Henry
N. Clement, attorney and counselor at law, was born in Ohio, and was but six
months old when his parents moved to Muscatine, Iowa, where they remained some
two years. They then went further west,
to the lands of the Black Hawk purchase in that State, as soon as they were
opened for settlement, and located near the Des Moines river, in the vicinity
of a fort then called Eddy’s Fort, now Eddyville, Iowa. For some ten years the elder Mr. Clement was
in the Government service there as a surveyor.
At the early age of ten years the present Mr. Clement commenced duties
in the office of the Free Press at Eddyville, learning the printer’s
trade, and subsequently he became editor and proprietor of that paper. Three years afterward he went to Ottumwa,
the county seat, where he was engaged on the Courier, then and now the
leading paper published there. Next he
attended school awhile at his Eddyville home.
Going to Galesburg, Illinois, he engaged in assiduous study, as well as
work upon the Galesburg Free Democrat, a staunch Republican paper, and
in two years he had a good knowledge of the classics as well as of the higher
branches of the English course, and music, etc. While there he had the pleasure of hearing the controversial
speeches of Abraham Lincoln and Stephen A. Douglas, and the best lectures of
many other eminent men of the nation.
In 1860 he went to Chicago, and was for a year or so employed upon the Tribune. In 1861 he returned to Eddyville, and that
year he bought the paper on which he was first employed, the Free Press,
and edited it until 1864, when he retired to accept the position of
Sergeant-at-arms of the Iowa Legislature.
As
an editor he was outspoken, plain and terse in his expressions and severe in
his criticisms; and during the war he made many speeches for the Republican
party throughout Iowa.
Inclining
to the legal profession, he studied law at the Michigan State University and
graduated in 1868. For five years he
practiced his profession in his home town, Eddyville. In 1875 he came to San Francisco, with the usual erroneous
Eastern ideas of the Chinese question, feeling able and willing to combat the
attitude of the coast people on this question.
In a short time, however, actual contact with the race completely revolutionized
his view; and he has from time to time contributed to the local press some of
the most valuable articles ever written on this question. On the occasion of the assassination of
President Garfield he wrote a beautiful and pathetic poem; and was poet of the
day here for the funeral obsequies of President Garfield. His humorous essays and other compositions
have been written in connection with the Bohemian Club’s high jinks. Besides that club, he belongs also to the
Masonic order, to the bar association, the Civil Service Reform Society and the
Social Science Association.
Being
engaged constantly since he came here in 1875 in the practice of law, he has
been connected with a number of important cases, exhibiting marked talent. For some ten years he was the attorney for
the San Francisco Gas Light Company; was also the attorney for Martin White
against Marrill and others,--a case involving nearly $150,000. He is now attorney and counsel for the
petitioner in the memorial grant of Janet M. Baldwin to the Secretary of State
against the Mexican government for $100,000.
She is a granddaughter of Francis Scott Key, the author of the great
national song, “The Star-Spangled Banner.”
Her husband was murdered in Mexico in 1887, while a mining superintendent
in Durango.
Transcribed by
Donna L. Becker
Source: "The
Bay of San Francisco," Vol. 1, page 599-600, Lewis Publishing Co, 1892.
©
2004 Donna L. Becker.