Page:History of Iowa From the Earliest Times to the Beginning of the Twentieth Century Volume 4.djvu/515

  the Thirtieth. Senator Titus was the author of the bill establishing the State Library Commission. He was also the author of a bill requiring all amendments proposed to the Constitution, or other public measures to be submitted to a vote of the people, to be on a separate ballot. LEWIS TODHUNTER was born in Fayette County, Ohio, April 6, 1817. He received his education at the public schools of Ohio and Indiana. Late in life he studied law and was admitted to the bar of Ohio. In 1850 he removed to Warren County, Iowa, making his permanent home in Indianola, where he continued to practice law. He served the county several terms as auditor, treasurer and prosecuting attorney, but his most distinguished public work was as a member of the Constitutional Convention of 1857, which framed the present Constitution of the State. He was also one of the founders of the Republican party of Iowa, having been previously a Free Soil Whig. The reform with which Mr. Todhunter was most closely identified was the suppression of intemperance. His labor in this cause began in 1840 upon the organization of the Washington Society and he has been a member of nearly all of the temperance organizations of Iowa. He was chairman of the committee which framed the bill which became known as the Clark law. He several times canvassed the State in behalf of the cause of prohibition and his name is imperishably associated with the history of the temperance movement for more than sixty years. Although exempt by age from military service during the Civil War, he tendered his services and was appointed quartermaster of the Forty-eighth Iowa Infantry in 1804, with the rank of captain, and was attached to the command of General Ord. After Mr. Todhunter retired from practice in 1890 he wrote a history of the Iowa temperance legislation. He died at Indianola, January 29, 1902. WILLIAM M. G. TORRENCE was born in Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania, on the 1st of September, 1823. After receiving an education he went to Kentucky and engaged in teaching. During this time the Mexican War began and he enlisted and was elected first lieutenant in the First Kentucky Mounted Volunteers. He participated in the Battle of Buena Vista and served until the close of the war. In 1847 he came to Iowa and located at Keokuk where he was for several years superintendent of the city schools. In the spring of 1861 he enlisted in Company A, First Iowa Cavalry, and in June was commissioned major of the First Battalion of that regiment. After serving several months in Missouri he resigned. In the summer of 1862, Major Torrence was appointed lieutenant-colonel of the Thirtieth Infantry. He was in the Vicksburg campaign and, upon the death of Colonel Abbott was promoted to the command of the regiment. He was with Sherman's army on the march to