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Permanent LinkCouncilor Francis Springer View All Years
HON. FRANCIS SPRINGER, President of the Iowa Constitutional Convention of 1857, died at his residence, at Columbus Junction, Louisa county, October 2, 1898. He was born in Portland, Maine, April 15, 1811. For a full account of his life and public services the reader is referred to articles in the ANNALS, which are accompanied by two of his portraits. (See Vol. II. pp. 569-58.5; Vol. III, pp. 32-46). Forty years ago Judge Springer was one of the most prominent and highly esteemed men in this State. He retained the affectionate regard of all who knew him throughout his long and useful life. Chief Justice George G. Wright, around whose honored name cluster so many pleasant memories, spoke of him as “one of the best nisi prius judges” he had ever known. His associates in the Constitutional Convention of 1857 were unanimous in their estimate of his fairness, impartiality and unfailing courtesy. He was certainly “a grand old man.” His “death severs one of the few remaining links connecting the present with the far past of Iowa.