BIOGRAPHY: C. C. Cole
From the A.T. Andreas Illustrated Historical Atlas of the State of Iowa, 1875

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Page 362
 
      Honorable C. C. COLE.—Probably few men in the Northwest, certainly none in Iowa, 
have deserved and secured greater popularity than the present Chief Justice of the Iowa 
Supreme Court, Honorable Chester Cicero Cole, who is a native of Oxford, Chenango 
County, New York, where he was born June 4, 1824, and where he passed the earlier portion 
of his life.  He received a good academic education, and at the age of eighteen was prepared 
to enter the Junior class in Union College, but was prevented from doing so by a severe and 
protracted illness.  Four years later he entered the law school of Harvard University, where 
he received a thorough legal training under such eminent teachers as Simeon Greenleaf, 
William Kent, and Joel Parker.  Immediately after leaving Harvard he removed to Frankfort, 
Kentucky, and took charge of the legislative department of the Frankfort Commonwealth.  
He returned to his former home in New York State, and June 24, 1848, was married to 
Amanda M. Bennett, a lady with whom he had been acquainted from childhood.  Returning 
to Kentucky with his wife, he located at Marion, Crittenden County, was admitted to the bar, 
and commenced in earnest the practice of his chosen profession.  The second day after his 
arrival he was employed in an important case, in which he was eminently successful, and at 
the ensuing term of the Circuit Court, a few weeks afterwards, he was engaged in thirty-
three spearate cases, while at the succeeding term, some six months later, he was retained in 
every case on the docket.  During the nine years that he continued to practice at Marion, 
there was not an important contested trial in which he was not employed, while in the higher 
criminal practice in which he was engaged he never had a client whom he undertook to 
defend convicted, and never prosecuted more than two men, one for murder, who was hung, 
and the other for passing counterfeit money, and he was sent to the penitentiary.  This was 
certainly a remarkable experience considering, that he had for competitors such able and 
distinguished jurists as L. W. Powell, afterwards Governor of Kentucky, and United States 
Senator Samuel A. Kingman, now Chief Justice of Kansas, Archibald Dixon, Lieutenant 
Governor, and United States senator; Geo. W. Barbour, Robert A. Patterson, H. C. Burnett, 
for many years a member of Congress; John W. Crockett, a real nephew of the original 
David Crockett, and other leading men identified with the history of Kentucky.  His practice 
also extended into several counties in Illinois, where he was accustomed to meet in the 
courts Gen. John A. Logan, present United States Senator from Illinois;  W. K. Parish, Judge 
and United States District Attorney for Southern Illinois; a. J. Kuikendall member of 
Congress; Colonel Dougherty; N. L. Freeman, Supreme Court reporter; John Olney, who 
was Lincoln's elector in 1860; and others who have, like Judge Cole, since distinguished 
themselves as lawyers and statesmen.
	In May, 1857, Judge Cole came to Des Moines, Iowa, where he has since resided and 
tendering his professional services, soon acquired an extensive and lucrative practice.  Two 
years later he was a candidate for Judge of the Supreme Court on the Democratic ticket, but 
was defeated; and in 1860 was nominated for Congress in the Southern District of Iowa, 
making, with his successful competitor, Gen. Curtis, a seventy days of joint debate campaign 
of the district.  On the receipt of the news of the firing upon Fort Sumter, he was among the 
first to head a call for a public meeting in support of the Union, which meeting was held in 
Sherman Hall, Des Moines, and addressed by him in an unanswerably able and eloquent 
speech, in which he took strong grounds in favor of standing by the Government, and putting 
down the rebellion by force of arms.  From that time on he was a most decided outspoken 
Union man, and naturally found his alliance with the Republican party, although his 
recognition as a Democratic did not end until the Fall of 1862, when being called upon to 
address his Democratic brethren assembled in convention at Des Moines, he delivered a 
most excoriating denunciation of their course in sympathizing with and encouraging the 
South.  During 1861 he was zealous and persistent in endeavoring to influence the 
Democratic party to support the war, and to that end secured the meeting of a second 
Democratic convention, which, however, failed to relieve the party from its equivocal 
position.
	In the Spring of 1863, when an outbreak was threatened along the Missouri border in 
consequence of President Lincoln's proclamation proposing the abolition of slavery as a war 
measure, Judge Cole left his court and spent near thirty days in making Union speeches to 
the people through those counties, for the purpose of reconciling his old Democratic friends 
to the emancipation policy of the Administration.  In the campaign of 1863 he wrote a letter, 
giving in clear and unanswerable language his reasons for supporting William W. Stone, the 
Republican candidate, for Governor, which as a campaign document had a wide circulation 
and a powerful influence throughout the state.  Two years later he came out boldly and 
unequivocally in favor of negro suffrage in an open letter written to Mr. Windsor, his old 
friend and Presbyterian brother of Taylor County, and was probably the first man of 
influence in the state to put himself thus publicly on record in favor of this then unpopular 
measure, which he fearlessly defended, ably arguing that it was right and reasonable, and 
that justice to the colored race demanded it.
