BIOGRAPHY: Grinnell, J. B.
From the A.T. Andreas Illustrated Historical Atlas of the State of Iowa, 1875

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     Honorable J. B. GRINNELL, of Grinnell.--Mr. Grinnell's parental ancestors were Hugenots 
who, after the revocation of the edict of Nantes, escaped from France to Wales, and thence 
emigrated to Rhode Island in 1710,--his grandfather, settling in the wilderness of Vermont.  His 
maternal grandfather was from Scotland; he was an American soldier, wounded and taken 
prisoner at the battle of Plattsburg.  The subject of this sketch was born in New Haven, Vermont, 
in 1822, and is the son of Myron Grinnell, an intelligent gentleman who frequently held places of 
honor and trust.  He was left an orphan at the age of ten years.  Under the roof of his guardian he 
fitted himself to teach school at the age of sixteen, and then prepared for college under the late 
James Meacham, M. C., teaching Winters, and entered Oneida College, N. Y., graduating with 
honor, and subsequently receiving, at Middlebury College, Vermont, the honorary degree of A. 
M.  He then graduated in theology at Auburn, N. Y., was ordained to the ministry in the 
Congregational Church, and commenced preaching at Union Village, N. Y., where he remained 
three years.  He then filled a Congregational pulpit one year in Washington, D. C., where he 
preached the first anti-slavery sermon remembered in that city, after which he removed to New 
York, and for three years dispensed the gospel to a congregation in that city.  This brings his 
history to the beginning of 1854, when, on the approach of a throat disease, he determined upon 
removing to the West, and notice of his intention of establishing a colony in the West was 
published in the Independent and Tribune of New York, in the Winter of 1853-4. 
     In May, 1854, Mr. Grinnell met, by appointment, others who wished to join him in the 
enterprise, at Iowa City, Iowa, and the party proceeded to select a location.  This done, Mr. 
Grinnell entered several thousand acres of land in the vicinity, and laid off a town site, which he 
deeded to a board in trust for educational purposes, at a nominal price.  This title contained the 
celebrated prohibitory clause stipulating reversion of title to the donor of any lot upon which 
intoxicating liquors should ever be sold as a beverage.  The town was named Grinnell by its 
citizens in honor of the founder.  They also decided that his generous donation should be used 
toward establishing an institution of learning named "Grinnell University," of which Mr. Grinnell 
was made President, remaining such until the University was united with and merged in Iowa 
College in 1858.  In addition to the munificent donation he had previously made, Mr. Grinnell now 
contributed considerable money and twenty acres of very valuable land for a college campus, and 
his influence and liberality undoubtedly secured Iowa College to Grinnell. 
     After supplying the pulpit at Grinnell for some time gratuitously, and doing much to put the 
Congregational Society of that place on a footing from which it has risen to be the largest society 
of that name in the state, Mr. Grinnell entered another field of public life, and in 1856 was elected 
to the Senate of Iowa on the issue of free schools and opposition to slavery.  In that assembly he 
became Chairman of the Committee on Schools and Universities, and as such introduced and 
advocated the law which thereafter made education free at public expense to ever child in Iowa.  
He was also placed upon the Board of Regents of the State University, in which body he 
earnestly and forcibly advocated the co-education of the sexes on an equal footing in that 
institution.  The proposition carried after a fierce contest. 
     Mr. Grinnell continued to take an active part in politics, warmly espousing Republican 
principles, and was a delegate to the memorable convention which nominated Mr. Lincoln for 
President in 1860.  He was appointed Special Mail Agent for the Northwest during the first year of 
Mr. Lincoln's administration, and in 1862 was elected to a seat in the House of Representation 
from the fourth district of Iowa.  In 1864 he was re-elected.  Retiring from Congress at the close of 
his second term, he received nearly 400 votes for the nomination for Governor in the convention 
which nominated Col. Samuel Merrill, but withdrew in favor of the soldier.  As the successor of 
James W. Grimes in the United States Senate, he lacked but a few votes of a nomination in the 
Republican Legislative Caucus.  In 1872, Mr. Grinnell attended the convention which nominated 
Mr. Greeley for President, as an old and ardent friend of the great journalist, but not as an enemy 
of General Grant, having declined an honorable appointment from the President.  He is 
understood now to be not in accord with the Republican party leaders; yet he stands by his 
radical votes. 
     In Congress Mr. Grinnell was an advocate of a protective tariff.  He was a strong partisan and 
never wavered in his support of the Union cause, and had the satisfaction of seeing that cause 
triumph completely before he left the representative chamber.  On one occasion he had a bitter 
controversy upon the floor of the House with General Rousseau, of Kentucky, and was attacked 
by him with a cane in consequence; for which Rousseau was censured at the bar of the House, 
and before his death in New Orleans asked and received pardon of his injured colleague. 
     Mr. Grinnell achieved lasting honor as umpire in settling the dispute in relation to the title of the 
Cherokee Neutral Lands in Kansas, of which sale had been made by both Harlan and Browning.  
He drew and secured the ratification by Congress of the supplemental treaty which arrested 
enormous litigation, quieted the title to 800,000 acres of land, secured the building of the railroad 
down to the territory, and the final settlement of the question to the satisfaction of all justly 
interested parties.  The following year he was intrusted with an important confidential pecuniary 
mission in that region, making a trip across the Indian Territory and through Texas. 
     Gifted with versatile talents and an enterprising spirit that abhors rest, Mr. Grinnell has been 
equally active in other directions.  He is the reputed founder of several towns in Iowa and 
Kansas.  He has been director in the Chicago and Rock Island Railroad Company.  He was first 
President of the Central Railroad of Iowa; later Director.  He is now actively engaged in building 
the A. K. and D. Railway, and is President of several roads incipient.  He has been styled by the 
press "the busiest man in the country, now praising Iowa at a state fair, now presiding at a 
convention, and in one year Railroad President, Bank President, and President of the Iowa Wool 
Growers' Association and the State Horticultural Society."  He is emphatically a public man, 
speaking on most questions of public interest with fluency and force.  He was admitted to the bar 
in 1858, but has a taste and reputation for settling rather than prosecuting cases. 
     Mr. Grinnell was married in 1852 to Miss Chapin, of Springfield, Mass., and has two 
daughters, now members of Iowa College.  His elegant residence is within a stone's throw of the 
Union Depot for the C., R. I. and P. and Central Railroad of Iowa, and he is "at home" in its 
broadest sense in the progressive young city named in his honor, and which will perpetuate his 
deeds both in what it has and what it has not,--on the one hand, one of the foremost educational 
institutions in the state; on the other hand, not a single saloon, and no intoxicating liquors have 
ever been publicly sold within its limits.  He has reason to be proud of the city and of its 
reputation.