Austin Adams was an American lawyer and justice of the Iowa Supreme Court

Iowa Supreme Court

The Iowa Supreme Court is the highest court in the U.S. state of Iowa. As constitutional head of the Iowa Judicial Branch, the Court is composed of a Chief Justice and six Associate Justices....

 for twelve years.

Heritage

Austin Adam's ancestors lived along the hills of the Chums River in Essex

Essex

Essex is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in the East region of England, and one of the home counties. It is located to the northeast of Greater London. It borders with Cambridgeshire and Suffolk to the north, Hertfordshire to the west, Kent to the South and London to the south west...

, England

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

. Henry Adams, of this family, emigrated to Massachusetts

Massachusetts

The Commonwealth of Massachusetts is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. It is bordered by Rhode Island and Connecticut to the south, New York to the west, and Vermont and New Hampshire to the north; at its east lies the Atlantic Ocean. As of the 2010...

 in 1632 with his wife and children. His sons were the ancestors of Samuel Adams

Samuel Adams

Samuel Adams was an American statesman, political philosopher, and one of the Founding Fathers of the United States. As a politician in colonial Massachusetts, Adams was a leader of the movement that became the American Revolution, and was one of the architects of the principles of American...

, the political philosopher and statesmen; John Adams

John Adams

John Adams was an American lawyer, statesman, diplomat and political theorist. A leading champion of independence in 1776, he was the second President of the United States...

, second United States president; and Austin Adams.

Austin's father, Jerry Adams, was a successful farmer and clerk of the school district, and served twice in the legislature. He married Dorcas Austin in 1816.

Youth

Austin Adams was born to Jerry and Dorcas Austin on May 24, 1826, in Andover, Vermont

Andover, Vermont

Andover is a town in Windsor County, Vermont, United States. The population was 496 at the 2000 census.-Geography:According to the United States Census Bureau, the town has a total area of 28.8 square miles , of which 28.8 square miles are land and 0.03% is water.-Demographics:As of...

, a country village. His grandparents had secured that school and a church on a corner of their farm in 1794. He retained pleasant memories of the district school, which he attended until he was fourteen. In later years he wrote "[The] older pupils, the young men and women [...] not only assisted me in my studies, but their presence and example afforded me inspiration." His family attended the Baptist church on their farm. Adams heard only "dogmatic and terrorizing theology" at the church and it "succeeded in destroying much of the happiness of his childhood."

He showed great interest in law as a boy: "The law had a perfect fascination for me before I was ten years old, and I think before I ever saw a lawyer or a court." He often went to the court house in Woodstock, Vermont to listen to cases.

At age thirteen, his teacher urged his father to give Austin a better education than he could receive at the country school house. At fourteen he was sent to Black River Academy

Black River Academy

Black River Academy is a historic academy on High Street in the village of Ludlow in Vermont.Black River Academy was chartered in Ludlow in 1835 and operated as a school, serving as the Town of Ludlow's public high school until 1938, when a new school was built...

 in Ludlow, Vermont

Ludlow, Vermont

Ludlow, Vermont may refer to:*Ludlow , Vermont*Ludlow , Vermont...

, to prepare for college. At age sixteen he began teaching students at the academy, some of whom were older than he was, in the winter while working on his father's farm in the summer.

At nineteen he entered the sophomore class at Dartmouth College

Dartmouth College

Dartmouth College is a private, Ivy League university in Hanover, New Hampshire, United States. The institution comprises a liberal arts college, Dartmouth Medical School, Thayer School of Engineering, and the Tuck School of Business, as well as 19 graduate programs in the arts and sciences...

; he graduated in 1848. Lighting then was so poor that he lost some of his vision studying, and had to wear spectacles at an early age. "The physical inability to see distinctly increased an introspective state of mind and somewhat blunted the observing powers which he himself regretted."

For the next five years he taught at West Randolph Academy in West Randolph, Vermont, while pursuing his legal studies. Teaching at the academy "perfect[ed] his classical studies." He attended Harvard Law School

Harvard Law School

Harvard Law School is one of the professional graduate schools of Harvard University. Located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, it is the oldest continually-operating law school in the United States and is home to the largest academic law library in the world. The school is routinely ranked by the U.S...

 for a short time in 1853. He was admitted to the bar in Woodstock, Vermont, in January 1853 and entered practice with ex-Governor Carlos Coolidge

Carlos Coolidge

Carlos Coolidge was an American Whig politician. He was born in Windsor, Vermont in 1792. Graduated from Middlebury College in 1811; attorney for windsor County, Vermont from 1831 until 1836; representative in the legislature 1834–1837 and 1839–1842; speaker in 1836; governor of Vermont...

.

Dubuque, Iowa

When Adams decided to move west, his friends believed that it wouldn't suit him and that he would return early. Despite this, he settled in Dubuque, Iowa

Dubuque, Iowa

Dubuque is a city in and the county seat of Dubuque County, Iowa, United States, located along the Mississippi River. In 2010 its population was 57,637, making it the ninth-largest city in the state and the county's population was 93,653....

 in July 1854. "The evening he reached Dubuque [...] he felt that here was to be his life's work." He resided in Dubuque for the rest of his life. Later in life, he said: "I wanted more liberty, a society with more variety than I had ever seen in the East."

After arriving in Dubuque, he began to practice law there.

Like many at the time, he was drawn to seemingly-profitable real-estate investments, and he suffered when their value dropped in the Panic of 1857

Panic of 1857

The Panic of 1857 was a financial panic in the United States caused by the declining international economy and over-expansion of the domestic economy. Indeed, because of the interconnectedness of the world economy by the time of the 1850s, the financial crisis which began in the autumn of 1857 was...

