History of Iowa From the Earliest Times to the Beginning of the Twentieth Century/4/Jonathan C. Hall
JONATHAN C. HALL was born at Batavia, New York, February 27, 1808, and was reared on a farm. He attended district school winters and a few terms at Wyoming Academy. He taught school three winters and helped to survey several new counties. In 1828 he began to study law, removed to Ohio and was admitted to the bar of Columbus. In 1839 he came to Iowa Territory and a year later opened a law office at Mount Pleasant where in a few years he acquired a large practice, attending courts in eleven counties. In 1844 he was chosen a delegate to the First Constitutional Convention and was one of the prominent framers of the Constitution that was rejected. Soon after he removed to Burlington and in 1854 was appointed Supreme Judge to fill a vacancy. In 1855 he was elected president of the Burlington & Missouri Railroad Company and was one of the influential promoters of that line. In 1857 he was again a member of the Constitutional Convention which framed our present Constitution. He was one of the authors of the State Board of Education which was provided for in that instrument. In 1859 he was elected to the Eighth General Assembly and took a prominent part in the enactment of the Code of 1860. In politics Judge Hall was a Democrat; as a lawyer, judge and legislator, he had few equals in the State he served so long and well. He died June 11, 1874.