Senator Gideon Smith Bailey View All Years

GIDEON SMITH BAILEY was born June 3, 1809, near Louisville, Ky.; he died at Vernon, Van Buren county, Iowa, Nov. 5, 1903. His death removes the last surviving member of our first territorial legislature. His early youth was spent in Indiana. There were no public schools at that day, but he improved every opportunity to learn, and at eighteen was himself teaching school. With a little help from his father, and by splitting rails and doing other work for his board, he secured the means to study medicine. In 1832 he began the practice of his profession in Charlestown, Ill. The Lincoln family was among his patrons and he attended Abraham Lincoln’s father in his last illness. In 1837 he came to Iowa and settled at Vernon on the claim that became the farm where he lived for over 66 years. He was a member of the house in the first (1838-9) and second (1839-40) territorial legislatures; a member of the council in the third (1840-1) and fourth (1841-2); a member of the first constitutional convention in 1844; a member of the senate in the seventh and eighth state legislatures (1858-60). He declined the governorship of the Territory, tendered by President Polk. In 1845 he was appointed U. S. Marshal for Iowa, a very important position in that early day, entailing an immense amount of work and travel on horseback. Dr. Bailey’s ability made him a leader in the legislature during the many years he was a member. During the civil war he was arrested by the military authorities for alleged disloyalty and immured in the Gratiot Street Prison in St. Louie. When this came to the knowledge of his excellent friends, the late Judge George G. Wright and Gen. W. W. Belknap, they promptly secured his release. Relating the transaction more than twenty-five years afterward the old Doctor laughed about it as a good joke—the idea that he could have been disloyal! Up to 1860 his life had been filled with the excitement of business and politics, but thenceforward he lived in quiet and retirement.