DUBUQUE CO., IA: BIOGRAPHY: David S. Wilson
From the A.T. Andreas Illustrated Historical Atlas of the State of Iowa, 1875

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DAVID S. WILSON, Judge of the Ninth Judicial District of Iowa, was born 
in Steubenville, Ohio, March 18, 1825. At the age of 14, he graduated 
from the High School of his native town, and immediately removed to 
Dubuque, Iowa for the purpose of studying law with his brother, 
Honorable Thomas S. Wilson, who was at that time Judge of the 
District Court, and had been one of the three original judges both of the 
District and Supreme Courts of the territory, appointed with Honorable 
Charles Mason and Honorable Joseph Williams, by President Van 
Buren in 1838. 
 
Mr. Wilson remained with his brother in the study of law about six 
months. At the expiration of that period a new field was opened for the 
exercise of his talents, in connection with the press; and although a mere 
youth, he was invited to assume the responsibilities of the editorial 
profession, which he entered upon and followed with marked success 
during a period of about five years. The Miner's Express had been 
started at Dubuque, in 1841, by Avery Thomas, who had retained his 
connection with it about six months, when it was purchased by Mr. 
Wilson and Andrew Keesecker, and conducted by them jointly till 1845. 
During this period the Express was edited by Mr. Wilson, Mr. 
Keesecker being the printer. It was a decided success both editorially 
and financially, considering the period in which these parties were 
engaged in its publication. Mr. Wilson, the young editor, was ardent in 
the Democratic faith; the Express was democratic in politics; such were 
also the prevailing political sentiments of the country during that period; 
and the proprietors did a large share of the public printing of the territory. 
 
At the close of his editorial career, in 1845 having sold the Express to 
George Greene, Mr. Wilson returned again to the study of law with his 
brother. 
 
In April, 1846, when he had arrived to the age of twenty-one years and 
one month, he was elected to the Legislature of Iowa as a member of the 
House from Dubuque County, and in the question then pending 
respecting the re-submission of the State Constitution to a vote of the 
people, took an active and prominent part, both in oral discussion and 
written articles. 
 
This was during the period of the Mexican War. Governor Clark, of Iowa, 
desired of volunteers to be raised to relieve Major Sumner, in command 
at Fort Atkinson, whose services, with the 2d Cavalry, were required in 
Mexico. To accomplish this object, Governor Clark commissioned Mr. 
Wilson lieutenant, with authority in conjunction with Capt. Morgan, to 
raise the required company of men. The company was accordingly 
raised - one half by Captain Morgan and the balance by Lieutenant 
Wilson - and they proceeded to Fort Atkinson, on Turkey River, where 
they remained in service two years. During this time, they removed the 
whole tribe of Winnebago Indians from the reservation at Fort Atkinson to 
Long Prairie, one hundred and twenty-five miles above the falls of St. 
Anthony. They remained in service several month after the close of the 
Mexican War, on account of the inability of the Government to relieve 
them. 
 
Returning to Dubuque, Mr. Wilson was shortly admitted to practice as an 
attorney and counsellor-at-law, and was immediately elected to the office 
of Prosecuting Attorney, which he filled during two consecutive terms 
with so much satisfaction to his constituents that he was unanimously 
tendered the office for a third term, but he declined, feeling there was 
more profit in defending people than in prosecuting them. 
 
In 1851, when the Land Office became established in Dubuque, great 
inducements were offered for active and energetic men to engage in the 
land speculations which became so rife during the following few years, 
creating a mania for land in the new settlement of Iowa and the 
Northwest. So great was the rush of land-hunters and speculators during 
this period, that lands were held at fabulous prices, and every interest 
connected therewith so enormously inflated, that it is impossible to 
conceive the extent of the excitement or the disastrous consequences 
that followed in a few years. 
 
On the first wave of this rapid movement Mr. Wilson embarked, and was 
carried along by the spirit of the period. Forming a partnership with his 
brother, Judge Thomas S. Wilson, he engaged in the speculation in 
lands and land warrants, giving his entire attention to the business, while 
at the same time his brother remained in the discharge of the duties of 
his office as District Judge. In a few years they had done an extensive 
business and become wealthy at the prices then prevailing, and had the 
stopped in season, might have continued so; but the temptation was to 
great. They were drawn into the whirlpool which, in 1856-7, wrecked their 
fortunes in a general collapse throughout the West. But a man of energy 
and perseverance is not likely to be discouraged under such 
circumstances. And so Mr. Wilson, learning a valuable lesson in 
"inflation," came down at once to a "solid basis," on which, by his energy 
and talents in his profession, he has in a considerable degree retrieved 
his losses. 
 
In 1857, he was elected to the State Senate for four years, having for his 
colleagues in the Senate Honorable Wm. G. Stewart, and in the House 
Honorable D. A. Mahony and Honorable Lincoln Clark formerly a 
member of Congress from Iowa. This was said to be "as good a 
delegation as Dubuque County ever had in the Legislature." 
 
