James Grant, a Model American that in the course of his dealings with his nephew, James B. Grant, while they were operating a smelting property at or near Leadville, that gentleman po litely informed him that he knew little or nothing about that business and that it would be to their joint interests if he would return to Davenport and de vote himself to his chosen occupation of practising law. He said he could not stand to have any nephew of his say that he did not know all about any business in which he was engaged. We may be quite sure that thereafter he was not afraid to talk about minerals with his expert partner, who bore diplomas from Cornell and Freiburg. Perhaps the reader will infer that this course of conduct towards James B. Grant was exceptional, but it was not. It was characteristic of Judge Grant. He never made any small plans. He never did anything by halves. He was all for his work and for the project in hand. Like a mariner who knew his port and was confident of his craft, he feared no sea or weather, but rather enjoyed the uncertainty of the deep and an occasional tempest. Further evidence of his daring is seen in the fact that on one occasion he proposed to two of his nephews, young James B. Grant and William Keiser, that he would equip them with a letter of credit for fifty thousand dollars if they would go down to Texas, buy three thousand head of cattle and drive them over the country to the Chicago market. This was in 1871. The boys reluctantly accepted the proposition, got on their horses and rode twelve hundred miles through woods, over plains and across the lands of many Indian tribes to the cattle country, but there the project came to an end. They found the cattle, but concluded not to buy because the journey overland homeward, with such
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a large herd, would be hazardous, in view of the uncertain reputation of the Indians who had to be encountered en route. They therefore returned and delivered to the Judge his large amount of money, receiving a smiling look but no reproof for their failure to bring the cattle. This was the real man, always able and anxious to take a hand, always blazing his own paths and always turn ing from the disappointment of one task to find another and a bigger one. It is not profitable to dwell at length upon the offices which he held, for they were only surface indications of the real career of the man, but we may make brief mention of some of them. While he lived in Chicago he was appointed by Gov. Joseph Duncan prosecuting attorney for the sixth district of Illinois, an office from which he resigned in 1836 to give more particular attention to his home practice. He rode this circuit on horseback and covered about three thousand miles a year. In 1841, after he had removed to Iowa, he was elected a member of the House of Representa tives of the Fourth Iowa Territorial Legislative Assembly, and in 1844 he was elected delegate for Scott county to the first constitutional convention, and in 1864 he was the sole representative of that county to the second constitu tional convention of the territory, and it is hardly necessary to say that in both conventions he rendered noteworthy services. He was appointed by Gov. Chambers of Iowa, against his prqtest, prosecuting attorney, and in the year 1847, after the adoption of the Consti tution under which Iowa was admitted into the Union, he was elected a judge of the District Court of Iowa and served during his term of five years, declining a re-election. His last appearance upon the stage of life as a legislator was in
