Representative John Gibbons View All Years

HON. JOHN GIBBONS.

MR. SPEAKER—We, your committee appointed to prepare memorials to suitably commemorate the life and public service of the Honorable John Gibbons, respectfully report as follows:

Honorable John Gibbons was born in County Donegal, Irland, March 28, 1848. He migrated to America at the age of sixteen and settled in Philadelphia where he attended Broad Street Academy, and graduated from Notre Dame University. He studied law in a night school in Philadelphia for two years and was admitted to the bar in Keokuk, Iowa, in 1870. He was city attorney for Keokuk for five years and was influential in bringing about noted decisions of the supreme court regarding the powers of municipalities. He served as representative from Lee County in the sixteenth general assembly with honor and distinction. In 1879 he removed to Chicago and practiced law and was for some time a lecturer on constitutional law in the Chicago College of Law. During this period he edited the Chicago Law Journal and the American Criminal Reports and wrote “Tenure and Toil, or the Rights and Wrongs of Property and Labor.” He was elected to the Circuit Bench in 1893 and served continuously until his death which occurred in Chicago, February 10, 1917.

Resolved, That in the death of John Gibbons, Lee County, as well as the State of Iowa, has sustained the loss of an honored citizen and an excellent jurist, and that his passing away marks an epoch in the pioneer history of early Iowa law making.

Therefore, Be It Further Resolved, That these memorials be spread upon the Journal of this House and that the Chief Clerk be instructed to send an engrossed copy thereof to the family of the deceased.

Submitted by

FRANK OERTEL,

C. B. WILSON,

JOHN W. ROWLEY,

Committee.

Adopted April 9, 1917.