Convention Member Stewart Goodrell

Convention Member
No Party Specified
A native of Pennsylvania, born in 1813. He was a mechanic and in 1842 came to the new Territory of Iowa, making his home in Washington County. He became an active Whig politician and in the spring of 1846 was chosen a member of the Second Constitutional Convention which assembled at Iowa City on the 4th of May and framed the Constitution under which Iowa was on the 28th of December following admitted as a State. He was, in August of the same year, elected to the House of Representatives of the First General Assembly where he helped to frame the first code of laws for the new State. He served also in an extra session which was held in January, 1848, was reelected and served through the Second General Assembly. On the 3d of March, 1856, he was appointed one of the commissioners to locate the capital of the State at Des Moines. Here he purchased property and soon removed to that city. When the Republican party was organized in Iowa he became a member and in the fall of 1859, was again elected to the House of the Eighth General Assembly. In 1869 he was appointed United States Pension Agent for the Des Moines District and died in November, 1872.