. He was so affected by this loss that when he was seventy and a friend offered him a share in a promising real-estate investment, he declined, saying "No, I have already had all the profits of real-estate transactions I can afford."

Adams was instrumental in promoting education in Dubuque; he opened an academy, one of the first institutes of secondary education in Dubuque, and taught with Mary Mann, sister of Horace Mann

Horace Mann

Horace Mann was an American education reformer, and a member of the Massachusetts House of Representatives from 1827 to 1833. He served in the Massachusetts Senate from 1834 to 1837. In 1848, after serving as Secretary of the Massachusetts State Board of Education since its creation, he was...

, for six months. During the winter of 1854 he proposed building a public library; he raised funds for it with a series of lectures and solicited donations of books from private libraries.

He actively supported John C. Frémont

John C. Frémont

John Charles Frémont , was an American military officer, explorer, and the first candidate of the anti-slavery Republican Party for the office of President of the United States. During the 1840s, that era's penny press accorded Frémont the sobriquet The Pathfinder...

's campaign for president in 1856. While he didn't naturally like politics, he was strongly committed to early Republican principles.

He helped to organize a Young Men's Christian Association in Dubuque in 1857. For three years he had a Bible class, while a member and a trustee of the Congregational church, and for two years in the Universalist church. One year he had evenings devoted to the study of physical science in the Young Men's Christian Association. He had the subject of geology, and "unrolled the gospel of the storied world to the youth gathered there."

In 1858, after listening to the Lincoln-Douglas debates in Galena, Illinois

Galena, Illinois

Galena is the county seat of, and largest city in, Jo Daviess County, Illinois in the United States, with a population of 3,429 in 2010. The city is a popular tourist destination known for its history, historical architecture, and ski and golf resorts. Galena was the residence of Ulysses S...

, he said of Lincoln

Abraham Lincoln

Abraham Lincoln was the 16th President of the United States, serving from March 1861 until his assassination in April 1865. He successfully led his country through a great constitutional, military and moral crisis – the American Civil War – preserving the Union, while ending slavery, and...

:
During the American Civil War

American Civil War

The American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States of America. In response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, 11 southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America ; the other 25...

 in 1864, he was secretary of the Sanitary Fair for three months to raise funds for the hospital.

In December 1865, he and ten other gentlemen formed a literary club called "The Round Table". They obtained a room and furnished it with a round table that could fit fifteen people around it. Wendell Phillips

Wendell Phillips

Wendell Phillips was an American abolitionist, advocate for Native Americans, and orator. He was an exceptional orator and agitator, advocate and lawyer, writer and debater.-Education:...

 and Ralph Waldo Emerson

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Ralph Waldo Emerson was an American essayist, lecturer, and poet, who led the Transcendentalist movement of the mid-19th century...

 visited it while they were in Dubuque. They were impressed, and later told their friends in Boston

Boston

Boston is the capital of and largest city in Massachusetts, and is one of the oldest cities in the United States. The largest city in New England, Boston is regarded as the unofficial "Capital of New England" for its economic and cultural impact on the entire New England region. The city proper had...

 about their "find in the West."

Adams was a regent of Iowa State University

Iowa State University

Iowa State University of Science and Technology, more commonly known as Iowa State University , is a public land-grant and space-grant research university located in Ames, Iowa, United States. Iowa State has produced astronauts, scientists, and Nobel and Pulitzer Prize winners, along with a host of...

 (ISU) and a trustee of Humboldt College

Humboldt College

Humboldt College was an institution of higher learning in Humboldt, Iowa from 1876 until it closed in 1916. Only three people ever obtained degrees from Humboldt College.-Creating the "Harvard of the West":...

 for several years. He was Law Lecturer at the University of Iowa College of Law from 1875 until his death.

Iowa Supreme Court

Adams had built up an excellent reputation in the 1860s, so when he was chosen to be a justice on the Iowa Supreme Court

Iowa Supreme Court

The Iowa Supreme Court is the highest court in the U.S. state of Iowa. As constitutional head of the Iowa Judicial Branch, the Court is composed of a Chief Justice and six Associate Justices....

, the choice was welcomed with widespread approval. He began his term on the Iowa Supreme Court on January 1, 1876, leaving the firm of Adams, Robison & Lacy. He was Chief Justice for four years, from 1880–81 and 1886–87. He was the first Chief Justice to admit a woman to practice in the Iowa Supreme Court. He later commended her for the way she tried the case. As a justice he slowly came to conclusions but then always stood by them. He never tried to appeal to popular opinion in cases. In June 1886 he presided over the opening of the new Supreme Court Rooms. His second term ended December 31, 1887, and he decided not to accept another term.

His decisions can be found in Volumes 42–73 of the Iowa Reports.

In 1883, Dartmouth honored him with an LL. D.

Personal life

On September 8, 1857, Austin Adams married Mary K. Newbury, second daughter of Samuel Newbury and Mary Sergeant. Mary Newbury Adams supported the advancement of women and was a member of many progressive and scientific organizations. Austin also enthusiastically supported the advancement of women, particularly women's education.

He enjoyed reading literature as recreation. He usually only read parts of a book—the rest he felt was unneeded.

All biographies praise his personal qualities, calling him a simple, considerate, intelligent man.

Later life

During the last year of his life, he became fascinated with the natural world. "This year, he more than once said, was the happiest of his life, sustained and soothed by an unfaltering trust in the order and law of the universe." He remained strong mentally until his final hours: he usually read five to six hours a day.

Suffering a prolonged illness, he died at four in the morning in his home in Dubuque, Iowa, on October 17, 1890. He was buried in Linwood Cemetery in Dubuque, Iowa.

His wife later wrote: "His happiness was in the state of his mind, not exterior conditions. [...] He had that peace, that passeth understanding."