History of Iowa From the Earliest Times to the Beginning of the Twentieth Century/4/Lucian C. Blanchard
[L G Blanchard]
LUCIAN C. BLANCHARD is a native of Diana, Lewis County, New York, where he was born April 15, 1839. Not satisfied with the meager education obtainable in the district school of that period, he attended Carthage Academy, coming west in 1858. He entered Rock River Seminary at Mount Morris, Illinois, teaching school a portion of the time. Coming to Iowa, at Newton he taught school and studied law. When the Civil War came he enlisted in Company K, Twenty-eighth Iowa Volunteers and participated in the battles of Port Gibson, Champion's Hill and the siege of Vicksburg. In 1864 he entered the Law Department of the University of Michigan from which he graduated in 1866. He began the practice of law at Montezuma and soon after was elected county judge of Poweshiek, serving in that position until 1868 when he was chosen Circuit Judge of the Sixth Judicial District, filling the position for twelve years. In 1890 Judge Blanchard was chosen senior vice-commander of the Grand Army of the Republic. In 1893 he was elected on the Republican ticket Representative in the Legislature for Mahaska County, and in 1895 was elected Senator, serving in the Twenty-sixth, Twenty-seventh, Twenty-eighth and Twenty-ninth General Assemblies. With the assistance of Judge Wilson he prepared the Masonic Digest published by the Grand Lodge.