Among the old and honored members of the Scott County bar is Jacob W. Stewart, the beginning of whose career as a lawyer in this County dates back more than two-score years, a period equal to the average human lifetime, yet we find him still active and in the enjoy ment of the emoluments of a successful practice. He was born on the twenty-first day of June, 1828, at Danbury, Connecticut. He comes of Scotch ancestry. His grandfather, Jacob Stewart, was a soldier in the patriot army in the Revolution of 1776, was made prisoner by the British at the battle of Long Island and imprisoned in the Jersey prison ship in New York bay. His father, Simeon Minor Stewart, was a nephew of Judge Simeon Minor of Stamford, the father of William T. Minor, a former Governor of Connecticut. His mother was Susan (Gillette) Stewart of Danbury. Longevity has been a characteristic of his ancestors. His father and mother each died at the age of eighty four years. Until the age of twelve Jacob attended the schools of Danbury, but at that time his parents moved to Akron, Ohio, where he resumed his studies and when qualified martriculated at Denison University, Granville, Ohio, where he took the degree of A. B. in 1851, receiving that of A. M. in 1853. He had been sent to college by his father with the expectation that he would enter the Baptist ministry, but with the enlarged views afforded him while a collegian he became convinced that he should not enter the ministry, and he compromised with his parents by substituting the study of medicine for divinity, and with a view to that went to Peekskill, New York, where he was to begin his medical course under the tuition of his uncle, Dr. P. Stewart. To his uncle he made known the fact that he preferred the study of law and by his advice he entered the office of Hon. Edward Wells of Peekskill in 1851, and after a careful preparatory course was examined in open court by the judges and members of the bar of the Supreme Court of the State of New York at Brooklyn, and admitted to practice in April, 1852. He soon afterward went to Chicago and thence took stage across the prairies of Illinois, first seeing the broad face of the Father of Waters in September, 1852, at Port Byron. After stopping a day at Rock Island and visiting Davenport he went to Burlington, Iowa, where he secured the position of principal of schools at the magnificent sum of thirty dollars per month, boarding himself. There were then twelve teachers in those schools. In the April following he came to Davenport and opened a law office. The next winter he found his finances low and taught school at Port Byron (Illinois), again receiving thirty dollars per month. He had previously formed a partnership with J. W. Sennett, a former college chum , under the firm name of Sennett & Stewart, and during the winter managed to spend his Saturdays in his office. The law business was not profitable to the young lawyer and he accepted the offer of the position of second clerk on a steamboat at sixty dollars per month. He filled the position so well that in two or three weeks he was promoted to chief clerk and his salary was raised to $250 per month and board. He seemed to be doing wonderfully well and kept at the business six months, that is until the river froze up and the season closed, and then he found that through the bad management of his partner all his savings had been lost. This was no doubt a severe blow and a great discouragement to the young man, but he set his face to win and stuck to his office to do it. In 1856 he was elected on the Republican ticket prosecuting attorney, which office he held two years. A change from county attorney to district attorney, by which the former office was abolished , prevented his being a candidate for another term had he wished it. He was, however, assistant district attorney and attended to all the criminal cases in Scott County from 1860 to 1864. In the year 1866 he was appointed by President Johnson collector of internal revenue, which office he held for two years. His partner, James Armstrong, who had been his deputy, was then appointed collector and Mr. Stewart became his deputy, occupying that position from 1868 to 1870. For four years he applied himself assiduously to the practice of law, and in 1874 was elected Mayor of Davenport, serving one year. About the close of his term in that office he bought a tract of forty acres of land two and a half miles from the business part of the city. This was beautifully laid out and upon it was one of the finest country residences in the County. He named this place Pahquioque in honor of a chief of the Pequot Indians, moved out of the city and made his home there, thus disqualifying himself for holding the office of mayor after that term. In 1888 he was again elected county attorney and served two years. In the office of public prosecutor Judge Stewart had considerable to do with criminal law, but his business in the line of commercial law and and he managed suits involving very large amounts of property. Reports of appealed cases in which he was attorney are scattered along the reports of the Supreme Court of Iowa from the case of Campbell vs. Rusch in the ninth volume to the last, being number eighty-three. The cases of Van Patten & Marks vs. Burr et al. in the fifty-second Iowa, Van Patten & Marks vs. Leonard in the fifty-fifth, involving law governing cases of chattel mortgage and assignment, and Washington Bank vs. Krum, deciding upon liability of indorser on accommodation note, fifteenth Iowa, are some of the well known cases in which his theories of law were sustained. Among Judge Stewart's law partners were J. W. Sennett; Theodore Guelich, a prom inent Democratic politician; James Armstrong, now attorney for Austin Corbin of New York, and W. K. White, deceased. In his earlier life, and up to the time of the reconstruction period following the Rebel lion, Judge Stewart was a Republican, but differing with that party at that time he renounced his allegiance to it, and has since given his fealty to the Democratic party. In Masonry he has taken all the degrees and delved deep into the hidden mysteries of its teachings. He was a member of the Kaaba Temple, A. A. O. Nobles of the Mystic Shrine.
In January, 1856, he married Miss Fannie A. Ferguson of Danbury, Connecticut, a niece of the well-known Seth B. Howes, the proprietor of the London Circus. Of this marriage two children were born, a son and a daughter; the latter is now the wife of Arthur Belcher Brightman. Mrs. Stewart died on the twenty-eighth of January, 1889. After the death of his mother in December, 1892, Judge Stewart moved back to the City of Davenport and resided here up to the time of his death, April 14, 1894. Judge Stewart was a successful lawyer, was the oldest practicing attorney at the Scott County bar and next to the oldest attorney as regards residence in the County.
For over forty years he tried the people's cases. When he came here the country was new and the population small and he soon knew everybody, and everybody knew him. His course was honorable, his acts honest, his religion too liberal for any creed but the golden rule.
BIOGRAPHIES