Page:History of Iowa From the Earliest Times to the Beginning of the Twentieth Century Volume 4.djvu/548

 one of the Regents of the State University. He died at his home on the 2d of December, 1897. His son, William C. Whiting, was a member of the House of the Twenty-ninth General Assembly. LEONARD WHITNEY, pioneer clergyman, was born at Waterbury, Vermont, October 23, 1811. The district school and an academy furnished his early education, as he was of adventurous spirit and declined his father’s offer of a college course. Later he attended school at Hinesbury, studied law and was admitted to the bar in 1835. While visiting a Baptist clergyman, Rev. William Arthur (father of the future President), he began preparing for the ministry and preached at various places. While at Canandaigus, New York, he underwent a change in his religious belief, established a free church and later became a Unitarian. In 1853 he accepted a call to the first Unitarian church in the State of Iowa at Keokuk, where he drew together a remarkable congregation, among whom were Samuel F. Miller, later Judge of the United States Supreme Court and George W. McCrary, afterwards Secretary of War in President Hayes’ Cabinet. Mr. Whitney was an outspoken antislavery man from the first and was fearless in the pulpit and on the platform. When the Civil War began he volunteered in the service and was appointed chaplain in the Eleventh Illinois Cavalry, of which Robert G. Ingersoll was colonel. Mr. Whitney was untiring in his efforts to alleviate suffering and had great moral influence with the men in his care. After the Battle of Shiloh he overexerted himself in ministering to the wounded and returning to Keokuk, died on the 12th of June, 1862. Judge Miller has said of him: “He was a true man, with a noble intellect and died a martyr to his sense of duty.”  ELIAS H. WILLIAMS was born in Ledyard, Connecticut, July 23, 1819. After attending the common schools he prepared for college and graduated at Yale. He came west and during the Black Hawk War was in the military service, being stationed at Fort Atkinson for a time. He removed to Iowa in 1846, locating at Garnavillo, Clayton County. He engaged in farming and the practice of law and became a Republican upon the organization of that party in 1856 always taking a deep interest in public affairs. He served as county judge in Clayton, and in 1858 was elected judge of the Tenth Judicial District, where he served until 1866. In January, 1870, he was appointed by Governor Merrill Judge of the Supreme Court to fill a vacancy. He resigned the position in September of the same year. In addition to managing his farm and practicing law, Judge Williams was largely engaged in the promotion of railroad enterprises. He was influential in securing the building of the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul Railroad up the shore of the Mississippi River through Clayton County; and also in securing the construction of the road up the 