Page:History of Iowa From the Earliest Times to the Beginning of the Twentieth Century Volume 4.djvu/251

  for gallant services in the Atlanta campaign. After the war he was for many years editor of the Ottumwa Courier. He was several years employed in responsible positions in the revenue service. HERMAN C. HEMENWAY, one of the prominent lawyers and Republicans of Northern Iowa, is a native of the State of New York, having been born at Potsdam, April 1, 1834. He acquired a good education and taught school several years. He studied law, was admitted to the bar, and began to practice at Freeport, Illinois, in 1860. The next spring he removed to Iowa, locating at Independence, enlisted in the Twenty-seventh Volunteer Infantry and served three years in the Civil War. At the close of his term of enlistment he settled at Cedar Falls where he resumed the practice of law. In 1875 he was elected Representative in the Sixteenth General Assembly, and in 1877 he was elected to the Senate, serving in that body in the Seventeenth, Eighteenth, Nineteenth and Twentieth General Assemblies. STEPHEN HEMPSTEAD, second Governor of the State of Iowa, was born at New London, Connecticut, on the 1st of October, 1812. In 1828 his father removed with his family to Missouri where he made his home on a farm near St. Louis. In 1830 Stephen procured a position as clerk in a store at Galena, Illinois, and when the Black Hawk War came he enlisted in an artillery company and served until peace was restored. He then entered college at Jacksonville where he remained until 1833 when he began the study of law. In 1835 he was admitted to the bar and the following year opened the first law office in the new town of Dubuque. When Iowa Territory was established in 1838 Mr. Hempstead was elected to the Council of the First Legislative Assembly. He was made chairman of the judiciary committee when but twenty-six years of age. At the second session Mr. Hempstead was chosen President of the Council. In 1844 he was elected one of the delegates to the First Constitutional Convention and was appointed chairman of the committee on incorporations. In 1845 he was again chosen to the Council of the Seventh Legislative Assembly and in the Eighth he was again elected President of the Council. In February, 1848, he was appointed one of the commissioners to revise the laws of the State. His colleagues were Charles Mason and William G. Woodward. They prepared and reported the Code of 1851 which was approved by the General Assembly and enacted into law. In 1850 Mr. Hempstead was nominated by the Democratic State Convention for Governor, was elected over the Whig candidate, James L. Thompson, and served four years. After the expiration of his term, Governor Hempstead returned to Dubuque where he served as county judge and auditor until 1873. He died on the 16th of February, 1883. Governor Sherman issued a proclamation enumerating the valuable public services of Governor