Charles T. Mason – Here Comes The Judge.

**Charles T. Mason**, portrait by Iowa City artist **George H. Yewell** (circa 1875). Read more about the supportive role Judge Mason had with Yewell and his budding art career.

Judge Charles T. Mason – first Iowa Supreme Court Chief Justice, U.S. Commissioner of Patents, politician, and businessman – was born in Pompey (Onandaga County) New York on October 24, 1804. At the age of 21 (1825), he entered the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, graduating (1829) first in his class, which included Jefferson Davis and Robert E. Lee. Charles became an assistant professor of engineering at West Point, and after two years, he left the army to study law. In June 1832 he passed the bar examination and for two years practiced in a partnership in Newburgh, New York. A lifelong Democrat, Mason moved to New York City and wrote for the New York Evening Post, a radical Democrat newspaper.

In 1836, Charles, influenced greatly by Albert Lea‘s book, ventured west to explore Wisconsin Territory. Writing in his diary, Mason pondered…

“Something is continually whispering to me that there is a more favorable field for my future exertions, either professional or political.”

At first, he assumed he would follow that whisper to Belmont, Wisconsin, but when Territorial Governor Henry Dodge announced the decision to move the territorial capital south into Iowa (1837), Mason wisely chose to follow suit, relocating to Burlington instead. Apparently, it didn’t take long for Governor Dodge to become impressed with Charles, inviting him to become one of his aides and appointing him the public prosecutor of Des Moines County. Later that same year (August 1, 1837), Mason married Angelica Gear of Pittsfield, Massachusetts, who had come west with her brother and sister to live in Galena, Illinois. Together, the couple had three lovely daughters, living the remainder of their lives on a farm near Burlington.

On July 4, 1838, when Iowa became a territory, President Martin Van Buren appointed Charles T. Mason as Chief Justice of the three-man Territorial Supreme Court. The other two men chosen were Joseph Williams from Muscatine and Thomas S. Wilson from Dubuque.

As the Chief Justice of the three-man court, Charles Mason went right to work, eventually writing 166 of the court’s 191 opinions between 1838-1847. One of Mason’s most prominent decisions was actually the very first case tried before the newly-formed Supreme Court. The case was entitled: In the matter of Ralph (a colored man), on Habeas Corpus, and focused on a Missouri farmer named Jordan J. Montgomery and his slave, Ralph, who was living and working in Dubuque. Click here to read the full details of this case…

In a huge decision that truly bolstered the abolitionist movement, Judge George T. Mason, along with his fellow judges Joseph Williams and Thomas S. Wilson, ruled that under the Missouri Compromise of 1820, slavery in Iowa Territory was “forever prohibited” and that “no man can be reduced to slavery.” Mason wrote…

The master who, subsequently to that Act, permits his slave to become a resident here, cannot, afterwards, exercise any acts of ownership over him within this territory.

**The Shattering Silence Monument** was dedicated in Des Moines on October 22, 2009. This sculpture was designed to resemble shards of glass and celebrates the tradition in Iowa’s courts of ensuring the rights and liberties of all the people of the State. The story of Ralph is engraved around the base of the sculpture.

On July 4, 1839 – Independence Day – Ralph, the former slave, was a free man! And records show that Ralph remained in Dubuque for the remainder of his life. Click here to read more…

Click here to read more about Judge Joseph M. Beck, Iowa’s Supreme Court Chief Justice, who ruled in favor of civil rights for blacks and women in 1873.

Judge Mason was reappointed to the Iowa Territorial Supreme Court in 1842 and 1846 – the year of statehood – but resigned when Governor Ansel Briggs appointed him (1848) to represent Iowa in the U.S. Supreme Court case, deciding the eleven-year border dispute (1849) between Iowa and Missouri –The 1839 Honey War. This squabble over the southern border of Iowa had nearly erupted into a conflict, with both sides gathering troops near the state line. Under Judge Mason’s leadership before the nation’s highest court, Iowa was able to retain the land that Missouri attempted to call their own.

The Honey War was a bloodless territorial dispute in 1839 between Iowa Territory and Missouri over their border. The dispute over a 10-mile-wide strip running the entire length of the border, caused by unclear wording in the Missouri Constitution on boundaries, misunderstandings over the survey of the Louisiana Purchase, and a misreading of Native American treaties, was ultimately decided by the United States Supreme Court (1849) in Iowa’s favor. The decision was to affirm a nearly 30-mile jog in the nearly straight line border between extreme southeast Iowa and northeast Missouri at Keokuk, Iowa that is now Iowa’s southernmost point. Before the issue was settled, militias from both sides faced each other at the border, a Missouri sheriff collecting taxes in Iowa was incarcerated, and three trees containing beehives were cut down.

Click here to read the full story about the 1839 Honey War between Iowa and Missouri.

