Senator John M. Brayton View All Years

JOHN MARTIN BRAYTON.

MR. PRESIDENT—Your committee, appointed to prepare resolutions commemorating the life, character and public service of the Hon. John Martin Brayton, of Delaware County, late a member of the Senate, beg leave to submit the following report:

John Martin Brayton was born at Newport, N. Y., September 15, 1831, and died at Delhi, Iowa, September 18, 1911. He was the son of Smith Brayton, a farmer and surveyor. He was educated at Whitestown Academy, Whitestown, N. Y., and at Hamilton College, Clinton, N. Y., from which institution he received the degree of A. M. some time after graduation, with the degree of LL. B. in 1853. He removed to Delhi, Iowa, in the fall of 1854, and became a member of the law firm of House, Brayton & Watson, which position he occupied for ten years, and until Major A. E. House entered the Union army. He was elected as a Republican to the Iowa Senate in 1863, serving two terms in the Tenth and Eleventh General Assemblies, and was a Judge of the Ninth Judicial District from January 1, 1871, to July, 1872, when he resigned as Judge. He resumed the practice of law in his home town, and was engaged in extensive railroad litigation for a number of years, gaining a statewide reputation. The last thirty years of his life was spent largely in farming operations, developing the many hundreds of acres of which he was the owner.

He was a member of the American Academy of Political and Social Science and was a man of liberal culture and wide acquaintance with literature and art. On May 4th, 1859, at Delhi, Iowa, he married Miss Helen Martin, who died in April, 1911, and left one daughter, Miss Emma Brayton, who is a graduate of Lenox College, Hopkinton, Iowa, and of the Law School of the State University of Iowa.

Judge Brayton was a lawyer with an active, keen mind, who readily analyzed the legal case presented to him for solution and arrived at the fundamental principles involved in the cause. He was not a case lawyer, but a lawyer who sought legal principles, and in the early days in his practice in Iowa developed and settled in the Supreme Court of Iowa many of the fundamental cases involved in the practice of law in a new state. In the death of Judge Brayton, Iowa has lost one of her best citizens, a man beloved by all who knew him, and in honor of his memory, be it

Resolved, That in his death the state and county in which he resided has lost a worthy and upright citizen, an honest Judge, an honorable man, and we hereby extend to the bereaved daughter and friends our sincere sympathy; and be it further

Resolved, That a copy of these resolutions be printed in the Journal of the Senate, and that the Secretary of the Senate be directed to forward an engrossed copy to the daughter of the deceased.

ELI C. PERKINS,

FREDERIC LARRABEE,

E. P. FARR,

Committee.

The resolutions were adopted unanimously by a rising vote.