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Permanent LinkSenator Herman C. Hemenway View All Years
HERMAN C. HEMENWAY was born at Potsdam, St. Lawrence County, New York, April 1, 1834, and died at Cedar Falls, Iowa, January 27, 1922. His parents were Vashni and Eliza (Goodman, or Goodnow) Hemenway. In 1850 he was with his parents in their removal to Freeport, Illinois. He attended public school, taught for a time, took up the study of law at Freeport in 1858 and was admitted to the bar there in 1860. In 1861 he removed to Independence, Iowa, and commenced practice. In August, 1862, he enlisted in Company C, Twenty-seventh Iowa Infantry, and was commissioned second lieutenant. On July 8, 1865, he was promoted to first lieutenant, and mustered out at Clinton, Iowa, August 8, 1865. He returned to Independence, but in 1866 removed to Cedar Falls and entered on the practice of law there. At different times he had associated with him as partners J. B. Powers, A. D. Polk, George H. Thorpe and Alfred Grundy. He served Cedar Falls as a member of the school board, a member of the city council, city solicitor, and mayor. In 1875 he was elected representative and served in the Sixteenth General Assembly. He was very influential in that assembly in the enactment of the statute establishing the Iowa State Normal School, since named Iowa State Teachers College, at Cedar Falls, and became a member of the first board of directors of the institution. In 1877 he was elected senator, and was re-elected four years later, serving in the Seventeenth, Eighteenth, Nineteenth and Twentieth general assemblies, taking high rank as a legislator. He was a delegate to the Republican National Convention of 1884.