WILLIAM W. HAMILTON was a native of England and located at Dubuque, upon his arrival in America, in 1845. He was a good lawyer and took a deep interest in all public affairs, including education and politics. In 1849 he was elected probate judge of Dubuque County, serving in that capacity until 1852, when the probate business was, by the new Code, turned over to the county judges of the several counties. In 1854 Judge Hamilton was elected to the State Senate from the northeastern district which consisted of the counties of Dubuque, Delaware, Buchanan, Black Hawk, Grundy, Butler, Bremer, Clayton, Fayette, Allamakee, Winneshiek, Howard, Mitchell, Floyd and Chickasaw. Before the meeting of the Sixth General Assembly, the senatorial district had been divided and the counties of Dubuque and Delaware made the Thirty-first District, from which Judge Hamilton was chosen to the Senate for four years. At the convening of the Sixth General Assembly, the Democrats were in a minority in the Senate and Judge Hamilton, who was a Whig, was elected president. He was a popular and able presiding officer and when the General Assembly was organizing many new counties and deciding upon their names, the rare compliment was extended to the presiding officer, of giving his name to the new county taken from the old county of Webster. In the meantime, before the next General Assembly was chosen, the new Constitution of 1857 was framed and adopted and new districts arranged, so that Judge Hamilton, with others, was thrown out, having served but half the time for which he had been chosen.
WILLIAM G. HAMMOND was born at Newport, Rhode Island, May 3, 1829. He graduated with the degree of A. B. in 1849 from Amherst, read law in Brooklyn and New York for three years and was admitted to the bar in 1851, practicing in those cities until 1856. He then went abroad for two years and returning in 1858, soon went to Iowa, joining an engineering party and working his way to the position of chief engineer in a new railroad enterprise. He was later professor of languages in Bowen Collegiate Institute at Hopkinton for a year. In 1863 he resumed the practice of law at Anamosa and three years later removed to Des Moines, where he became associated with Judges Wright and Cole in the Iowa Law School. In 1868 this institution was removed to Iowa City and became the Law Department of the State University with Mr. Hammond in charge; he became Chancellor in 1870 and the following year was appointed one of the Commissioners to codify the laws of Iowa. He received the degree of LL.D. from Iowa College in 1870 and also from Amherst in 1877. In 1881 Dr. Hammond resigned his position in the State University and became Dean of the St. Louis Law School which he retained until his death, April 12, 1894. In the history of the common law he was recognized as an authority without a superior in the United States. He published a Digest