During the extra session of 1861, which was called by the Governor for 
the purpose of putting the State of Iowa on a war footing, Mr. Wilson was 
the nominated by the Legislature to deliver a lecture on the right of a 
state to secede from the Federal Union. Upto this time he had been an 
earnest Democrat, and had zealously advocated the principles and 
measures of the Democratic party. But in the examination which it 
became necessary him to make in the preparation of his lecture, he 
found occasion to diverge somewhat from the prevailing Democratic 
opinion. He brought out an able and thoroughly prepared document, in 
point-blank opposition to the right of secession, - a document evincing 
great research into the subject and one of the first of the kind that had 
appeared; showing historically and argumentatively, in a 
most convincing and conclusive manner, that a state has no right to 
secede from the Union on and pretext whatever. This argument of Mr. 
Wilson's became the great war document of Iowa and the Legislature 
circulated it by the thousands all over the state. Henceforth, Mr. Wilson 
was destined to act with the Republican party and the War-Democrats, in 
giving in his earnest adhesion to the cause of the Union during the 
Rebellion. At the invitation of the people of Des Moines, he repeated his 
lecture in that city to one of the largest audiences ever assembled at the 
capital. 
 
A question had been raised as to the loyalty of the Irish regiment that 
had been organized in Iowa, and the Governor was unwilling to muster 
them into the Union service. Mr. Wilson, at the request of the leading 
citizens of Dubuque, in 1862, went to Washington, and interviewed 
Secretary Stanton (who, by the way, had been an old friend of Mr. 
Wilson's family in Ohio), and obtained from him permission for the 
mustering of the Irish regiment into the United States service, which was 
executed according to the order of the Secretary of War. 
 
At the same time, Secretary Stanton, without the solicitation of Mr. 
Wilson, commissioned him colonel, with authority to go home and raise 
the Sixth Regiment of Iowa Cavalry. He immediately returned to 
Dubuque, and by his own personal exertions raised the regiment, 
although fifty thousand men had already been taken out of the state for 
the Union army. It was the preference of Colonel Wilson to have been 
ordered south with his command; but just prior to their mustering in, in 
August 1862, the Sioux outbreak occurred in Minnesota, and Colonel 
Wilson, with his regiment, was ordered to Sioux City, to join a regiment 
from Nebraska, under command of Colonel Furnass, now Governor of 
that state, and thus consolidated under Brigadier-General Alfred Sully, to 
proceed up the river and join the Minnesota force in command of 
General H. H. Sibley, for the suppression of the Indian massacre. But 
failing to effect a junction, on account of delays in transportation, the 
force under General Sully found the Indian trail, and, overtaking them at 
White Stone Hill, fought the noted battle at that point, August 3, 1863, 
which resulted in killing about three hundred Indians and the capture of a 
hundred and fifty prisoners. In that battle Colonel Wilson had a fine horse 
shot under him, which had been presented to him by the citizens of 
Dubuque. Seeing his horse about to fall, he instantly mounted another 
and kept up with the charge upon the enemy. 
 
In the Fall of 1863, Colonel Wilson built Fort Sully on the Upper Missouri. 
During the Winter of 1863-4 he was stationed with his command, for the 
protection of the settlers, along the line of the Missouri River, from Sort 
Sully to Sioux City. Secretary Stanton not being able to fulfill his promise 
to send the colonel and his command south, Colonel Wilson resigned 
and came home in June 1864. 
 
On the 1st of August following he started for California where he went 
into partnership in the practice of law with his brother S. M. Wilson, one 
of the leading lawyers on the Pacific coast. The partnership continued 
over two years, when he returned to practice in Dubuque and 
Washington City, being the attorney at the latter place in the celebrated 
case of McGarrahan vs. the New Idria Quicksilver Mining Company. This 
case was closed after being on trial two years. It was tried before the 
Judiciary Committee of the House of Representatives of the United 
States, Honorable John A. Bingham, of Ohio, chairman. The committee 
consisted of the following persons: Honorable John A. Bingham, 
chairman; Honorable Benj. F. Butler; Honorable  Eldridge, of Wisconsin; 
Honorable John A. Peters, now a Judge of the Supreme Court of Maine; 
Honorable Ulysses Mercur, of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania; 
Honorable Michael C. Kerr, M. C. from Indiana; Judge Kellogg, of 
Connecticut; and Judge Loughridge of Iowa. The attorneys in the case 
were: Honorable David S. Wilson and Honorable William M. Evarts, for 
the Company; and Judge Paschal, of Washington City, and Judge Shaw, 
of New York, for McGarrahan. Mr. Wilson presented the facts of the case 
and a very able legal argument. Mr. Evarts followed basing his defense 
of the Company on the facts furnished by Mr. Wilson. The committee, 
also, in award the title to the Company, made up their report from the 
matter furnished in Mr. Wilson's statement and defense of 
the case. This was and important trial and its decision, to which Mr. 
Wilson contributed so largely, saved the company a mining interest in 
California worth a million dollars. The case had been ably argued 
repeatedly before the Supreme Court of California and the United States, 
yet it as admitted the Mr. Wilson's defense of the Company was the most 
thorough and complete of any thing that had ever been presented on the 
subject. 
 
After returning to Iowa, in June 1872 he was appointed Circuit Judge to 
fill the unexpired term made vacant in the Ninth Judicial District by the 
death of Judge Baker, which office he held till August following, when he 
was appointed District Judge to fill the vacancy caused by the 
resignation of Judge Brayton. In the fall of 1874, he was elected by a 
large majority, irrespective of party distinction, to the office of District 
Judge, for a term of four years, commencing January 1, 1875. 
 
Judge Wilson was married in 1850 to Henrietta E. Sanford of Erie, 
Pennsylvania, and by this marriage has four children - three sons and 
one daughter. The latter, Mrs. Henry W. Brock, resides in Chicago. The 
Judge's oldest son, Henry, is about ready to graduate to the practice of 
law.