Page:History of Iowa From the Earliest Times to the Beginning of the Twentieth Century Volume 4.djvu/49

 GEORGE W. BASSETT was born in Canada in 1827. He received his education in Wabash College, Indiana, and the Cincinnati Law School. He came to Iowa in 1856, studying law with John A. Kasson in Des Moines. He located at Fort Dodge in 1858 where he practiced his profession. In 1861 he was a lieutenant in a company of cavalry raised at Fort Dodge which was attached to the Army of the Potomac. He was disabled by wounds in battles and had to resign in consequence. Upon his return to Fort Dodge in 1863 Lieutenant Bassett was elected to the State Senate for the northwestern district consisting of twenty-eight counties and represented more than one-third of the territory of the State in the Tenth and Eleventh General Assemblies. For nearly twenty years Mr. Bassett was the general agent for the leasing and sale of the lands embraced in the Agricultural College grant, disposing of nearly 200,000 acres of lands. He died in California on the 6th of February, 1896. JOHN F. BATES was the first colonel of the first regiment furnished by Iowa to the War of the Rebellion. He was born on the 3d of January, 1831, at Utica, New York. He paid his expenses at school for six years by performing the labors of janitor. From 1852 to 1855 he was an insurance agent in New York City and then removed to Iowa locating at Dubuque. There he was elected Clerk of the District Court in 1858. When Governor Kirkwood issued his proclamation on the 17th of April, 1861, calling for volunteers for a regiment to serve for three months, thousands of citizens responded. But one thousand could be accepted and when they were organized into the First Iowa Infantry in May, John F. Bates was chosen colonel. He commanded the regiment in the battles of Booneville and Dug Springs under General Lyon, but at the greater Battle of Wilson's Creek he was not present. His military career closed at the end of three months when the First Iowa was mustered out. WILLIAM M. BEARDSHEAR was of Scotch ancestry and was born November 7, 1850, at Dayton, Ohio. He was reared on a farm and attended the public schools until fourteen years of age when he enlisted in the Union army and was accepted because of his unusual size and strength. He served through the entire war in the Army of the Cumberland and returning, entered Otterbein University from which he graduated. In 1876 he entered the ministry in the United Brethren church, preaching at Arcanum and Dayton, Ohio. Meanwhile he attended Yale Theological Seminary for two years. In 1881 he came to Iowa, accepting the presidency of Western College at Toledo, being one of the youngest college presidents in the country. In 1889 he was elected principal of the Des Moines public schools, but in 1891 resigned to accept the presidency of the State College of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts. For fifteen years Dr. Beardshear took an active interest in education, attending every