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The United States Biographical Dictionary and Portrait Gallery of Eminent and Self-Made Men. Iowa volume. S John Thompson Stoneman, state senator from Clayton county, is a native of Chautauqua county, New York , and was born in the town of Ellery , on the 24th of February, 1831 , his parents being George and Catherine Cheney Stoneman. The Stonemans are of English pedigree, and were among the early settlers in Chenango county, New York . The Cheneys were an early Rhode Island family. George Stoneman moved with his family to Busti when the son was in his infancy, and there, on a farm four miles from Jamestown , the subject of this sketch lived until sixteen years of age. He was the fourth child in a family of eight children, four sons and four daughters, of whom General George Stoneman, the gallant cavalry officer in the late civil war, was the eldest child. John t. prepared for college at the Jamestown Academy, devoting his summers at this period to labor on the farm; at twenty, went to Covington, Kentucky, and taught school one year; he then entered Williams College, Williamstown, Massachusetts, and graduated in 1856. While in Kentucky Mr. Stoneman commenced reading law with Judge R. B. Carpenter, now of Charleston , South Carolina ; and during his college course he spent his vacations at the Albany ( New York ) Law School . He was there admitted to the bar in January, 1855, and on graduating from college came to the west, settling in McGregor in October, 1856. Here he has been in the steady practice of his profession since that date, part of the time alone and part in connection with other parties. He is now of the firm of Stoneman and Chapin, his partner being Asahel Chapin, junior, who has recently married his partner's adopted daughter. As a lawyer, Mr. Stoneman had devoted his talents and energies to his profession with unwearied industry. Dignified before the court, and respectful to the jury, he commands respect and wins the confidence of his hearers. He is an easy, fluent speaker, a man of strong sympathy and deep convictions, and disdains to stoop to any of the shallow artifices of the profession. Powerful and courteous in argument, resolute in the defense of what he believes is right, he has won among his associates a high and honorable place, and has fair promise of long life of public usefulness in his profession. He practices in all the courts, state and federal. Mr. Stoneman was the first recorder of the town of McGregor , he being elected in 1857. He was mayor of the city in 1863, and was elected to the state senate in 1875, his term of office expiring on the 31st of December, 1879 . He is on the judiciary committee, and three or four others, and one of the ablest men on the democratic side. Mr. Stoneman was originally a whig, and for the last seventeen or eighteen years has acted with the democrats, he being one of the leading members of his party in northern Iowa . He has been a candidate for different offices, but being on the minority side in politics, has usually been defeated. He was the democratic nominee for congress once; two years later the democratic and liberal candidate, and when Mr. Harlan was reelected the second time for the United States senate, and Hon. J. B. Howell was elected, Mr. Stoneman received, on both occasions, the votes of the democratic members of the general assembly. He has abilities to fill any positions in which his party, if in the majority, could place him. In March, 1858, Miss Caroline Southland, of Busti , New York , became his wife, and they have one child, Carrie, who is attending the high school in McGregor. Maquoketa The oldest journalist in Jackson county, Iowa, is William Christian Swigart, who has been for twenty-three years the conductor of the Maquoketa "Sentinel." He is a son of George Swigart, an Ohio farmer, and Mary Gantz, both parents being of German descent, and was born at Newark, Licking county, Ohio, on the 12th of December, 1824. William spent most of his early years in educational pursuits, supplementing common-school privileges with two or three years' discipline at Granville, graduating from the academic department of Granville College, now Dennison university, in 1844. On Leaving that institution, he spent a little more than a year in a store at Sandusky City, and then made up his mind to be a journalist. Returning to Newark, he entered the office of B. Briggs, publisher of the Newark "Advocate," a democratic paper, and began as a solicitor, after a short time writing more or less for the paper. Thence, about 1852, he repaired to Bucyrus, in the same state, and assisted in editing the "Forum" until 1854, in April of which year he removed to Maquoketa, Iowa, where he is still found. A younger brother, Stephen H., a practical printer, came with him, aided him in starting the "Sentinel," and remained with him until his demise in 1856. From that time Mr. Swigart was alone in the publication of the paper until 1872, when James T. Sargent became his partner, the firm now being Swigart and Sargent. At first it was a seven-column folio, assuming the quarto, its present form, in 1872. It is the official paper of the city and county, the organ of the democratic party, and is a neat looking, well conducted sheet. Mr. Swigart was postmaster at Maquoketa six years during the administration of Franklin Pierce and James Buchanan. He has always advocated the tenets of the democratic party, and is one of its leaders in Jackson county. He was married on the 6th of November, 1849, to Miss Martha P. Gage, of Findley, Ohio, and they have had nine children, two of whom they have lost. The eldest sons, Philemon D. and Josiah, are married. The former is the publisher of the Wyoming, Jones county, "Journal," the latter is foreman in the "Sentinel" office. Mr. Swigart is a shrewd and sharp writer; attends faithfully to his editorial duties, and makes a first-class country newspaper. He has spent thirty years in the editorial chair, and knows what will please the public. Physically, he is about the average height, and weighs two hundred and thirty pounds. His complexion is dark, inclining to ruddy; he has a robust, healthy appearance; is social and pleasant, a good converser, and a perfect gentleman. It may not be out of place to here state that his present partner, Mr. Sargent, is an old Iowa printer. He learned the trade in Greensburg, Pennsylvania, and came to Iowa in 1856, taking the place of Stephen H. Swigart, who died in that year. In 1859 Mr. Sargent went to Iowa county, started the Iowa Valley "Democrat" and conducted it until the rebellion broke out. In 1862 he went into the army as first lieutenant of a company in the 28th Infantry; served two years, and returned to Iowa. He has been a printer twenty-five years, and is at the head of the mechanical department of a fine office. He has a wife and one child. |