Representative Thomas Richard Stockton View All Years

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Thomas Richard Stockton

Fremont County

Son of Rev. James M. Stockton, a Cumberland Presbyterian minister, and Susan E. Kirkpatrick; and was born in Adams county, Illinois, on the 16th of August, 1834. Thomas spent the first nineteen years of his life in his native state, having only a common-school education. His father was a country minister, and always owned a farm, on which the son was reared. In 1853 the family removed to Taylor county, Iowa, where Thomas aided in opening a farm, working very hard and giving the little leisure time which he could command to the study of certain English branches. When about twenty years old he taught a winter school, and continued to teach at intervals for five or six years. He commenced reading law at Clarinda, Page county, while teaching in 1859, and was admitted to the bar at Frankfort, then the seat of justice of Montgomery county, on the 16th of May, 1861, and practiced in Clarinda for five years, occupying different positions during this period. He edited the Page county "Herald" for about fifteen months, commencing in September, 1862, while the proprietor, Major C. B. Shoemaker, was in the army; was deputy provost-marshal between one and two years after leaving the editorial chair, and was judge of Page county from January, 1864, to January, 1866. Mr. Stockton regards his brief experience as a journalist as one of the most important epochs in life, it furnishing him a good opportunity for mental improvement. In May, 1866, Mr. Stockton moved to Sidney, and here practiced steadily until January, 1873, when he went on the bench, as already indicated, serving four years. During the greater part of this time, for convenience, he resided in Council Bluffs, returning to Fremont county on leaving the bench. He made a conscientious and impartial judge. The judge spent the summer and autumn of 1877 in the Black Hills, practicing law and speculating in the mines. He is a close student, and has a good standing at the bar in his district. In politics, he is a republican. In religion, a Presbyterian, and a man of excellent character. He is a Master Mason, and a fifth-degree member of the Odd-Fellows order. Miss Lizzie Pierce, of Page county, Iowa, became the wife of Judge Stockton on the 20th of August, 1863.

House District 21