History of Iowa From the Earliest Times to the Beginning of the Twentieth Century/4/Rodney W. Tirrill
[R. Tirrill]
RODNEY W. TIRRILL was a native of New Hampshire, born at Colebrook, December 22, 1835. To a public school education was added a course in Wisconsin University, after which he studied law, and as he was to enter upon practice the Civil War began and Mr. Tirrill enlisted in Company F, Twelfth Iowa Infantry. He was in the battles of Fort Donelson and Shiloh, and at the latter was so severely wounded that he was obliged to leave the service. After his recovery he was elected superintendent of schools in Delaware County and in 1879 was elected on the Republican ticket to the State Senate, serving in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth General Assemblies. He was the author of a bill requiring packages of oleomargarine to be plainly labeled as such, and in the face of powerful opposition secured its passage. It is believed that this was the first law of the kind enacted in the United States. Senator Tirrill served on many important committees and exercised a large degree of influence on the legislation of the two sessions during his term. In 1898 Mr. Tirrill was Department Commander of the Grand Army of the Republic of Iowa.