Representative David Ryan View All Years

DAVID RYAN was born in Washington county, N. Y., March 15, 1840; he died in Des Moines, Iowa, June 19, 1905. He came with his parents and four brothers and three sisters to Jasper county, Iowa, in 1857, and settled on a farm about two miles south of Prairie City. He was educated in the common schools of New York and Iowa, and at the Central University at Pella. He left college in 1861, and enlisted as a private in Company E, Eighth Iowa Infantry; in September, 1861, he was made First Lieutenant of his company, and in 1863, was promoted to the rank of Captain. He participated in every battle in which his regiment was engaged, and was captured at Shiloh, spending six and a-half months in rebel prisons. When the civil war ended, he had attained the rank of Colonel. Returning to the college, he graduated in 1867, and the following year was graduated from the Iowa Law College, now the law department of the Iowa State University. Settling at once at Newton, in Jasper county, he began a practice which he conducted for twenty years, part of the time alone, and part of the time in partnership, first with Judge Lindley, then with his brother, Robert Ryan, and later with W. O. McElroy. He was elected to the House of Representatives of the Eleventh General Assembly, in which he served with credit to himself and to his constituency. He was then elected to the district bench, which position he filled with credit for twelve years. At the expiration of his third term, he removed to Des Moines, where, with Judge William Phillips and his two sons, J. B. Ryan and W. L. Ryan, he formed the firm of Phillips, Ryan & Ryan, which on the subsequent death of Judge Phillips, continued as the firm of Ryan, Ryan & Ryan up to the death of Judge Ryan. In 1867, he married, in Washington county, N. Y., Miss H. M. Hurd, of an old Vt. and Eastern N. Y. family. Beside his two sons, who were associated with him in the practice of law, they have one daughter, Mrs. E. E. Faville. To these children he gave an education in the Iowa State College at Ames, of which he was an earnest supporter, and also at the State University of Iowa, where the two sons graduated in the law department. He was successful at every point in his useful career and personally an excellent Christian gentleman. He had many friends wherever he was known. When the country needed his services, he proved himself an ideal soldier, whether in camp, on the firing line, or when immured in a rebel prison. He was successful and universally respected as a lawyer, and made a just and able judge. As a business man, he had also succeeded quite as well as in his profession, or on the bench. He was a Mason and Knight Templar, a member of the Vestry of St. Paul’s Episcopal Church; Des Moines, a member of the G. A. R., and of the Loyal Legion, in all of which he was earnest and active, and at the time of his death was president of the Des Moines Bar Association, and a member of the Iowa State Bar Association. His death came suddenly from apoplexy, his illness lasting not longer than half an hour. His funeral was very largely attended, many friends and members of the bar coming from distant parts of the State, and from other states to pay their tributes of respect.