	In December, 1863, Judge Cole took an active part in the organization of the Iowa 
Soldier's Orphan's Home, and was one of its trustees until June, 1865, when he was elected 
President.  At the time the institution came under his control, it was a small concern, with 
only twenty-five children, and less than ten thousand dollars of means; but during the one 
year it was under his management there were gathered eight hundred soldiers' orphan 
children into comfortable homes provided for them, and there was collected, expended and 
turned over to the state, in money and property, over a quarter of a million of dollars.
	In 1865, in connection with Judge Wright, he organized a law school at Des Moines, 
which has since been transferred to Iowa City, and mad a part of the State University, and is 
now one of the best and most deservedly popular institutions of the kind in the West.
	In February, 1864, he was appointed on of the judges of the Supreme Court of Iowa, 
and in the following Fll was unanimously nominated for the same position, and elected by 
over 40,000 majority, and in like manner was re-nominated and re-elected in 1870 by an 
equally large vote.
	The career of Judge Cole upon the bench epitomizes the history of Iowa jurisprudence 
for the past twelve years.  Associated during his judicial experience with the ablest minds 
which the state has produced—with Wright, and Dillon, and Lane; with Beck, and Miller, 
and Day—called to the consideration of legal questions, a large number of which were 
without precedent in the reports of the state, particularly those relating to the taxing power, 
and to the relations of corporations to the whole body corporate, Judge Cole has been the 
peer of the ablest of his judicial associates.  With respect to the subjects to which we have 
adverted, and which during this period have been plainly and indelibly impressed with the 
stamp of his own convictions.  The positions which he assumed in the earlier history of this 
time, particularly with reference to corporate rights, have come to be the settled faith of the 
public mind.
	His Judicial work has been distinguished for a display of the highest correctness of 
apprehension, he always deals directly with the point in issue; of great discrimination in the 
selection of analogies, he illustrates his opinions with few but apt citations of authorities; 
fortunate in his early legal training, and still more fortunate in the possession of an untiring 
industry which has never given him respite from study, he has infused into his decisions, and 
thus into the legal monuments of the state, the spirit with which he has been imbued from a 
lifelong intercourse with the highest sources of the law.  To these qualities, he has brought 
a singleness of intellectual purpose which has always kept him from discursive argument and 
reasoning, and a courage of conviction by which he has announced the law boldly and fearlessly,
regardless of personal consequences or present approval.
	As a judicial writer, he has elegance, clearness and force.  Some of his opinions, while 
always, reaching to the very point in issue, have the characteristics of scholarly essays upon 
legal topics.  At the same time, while his elegance of diction and readiness of expression 
might expose him to the danger of intellectual display, his opinions always bear the evident 
purpose of casting upon the mind of the reader, the same light which is shining in his own.  
This paramount and single object is always in view—to illustrate clearly and logically his 
own earnest and honest convictions.
	The one other characteristic his reputation stands not a little indebted.  While always a 
lawyer and a jurist, his inspiration has not been drawn alone from the study of authorities, or 
guided by the formula of the books.  Of large sympathies, and a thorough practical 
knowledge, he has never lost sight of the human and ethical side of the law in his devotion to 
the maxims of the past.  With him, a decision must always, indeed, have been grounded in 
the law; but that could not be law which did violence to equity, or resulted in inconvenience 
or wrong to great masses of the community.
	The people of the state, and particularly the member of the legal profession, are glad 
to acknowledge his great services upon the bench, and point with pride to his opinions as 
memorials of the best periods of Iowa jurisprudence.
	For the last four or five years he has edited the Western Jurist, an able and widely 
circulating periodical, published at Des Moines.  He us also editor of a new and largely 
annotated edition of the Iowa Reports.
	Such is the necessarily brief and imperfect life history of one who, having little more 
than reached the meridian of life, have acquired a State and National reputation attained by 
few in this the most laborious and exacting of all the professions.  Possessing a natural 
genius for the law—or being what might be termed a born lawyer—Judge Cole has 
cultivated and strengthened his naturally acute, subtle and penetrating legal mind, by careful 
and laborious study, large experience and long practice, until he has become a thorough 
master of the legal science.  As a forensic orator he is clear, forcible and argumentative, 
possessing much of that magnetic power as a judge and a man, his clear, penetrating 
judgment, his terse and forcible manner of expression, combined with sterling integrity of 
heart and honesty of purpose, have secured for him the respect and confidence of the bar, 
and all who have known him intimately and well.