Born in East Tennessee in 1803. He was educated at East Tennessee College in Knoxville Tennessee. He then studied law in Alabama and being admitted to the bar in 1825 practiced law in that State until 1834, when he came to Iowa. He practiced law in Dubuque from 1835 to 1837, and in Davenport from 1837 to 1843, whereupon he was elected a Representative in the Legislative Assembly of the Territory of Iowa. Mr. Mitchell was elected Mayor of Davenport in 1856, and Judge of the Fourteenth Judicial District in 1857. Judge Mitchell was always a Whig until that party was dissolved whereupon he allied himself with the Democratic party. He was described by a contemporary as a keen careful analyst and one whose deductions are always reliably correct. He died in Davenport in 1865.