was born in the City of New York on the 14th of April, 1833. His education was acquired in the schools of that city and in the printing offices where he was employed. He came to Iowa in 1854, stopping in Davenport where he worked at his trade. A few years later he went to Le Claire where for three years he published a paper. He was later city editor of the Davenport Gazette, and soon after the beginning of the Civil War he became a clerk in the office of Adjutant-General Baker. In 1867 he was appointed by General Ed. Wright, deputy Secretary of State, remaining in that position until appointed private secretary to Governor Merrill. He has served as private secretary also to Governors Carpenter, Kirkwood, Newbold, Gear, Drake and Shaw. No man in Iowa has a more thorough knowledge of the State affairs and public men of the times than Major Fleming. He has been employed in superintending the State census upon several occasions. In 1883 he purchased an interest in the Iowa Weekly Capital and soon after established the daily edition. During his residence in Iowa he has done a large amount of newspaper work on various papers, and has long been regarded as high authority on all matters relating to Iowa history. In 1903 he received an appointment in the Treasury Department at Washington. He is a Republican in politics and has been a life-long worker in the temperance cause. He was one of the founders of the Unitarian church in Des Moines. JAMES P. FLICK was born at Bakerstown, Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, August 28, 1845. When he was seven years of age his parents removed to Iowa, making their home in Wapello County. In 1857 they became residents of Taylor County which has since been Mr. Flick's home. He enlisted in the Fourth Iowa Infantry in April, 1862, and served in the Civil War as a private soldier. Studying law after his return he was admitted to the bar. He was elected on the Republican ticket to the House of the Seventeenth General Assembly and was District Attorney for six years. In 1888 he was elected to Congress in the Eighth District and reëlected in 1890, serving four years.