By the late 1840’s, I’m guessing Charles Mason just might not have been too popular with the pro-slavery movement nor the good folks of the Show Me State! In another move against racial injustice, in January 1848, the state legislature appointed Mason to chair a three-man commission “to draft, revise and prepare a code of laws.” The result was the Code of 1851, which was hailed for its clarification and reorganization of existing statutory laws. Among many new provisions added by the commissioners were the creation of county judges, the broadening of laws on incorporation, and the abolition of common law procedure in civil actions, including the removal of the statutory ban on interracial marriages.

*(JP-048)* – *Read more about this letter to Charles Mason in October 1850.*

*(C-0251)* **1852 Stamp-less Letter from A.C. Harding in Monmouth, IL to (Judge) Charles Mason in Burlington, Iowa – Postmarked January 8, 1852 with 3-cents postage**.

***The backside of our letter features A.C. Harding’s signature.***

Judge Charles T. Mason (left) and General Abner Clark (A.C.) Harding (right) are businessmen, both heavily invested in the development of American railroads. To give you a fair comparison, a businessman investing in railroads in the early 1850’s is similar to a savvy business person investing in space technology today. Numerous railroad companies were springing up everywhere, all working to capture the growing transportation needs of thousands of Americans as they were moving westward across the continent. In January of 1852, when A.C. Harding wrote his letter to Judge Mason, both were investors and board members of the Peoria and Oquawka Rail Road Company.

As the name indicates, the original plan of the railroad was to connect Peoria, in central Illinois, with Oquawka, a small farming community on the Mississippi River. Railroad historian A.W. Newton describes this 84-mile railway…

Judge Charles Mason, living in Burlington, represented that city’s interest in this fledgling Illinois railroad. A.C. Harding, on the other hand, was a hard-nosed lawyer from Monmouth, representing those who wanted the railroad to focus efforts in other directions. By 1852, the railroad’s board was filled with rather divisive men from different Illinois communities, all wanting their hometown to benefit the most by having the railroad come thru their fair city.

Records show that Harding and Mason argued at great length on how and where to obtain iron rails and other supplies for the construction of the rail line. Iron is mentioned here a couple of times. This could be the beginnings of their differences that exploded into an iron-clad conflict that eventually split the P&O Board by the end of 1852.

While our January 7th letter seems to be fairly cordial in nature, records show that Harding, along with several other board members, would soon cause so much tension on the board, Mason, who served as Board President beginning in February of 1852, would resign from the board, selling his interests in P&O all within a year or so of our letter’s writing!

As it turned out, the Peoria and Oquawka Rail Road successfully operated for a few years (1855-1860) after Judge Mason left the organization, but eventually fell to its long-standing financial shortcomings and poor management. The rail line was bought out by the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railroad (CB&Q), thus becoming just another casualty of the railroad wars of the mid-nineteenth century.

Read a bit more about this season in the life of Charles T. Mason.

**General Abner Clark (A.C.) Harding**
(February 10, 1807 – July 19, 1874)
Born in East Hampton, Connecticut, Harding attended Hamilton College, in Clinton, New York, where he studied law. He was admitted to the bar and commenced practice in Oneida County, New York, about 1827. In 1838, he moved to Monmouth, Illinois, and continued practicing law. He served as member of the State constitutional convention in 1848, and was elected to the Illinois House of Representatives the same year, serving until 1850. During the Civil War, Harding enlisted as a private in the Union Army in the 83rd Illinois Volunteer Infantry Regiment. Later he was commissioned as a colonel, and was promoted to brigadier general in March 1863. He was forced to resign due to deteriorating eyesight a few months later. From 1865 to 1869, Harding served as a Republican member of Congress. During the 39th Congress, he served as Chairman of the Committee on the Militia. However, he was not a candidate for reelection in 1868 after serving in the 40th Congress, and later engaged in banking and railroad building. He died in Monmouth, Illinois on July 19, 1874, and was interred in Monmouth Cemetery.

In March of 1853, soon after Charles had resigned from the P&O Board, President Franklin Pierce appointed him to head up the U.S. Commission of Patents in Washington, D.C. His responsibilities included agriculture and weather information. A farmer himself, Mason promoted agricultural research, collected world statistics on tobacco and cotton, and authorized a system of obtaining national weather information by telegraph. An energetic reformer, Charles reorganized the system of applying for patents and hired the first women in regular employment in a federal office.

Read a bit more about this season in the life of Charles T. Mason.

With the election of a new president – James Buchanan – in 1856, the Masons returned back home in 1857, with local business affairs occupying Charles’ remaining years. He became president of the Burlington Water Company and chaired the German-American Savings Bank. Still involved in transportation, Charles took up the presidency of the Burlington Street Railway Company, the Burlington & North Western Railway, and the Burlington, Keosauqua & Western Railway. In his spare time, he also became the treasurer of the Burlington school board, and in 1858, Charles was elected as one of the first members of the Iowa State Board of Education.

Judge Charles T. Mason (October 24, 1804 – February 25, 1882) died on his farm near Burlington, at the age of seventy-seven. One fellow judge said of him…

As a man, he was as much respected and esteemed as any of the early jurists and public men of our Territory and State.

Hail to the Judge. Iowa thanks you.